SUDAN NEWS ALERT: Sudan Tribune - SPLM-N Hilu slams SRF rejection of governors’ appointment in Sudan

20/4/2020: Sudan Tribune - SPLM-N Hilu slams SRF rejection of governors’ appointment in Sudan

 Sudan Tribune report that the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (Abdelaziz al-Hilu faction) voiced its support for the Sudanese government’s efforts to replace the military state governors with civilian governors and criticised the Sudanese Revolutionary Front (SRF)’s opposition to the move.

 The SPLM-N Al-Hilu told Sudan Tribune that the SRF’s opposition is “inconsistent with the spirit of the revolution” and a “disruption of the civil democratic transformation process."

 The group further stated that peace will not be achieved without the appointment of civilian governors and accused the SRF of seeking to share power, stressing that peace can only be achieved by addressing the historical root causes of the Sudan’s conflicts.

SUDAN NEWS ALERT: Radio Dabanga - Sudan rebel alliance rejects governor appointments

20/4/2020: Radio Dabanga - Sudan rebel alliance rejects governor appointments

 Radio Dabanga report that the Presidential Council of the Sudanese Revolutionary Front (SRF) held an emergency meeting to discuss the issue of appointing a civilian governor for Khartoum state. The SRF continues to reject any appointments of governors until a peace agreement has been achieved.

 The SRF believes that the appointment of civilian governors before the conclusion of  a peace agreement violates the Juba Decleration, a roadmap for peace talks signed by the rebel groups and the government in September 2019.

SUDAN NEWS ALERT: Multiple Sources - National Umma Party rejects Sudan governor nominations

20/4/2020: Multiple Sources - National Umma Party rejects Sudan governor nominations

·      Radio Dabanga

·      Sudan Tribune

 The National Umma Party (NUP) demands that the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) withdraws its proposal for the nominations of the new civilian governors.

 The NUP Political Bureau describes the FFC nominations as “an abyss of quotas, turning a blind eye to the weight of political names, and their presence in the states,” and that they “do not take into account the views of stakeholders in the states, but rather represent the opinion of the political elites in Khartoum.”

 The NUP warn that the FFC nominations will impede conflict resolution and “will make stability in [conflict zones] impossible.”

 The NUP called for a mechanism “to determine the weight of political forces,” announcing that it was seeking consultations to develop such a mechanism, emphasising the importance of local public opinion in determining governors in order to achieve “the goals of decentralisation and maintaining social fabric.”

SUDAN NEWS ALERT: Radio Dabanga - Chairman of Sudan Sovereign Council: ‘Army will safeguard revolution’

20/4/2020: Radio Dabanga - Chairman of Sudan Sovereign Council: ‘Army will safeguard revolution’

 Radio Dabanga report that General Command of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the chairman of the Sovereign Council, Lt Gen Abdelfattah El Burhan, said the entire military “will keep its covenant with the Sudanese people to protect change and the gains of the revolution.”

 He stressed that the leaders of the armed forces “with all their factions, including the Rapid Support Forces”, work in complete harmony and that “their sole goal is to protect the country and the revolution”.

 He also said that Sudan is going through a delicate phase that requires efforts to confront health care challenges, economic issues, and the problems people have to make a living.

SUDAN INSIGHT ALERT: Independent - Revolutionaries in the Middle East have learnt crucial lessons since the Arab Spring

20/4/19: Independent - Revolutionaries in the Middle East have learnt crucial lessons since the Arab Spring, by Patrick Cockburn

 Patrick Cockburn argues that Sudanese and Algerian revolutionaries have learned from past defeats of the 2011 Arab Spring.

 Cockburn highlights their distrust of the army, citing their realisation that Arab armies are "parasitic entities...that live off the flesh of the rest of the population.”

 Cockburn credits peaceful protesting for averting a reliance for money and weapons solely obtainable from “outside powers pursuing their own egocentric agendas.”

Cockburn then praises the discrediting of political Islam, as it alienates large parts of the population that are “only moderately religious,” and benefits dictators because “the alternative to their brutal rule seemed even more horrific.”

 Cockburn then credits a Sudanese Professionals Association’s slogan “Christ at the Heart of the Revolution,” for averting the damage that sectarian exclusivity can do to their cause.

SUDAN INSIGHT ALERT: New York Times - The Revolutionary Force Behind Sudan’s Protest Movement? Doctors

20/4/19: New York Times – The Revolutionary Force Behind Sudan’s Protest Movement? Doctors, by Joseph Goldstein

Joseph Goldstein credits Sudanese doctors for shaping the Sudanese protest movement, arguing that they have “transformed what started as protests over bread prices into a coherent movement, complete with a declaration of demands and a tightly organized protest.”

 Goldstein highlights doctor’s continued activism against Al Bashir’s regime, citing their documentation of fatal wounds and causes of death to pre-empt regime cover-ups.

 Goldstein then argues that scarce medical supplies have led doctors to organise underground unions and go on strikes, putting them in place to lead the current protest movement, culminating in the Sudanese Professionals Association after uniting with other professional groups.

SUDAN NEWS ALERT: Reuters - Sudan attorney general orders formation of committee to oversee corruption probe

20/4/19: Reuters – Sudan attorney general orders formation of committee to oversee corruption probe

Sudan’s attorney general Al Walid Sayed Ahmed ordered the formation of a committee to oversee investigations into crimes involving public funds, corruption and criminal cases related to recent events.

 Ahmed also submitted a request to the director of the country’s National Intelligence and Security Services to lift the immunity of a number of officers suspected of killing a teacher who died in custody in February.

SUDAN NEWS ALERT: Sudan Tribune - Sudan's attorney general order to lift immunity of security officers

20/4/19: Sudan Tribune – Sudan’s attorney general order to lift immunity of security officers

Sudan’s attorney general has ordered the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) to lift the immunity of a number of their officers suspected of killing a detained teacher last February.

 On February 2, the Sudanese police confirmed the death of Ahmed Al Khair Ahmed, who was detained by the NISS agents in Khashm Al Girba town in eastern Sudan’s Kassala State.

 "Attorney General Walid Ahmed Sayed Mahmoud issued a letter to the Director of the National Security and Intelligence Service on the lifting of the immunity of a number of suspects from the NISS agents in the killing of the martyr Ahmed al-Khair," said the official Sudan News Agency.

SUDAN NEWS ALERT: Reuters - Sudan arrests several top members of former ruling party - senior party official

20/4/19: Reuters – Sudan arrests several top members of former ruling party - senior party official

Sudanese authorities have arrested several top members of the former ruling party of ousted President Omar Al Bashir.

  A source in Al Bashir’s National Congress Party said authorities arrested the acting party head Ahmed Haroun, former first vice president Ali Osman Taha, former Bashir aide Awad Al Jaz, the secretary general of the Islamic movement Al Zubair Ahmed Hassan, and former parliament speaker Ahmed Ibrahim Al Taher.

 Former presidential aide Nafie Ali Nafie and parliament chairman Ibrahim Ahmed Omar have been placed on house arrest, the source added.

SUDAN NEWS ALERT: Associated Press - Activist: Sudan protest leaders meet with military rulers

20/4/19: Associated Press - Activist: Sudan protest leaders meet with military rulers

Ahmed Rabie, a leader at the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), has told the Associated Press that SPA leaders are holding talks with the transitional military council for the third time. Rabie says the SPA want to speed up the transition of power to a civilian government that would rule for four years.

SUDAN NEWS ALERT: Reuters - Sudan investigating Bashir after large sums of cash found at home: source

20/4/19: Reuters - Sudan investigating Bashir after large sums of cash found at home: source

 A judicial source has told Reuters that Sudan’s public prosecutor has begun investigating ousted President Omar Al Bashir on charges of money laundering and possession of large sums of foreign currency without legal grounds.

 Military intelligence had searched Bashir’s home and found suitcases loaded with more than $351,000 and six million euros, as well as five million Sudanese pounds.

 The source told Reuters that “the chief public prosecutor...ordered the (former) president detained and quickly questioned in preparation to put him on trial…the public prosecution will question the former president in Kobar prison.”

SUDAN INSIGHT ALERT: Sudan Tribune – Will uprising in Sudan provide a new political dispensation?

Article: 20/4/19: Sudan Tribune – Will uprising in Sudan provide a new political dispensation?, by Dr. Luka Kuol

 Summary:

In the interests of Sudan's path to sustainable democracy, Dr. Luka Kuol of the African Center for Strategic Studies, calls for Sudanese political parties to allow the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA) to lead the transition to civilian government, and for foreign states to "be guided by the choice and demand of the [Sudanese people] rather than their narrow political interests.”

 Kuol argues that consensus between the SPA and the political parties on the list of transitional government candidates, and the SPA's leadership of the transition, could avert Sudan's military council appointing a government under its direct supervision, or the former ruling National Congress Party recapturing state power.

 Kuol also notes that Sudanese protesters and the anti-Islamist Arab bloc (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt and Bahrain) share anti-political Islam positions, but argues that “[the anti-Islamist bloc] seem insensitive to the demands of the protesters.”

SUDAN INSIGHT ALERT: Financial Times - In Sudan, the seeds of change have truly been sowed

Full article: 20/4/19: Financial Times – In Sudan, the seeds of change have truly been sowed, by Yousra Elbagir

Summary:

London-based Sudanese journalist Yousra Elbagir explores “whether the seeds of change had truly been sowed” in post-Bashir Sudan.

 Elbagir highlights several transitional military council concessions: group press visas issued to foreign journalists for the first time since 2015, the evaporation of Islamist public order laws, and the “gentle” attempts to disperse that masses at the sit-in outside the military headquarters.

 Elbagir concludes that the sit-in is a "safe space" for Sudanese protesters, and “their most powerful negotiation tool,” with the sit-in area becoming “a sanctuary and a symbolic battleground in the fight for personal and political liberty.”