The agreement between civilians, military and paramilitaries supposed to revive the democratic transition in Sudan after the 2021 putsch is again postponed, civilians said Wednesday evening (April 5th), calling for demonstrations on Thursday, the anniversary of anti-coup uprisings.

Already postponed last week, the signing of the framework agreement providing for a return to power-sharing between civilians and military, a sine qua non condition for the resumption of international aid to the country, one of the poorest in the world, will not take place as planned Thursday, said in a statement the historic civilian bloc of the Forces of Freedom and Change (FLC).

"The signing was postponed due to the resumption of military-to-military talks ... April 1 and 6," the text reads. "Negotiations have progressed on several points but one last question still needs to be finalized," he said, according to experts, on the modalities of the integration of paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) into regular troops.

Because it is no longer the conflict between civilians and the military that keeps Sudan deadlocked but the rivalry between the country's de facto leader, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, head of the army and author of the coup d'état of October 25, 2021, and his second, General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, known as "Hemedti", at the head of the former militiamen of the Darfur war now grouped in the RSF.

Two major anniversaries

The date of April 6 also corresponds to two major anniversaries for the civil movement in Sudan: that of revolts that in 1985 and 2019 have 34 years apart brought down two putschist presidents.

On Thursday, the FLC again called on all Sudanese to march "peacefully" through all provinces for "freedom, peace and justice", against the military and "the return of the old regime", the Islamic-military dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir, overthrown in 2019, many of whose cadres have returned to their positions in the administration thanks to the 2021 putsch.

Anti-coup protests have not stopped since the coup, despite a crackdown that left 125 dead according to pro-democracy doctors. In anticipation of this mobilization, the authorities declared April 6 a day off and a large military deployment was visible Wednesday in different neighborhoods of Khartoum and its suburbs, including blocking bridges over the Nile, witnesses said.

With AFP

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