HANDS OFF SUDAN! (English)

Since our last statement of solidarity with Sudanese protestors in January, Sudan has undergone several radical transformations. In April, the country”™s 30-year dictator was overthrown. After his overthrow, a military council was formed in order to rule the country with the former minister of defense at its head. The former defense minister, Awad Ibn Auf, served as the head of state for one day before being overthrown by Sudanese protestors who have refused to have a rebranded version of the previous head of state; the protestors refused to leave the locations of protest until the remnants of the NCP regime were liquidated and a new civilian government was set in place.

The overthrow of Ibn Auf was followed by the formation of a military council with lieutenant general Abdel Fattah al-Burhan at its head. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, infamously known as Hemedti, a warlord who commanded the Janjaweed militia which orchestrated genocide against people in Darfur. The oppositional coalition, known as the FFC –forces for freedom and change- has been negotiating with the military council since April about the formation of a transitional government, but the negotiations came to an end when the Janjaweed forces massacred protestors in the protest sit-ins on the third of June. The protestors did not leave the sit-ins even after the overthrow of al-Bashir because they did not want to be ruled by the same symbols of the previous fascist military regime and demanded the actualization of a civilian transitional government.

To the massacre which has led to more than a hundred dead, several hundred mutilated and injured, and dozens missing, the oppositional coalition has responded by calling the people of Sudan to a nationwide civil disobedience as a mean of completely paralyzing and delegitimizing the military council. During the civil disobedience, Sudanese people were on work strike and abstained from all transactions, such as paying for electricity or buying gas for example, that lent the military council any legitimacy. The military council responded to the civil disobedience by a complete nationwide internet shutdown, intensified repression, and further massacres in the peripheries of the country, particularly Darfur. The civil disobedience, unfortunately, came to a standstill on the 11th of June. The Sudanese people, however, will continue in their struggle for their freedom from the remnants of a regime that has stripped them of their humanities for decades.

We in SUF stand in solidarity with Sudanese protestors and condemn the attacks orchestrated by the military council against peaceful protestors. We also condemn both regional imperialism and potential Western imperialism that lends the military council legitimacy to plunder and massacre protestors. On the 12th of June the organizers within the Sudan Revolution Support Network in Sweden are organizing a demonstration in front of the Saudi embassy in Stockholm. Saudi Arabia, a regional imperialist power, been funding the transitional military council throughout its crimes committed against Sudanese people. We stand in solidarity with the organizers in their stance against both the military council and Saudi Arabia”™s support and funding of the military council and ask of you to do the same.

Hands off Sudan!