After the army announced on Monday that it would give way to a civilian government in Sudan, the country's main civilian bloc denounced on Tuesday July 5 a "tactical withdrawal" of the military and called for continued demonstrations.

The Forces for Freedom and Change (FLC), the backbone of the civilian government sacked during the putsch led by army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhane on October 25, 2021, called for "continuing mobilization" against the military power on the sixth day of anti-coup sit-ins in Khartoum and its suburbs. 

During the "revolution" which overthrew another soldier, dictator Omar al-Bashir, in 2019, the demonstrators had maintained their sit-ins for eight months.

They had then obtained from the army that it share power with the civilians of the FLC to lead the country towards its first democratic elections.

General Burhane's putsch brutally changed the situation in October.

His announcement on Monday to give way to a civilian government – ​​in effect a return to the status quo before his coup – did not convince the street, which set up new barricades just after his speech on Monday evening.

The civil bloc, for its part, denounced "a betrayal" and a way for the army, in command of Sudan almost without interruption since independence in 1956, to keep the upper hand over politics and the economy.

Hands free for the Sudanese army

Because General Burhane announced that alongside the civilian government would sit a Supreme Council of the Armed Forces whose prerogatives he did not define.

For Kholood Khair, Sudan specialist for Insight Strategy partners, "Burhane is now shifting the pressure on civilians", while the country has been deprived of international aid since the putsch and caught between exponential devaluation and inflation at more than 200%.

And above all, she adds, her Supreme Council "will allow her to maintain the economic privileges" of the military and paramilitary in a country where 80% of the resources are beyond the control of the Ministry of Finance.

It is unclear what the military's share of the economy is, but they own many businesses ranging from poultry farming to construction.

The army will have its hands all the more free as the military power has "reinstated in their functions the Islamists" of the regime of Omar el-Bashir, dismissed under the civilian government sacked by the putsch, assures Kholood Khair.

The street wants justice for the 114 dead and thousands injured in the repression of the pro-democracy movement, according to doctors.

However, decrypts Kholood Khair, General Burhane "does not raise the question of legal or financial responsibility" for the victims of repression.

"We don't trust"

"We want (Burhane) to be tried for all those who have been killed since the putsch," a protester, Oumeïma Hussein, told AFP overnight from Monday to Tuesday.

Like hundreds of other protesters, she remained on the streets despite attempts by law enforcement to disperse her, pro-democracy doctors reported.

"We don't trust (Burhane), we just want him to leave once and for all," Mohannad Othmane told AFP, perched on one of the barricades in Khartoum. 

Foreign capitals have been pushing civilians and soldiers for months to negotiate a return to democratic transition, launched in 2019 and interrupted by the putsch. 

But on Tuesday, they had still not commented on General Burhane's announcement or the civilians' response.

General Burhane, he went to Nairobi for "an urgent meeting" of the heads of state of Igad - the regional organization of East Africa.

He discussed there with the Ethiopian Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, after a new border incident between the two countries which oppose several disputes.

With AFP

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