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Sudan: two rebel movements announce continuation of protest

September 16, 2019 at 2:10 am

A Sudanese communist party convention organiser speaks to participants and delegates attending the fifth general convention of the party, the first such meeting for over 40 years, in Khartoum on 24 January 2009. [ASHRAF SHAZLY/AFP/Getty Images]

The Communist Party and the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A), led by Abdel Wahed Mohamed Nour, have agreed on the need to continue the mass moving by holding political seminars, vigils, demonstrations, political sit-ins and strikes as well as civil disobedience.

The two sides also agreed on the necessity of restructuring the country’s institutions, especially the armed forces, the security services and the police, according to new national bases. They called for dissolving the former ruling party (National Congress Party) and confiscating all its property and assets.

They stressed the importance of paying individual and collective reparations to the victims of war and victims of the genocide that took place within the regime’s policies. They also demanded the return of displaced persons to their villages as well as the return of new settlers existing on Darfur territory to their origin countries.

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Both parties called for the establishment of an international commission to investigate into the massacre carried out to disperse the demonstrators in the sit-in on 3 June, as well as handing over all war criminals and those who practised acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Since 2003, Darfur has been witnessing an armed conflict between the government forces and rebel movements that has claimed some 300,000 lives and displaced 2.5 million people, according to the United Nations.

Since June 2011, Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) has been fighting the Sudanese Army Forces (SAF) in the states of South Kordofan and the Blue Nile.

On 21 August 2019 Abdalla Hamdok was sworn in as prime minister for the 39-month transitional period after which elections can be held.

The Sudanese hope the transitional period agreement signed last August will end the turmoil that the country has been exercising since the military ousted Al-Bashir following popular protests against his 30-year rule.