Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok, dismissed during the military coup in Sudan, returned to his post on Sunday after an agreement with General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, an agreement that did not prevent another death in the repression of protests opposed to the coup d’état.
At the presidential palace, in front of which the security forces fired tear gas to disperse the demonstrators shouting “No to military power” and demanding that the armed forces completely withdraw from the government, Mr. Hamdok and General Burhane, author of the coup d State of October 25, signed an agreement in front of the press promising to put the transition to democracy back on track.
They thus meet all the conditions set by the international community for it to restore its support to Sudan. But, the UN immediately warned, “all Sudanese actors must now act constructively and in good faith to restore […] the transition “.
For their part, the organizations which led the revolt of 2019 which ended 30 years of military-Islamist dictatorship of General Omar al-Bashir, said their refusal of “the agreement of the traitors who only bind its signatories” , in the words of the Sudanese Professionals Association. The spearhead of the 2019 protest accuses Mr. Hamdok of “political suicide”.
While since October 25, the Sudanese have taken to the streets several times by tens of thousands to demand the return of civil power, new processions marched on Sunday in several cities.
A teenager was shot dead in the suburbs of Khartoum, according to doctors who mention “many gunshot wounds”.
“Soldiers in the barracks”
“We do not want a partnership with the army,” insists in spite of everything Mohammed Farouq, who marches in Khartoum. “We want a state that is only civilian, that the soldiers return to their barracks and that those who killed the demonstrators are judged,” he told AFP.
Despite the repression which has already left 41 dead and hundreds injured since the putsch, according to doctors, the demonstrators continued to chant “Burhane clears” by the thousands in Khartoum and its suburbs, in Port-Sudan or even in Atbara ( north), in a country under almost continuous military dictatorship since its independence 65 years ago.
After having held up for weeks photos of Mr. Hamdok, demanding the return of the only leader “legitimate” in their eyes, this Sunday, they tore up his portrait with cries of “Hamdok, you are just a slack, the street she is alive and well! “
“Hamdok has abandoned the people. This agreement does not represent us ”, assures AFP Mohammed Abdelnabi, who is demonstrating in Khartoum.
After the solemn signing of the document, Mr. Hamdok promised in a speech during his first public appearance since the putsch to “put an end to the bloodshed first.”
“This agreement opens the door wide to the resolution of all the challenges of the transition,” he said.
“Patience”
General Burhane, who promised “free and transparent elections”, he “thanked him for his patience”, while the former UN economist did not regain his freedom of movement until Sunday morning after about a month of surviving residence.
He must now form a new cabinet after this agreement also provides for the release of the civilian leaders arrested on October 25. The future ministers will be “technocrats”, indicates the text signed on Sunday.
Since the putsch, Western ambassadors, UN or African negotiators and personalities from Sudanese civil society had increased their meetings with civilians and soldiers to relaunch the transition supposed to lead to free elections in 2023.
The Sudanese army’s major Arab allies, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, have welcomed the deal.
The United States said it was “encouraged” by this agreement, declared for his part the American Secretary of State Antony Blinken, while calling on the Sudanese security forces to “refrain from using excessive force against the demonstrators. peaceful ”.
“Roots of the Crisis”
The African Union, which suspended Sudan after the putsch, hailed “an important step towards the return to constitutional order”, while Norway, a member of the Troika in the maneuver in Sudan, “welcomed the return of Mr. Hamdok ”and called for“ concrete measures to build confidence ”.
But as on the first day of the putsch, the Forces for Freedom and Change (FLC), the main pro-civil bloc in Sudan which General Burhane had erased all mention in the texts framing the transition, reiterated “that he there is no negotiation or partnership ”with“ the putschists ”.
And to add to the imbroglio, the Umma party, from which Fadlallah Burma, however, came, one of the mediators who wrested the agreement from the army and Mr. Hamdok, affirmed “to refuse any political agreement that does not come about. not attack the roots of the crisis created by the military coup ”.
On November 11, General Burhane had reappointed to the head of the Sovereignty Council, the highest authority of the transition, after having replaced the pro-civilian members with apolitical civilians.