Demonstrations took place in Khartoum on Thursday to commemorate two uprisings that toppled two presidents, after disagreements between military and paramilitary forces led to a new postponement of an agreement that would have paved the way for the country to emerge from the crisis. democratic transition since the 2021 coup. Since Wednesday, dozens of armored vehicles have been flown into the Sudanese capital and blocked bridges linking its neighborhoods on the banks of the Nile and surrounding the presidential palace, to which all anti-war demonstrations have been heading for almost a year and a half.
And the authorities have declared Thursday an official holiday, as the date of April 6th is marked in the history of Sudan, which has been almost constantly ruled by the military since independence in 1956. On this date in 1985 and 2019, the Sudanese overthrew two presidents who came to power in two coups.
And in 2019, when the army, under pressure from the street, announced the resignation of President Omar al-Bashir, who had left its ranks, demonstrators chanted for “freedom, peace and justice.”
And in 2019, as Sudan, one of the world’s poorest countries, began its democratic transition and enjoyed the support of the international community after 30 years of dictatorial rule, the forces of freedom and change formed a civilian government. who shared the rule of the country with the military and was supposed to lead the country to free elections in order to transfer full power to the civilian population.
However, on October 25, 2021, as the elections approached, Army Commander Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan unexpectedly closed the door to this democratic transformation.
Al-Burhan led the coup and arrested most of the ministers and civilian officials at dawn. Since then, the country has plunged into a political and economic crisis as the international community suspended all aid following the coup. A year later, the military and civilians began new negotiations and pledged to sign an agreement on return to the division of power on April 1, the current one was postponed to the sixth of the same month.
However, the Forces for Freedom and Change, in a statement on Wednesday evening, announced a new postponement of the signing of the “final political agreement” and explained this by “the resumption of joint discussions between the military parties that signed the framework political agreement regarding the technical aspects of security procedures and military reform.”
The political forces confirmed, according to the statement, that “after reaching an agreement, the road will be free until the signing of a final political agreement, the withdrawal of the military institution from political life and the formation of full-fledged institutions of civil administration.”
In a 1985 address to the nation on the anniversary of the overthrow of Ja’far al-Numeiri in 1985, al-Burhan confirmed that “the parties are now hard at work to complete the discussion of the remaining issues”, stressing that the postponement was decided in order to “lay a solid foundation to sustain the momentum revolution.”
The coalition urged intelligence agencies to “protect the popular marches scheduled to begin” while warning “against any violent interaction of any degree” after security forces’ crackdown on anti-coup demonstrations resulted in the deaths of 125 people. Sudanese, according to the pro-democracy doctors syndicate.
