A political compromise offers renewed promise of realizing Sudanese aspirations

Sudanese civilian leaders lift documents following the signing of an initial deal with military powers aimed at ending a deep crisis caused by last year's military coup, in the capital Khartoum on December 5, 2022. (AFP)
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Updated 11 December 2022
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A political compromise offers renewed promise of realizing Sudanese aspirations

  • UN envoy believes the framework agreement of Dec. 5 offers path out of uncertainty sparked by 2021 coup
  • Analysts skeptical about achievement of goal of democratic elections and return of army to its barracks

LONDON: Sudan’s fractious centers of power may have signed a framework agreement intended to lead the country back toward a civilian government after the military coup of October 2021, but the doubts of NGOs and academics, as well as persistent street protests, caution against over-optimistic expectations.

Unveiled on December 5 in the capital Khartoum, signatories to the deal include Sudan’s ruling generals Abdel-Fattah Burhan and Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemeti, alongside the leaders of Forces of Freedom and Change, the country’s largest pro-democracy group, and 40 other parties.

Providing a path to a civilian-led transition made up of democratic elections and the return of the military to their barracks, the framework agreement stipulates a need for full civilian control over all aspects of society, with a security and defense council headed by the prime minister.

Responding to the news, Volker Perthes, head of the UN Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan, described the agreement as a “courageous step,” while John Godfrey, the US ambassador to Sudan, tweeted his support for the deal, which he said set a “credible path … out of the political crisis.”

Despite garnering positive support from the international community and the generals — Burhan chanted one of the protesters’ slogans “the military belongs in the barracks”  — the deal has yet to inspire enthusiasm among many pockets of Sudanese civil society.




Sudanese protesters deploy a giant national flag, as they march outside the UN headquarters in the Manshiya district of the capital Khartoum, on December 3, 2022. (AFP)

As the agreement was signed in the fortified compounds of Khartoum’s Republican Palace, protesters were taking to the streets of the capital to denounce the agreement as little more than a means for the ruling generals to retain power while concurrently absolving themselves of the political and economic outcomes of the 2021 coup.

“The goals of the agreement are establishing a fully civilian authority, creating a free climate for politics, and reaching a final agreement with the widest political participation,” Al-Wathiq al-Barir, a spokesman for the FFC, told the BBC last week.

However, Kholood Khair, founder and director of Confluence Advisory, a Khartoum-based think tank, describes the deal as essentially “a five-page wish list” whose biggest failing stems from its ambiguities and absence of detail.

“This agreement is supposed to be based on a draft from Sudan’s Bar Society, but it’s at best an initial agreement, a primary document, that does not lay out how we reach consequential elements, like who will be the prime minister, issues of financial accountability, transitional justice, and security reform,” Khair told Arab News.

Khair considers the appointment of a prime minister and a prospective cabinet as the first phase of the agreement and a particularly pressing one, given that these must be decided before the two-year transition phase can take effect, and done so within a month.

As someone who expected a series of annexes explicitly laying out the mechanisms for selecting a prime minister, and an agenda for the transitional government, Khair says the absence of the “vital” implementation phase makes her doubtful about the deal’s viability.




Sudan's paramilitary commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo speaks with a delegate following the signing of an initial deal aimed at ending a deep crisis caused by last year's military coup, in the capital Khartoum on December 5, 2022. (AFP)

“What’s been made really difficult is the extent the civilian government will have space and capacity to deliver what the framework claims to want because just being prime minister is not tantamount to having political power,” she told Arab News.

Moreover, she added, within the pro-democracy movements “there are significant disagreements, in number and scope, and areas of divergence and, given the way this deal occurred — behind closed doors, without transparency — there is a lot of mistrust with many of the parties involved having lost the capacity to say they have the support of the street.”

And that could be vital, given the level of resentment within society that has built since the coup of Oct. 25, 2021, with more than 7,000 protesters injured, well over 100 killed, and projections that a third of the population will require humanitarian assistance next year in the absence of a halt to the economy’s downward spiral.

Gilbert Achcar, professor of development studies and international relations at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London, shares Khair’s skepticism over what the deal really amounts to.

“I do not think it is going to solve the problem. The conditions are even worse than they were after the removal of Omar Al-Bashir in 2019, which has led to mobilization against the coup and the subsequent military rule,” he told Arab News.

“The agreement may say otherwise, but those at the forefront of the opposition to the coup are continuing the fight against the military and rejecting the agreement, which they see as a way for the military to legitimize its rule.”




Sudanese protesters perform a prayer outside the UN headquarters in the Manshiya district of the capital Khartoum, on December 3, 2022. (AFP)

Like Khair, Achcar questions the logic of the omissions in the text of the deal. For instance, he notes that it states that the military must return to the barracks, but points out that the pledges are lacking in terms of a timetable and completing measures. Instead, he sees the deal as a tactic for “winning some time” for the military while also serving to divide the opposition.

“The coup has been a complete failure by any objective standard, occurring at a moment when the country was already facing a severe economic crisis, and taking place without any signs that it would receive popular support — and it hasn’t experienced popular support,” Achcar told Arab News.

“Resultantly, the military has been unable to keep civil peace so they went for this deal as they were facing failure.

“They had to act, and in approving this deal with pro-democracy groups, all it has cost them is a few empty promises that will ensure that the civilian government will be taking responsibility for the economic and social crisis engulfing Sudan.”

FASTFACT

* Sudan has been in crisis since the army overthrew dictator Omar Al-Bashir in 2019. 

* The military and civilian leaders agreed to form a joint transitional government.

* Arrangement ended late last year when the military toppled PM Abdalla Hamdok.

* Hamdok was reinstated earlier this year but resigned following mass protests.

Khair considers the deal’s “real winner” to be Hemeti. Commander of the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces, he has received quick promotions following the 2019 coup that overthrew Al-Bashir. Despite facing a litany of accusations of crimes against humanity by groups including Human Rights Watch, Hemeti has succeeded by leveraging his domestic and international patronage.

“It is really worrying to see the framework recognize the RSF as one of Sudan’s four military forces, with its own commander and answerable to the civilian head of state, particularly as it is not a particularly well-defined provision within the deal,” Khair told Arab News.

“The generals are the only real supporters and have handed it to the FFC, who now have to very much deliver, and deliver very quickly in what is a fragile political environment with a precarious deal that absolves the generals from both the coup and the burden of governing.”

In the final analysis, Khair said: “The FFC have everything to deliver and everything to lose; they are not winners out of this.

“It symbolically ends the coup but if you continue to have protests, and conflict within the rebel camps, then to what extent can you say this is fulfilling the needs after ending the coup? It is really just a shift in post-coup dynamics.”




Sudan's Army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan (C R) and paramilitary commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (C L) lift documents alongside civilian leaders following the signing of an initial deal aimed at ending a deep crisis caused by last year's military coup, in the capital Khartoum on December 5, 2022. (AFP)

For his part, Achcar believes there is room for some optimism, assuming that the FFC and pro-democracy groups will seek to get on board civil-society actors who have largely objected to the agreement, but he too is skeptical about their capacity to achieve this.

“After 30 years of military rule and all the privileges that entails, the idea they will hand this all over seems fantasy,” he told Arab News.

Predictably, the Sudanese government’s assessment of the framework agreement is more optimistic.

“The signing of the Political Framework Agreement can be considered as an essential step toward the return to a civilian-led transitional government in Sudan,” Ola Elgindi, of the media and cultural section of the Embassy of Sudan in London, told Arab News.

“It can also be considered as clear evidence of the Sudanese army’s determination to give way to Sudanese civilian parties to form a final agreement.”

Looking to the future, Elgindi said: “In the next phase, we hope that the agreement will include other civil-transition-supporting parties that haven’t yet signed the agreement.

“To everyone who questions the viability of this agreement, we say that it is still too early to judge and make any assumptions, and that we have a great hope that things will go well.”


Driver of car in Amsterdam explosion may have been attempting suicide, police say

Updated 3 sec ago
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Driver of car in Amsterdam explosion may have been attempting suicide, police say

Police arrested the man, a 50-year old Dutchman, on suspicion of arson
Nobody was hurt in the incident except the suspect

AMSTERDAM: Dutch police said they believed the driver of a car that caught fire on Thursday following an explosion in central Amsterdam may have been attempting to commit suicide.
Police arrested the man, a 50-year old Dutchman, on suspicion of arson. Nobody was hurt in the incident except the suspect.
“Police detectives are keeping all scenarios open but have strong suspicions that the man wanted to take his own life,” police said on the social media platform X.
Earlier, police said camera footage had shown the fire was caused by an explosion, which happened among a crowd of people on Amsterdam’s busy Dam Square.
Images on social media show a man with burning clothes close to a small red car with flames billowing from its windows.
Police are seen extinguishing the flames on the man before taking him into custody.
Police sealed off the square while explosives experts investigated the vehicle. It was later removed from the square.
Last week, a man injured five people near Dam Square in a stabbing rampage. Police identified the suspect in that incident as a 30-year-old Ukrainian national from the eastern Donetsk region, who prosecutors said had acted with terrorist intent.

Dutch police said they believed the driver of a car that caught fire on Thursday following an explosion in central Amsterdam may have been attempting to commit suicide. (X/@Ann_Lilyflower)

University of Birmingham students facing disciplinary hearing over pro-Palestine activism

Updated 03 April 2025
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University of Birmingham students facing disciplinary hearing over pro-Palestine activism

  • Student Antonia Listrat: ‘Funding genocide is violent; protesting genocide is peaceful’
  • Legal rights group sounds alarm over ‘nationwide crackdown’ on solidarity with Palestinians

LONDON: Two pro-Palestine students at the UK’s University of Birmingham are facing disciplinary proceedings over their activism, with a major legal rights group sounding the alarm over a “nationwide crackdown” on solidarity with the Palestinian people.

The European Legal Support Centre submitted legal documents to the university’s misconduct panel on behalf of the two students, Mariyah Ali and Antonia Listrat.

Amid the war in Gaza and sweeping pro-Palestine solidarity at institutions across the UK, the two students had demanded that their university divest from arms companies supplying the Israeli military.

Ali and Listrat face a disciplinary hearing on April 7, with the ELSC urging the university to dismiss the proceedings.

Coventry MP Zarah Sultana labeled the university’s move “an assault on democratic rights,” while the decision was questioned by UN Special Rapporteur Gina Romero, who highlighted “harassment, intimidation and reprisals” against the students at the university.

The pair have been supported by the university’s student body, which elected Listrat as guild president and Ali as ethnic minorities officer.

Ali said: “The disciplinary process against Antonia and me is a blatant attempt to suppress dissent and silence the wider student movement.

“This authoritarian crackdown is not just an attack on our right to protest — it is a display of institutional Islamophobia and bureaucratic repression.

“The student movement for Palestine is stronger than ever. Instead of charging students, the University of Birmingham must focus on divesting from companies complicit in genocide and war crimes.”

The student union also passed a motion supporting pro-Palestine solidarity that was subsequently blocked by union trustees.

By taking punitive measures against the students, the university is “contradicting the democratic will of students,” the ELSC said.

Anna Ost, the center’s senior legal officer, added: “We are deeply concerned that the university’s intention and effect in targeting these two students is to dissuade the wider university community from speaking out for Palestine.

“The university needs to change its approach, drop the disciplinaries, and demonstrate that fundamental freedoms are still promoted on its campus.”

The targeting of the students is part a wider crackdown on pro-Palestine activism across the UK in the wake of Israel’s war in Gaza.

Since October 2023, at least 28 universities across the UK have disciplined more than 113 students for activism, a joint investigation by Sky News and Liberty Investigates found.

The ELSC warned that the campus crackdowns, which have involved police and private security, is creating a “chilling effect” that “sets a dangerous precedent for campus democracy.”

British universities are legally bound to protect freedom of expression under the education and human rights acts, it added, warning that the University of Birmingham is “violating these obligations by penalizing students for their political beliefs.”

The center called on the university to dismiss the charges against the students and uphold freedom of speech, expression and assembly on campus.

Listrat said protesting is “an integral part of campus life” that signifies a “healthy and progressive society.”

She added: “As far-right rhetoric rises throughout the world, we need to make a huge effort to protect our rights and uphold international law and morality.

“Enabling genocide and profiting from human rights violations is quite a violent stance that the University of Birmingham has taken. Funding genocide is violent; protesting genocide is peaceful.”


German military to order exploding drones for first time, sources say

Updated 03 April 2025
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German military to order exploding drones for first time, sources say

  • Russia and Ukraine have fielded such single-use drones
  • The procurement of armed drones has been controversial in Germany

BERLIN: The German military will be armed with loitering munitions, or exploding drones, for the first time, two defense ministry sources said on Thursday, as Berlin tries to catch up with a technology that has shown its destructive power in Ukraine.
Both Russia and Ukraine have fielded such single-use drones, which cruise toward their target before plummeting at velocity and detonating on impact.
But the procurement of armed drones has been controversial in Germany, with some politicians associating them with targeted extrajudicial killings by US forces in Afghanistan.
It took years of heated debate before parliament agreed in 2022 to enable a large drone such as the Heron TP, which flies at much higher altitudes, to carry arms.
However, military upgrades are more urgent now for Germany, amid the continuing war between Russia and Ukraine and doubts about the future of US military protection.
Last month, parliament approved plans for a defense spending surge worth hundreds of billions of euros.
Contracts with two companies for a first batch of exploding drones will be signed in the coming days, the sources said, declining to name the companies. The army, air force and navy will test them in the following months.
“The use of drones and the defense against drones is crucial for the survival of our troops on the modern battlefield, that’s something we learned in Ukraine,” said one of the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“Each soldier must be capable of operating drones, just as today, everybody knows how to use binoculars.”
Germany will aim to sign longer-term contracts by the end of the year for a larger number of drones, shortening the period for introducing new weapons which usually takes years.
As drone technology evolves rapidly, the deals will specify that companies supply a limited number initially for training purposes, and that they may be asked later to supply a larger number of the latest models at short notice, if needed.
“There’s no use in purchasing thousands of drones ... only to realize they are outdated by the time we need them,” one of the sources said.


Trump moves to fire several national security officials over concerns they’re not loyal

Updated 03 April 2025
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Trump moves to fire several national security officials over concerns they’re not loyal

  • National security adviser Mike Waltz is fighting back criticism over using Signal app to discuss attacks on Yemen's Houthi militants

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump has moved to fire several senior White House National Security Council officials soon after he was urged by far-right activist Laura Loomer to purge staffers she deemed insufficiently committed to his Make America Great Again agenda, several people familiar with the matter said Thursday.
Loomer presented her research to Trump in an Oval Office meeting on Wednesday, making her case for the firings, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive personnel matters. Vice President JD Vance, chief of staff Susie Wiles, national security adviser Mike Waltz and Serio Gor, the director of the Presidential Personnel Office, took part in the meeting, the people said.
NSC spokesman Brian Hughes declined to comment on the meeting or the firings, insisting that the White House does not discuss personnel matters.
Loomer, who has promoted 9/11 conspiracy theories, was a frequent presence on the campaign trail during Trump’s 2024 successful White House run. More recently, she’s been speaking out on social media about some members of Trump’s national security team that she insists can’t be trusted.
The move by Trump to push out staff comes at a moment when his national security adviser Mike Waltz is fighting back criticism over using the publicly available encrypted Signal app to discuss planning for the sensitive March 15 military operation targeting Houthi militants in Yemen.
A journalist, The Atlantic magazine’s Jeffrey Rosenberg, was mistakenly added to the chain and revealed that Trump’s team used it to discuss precise timing of the operation, aircraft used to carry out the strikes and more.
Waltz has taken responsibility for building text chain, but has said he does not know how Rosenberg ended up being included.


Russia, African juntas blast Ukraine as they deepen ties

Updated 03 April 2025
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Russia, African juntas blast Ukraine as they deepen ties

  • Moscow has tried to build new partnerships in Africa, where it has been growing in influence in recent years, including militarily
  • Foreign ministers from Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso met Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow for the summit

MOSCOW: Russia and a group of west African countries led by military juntas hailed growing military ties at a summit in Moscow on Thursday, with some condemning Ukraine as a “terrorist” state.
Facing isolation in the West following its full-scale offensive against Ukraine, Moscow has tried to build new partnerships in Africa, where it has been growing in influence in recent years, including militarily.
Foreign ministers from Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso met Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow for the summit, which Lavrov said would “strengthen the whole suite” of their relations.
The three Sahelian countries are led by juntas who seized power in coups and have turned away from former colonial power France while moving closer to Russia, which has been sending mercenaries to help them fight a transnational jihadist insurgency.
Lavrov said Russia was ready to help “strengthen the three countries’ combat capability” and train soldiers and law enforcement officers.
He added that Moscow could help the countries form a joint armed force “by organizing special courses, by using instructors who are already working in large numbers in the countries” and by “supplying military production.”
Mali’s Abdoulaye Diop said that Mali and Russia shared views on “fighting against terrorism.”
“We consider Ukraine as simply a terrorist state,” the minister said at a press conference.
Mali last year broke off diplomatic relations with Ukraine, accusing a senior Ukrainian official of having admitted Kyiv played a role in a heavy defeat suffered by Malian troops.
Niger then joined Mali in cutting diplomatic ties, accusing Kyiv of supporting “terrorist groups.”
Ukraine’s foreign ministry on Thursday rejected claims it had interfered in Mali’s affairs as “baseless,” and suggested Diop’s comments were unserious given he “represents an illegitimate junta that usurped power.”
Moscow has concluded defense agreements with Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger and supplied them with military equipment.