Resist Sudan’s killer regime

The Sudanese military has moved to crush the country’s movement for change. But strikes and protests were beginning in an effort to resist, as Socialist Worker went to press on Tuesday.

The Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors said 35 people—including an eight year old—had been killed and hundreds injured.

The toll was likely to rise as not all casualties had been accounted for.

Security forces used heavy weapons to clear a protest camp in the capital Khartoum early on Monday morning.

The sit-in in front of the army’s general command had become the central symbol of the struggle for civilian rule after dictator Omar al-Bashir was brought down in April.

Mohammed Elmunir, a protester in Khartoum, said, “They were shooting at everyone randomly and people were running for their lives.

“They blocked all roads and most tents at the sit-in have been set on fire.”

The head of the ruling Transitional Military Council, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, made a broadcast on state television. He said the army had decided to stop negotiating with the opposition umbrella group, the Alliance for Freedom and Change, and “cancel what had been agreed on”.

He said there would be an election in nine months under “regional and international supervision”.

The Sudanese Professionals Association, which has been at the centre of revolt, said, “It is imperative to go out to the streets to protect the revolution.”

It called for “an open, nationwide, political strike and complete civil disobedience, beginning on 3 June 2019 and until the regime is overthrown”.

The repression follows a two-day general strike last week.

Ports, air traffic, banks, universities, non-emergency hospital services, power plants, telecoms, oil refineries, newspapers and many other sectors were largely shut. And a wide range of workers at private firms struck.

The military had to make further concessions to the movement—or it had to go on the attack.

The crackdown shows there has to be escalation to force the military from power and win change.

Western leaders’ hypocrisy over Sudanese dictatorship

Sudanese protesters should not rely on the Western governments that condemned the military’s massacre this week.

Tory foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt called it an “outrageous step that will only lead to more polarisation and violence”.

But the British government has funnelled funding to the Sudanese regime and its military thought the Khartoum Process. The agreement was set up in 2014 to stop refugees fleeing the country to Europe.

It has also backed and armed Saudi Arabia, which supplies the weapons that mow down Sudanese protesters.  

The British, the US and the European Union fund dictators across the world—and then recoil in mock horror when they kill people.

Revolution until victory

only an escalation of strikes and protests can force the Sudanese military to step aside from power.

These have grown from marches at the beginning of this year to sit-ins to a general strike. They must escalate further.

Strikers, the poor and Sudan’s oppressed nationalities need urgently to form their own democratic centres of power—workers’ councils.

These could organise resistance and fight for control of society.

There must also be an attempt to win over those sections of the army that refused to fire on protesters in April.

Armed groups that have been fighting for autonomy could also be involved.