Sudan: Protest Erupts Amid Postponement Of Democracy Deal

Protest erupts in most parts of Sudan on Thursday, 6, 2023, after the political deal to restore the Democratic Transition of power was Postponed for the second time. 

The agreement between civilians, military and paramilitary was supposed to restart the democratic transition in Sudan after the 2021 putsch. 

The postponement has however led to civilians demonstrating on Thursday, the anniversary of anti-putsch uprisings.

The signature of the outline deal, which had already been postponed last week, allowed for a return to power-sharing between citizens and the military. 

The historic civilian group Forces for Freedom and Change (FLC) said in a statement that the resumption of foreign assistance to the country, one of the poorest in the world, will not take place on Thursday as scheduled.

"The signing has been postponed due to the resumption of military talks on April 1 and 6," according to the statement. 

"Negotiations have made progress on several points," it adds, "but one final issue has yet to be finalized," analysts say, referring to the methods for merging the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) into normal forces.

The rivalry between Sudan's de facto leader, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, head of the army and author of the October 25, 2021 coup, and his second in command, General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, known as "Hemedti," who leads the ex-militiamen of the Darfur war and is now grouped into the RSF, is keeping the country in a state of lockdown.

The date of April 6 also coincides with two significant milestones for Sudan's civil movement: revolts in 1985 and then in 2019 that brought down two coup leaders 34 years apart.

On Thursday, the FLC called on all Sudanese to march "peacefully" through all provinces for "freedom, peace, and justice," against the military and the "return of the old regime," the Islamo-military dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir, which was deposed in 2019, and many of whose cadres have reclaimed their positions in the administration thanks to the 2021 putsch.

Despite a crackdown that has killed 125 people, anti-push demonstrations have not ceased since the coup, according to pro-democracy physicians.

The authorities proclaimed April 6 a public holiday in preparation for this mobilization, and a large military deployment was visible on Wednesday in different sections of Khartoum and its suburbs, particularly obstructing bridges over the Nile, observers reported.