In hotbed of Sudan’s uprising, activists torn over transition deal
SUDAN - The Khartoum district of Burri was a fulcrum of the uprising against Sudan’s former leader Omar al-Bashir and the generals who replaced him, its residents beaten and killed as they rallied for freedom and justice.
Now that a three-year transition deal has been struck to deliver on their demands, activists from the tight-knit, Nile-side neighborhood are torn over what to make of it. Their support could be critical to the success of the power-sharing agreement, which aims to replace three decades of authoritarian, Islamist rule with democracy, in a region where other uprisings have ended in military crackdowns or civil war.
It was made between the ruling military council and civilian opposition just a month after security forces killed dozens of people as they cleared a protest sit-in in the capital.
The raid appeared to derail the prospects that Bashir’s ouster in April could lead to a peaceful transition. But after another round of mass demonstrations on June 30, the two sides resumed talks and announced a breakthrough. Burri activist Munzir Awad joined thousands in Khartoum who flooded the streets to celebrate.
“I’m happy with this deal, it came to prevent the bloodshed,” he said, adding that residents had been swept up by the moment. “Most people here celebrated because they are revolutionaries and they act on their emotions.”
His friend Mohamed Farouk, a 35-year-old factory worker who had been organizing protests in the neighborhood, was wary.
“If you stopped and asked any of those people celebrating what the deal actually meant, or what civilian actually meant, they’d have no idea,” he said, sipping sweet tea from a Burri street vendor next to Awad.
When news of the agreement broke in the early hours of Friday, many people were unable to discover the details because of a weeks-long internet blackout ordered by the military.
The Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC), the alliance of protest and opposition groups that led talks with the military, has since been holding public meetings to sell the deal, which is due to be formally signed this week. The military and civilians will share power in an 11-member sovereign council, with the military expected to preside over the first 21 months of the transition before passing the leadership to civilians for 18 months before free elections. The deal also provides for a government of technocrats and an independent investigation into recent violence - though with senior military and paramilitary figures retaining political power, it is unclear how this can be guaranteed.
The entrenched power of military and armed factions complicates the picture, and Sudan’s position in northeast Africa and agricultural potential has long made it a focus of attention from rival Middle Eastern and global states.
(Reuters)