Sudan military scraps plan for civilian rule

Sudan’s military rulers have abandoned a previously agreed road map for transition to civilian rule, fuelling fears of a return to full military dictatorship.

It took the step as security forces roamed the streets of Khartoum on the second day of a bloody crackdown on protesters that has left at least 35 people dead and hundreds more injured.

General Abdel Fattah alBurhan, the head of the ruling Transitional Military Council (TMC), promised an investigation into the violence, but went on to reject further co-operation with opposition groups spearheading the campaign for a civilian transition.

“The military council decides on the following: cancelling what was agreed on and stopping negotiating with the Alliance for Freedom and Change, and to call for general elections within a period not exceeding nine months,” he said.

Opposition leaders rejected the announcement and called on members of the public to return to the streets to bring down the military council.

“It’s not the putschist council, nor its militias, nor its leaders who decide the fate of the people, nor how it will transition to a civilian government,” the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), one of the main groups within the Alliance for Freedom and Change, said.

Sudan has been ruled by a 10general transitional council since senior officers ousted dictator Omar al-Bashir following massive anti-government demonstrations in early April.

Negotiations between the generals and the protest movement had produced a road map to civilian rule that included setting up a provisional sovereign council, cabinet and parliament and a three-year transition period before democratic elections.

The SPA wanted a longer transition period, fearing that a snap general election would be more easily manipulated.

Negotiations collapsed on Monday when police and troops from the Rapid Support Forces, a militia implicated in atrocities in Darfur, used live ammunition to break up the sitin protest in Khartoum that had been the epicentre of the revolutionary movement.