Brutal repression occurred in Sudan conducted by the military junta in the government. They attacked a protest camp seeking civilian rule through free elections and the end of the military junta. According to medics, there are at least 13 protesters dead. The Medics Central Committee, an opposing union, announced the number of martyrs could increase in front of the military headquarters, perpetrated by the military.
There is an ongoing revolutionary process in Sudan for several months now. It started in December 2018 with a revolt for the rise in the price of bread but it continued demanding the end of the Omar al Bashir dictatorship, in power for the last 30 years. Eventually, the demonstrations caused al Bashir to step down. But a military junta took over, with the aim to deviate and defeat the revolution. The military tried to stay in power for two or three years in a “transition” to hand over power. But the protest did not wear out. They keep demanding the military to leave and the people to decide freely their destiny. Last week there was a general strike.
Because of this brutal repression the Sudanese opposition, the Alliance of Freedom and Change is calling “civil disobedience” and a strike until the military regime falls. This Alliance gathers several bourgeois opposition parties, unions and other movements. This is a change as they have been trying to negotiate with the ruling Transitional Military Council their place in power in the next government, instead of developing the popular mobilisation. Last week general strike was a turning point and led to a major generalised confrontation with the Junta. They broke negotiations and massacred the sit-in protesters.
From IWU-FI, giving no political confidence to the opposition alliance, we call to support the call to a general strike against the TMC in Sudan. We call for the broadest international solidarity with the mobilisation and the general strike of the workers and the people in Sudan.
Down with the JMC in Sudan!
Long live the general strike until it falls!
International Workers’ Unity-Fourth International (IWU-FI) www.uit-ci.org
3 June 2019.
The Forces of the Declaration of Freedom and change
Declaration of cessation of negotiations with the coup council and call for civil disobedience
The Forces of Freedom and Change continue, in united and unified spirit more than ever before, to follow developments regarding the crime of the massacre at the sit-in [in front of the Military General Command in Khartoum]. In this regard, we declare that according to preliminary statistics, we lost at least 13 martyrs to the bullets of the treacherous coup council, and hundreds of injured and wounded. We affirm the following:
First, the Coup Council bears full responsibility for this crime, and we confirm that it planned to carry out this crime in Khartoum and other cities, including the city of al-Nahud, where various forces of Rapid Support [Forces], the army, the police and the brigades and militias, dispersed the peaceful sit-in. And we confirm that the area of the [Military General] Command contains only the pure bodies of our martyrs, whom we have not yet been able to evacuate.
Second: We declare the cessation of all political contact with the coup council and an end to the negotiations. We declare that the council is no longer qualified to negotiate with the Sudanese people, and that its leaders and members bear the criminal responsibility for the blood that has been shed since 11 April 2019. We will endeavor to bring them to fair trials before a fair and impartial judiciary, in the inevitable Sudan of Revolution.
Thirdly, we in the Forces of Freedom and Change announce a political strike and complete and open civil disobedience as of today, 3 June 2019, until the overthrow of the regime.
Fourth: The Forces of Freedom and Change call upon those with integrity in the armed forces and the police to carry out the duty to protect the Sudanese people from the militias of the coup council and its shadow gangs and janjaweed, and to take the side of the people’s choice of overthrowing the regime and establishing a full transitional civil authority.
Fifth: We appeal to the regional and international community to not recognize the coup and to side with the choices of the Sudanese people’s revolution.
The Forces of the Declaration of Freedom and Change
3 June 2019
