What does Al-Burhan's decision mean to freeze the committee to dismantle Al-Bashir's regime?

Khartoum - The

decision of the Commander-in-Chief of the Sudanese Armed Forces, Lieutenant-General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, to freeze the work of the committee to dismantle the Bashir regime, drew attention to its reasons, in light of its conformity with the demands of forces described as allies of the former regime.

In a memorandum submitted to government officials last month, the head of the Beja Coordination Council, Muhammad al-Amin Turk, whose co-ordination protesters are blocking roads to eastern Sudan, demanded the dissolution of the dismantling committee among other demands to dissolve the government and hand over power to the military, and set it as a condition to end the closure of the east.

Al-Burhan announced - within his exceptional decisions today, Monday - "freezing the work of the committee to dismantle the regime of June 30, 1989, until the method of its work and its formation is reviewed, provided that its decisions are effective and subject to legal review."

Committee formation

The Committee for Removing Empowerment, Fighting Corruption and Recovering Funds was formed in accordance with the constitutional document that was signed in August 2019 between the Forces for Freedom and Change and the Military Council at the time, to work on recovering public funds believed to have been obtained by the leaders of the former regime illegally. The committee also handles the dismissal and removal of affiliates The isolated system of the joints of important institutions.

In order to frame the work of the committee, a special law was enacted for it that gave it wide powers, including confiscation and the issuance of arrest warrants through its prosecution offices.

Indeed, the leaders of the committee announced, through semi-salary press conferences, since its establishment, the confiscation of hundreds of assets, plots of land, and real estate owned by symbols in the Bashir regime or allies of the owners of companies and investments, even foreign ones, and a large number of accused of illicit wealth were arrested in accordance with the law of the committee.

symbol of revolution

The dismantling committee has long been described as a symbol of the 2019 revolution, and it garnered wide support from supporters of the government whose dissolution was announced by Al-Burhan, and adhering to it has become a demand hardly exceeded by any official in the state, in return for skepticism and a violent war waged against it after the involvement of a number of its employees in corruption deals and temptations. Officials at the dismantling commission acknowledged its occurrence and investigated it.

The witness is that since the first months of its establishment, the committee seemed to be facing internal problems, especially after the resignation of its chairman, Lieutenant-General, member of the Sovereign Council, Yasser Al-Atta, without disclosing any reasons, so that Muhammad Al-Faki Suleiman - a member of the Sovereignty Council - assumed the acting presidency of the committee, but in turn he also He kept complaining about the delay in forming the Appeals Committee, which should consider the complaints of those affected by the decisions of the committee, which was supposed to be formed by the Sovereignty Council.

As the committee continued to confiscate and suspend employees from work, its decisions affected prosecutors and 17 judges whom it considered obstructing its work or loyal to the isolated regime. The Judges Club, which is the largest umbrella of judges in Sudan, decided to go on strike on 27 September for a period of 3 days.

Supreme court

On August 22, the Supreme Court suspended the decisions of the Empowerment Committee to terminate the service of judges and employees, and the court - whose ruling is final - established its decision that the dismantling committee had no jurisdiction.

Many supporters of the former regime or those affected by the decisions of the committee are satisfied with the decision of Al-Burhan, which did not explain the fate of the detainees pending the decisions of the committee for months without trial, nor did it clarify how to deal with the money and real estate confiscated over a period of two years.

On the other hand, supporters of the government of the dismissed Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdok see in Al-Burhan's decision to freeze the work of the dismantling committee, as a stark gratification to the supporters of the former regime and a major reversal from one of the most important pillars of the December revolution.