NAIROBI
\nAmid a near-total communications blackout, tens of thousands of protesters across Sudan took a well-coordinated protest movement back onto city streets Saturday after a military coup earlier this week.
\nThe coup was the second in three years, and led by the same generals who ousted longtime dictator Omar Hassan al-Bashir in April 2019. A power-sharing arrangement with civilian leaders crumbled Monday as Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan dissolved the joint government, detained prime minister Abdalla Hamdok, suspended the constitution and gave himself control.
\nSaturday\u2019s mass protests \u2014 which were mirrored by rallies in global cities with large Sudanese populations \u2014 were part of a sustained effort by Sudanese professional organizations, political parties and ordinary citizens to force Sudan\u2019s military into ceding the reins of government to civilians in the lead-up to democratic elections two years from now.
\nDespite a disruption of Internet service, organizations leading the protests posted videos of mass marches in different parts of the capital, Khartoum. Protesters reprised chants from 2019 and added slogans such as, \u201cWe are revolutionaries, we are free, and we will go the distance.\u201d
\nIn protests earlier this week, doctors\u2019 associations said at least 11 people had been killed and more than 100 injured. On Saturday, one of the associations said two protesters had died from gunshot injuries sustained earlier in the day.
\nSudan\u2019s international partners including the United States, a major donor and creditor in the years since Bashir fell, had warned the military on Friday that further bloodshed would be \u201cunacceptable.\u201d No public investigation into the killings has been announced.
\nThe United States, European nations and the World Bank all suspended aid to Sudan this week, and they worked behind the scenes to get Arab allies such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Emirates to pressure their partners in Sudan\u2019s military to exercise restraint during the protests Saturday, multiple diplomats familiar with the negotiations said. The African Union suspended Sudan\u2019s membership.
\nThe protests are a bellwether for the military\u2019s resolve to push forward with a coup that has provoked stronger international pushback than expected, the diplomats said, echoing analysts within and outside the country.
\nCivilian ministers and ambassadors have remained defiant, refusing to cooperate with the military, and dozens of officials \u2014 not to mention their supporters in the streets \u2014 were detained throughout the week. Hamdok was released, but Burhan said others will be freed only if they have been determined to have not committed crimes. Strikes have paralyzed the country and halted daily business.
\n\u201cThey\u2019re failing coup d\u2019etat 101,\u201d said a former senior Western diplomat with years of experience in Sudan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in accordance with diplomatic protocol. \u201cCivilian leaders are emerging as heroes for resisting, and even close allies in Riyadh, Cairo and Abu Dhabi are questioning whether the coup was reckless.\u201d
\nThe American special envoy to the region, Jeffrey Feltman, had been in Khartoum in the hours before the coup, warning military leaders that hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance would be withdrawn if they took power. Burhan went ahead with the coup as soon as Feltman departed.
\nThe aid suspensions have not forced Burhan\u2019s hand so far, and Feltman released a statement Friday echoing an earlier one from President Biden saying that \u201cthe Sudanese people must be allowed to protest peacefully this weekend, and the United States will be watching closely.\u201d
\nA senior State Department official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that although Hamdok had been released, he was still under what amounted to \u201chouse arrest\u201d and that there was broad consensus among Washington and Sudan\u2019s Arab allies that detained civilian leaders should be released.
\nHamdok and Burhan had worked together with Washington to have Sudan removed from the United States\u2019 list of state sponsors of terrorism, paving the way for Sudan\u2019s reintegration into the global economy. The transitional civilian-military government also had passed a number of liberalizing reforms affecting public life after decades of Islamic law under Bashir.
\nIn this week\u2019s protests, placards and chants have often denounced the alleged role of the military\u2019s allies in the Arab world in approving the coup. While details of such assurances remained murky, analysts said each ally had its own reasons for wanting the military to consolidate control in Sudan.
\n\u201cAmong Arab powers, there\u2019s an unease about the prospect of a successful civilian transition in Sudan,\u201d said Jonas Horner, an analyst with the International Crisis Group who was in Khartoum in the days leading up to the coup. \u201cIn Egypt especially, they worry it would provide a clear demonstrative effect to disaffected Egyptians after their own revolution was derailed.\u201d
\nSudan also has provided those allies with easy access to agricultural land and gold mining \u2014 parts of the economy that are largely controlled by military figures. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti, cultivated close ties with the UAE in recent years by providing soldiers from his paramilitary group, known as the Rapid Support Forces, to fight in wars in Yemen and Libya. Hemedti has supported Burhan\u2019s power grab.
\nSudanese protesters, in addition to demanding the restoration of a government that would eventually be civilian-led, have called for an end to military control of key economic sectors, creating a sort of \u201cexistential question\u201d for military leaders, Horner said.
\nThe senior former diplomat said that he was aware \u201cas long as a month ago that the military was operating on the assurances of UAE, Egypt and the Saudis, each with varying degrees of certainty of giving a nod of support to a move to wrest power away from the civilian side.\u201d
\nSince protests emerged in late 2018 over rising bread prices and morphed into a much larger movement against Bashir and the military, they have remained peaceful despite being met repeatedly with deadly violence from security forces.
\nFaced with public rage and the prospect of more damaging international sanctions, Burhan has pledged to create a new civilian government, though it is unclear who outside of the military will be keen to be the face of an isolated government with major legitimacy problems.
\nThe State Department official said the Biden administration\u2019s stance was that \u201cthe military cannot choose their civilian partners in the framework of a transitional government, and the civilians also cannot choose their military partner. Neither side can sideline the other.\u201d
\nEven before the coup, the military had kept more than enough control to remain the country\u2019s most powerful institution, Horner said. That control dates into the Bashir era, when Burhan and Hemedti were key commanders and the military focused on extracting Sudan\u2019s natural resources and trading with Arab partners during decades of Western sanctions.
\n\u201cThe international community was working on an expectation of magnanimity \u2014 that the military would relinquish control \u2014 but what incentive do they have to just step away?\u201d he said. \u201cBurhan and Hemedti are thrashing out against the reality of their unpopularity, and, unfortunately, there are some regional actors protecting and even emboldening them to keep facing down the huge popular anger that just keeps growing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NAIROBI Amid a near-total communications blackout, tens of thousands of protesters across Sudan took a well-coordinated protest movement back onto city streets Saturday after a military coup earlier this week. The coup was the second in three years, and led by the same generals who ousted longtime dictator Omar Hassan al-Bashir in April 2019. A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-224490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n