Security forces fired tear gas canisters on Friday against protesters hostile to the military coup in Sudan on the eve of monster demonstrations which will be, Washington warned, “a test” for the army after the death of eight protesters. .
Since the putsch led Monday by General Abdel Fattah Burhane, which cut off hopes for a democratic transition in this conflict-ridden country, the security forces have regularly used force to clear the avenues of Khartoum blocked by the barricades of the partisans of a civil power.
On Friday evening, they fired tear gas canisters at demonstrators denouncing the military coup in the north of the capital, witnesses told AFP.
And since Monday, both live and rubber bullets have rained regularly in several areas of the capital, where at least eight protesters have been killed and more than 170 injured by security forces, according to doctors.
But this does not weaken the determination of the protesters, determined to relaunch the transition to free elections in a country under the rule of the military almost uninterrupted since its independence in 1956.
In Omdourman, they marched by the dozen on Friday. “We’re getting ready for tomorrow. We are going to tell the world that we want a democratic transition and no military coups, ”Taha Abderrahmane told AFP.
“Test” day
The United States urged the military not to violently crack down on protests scheduled for Saturday, warning that it would monitor the reaction of the generals. This day “will be a real test as to the intentions of the military,” said a senior official.
The authorities may cut the Internet, the demonstrators are organizing to meet in Khartoum and other cities. Although the unions and other associations have been dissolved, they continue to mobilize people for the “civil disobedience” and the “general strike” which turned Khartoum into a dead city for five days.
On Saturday, opponents of the putsch promise “a million” Sudanese in the streets. Their slogans are clear: “Burhane, leave power” or “Burhane in Kober”.
Kober is the high security prison in Khartoum, where Omar al-Bashir, a general who himself came to power through a coup and deposed by the army in April 2019 under pressure from the streets after 30 years, is detained today. dictatorship.
On Monday, General Burhane completely reshuffled the cards in Sudan, where civilians and soldiers had pledged after the fall of Bashir to join forces within the interim authorities to lead the country towards free elections at the end of 2023.
On the morning of the coup, soldiers kidnapped Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok, most of his ministers and civilian members of the Council responsible for the transition. The next day, Mr. Hamdok was brought home, but he is “not free to move,” according to the UN.
The head of diplomacy, Mariam al-Sadeq al-Mahdi, the Minister of Irrigation, Yasser Abbas, and other rare elements still free of the cabinet expressed their support for the mobilization against the putsch and demanded the release of the leaders arrested.
In addition to the arrest of many civilian officials, the new authorities, seeking to muzzle any opposition to the putsch, continued to arrest political figures, activists and even passers-by on Friday.
On the media side, the soldiers stormed state television, whose boss, a supporter of civilian power, was sacked Thursday, and the official Suna agency.
“Clear message”
Friday the newspaper al-Democrati has been targeted. Soldiers “forced the guard of the building to leave, they sealed the door, and told the guard never to come back,” one of his journalists told AFP, on condition of anonymity .
The day before, they put under seal all the antennas of the radios of the FM band.
Faced with this repression, General Burhane asserts that Sudan “is not seeing a coup”, but “a recovery in the path of revolution”. However, the international community is keeping the pressure on.
The boss of the UN, Antonio Guterres, on Friday called the army “to restraint” with the demonstrators. “The Sudanese people must be allowed to demonstrate peacefully,” said US President Joe Biden.
And the UN Security Council on Thursday called for “the reestablishment of a transitional government led by civilians,” after the African Union suspended Sudan and the World Bank, turned off the aid tap.