Sudan: "The army pledges to gradually release power, a first step towards a return of democracy"

Every day, Didier François deals with an international topic.

Didier good news this morning in Sudan where representatives of protesters who have been calling for the establishment of a civilian government for three months have finally signed an agreement with the military junta.

Indeed, after a full night of very close discussions with the generals of the Military Council, the leaders of the democratic protest movement finally agreed yesterday morning to a compromise that provides for a division of power with the army during a transitional period of three years. years. This "political declaration" is obviously only a first step towards the return to a civil power in this country, which still lives under the rule of a military-Islamist dictatorship since 1989. It's been 30 years, it's huge. It is an absolutely massive pacifist popular movement, launched seven months ago by the urban middle classes and quickly joined by the working classes of the countryside, which finally obtained three months ago the departure of the president Omar al-Bashir, let loose by an important part of his army.

But if the military had agreed to get rid of their old and very isolated leader on the international scene, convicted of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, they did not mean giving up the direction of business. And tensions were high with the protesters who to maintain the pressure for a return to democracy, had mounted a huge camp in the center of the capital Khartoum facing the headquarters of the armed forces.

This is the camp that was brutally attacked by the paramilitaries on June 3rd.

This is a night of terrible repression led by the militia of General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, known as "Hemeidti", who was the executor of the low works under the old regime and seems today to be the strongman of the military junta. And this sympathetic character required, of course, a guarantee of total amnesty before agreeing to consider a sharing of power with the representatives of the civil society, who finally yielded to this ultimatum.

This has led to the signing of this "political declaration", which provides for the creation of a "Sovereign Council" in charge of ensuring the transition in three years to a civilian government and which will be composed of five generals and six protesters. The military will have the presidency of this new body during the first 21 months of the transition. Civilians will take over for the remaining eighteen months.

But what guarantee do they have that the army will respect this agreement?

Honestly, they have little ... The army, but especially the paramilitary militias retain all their power, and remain largely masters of the game so able to change the rules at any time. Nevertheless, the generals would then be exposed to a reaction from the international community, either economically with the possibility of seizure of their assets, or at the judicial level with individual indictments by the International Criminal Court that could seize Ethiopia and the African Union, sponsors of this compromise.