SUDAN NEWS ALERT: Radio Dabanga - 3,000 displaced by South Darfur attacks

6/8/2020: Radio Dabanga - 3,000 displaced by South Darfur attacks

 Radio Dabanga reports that 3,000 have been displaced by “bloody attacks” on villages near Kass in South Darfur.

 Malik Haroun, member of the Resistance Committees active in the neighbourhoods of Kass, told Radio Dabanga that about 3,000 displaced villagers, most of them women and children, gathered in front of the Unamid base in Kass three days ago, and described their humanitarian conditions as bad and miserable, noting that the displaced people reside in makeshift shelters that do not protect them from the sun or rain.

 Haroun called for an urgent investigation into the attacks on Boronga and surrounding villages providing security and protecting the agricultural season so that the new displaced people could return to their areas and be able to continue their cultivation.

 The new civilian governor of South Darfur, Mousa Mahdi, said an investigation committee will start its tasks immediately and will submit a report within a week.

SUDAN NEWS ALERT: Radio Dabanga - Darfur displaced denounce Constitutional Declaration

6/8/19: Radio Dabanga - Darfur displaced denounce Constitutional Declaration

 Radio Dabanga reports that the Darfur Displaced General Coordination (DDGC) says it does not recognise the Constitutional Declaration agreed by the Transitional Military Council and the Forces of Freedom and Change on Sunday.

 In a statement, the DDGC says it considers the new agreement “a betrayal of the blood of the martyrs, and the selling of the sacrifices of the glorious revolutionaries, men and women, and all those who offered what is precious for the sake of freedom and change”.

 The DDGC earlier also condemned the contents of the Political Charter signed by the junta and the opposition on July 17. They said the agreement, containing “semi-solutions and compromises”, made clear that Sudanese living in the peripheries are not involved in state decisions.

SUDAN NEWS ALERT: AFP – What is in Sudan’s power-sharing deal?

6/8/19: AFP – What is in Sudan’s power-sharing deal?

 Key points

·      39 month transitional period.

·      Ruling 11-member sovereign council (SC) composed of five military figures and six civilians. Military to lead first 21 months, civilians the remaining 18.

·      SC to oversee formation of 20-member cabinet, FFC will nominate prime minister but SC must confirm.

·      Legislative body – 300 people, 40% women - to be formed within 90 days of deal signing.

·      FFC will have 67% of seats. Remaining 33% for parties not linked to Bashir.

·      Peace in Sudan’s conflict zones prioritised in first six months

 Security

·      RSF to be under army command

·      General Intelligence Services (formerly NISS) to become a regulatory body “concerned with gathering and presenting information to relevant authorities”

·      GIS to fall under executive authority and SC

 Rights

·      Every citizen has right to freedom of peaceful assembly, expression, religious belief, spreading information and security

·      Internet access can be blocked if it interferes with “order, security and public ethics”

SUDAN INSIGHT ALERT: AFP – Sudan deal defuses threat of slide into chaos

6/8/19: AFP – Sudan deal defuses threat of slide into chaos

 AFP’s feature piece highlights the scepticism of analysts following Sudan’s power-sharing deal.

 With the deal placing Sudan’s spy agency under the sovereign council and executive authorities, Magdi el-Gizouli, a Rift Valley Institute analyst, stated that it is unclear how the spy agency can be disciplined into a democratic framework without authority over its budget.

 The deal also puts the RSF under the army’s command, but Harvard University Sudan expert Eric Reeves argues that Himedti’s continued control of the RSF enables him to “threaten any number of actions if the army generals do not accede to his demands.”

 With the Sudan Revolutionary Front rejecting the deal,  El-Gizouli warns that Sudanese rebel leaders may be caught in “a game of blackmail” between the generals and protest leaders.

 Editor-in-chief of Elaf newspaper Khaled al-Tijani said there are no guarantees that the FFC coalition will remain in-tact despite securing 201 of 300 parliamentary seats.

SUDAN INSIGHT ALERT: AP – A new strongman in Sudan? Experts aren’t so sure

6/8/19: AP – A new strongman in Sudan? Experts aren’t so sure, by Joseph Krauss and Samy Magdy

 AP’s feature piece quotes from experts who doubt that Himedti can establish a new patronage system akin to that which kept Omar Al Bashir in power for three decades, despite Himedti’s ability to draw from his family’s vast livestock and gold mining operations and Saudi-Emirati funding to buy support from local elites.

 Sudan expert Alex de Waal notes that “Khartoum elites are unanimous that Hemedti cannot be the ruler of Sudan” because he is “an uneducated Darfurian…from the wrong class and the wrong place.”

 Suliman Baldo, a senior researcher with the Enough Project, doubts that Himedti can sustain “exhausted” Sudan’s “collapsed” economy.

 Baldo and Sudan researcher Jerome Tubiana also note that given Himedti’s violent past, he may have too many enemies to buy support in Sudan’s peripheral regions.