Sudan’s FFC Call for Coordination Body to Topple Military Rule

FFC meeting with EU and Troika envoys in Khartoum on 28 April 2022

July 2, 2022 (KHARTOUM) – The Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) on Saturday called for a united civilian front to overthrow the military rule through a general strike within two weeks.

The coalition held a meeting on Saturday to assess the situation in the country after massive anti-coup demonstrations that Sudanese staged across the country on June 30th, during which the security forces killed nine protesters and injured more than 600.

In a statement issued after the meeting, the FFC said that the delay in the formation of a unified civilian front is the reason for the existence of the coup regime which faces domestic and international isolation.

The meeting agreed to issue an urgent call to form a unified coordinating centre to prepare for escalating mass action and preparing for comprehensive civil disobedience after the Eid al-Adha holidays.

The statement added that the positions of some political forces contributed to disrupting the unity and cohesion of the revolutionary forces, alluding to the Sudanese Communist Party.

The Sudanese massively took to the streets on June 30, despite the impressive deployment of security forces which fired live ammunition on protesters.

The Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors (CCSD) on Saturday said that the security forces wounded 629 protesters during the June 30 demonstrations in Khartoum state and the other regions.

According to the CCSD, 35 were wounded by live bullets, 64 sustained head injuries with tear gas canisters, 23 suffered gunshot wounds from cartridge weapons), 10 were injured in vehicle-ramming attacks by the police, 12 sustained eye injuries, and a protester was stabbed in the shoulder with a sharp object probably a machete, a well as several cases of suffocation.

The Resistance Committees, the spearhead of the anti-coup protests, the communists and non-signatory groups reject the participation of the military component in the transitional government and are on the same page with the FFC.

However, they reject the ongoing negotiations brokered by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia between the FFC and the military component.

The Sudanese Communist Party rejects the FFC call to form a united front to overthrow the military regime and accuses them of working to restore a partnership government with the military component as it was before the October 25 coup.

On Saturday, the communists went to call for the formation of a “Unified Centre for a Comprehensive Radical Change to Achieve Peace, Justice and Unity.”

They said it would be also a coordinating body for the struggle to overthrow the ruling junta.

The left party stressed that this coordinating body is open to political parties, unions, armed movements and “the committees and organizations created by the masses to lead the revolutionary movement towards radical change,” in reference to the Resistance Committees without naming it.

The Sudanese communists said the cancellation of the Juba Peace Agreement is one of the tasks of the transitional government in order to achieve a comprehensive and inclusive peace in the country.

The Sudanese Communist Party has always opposed the peace agreement signed in Juba with Darfur groups and the SPLM-N of Malik Agar.

The party leaders said the Darfur armed groups that signed the peace agreement do not represent the silent majority that remains in the IDP camps.

In a related development, the holdout Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), led by Abdel Wahid al-Nur, rejected any partnership with the military component and called for the unity of political forces to bring the coup leader to hand over power to the people.

“Building a unified civilian front to coordinate all the forces of the revolution is an urgent duty that we must now accomplish without delay,  a requirement necessary to defeat the coup and establish full civilian power,” said the SLM-W.

Also, the holdout armed group called for consensus on a fully civilian transitional government made up of independent figures that would implement a national programme agreed through a Sudanese-Sudanese dialogue to address the root causes of the political crisis.

Resistance committees in Khartoum state started three sit-ins in Khartoum, Bahri and Omdurman to keep pressure on the coup leaders who deployed troops in what they call strategic areas including the Sudanese presidency and the army headquarters.

(ST)