HAMDOK IN DEAL WITH SUDANESE ARMY TO END CRISIS

▶ Prime minister returns after regional and international mediation

Sudan’s army chief Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan and ousted prime minister Abdalla Hamdok yesterday signed a deal to end a crisis that has engulfed the country since the military seized power last month.

Under the agreement, Mr Hamdok will head a government of independent technocrats.

A power-sharing agreement reached in August 2019 between the military and a pro-democracy movement will form the basis of a new military-civilian partnership.

The deal also provides for the release of civilian members of the government whose detention upended Sudan’s transition to democracy.

“This achievement was the fruition of continuous work lasting three or four weeks by those who care about this nation from among friends and partners in both our region and internationally,” Mr Hamdok said when the deal was announced on national television.

“We are prepared to work together so this country can move forward.”

Gen Al Burhan said progress had been made on the road to democracy.

“We have been able to genuinely lay the foundation of a transitional period that reflects our aspirations and those of the Sudanese people,” he said.

He said a deadlock between the military and its civilian partners had “obliged us to halt the transitional process and reconsider”.

Mr Hamdok was placed under house arrest by the army on October 25. His office said yesterday that restrictions on his movement had been lifted and the military detail guarding his residence had left.

At least 40 protesters were killed and hundreds injured during the street demonstrations that have taken place almost every day since the takeover.

Several mediation attempts to end the crisis had stalled, but a pressing need to halt violence may have been the main catalyst for the political deal.

Gen Al Burhan said the agreement would stop the shedding of Sudanese blood.

In spite of the deal, hundreds of people protested in central Khartoum yesterday, chanting slogans against military rule and demanding a civilian government.

There were reports of similar protests in Kassala in eastern Sudan and in the north.

“A political agreement has been reached between Gen Al Burhan, Abdalla Hamdok, political forces and civil society organisations for Hamdok’s return to his position and the release of political detainees,” said senior Sudanese mediator Fadlallah Burma Nasir, head of the Umma Party.

The Forces of Freedom and Change, a loose alliance of pro-democracy groups that served as the power base and political sponsor of Mr Hamdok’s government, rejected the deal.

The FFC was the civilian party that signed a power-sharing agreement with the military in August 2019.

It said it would stand by its previous position of “no negotiations, no partnership and no legitimacy with the coup [organisers]”.

“The crimes of overthrowing a legitimate government, staging a coup against the constitution, killing peaceful revolutionaries, forced disappearances, excessive use of force and other documented crimes must be addressed in immediate trials for the leaders of the coup, opportunists

and remnants of the former regime,” it said.

Since the military takeover on October 25, Gen Al Burhan has said he has no quarrel with Mr Hamdok, a career UN economist.

He said he appreciated the fiscal reform programme introduced by Mr Hamdok, which was beginning to bring down inflation after it reached 400 per cent.

But he said the takeover was motivated by a desire to prevent Sudan from sliding into civil war.

Gen Al Burhan has called the move “a correction” to the transition to democracy following president Omar Al Bashir’s removal from power in April 2019.

The military ousted Al Bashir after months of street protests against his rule, led by political parties, professional unions and grass-roots committees.

When the military took power, Gen Al Burhan dismissed Mr Hamdok’s government and declared a state of emergency.

He detained several Cabinet members and ordered the arrest of dozens of activists, trade and professional union leaders, journalists and politicians.

He also repealed sections of the power-sharing deal in which the FFC is mentioned as a governing partner.

The takeover was condemned around the world, with major donors such as the US and World Bank suspending aid to Sudan worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

The takeover and the military’s heavy-handed response to the protests have hardened the position of pro-democracy neighbourhood resistance committees that served as the engine of the street protests which bought down Al Bashir and continued this role in the past four weeks.

The groups now reject any deal with the military, or a return to the civil-military partnership agreed to in August 2019 to lead the transition to democracy.

Reports of yesterday’s agreement came after calls for mass rallies, which the FFC said would go ahead as planned.

Overnight, protesters barricaded most of the streets in Khartoum Bahri, one of the three areas that make up greater Khartoum, in anticipation of clashes with security forces.