Sudan: a new sovereignty council appointed by General Al-Bourhane

The new Council excludes the representatives of the Bloc claiming a transfer of power to civilians, while several ministers, protesters and activists have been arrested in recent days. A new “manifestation of Million” is planned on Saturday.

Le Monde with AFP

General Abdel Fattah Al-Bourhane, author of a military coup in Sudan at the end of October, named Thursday, November 11, a new council of sovereignty, of which were excluded by the representatives of the block claiming a Transfer of power to civilians.

After the fall in 2019 of the Dictator Omar El-Bechir, a sovereignty council, then composed of civilians and military, had been put in place to chap the transition to democracy under the presidency of General Al-Bourhane. But the latter dissolved, on October 25, all institutions also decreeing the state of emergency and stopping most civilian leaders of the country.

For days, the military announced the “imminent” training of authorities to lead the country to free elections. They then had just had to dismiss civilian leaders who did not agree with them on the way to take to democracy. The government – including several ministers are still detained and Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok is undergoing residence – has so far been replaced and its members continue to claim as the only “legitimate” authorities of the country.

General Al-Bouchane Always Chairman of the Board

With his thursday night decree, General Bourhane retains the presidency of the Council of Sovereignty, has announced state television. General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, said “Hemedti”, at the head of a paramilitary group, the rapid support forces accused of abuses in the Darfur region (West) or when the repression of the anti-Bashir revolt, remains its number two.

The new sovereignty council always has 14 members. Only 13 names have been announced by the presenter of Sudan TV. The fourteenth member must represent the east of the country, where protesters blocked for a month and a half Port Sudan and his docks. Of the thirteen names already announced, only four are new. In the place of the four representatives of the Forces of Freedom and the Change (FLC), the Union of Civil Forces born from the Anti-Bashir Revolt, four non-partisan figures were chosen.

Among them, Abu al-Qassem Bortoum, a businessman who had pleaded the standardization with Israel, asked as a condition by Washington to get the Sudan from his blacklist of states supporting “terrorism”. Mr. Bortoum, 55, has been a member of Omar El-Bechir and now manages agricultural and transport companies.

Other new member of the Board: Salma Al-Mubarak, resulting from a large Sufie family from Sudan. Without political past, she is the second partial woman with Raja Nicola, the representative of the Coptic Christian minority who retains her post. As for the nine members who continue to the Council of Sovereignty, they are representatives of the army or armed rebel groups who have signed late 2020 peace with Khartoum, after years of deadly conflict in the four corners of the country.

The West calls for a “return to constitutional order”

Tuesday, the three countries to the maneuver on the Sudanese file for years – Great Britain, the United States and Norway – had called General Al-Bourhane not to take a “unilateral decision”, the ‘Exhorting to reinstall the Hamdok Prime Minister in his duties.

Thursday, the European ambassadors met with the Minister of Foreign Affairs registered Mariam Al-Sadeq al-Mahdi, asking again “the return to the constitutional order” and “the immediate liberation of detainees”, ministers, protesters, activists and same passers, arrested in recent weeks. These arrests in mass have, despite everything, undertaken the determination of the supporters of a transfer of civil power. They call on a new “manifestation of Million” Saturday.

/Media reports.