General strike against military regime brings Sudan to a standstill

By Niles Niemuth
10 June 2019

An indefinite nationwide general strike brought cities across Sudan to a virtual standstill
Sunday, nearly one week after security forces launched a counterrevolutionary
bloodbath with an assault on a mass sit-in outside the defense ministry headquarters in
Khartoum. The Central Committee of Sudan Doctors estimates that 118 protestors have
been killed, including four on Sunday, and a further 784 wounded since the crackdown
began last Monday.

Tens of thousands of Sudanese have been regularly gathering for months outside the
defense ministry and protesting across the country as part of the popular movement that
began in December 2018 demanding the end of military rule and the transfer of power
to a democratically elected government.

The Transitional Military Council (TMC) seized power in a coup on April 11, ousting
President Omar al-Bashir after months of mass protests in an effort to preempt a
revolutionary overthrow of the entire military regime, which has been in power for three
decades.

Headed by the deputy of the TMC, Lieutenant General Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo,
who aspires to take al-Bashir’s place as dictator, Rapid Support Force (RSF)
paramilitary soldiers used live fire and stun grenades to disperse the sit-in on June 3.

Dozens of protestors were forced off or thrown from the Blue Nile bridge by the RSF,
some reportedly with concrete blocks tied to their bodies to ensure that they drowned
and their bodies were not found. The RSF, formed out of the notorious Janjaweed
militia, deployed the same brutal tactics in the heart of Khartoum utilized to suppress
rebellions in Darfur and the country’s east.

The rampage came in the wake of Dagalo’s visit with Crown Prince Mohammed bin
Salman in Saudi Arabia and trips by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of the
TMC and Sudan’s de facto ruler, to Abu Dhabi and Cairo, where he received pointers on
drowning a revolution in blood from Egyptian dictator General Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.

While the Trump administration has raised concerns about the instability caused by the
military crackdown, with its support, the main allies of American imperialism in the
Middle East have been and continue to be key financial and political backers of the
military dictatorship in Sudan. In turn, the RSF has sent thousands of its members to
fight in the Saudi-led assault on Yemen. The Saudi monarchy and Emirati sheiks have
pledged $3 billion to prop up the TMC.

Outraged by the brutal RSF assault, millions across the country heeded the call of the
Sudanese Professional Association (SPA) trade union for a movement of “civil
disobedience” and “open political strike” against the ruling Transitional Military
Council.
Photos and video posted on social media showed empty streets and shuttered markets in
a number of state capitols across the country, from Damazin in Blue Nile to El Obeid in
North Kurdufan, Wad Madani in Al Jazirah and Port Sudan on the Red Sea.

Metro Khartoum, an urban region with more than 5 million residents, was brought to a
near standstill, with public transportation shut down and most stores, banks and offices
closed.

A 20-year old protestor was shot and killed in Omdurman as security forces used tear
gas and live fire to disperse demonstrations. Protestors erected barricades of bricks and
tires in Khartoum North to blockade major roads and bridges. Travelers filled up the
departure terminal up at Khartoum International Airport as most flights were cancelled.

“We blocked the streets to send a message to those trying to steal our revolution that
they will fail,” Emad Ibrahim, 25, a protester from Khartoum North told the AFP. “It is
a long road ahead for us, but after the sacrifice made by our brothers who have been
killed, we believe that we will achieve our goal.”

The military sought to break the strike movement by blocking social media, cutting off
mobile access to the internet and arresting “essential employees,” including bank
executives and airport and electrical utility workers and forcing them to work at
gunpoint.

Despite this effort at intimidation, workers and professionals expressed their

determination to continue striking until the junta is gone. “We will not go back to work
until the [SPA union] announces the end of the strike,” Ahmad al-Noor, a 46-year-old
private food company employee told Reuters. “Sudan must be governed by a civilian
government.”

“The roadblocks prevented me from reaching the market to buy vegetables," vegetable
vendor Hassan Abdelrahim told the AFP. “This will impact my income, but when I look
at these youngsters who are on the streets since six months, I'm not angry even if I lose
my income.”

A statement released by the SPA declared that the civil disobedience campaign would
continue until “a civilian government announces itself in power on state television.” The
SPA is part of the Forces for Declaration of Freedom and Change (FDFC) civilian
popular opposition alliance, which has been engaged in talks with the TMC over a
transfer of power.

The talks broke down last month over the question of whether a military or civilian
figure would head a joint regime during a three-year transition period to prepare for new
presidential elections.

An effort by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to revive talks between the TMC
and the FDFC coalition were spurned by the military over the weekend, with the arrests
of Mohamed Esmat, director of the Khartoum branch of the Central Bank of Sudan, and
Ismail Jalab, secretary general of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North.
Esmat and Jalab, leading representatives of the FDFC, were detained shortly after
meeting with Ahmed.
The bourgeois and petty-bourgeois elements represented by the FDFC, regardless of
their differences with the TMC, offer no way forward for the workers and poor in
Sudan. A civilian-led transitional government would continue to represent the interests
of the country’s capitalist elite and its enforcers in the military.

With the first day of the general strike, the working class has shown its collective
strength. What is required now is the establishment of independent and democratic
organs of working class struggle to mobilize the working masses in Sudan to take
power, establish a workers’ government and seize the country’s immense wealth as part
of an international struggle for socialism.

This requires the building of a section of the International Committee of the Fourth
International, the World Party of Socialist Revolution, in Sudan. All those who are
serious about taking up the fight for socialism should contact us today.

Copyright © 1998-2019 World Socialist Web Site - All rights reserved

World Socialist Web Site

wsws.org

Military junta launches counter-revolution in Sudan

By Jean Shaoul
6 June 2019

The counter-revolutionary bloodbath launched by the junta in Sudan’s capital Khartoum

and its twin city Omdurman ongoing since Monday has killed some 100 people,
including an eight-year old child, and injured hundreds more.

The number of victims includes 40 bodies pulled from the Nile River that the army
dumped there. But with many protestors still unaccounted for the final total is likely to
rise. A Sudanese journalist on Britain’s Channel 4 cited a former security officer who
said that some of those thrown into the Nile had been beaten or shot to death and others
hacked to death with machetes, declaring, "It was a massacre."

The bloodbath is part of a broader move by the Transitional Military Council (TMC) to
forcefully close down the protests and sit-ins in Khartoum and throughout the country.
The TMC had seized power on April 11 after months of mass protests, in a preemptive
coup against the 30-year rule of President Omar al-Bashir in a bid to preserve the
military-dominated regime.

It is a prelude to a bloody military dictatorship along the lines of General Abdel Fattah
el-Sisi’s Egypt, with the full backing of Washington’s reactionary and ruthless regional
allies, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt. It was el-Sisi, then the
Defence Minister in the elected government of Mohammed Mursi’s Muslim
Brotherhood-led government, who led the murderous assaults on pro-democracy
demonstrators in Cairo in 2013.
On Tuesday, TMC chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, announced the cancellation of
a three-year power-transfer deal tentatively agreed with opposition leaders organized
under the umbrella of the Alliance for Freedom and Change (AFC). Instead, it would
hold elections in nine months’ time under “regional and international supervision.”

The Sudanese Professional Association (SPA), one of the groups within the AFC,
rejected the move, accusing the junta of a “systematic and planned” crackdown. Calling
for the “overthrow of the military junta,” they urged demonstrators to return to the
streets for Eid al-Fitr prayers, marking the end of Ramadan, to honour those killed on
Monday and to “demonstrate peacefully” in a nation-wide “civil disobedience” protest.

The SPA also called for an international inquiry into the killings, rejecting the junta’s
investigation. It is opposed to early elections which, if indeed they are held, would
likely be rigged and/or dominated by ousted dictator President Omar al-Bashir’s
National Congress Party (NCP), the only organised political party with the resources to
mount an election campaign.

On Monday, the TMC had cut off electricity to the central area of Khartoum and
country-wide access to the internet, before deploying convoys of heavily armed
members of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to guard the entrances to the
bridges across the Nile and patrol the streets around both cities.

The RSF, previously known as the Janjaweed and notorious for their brutal suppression
of the uprisings in Darfur and the east of the country, is controlled by the TMC’s deputy
leader, Lieutenant General Hamdan Dagalo (known by his nickname “Hemeti”), who
has ambitions of stepping into al-Bashir’s shoes. He was given carte blanche to unleash
a general carnage.

Dagalo’s forces used live ammunition, stun grenades and tear gas to break up the more
than five-month-old sit-in outside the country’s defense ministry in Khartoum, where
tens of thousands of Sudanese had encamped demanding an end to military rule and the
transfer of power to a democratically elected government. They then set about
demolishing the barricades, beating up anyone who resisted, with protestors shouting in
disbelief, “During the month of Ramadan?”

Videos on social media show the military shooting and beating unarmed, defenceless
civilians and setting fire to the tents. One soldier was filmed shouting to other soldiers,
"Kill them, kill the child of the dog.” There were also reports of the paramilitary forces
raping women.

Much of Khartoum is now under lockdown. One resident told the BBC, “We have
reached the point where we can't even step out of our homes because we are scared to
be beaten or to be shot by the security forces.” Another said members of the Janjaweed
had pulled him from his car and beaten him on his head and back.

The TMC justified its crackdown with ludicrous claims that the security forces were
pursuing “unruly elements” who had fled to the protest site and were causing chaos. The
RSF’s Major General Othman Hamed accused the sit-in of attracting prostitutes and
hashish sellers and demonstrators of throwing stones at soldiers.
The Sudanese Doctors’ Committee, a supporter of the SPA that has played a key role in
organizing the protests, appealed for "urgent support" from international humanitarian
organisations to help the wounded. It said that it was struggling to cope, with people
being treated on hospital floors, while soldiers patrolled outside, preventing doctors and
even volunteers from entering.

According to witnesses, the RSF and the military had looted and destroyed property in
hospitals and threatened doctors and medical workers with reprisals if they treated the
wounded.

Video clips showed troops beating medical staff at Khartoum’s Royal Care Hospital, in
some cases so severely that they too needed hospital treatment. They demanded the
evacuation of all the patients. Soldiers arrested one of the doctors, Waleed Abdullah,
after shooting him in the leg. One Sudanese doctor told the Middle East Eye web site,
“If they know I'm a doctor, they will arrest me,” while another said it was “chaos
everywhere.”

The assault on the protest had been openly prepared for days after negotiations between
the junta and the civilian opposition popular alliance broke down over whether a
military or a civilian figure would head a joint military-civilian regime during a
proposed three-year transitional period in preparation for presidential elections.

Demonstrators had remained in the streets, rejecting the protracted transition and
demanding an immediate end to the ruling junta. Last week, the country was paralysed
by a two-day general strike called by the SPA.

The murderous crackdown began just after the TMC chief al-Burhan and deputy
Dagalo’s tour of the three countries--Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE--that have
backed the junta and are Washington’s chief allies in the Arab world.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE had already pledged $3 billion to prop up Sudan’s junta. The
quid pro quo is the dispatch of Sudanese troops to support Saudi Arabia and the UAE’s
near-genocidal war against Yemen. After the meeting in Riyadh, Dagalo declared that
“Sudan stands with the kingdom against all threats and attacks from Iran and the
Houthis [Yemen’s anti-Saudi rebels].”

The military junta’s brutal crackdown gives the lie to the treacherous line of Britain’s
Socialist Workers Party, which backed its sister party, the Egyptian Revolutionary
Socialists’ (RS) support for the Egyptian military’s ouster of Mursi, that paved the way
for el-Sisi’s bloodbath and repression that have been even more ferocious than that of
his predecessor Hosni Mubarak.

RS’ Hossam al-Hamalawy, writing in SWP’s monthly journal Socialist Review, called
for Sudan’s revolutionaries to negotiate and ally with the lower ranks of the officers and
among soldiers, and seek their participation.

The SPA and AFC, under the influence of the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP), are
seeking to build a broad popular alliance of workers with political parties and armed
groups, the same groups that have dominated Sudan since independence, to form a
civilian-led transitional government. The notion that such a government--in a country
dominated by a small, wealthy clique—would be capable of resolving the enormous
social and economic problems confronting Sudanese workers is a dangerous illusion.

Egypt’s revolutionary struggles contain enormous political lessons, obtained at a terrible

price, for the working class throughout the Middle East and North Africa where there is
a growing movement of strikes and demonstrations by workers in Algeria, Tunisia and
Morocco.

The only way to establish a democratic regime in Sudan is through a struggle led by the
working class, independently of and in opposition to the liberal and pseudo-left forces
in the middle class who will stop at nothing to block a social revolution, to take power,
expropriating the regime’s ill-gotten wealth in the context of a broad international
struggle of the working class against capitalism and for the building of socialism.

Copyright © 1998-2019 World Socialist Web Site - All rights reserved

Resist Sudan’s killer regime

by Charlie Kimber

strikes and protests were beginning in an effort to resist, as Socialist Worker went to
press on Tuesday.

The Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors said 35 people—including an eight year

old—had been killed and hundreds injured.

The toll was likely to rise as not all casualties had been accounted for.

Security forces used heavy weapons to clear a protest camp in the capital Khartoum
early on Monday morning.

The sit-in in front of the army’s general command had become the central symbol of the
struggle for civilian rule after dictator Omar al-Bashir was brought down in April.

Mohammed Elmunir, a protester in Khartoum, said, “They were shooting at everyone

randomly and people were running for their lives.

“They blocked all roads and most tents at the sit-in have been set on fire.”

The head of the ruling Transitional Military Council, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan,
made a broadcast on state television. He said the army had decided to stop negotiating
with the opposition umbrella group, the Alliance for Freedom and Change, and “cancel
what had been agreed on”.

He said there would be an election in nine months under “regional and international
supervision”.
The Sudanese Professionals Association, which has been at the centre of revolt, said, “It
is imperative to go out to the streets to protect the revolution.”

It called for “an open, nationwide, political strike and complete civil disobedience,
beginning on 3 June 2019 and until the regime is overthrown”.

The repression follows a two-day general strike last week.

Ports, air traffic, banks, universities, non-emergency hospital services, power plants,
telecoms, oil refineries, newspapers and many other sectors were largely shut. And a
wide range of workers at private firms struck.

The military had to make further concessions to the movement—or it had to go on the
attack.

The crackdown shows there has to be escalation to force the military from power and
win change.

Stop the massacre in Sudan, Sat 8 June, 1pm, Downing Street, London. Called by the
Alliance of Sudanese Political Forces and Sudanese trade unions in Britain. For

‘We’re organising the revolution’—eyewitness from the Sudanese sit-ins

by Anne Alexander

A month after protests forced out dictator Omar al-Bashir, the fate of Sudan’s revolution
remains on a knife-edge.

Opposition forces called for a major escalation in protests to back up their demands for
a civilian-led government on Saturday. But the Transitional Military Council, the gang
of generals who ditched al-Bashir amid mass protests, has tried to head off moves to
dilute their power.

It’s clear that what they most fear and loathe is the sight of ordinary people organising.
The council’s deputy head, war criminal General Hemedti, said it was willing to
negotiate with opposition groups—but described the mass sit-ins as “chaos”.

Starting with the gigantic sit-in outside the General Command in the capital Khartoum
on 6 April, occupations sprung up in major cities. They have played a crucial role in
building the confidence in ordinary people that a democratic Sudan is possible.

Muawwiyya Ahmed Kessinger is a member of the revolutionary committees at the

General Command sit-in. He told Socialist Worker, “The committees were set up on 6
April, the anniversary of the April Revolution which overthrew the president Ja’afar al
Nimeiry in 1985.
“We needed to organise the ranks of the revolutionaries in order to resist the brutal
repression of the regime while maintaining the peacefulness of the revolution.

“We began to discuss how to make an organised body of revolutionaries. It was

spontaneous at first, but quickly became a more cohesive organisation.”

The sit-ins are a serious threat to the military council—and show how ordinary people
can begin to build new forms of democracy during revolutions.

Muawwiyya described how these volunteer activists work to organise the half a million
or so protesters who gather in the square each evening.

He explained that seven different types of committees coordinate the sit-in. “Firstly we
have Organisation Committees which are responsible for the organisation and
distribution of the members of the other committees,” he said.

The Protection Committees were the first of the revolutionary committees. Muawwiyya
said, “The first committee was formed on 6 April in order to protect the protesters by
running security checkpoints.

“This was to prevent individuals from the regime’s security forces getting access to the
sit-in and causing a disturbance.

“They also set up the barricades.”

The Provisions Committees organise food and drink for protesters and Medical
Committees provide treatment for the injured.

“There are also the Awareness Raising Committees,” said Muawwiyya. “They educate
the protesters about the importance of non-violence in the revolution and about the
rights of the Sudanese people to freedom, peace, justice and democracy.”

Two further committees are responsible for cleaning and coordination.

Political education is a priority for the mass movement. Muawwiyya said, “Since the
first day in the sit-in we have been holding discussion circles.

“They are to raise awareness both of the committee members and all the protesters at
the General Command sit-in. We talk about the importance of peace, the acceptance of
the other and the rejection of racism in all its forms, whether ethnic or religious, and
discrimination against women.

“These have really raised the political awareness of the protesters.”

At the moment the Revolutionary Committees inside the General Command sit-in are
composed of volunteers, rather than being elected bodies.

Yet a recent statement by the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA) proposes an

important role for elected Resistance and Change Committees in local areas. It is the
union that was at the forefront of the mass movement that toppled al-Bashir.
Resistance Committees have appeared in many neighbourhoods and cities to mobilise
support for the protests and then the sit-ins over the past few months. The SPA’s
proposal would see representatives from local Resistance and Change Committees
taking up at 30 percent of the seats in a transitional parliament.

Yet at the same time, the SPA and Alliance for Freedom and Change umbrella group’s
negotiators are also trying to convince the old regime to reform itself from the top.

Civilian

The Transitional Military Council has proposed a presidential council to run the country
until elections in the future. But it is resisting demands to make civilian representatives
the majority on the body.

So the opposition isn’t encouraging workers and civil servants to take matters into their
own hands and purge their workplaces and government institutions of regime officials.
They are first hoping to reach an agreement which will put civilians in charge of the
whole government.

As Muawwiyya explains, “The cleansing campaigns have not yet begun.

“This would distract people from the task of forming a civilian government and limiting
the role of the military in the country.

“Cleansing the state of members of the former regime will be left to the civilian
government.”

One partial, but important, exception is in the police. Muawwiyya said, “A few days ago
there was a police strike—the first in 30 years—and this is a major shift towards
democracy.

“People feel free to express themselves and this is an important step towards purging the
state of all forms of dictatorship.”

The problem with asking generals to reform themselves out of power is that they very
rarely oblige.

Egypt’s reformist Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed, who took office after
dictator Hosni Mubarak was forced out, found that out in 2013. The military stepped in
to restore order and crushed the revolution.

The Sudanese generals know that what’s at stake is more than protecting themselves
from retribution for their crimes.

The upper levels of the army are deeply embedded in Sudan’s economy. They have been
able to seize massive amounts of the state’s wealth and they act as key intermediaries
for powerful regional capitalist interests in the Gulf.
These are all reasons why mass protests on their own are unlikely to tip the balance in
favour of the revolutionaries. But workers have the power to break the regime, and mass
political strikes could really begin to shake it.

They are the best way for the revolutionary movement to widen the splits inside the
army— between the generals, their junior officers and soldiers. And they could pull the
lower ranks openly into defying orders.

Sudanese workers have already begun to show their support for the revolution. On
Saturday in Port Sudan striking workers blockaded the port. And sugar workers at the
Kenana Company began a sit-in outside the military command to demanded action
against their corrupt bosses.

Workers’ councils are a logical next step for revolutionaries in Sudan. These committees
could bring together delegates to plan joint strikes and ensure the distribution of
essential goods and services.

Unlike neighbourhood-based committees, workers’ councils could bring the ports,

railways, telecommunications networks, public services and food production under the
democratic authority of the revolutionary movement.

This would take these sectors out of the hands of the existing state, challenging the
Sudanese regime, and be a force to drive through revolutionary change.

Sudan—a revolt on the brink

Sudan’s rulers are trying to drown an uprising in blood. The assault on the protest camp
in Khartoum last week left at least 110 dead—almost certainly many more.

The Rapid Support Force—hardened killers steeled through years of carrying out
slaughter in the Darfur region—were unleashed to beat, rape and kill. Sit-ins were also
violently dispersed in 13 other cities, with unknown numbers of casualties.

This is a crucial turning-point. Either it will see the victory of ferocious counter-
revolution, or it could lead to the deepening of the revolt, further radicalisation and a
push for fundamental change.

The massacre followed six months of developing protests that began over bread prices
last December.

They grew to such a scale, and became so clearly political, that the military had to
remove dictator Omar al-Bashir who had ruled for 30 years.

The Sudanese military shed the figurehead Bashir, but not the essential elements of the
way he ruled.

The generals’ Transitional Military Council (TMC) that now runs the country wants
Bashirism without Bashir—a heavily militarised regime that relies on divide and rule.
Achieving that has proved very difficult. For nearly two months mass sit-ins saw
hundreds of thousands of ordinary people take a direct part in trying to win civilian rule.

Strikes in individual firms spread to whole industries and then a two-day general strike
on 28 and 29 May. The fear that this power would grow pushed the military to act.

Those who directly seek to reverse change often resort to methods of terror and mass
murder

Whenever a dictator is brought down by mass resistance, or a revolution begins, there

are three broad reactions in society.

One group—those who have profited from the old regime—yearn for the return of the
former system of rule.

In Russia in 1917 the February Revolution overthrew the ruler, the Tsar. Afterwards,
sections of his state entourage, bosses, landlords and military figures looked for an -
opportunity to “restore order”.

In Egypt during the 2011 revolution, toppled dictator Hosni Mubarak’s networks in the
state and industry worked to bring back what had existed before.

Because they have to confront an insurgent people, those who directly seek to reverse
change often resort to methods of terror and mass murder.

They frequently rely on backing from external forces.

Significantly just before the massacre the TMC’s leader and deputy leader visited
Egypt, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates. These are all US and British allies in the
region that tremble at the thought of revolution. They supplied billions of dollars and
weapons to the TMC.

A second group accepts or even rejoices in the passing of the old regime.

But it wants to halt any further developments, do deals with elements of the previous
government and clamp down on any revolutionary methods. In Russia this section
spanned a very big group that clustered around the Provisional Government that
replaced the Tsar’s rule.

In Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood, elected after the fall of Mubarak, undoubtedly
wanted some reforms.

But it was bitterly opposed to a major economic and political restructuring of society.

In Sudan this section is represented by some of those who have been part of the protests.
They wanted the military out, but hoped they could be calmly sidelined by a process of -
negotiations and compromises.
This group saw the strikes and sit-ins as bargaining chips to strengthen the opposition in
talks. The military played along with this, taking the time to regroup after the initial
shock of Bashir’s removal. Then they went back on the offensive.

A third group, always a minority at the start of such processes, wants more than new
faces at the top and a shuffle of the ruling elite.

They demand revolution that smashes the old state and creates a new form of
democratic power.

The Bolsheviks played this role in the Russian revolution, becoming more popular as
the masses learned through harsh experience the role of the liberal compromisers.

The liberals would not end involvement in the First World War or give the land to the
peasants and the factories to the workers.

During periods of deep social crisis, these three groups contend for influence and power.

Workers’ councils are not simply created from wishes and speeches. They flow from the
reality of mass strikes and the need to take over production and distribution

Moving from revolt to revolution requires a force that can organise the defeat of the
military and run society in a new way. There needs to be workers’ councils that involve
elected and accountable representatives from workplaces.

These can act as a focus for and involve other groups that have been prominent in the
revolt. This includes women’s organisations for example, and the movements for -
equality and rights in Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile.

Workers’ councils are not simply created from wishes and speeches. They flow from the
reality of mass strikes and the need to take over production and distribution.

When, for example, bread workers are on strike, how are the workers fed? There has to
be an organisation for workers and the poor to decide democratically how to run the -
bakeries and who gets the bread.

It’s the same with the power plants and the hospitals and all the parts of Sudanese
society.

The sit-ins were not run by workers’ councils. But they included Revolutionary
Committees that, in a rudimentary way, organised security and food distribution and
communications.

The experience of the sit-ins can be a spur to the development of workers’ councils.

There are some hopeful signs. Strikes began immediately after the Khartoum massacre
at six sites of the Petro Energy Oilfield Operations Group in West Kordofan.

Teachers, hospital workers, some airport workers and others are also on strike. Port
Sudan workers have been striking.
And on Sunday, the first day of the working week, millions of people ijoined a general
strike despite a wave of arrests and intimidation?.

Shops were closed and streets were empty throughout the capital, Khartoum, and in the
neighbouring Omdurman.

There have been mass demonstrations against the military in several cities. With great
bravery groups of young people in Khartoum have been building barricades to block the
RSF.

The refusal of the revolution to die has unnerved the military. General Abdel Fattah al-
Burhan, head of the ruling military council, said two days after the massacre that he was
prepared to resume negotiations without precondition with the opposition.

General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, leader of the murderous RSF announced a “fair and
independent” investigation into the sit-in killings.

He promised that anyone who “crossed boundaries” will be punished—presumably -

starting with himself.

There has to be an attempt to split the armed forces. There are signs of the potential to
achieve this.

To turn potential into reality requires political leadership

Channel 4 journalist Yousra Elbagir interviewed a member of the intelligence agency

who had defected to the side of the revolution.

He told her that regular soldiers were disarmed and removed from near the sit-in site
before the massacres and replaced by the RSF.

In other words the generals were unsure of the loyalties of sections of regular soldiers—
who certainly might baulk at mass murder of protesters.

A determined revolutionary movement could persuade at least some of the army—

staffed largely by conscripts—to mutiny, and neutralise others.

Such revolts would provide the means to defend a revolution from the RSF.

There must be no more talks and deals with the military.

A dictatorship that has ruled for 30 years has penetrated into every area of life, and
created networks of privilege and control.

There has to be a thoroughgoing clearing-out of all aspects of the military in Sudanese

society. The potential and the hunger for this has already been seen in Sudan.

When workers at the Sudanese Electricity Distribution Company in Khartoum struck

last month one of their demands was dismissing the general manager and his deputy.
Teachers in West Darfur who have been striking for weeks said they wanted to “exclude
the figures of the former regime from decision making and dissolve the trade unions -
established by the former regime.”

To turn potential into reality requires political leadership.

It is precisely at such moments that a revolutionary party, located in all the sections of
the exploited and oppressed is necessary to chart a way forward and defeat the politics
of those who want to half-make a revolution.

After General Kornilov attempted to murder the Russian revolution, Leon Trotsky
wrote, “A revolution needs from time to time the whip of the counter-revolution”. He
meant that the revolution radicalised because people had seen the true face of the ruling
class.

Our solidarity goes to those fighting for revolution in Sudan.

Sudan: the counter-revolution strikes

Hamid Alizadeh and Fred Weston
06 June 2019
The Sudanese Revolution has been an inspiration to workers, women and youth around
the world. The women in particular have revealed tremendous revolutionary potential.
All that was progressive in Sudanese society emerged to show the world that society can
be changed. But there was also a darker side and this has now reared its ugly head in the
most brutal manner possible. Why is this happening?
Since Monday, social media has been flooded with videos and pictures of reactionary
RSF militiamen ravaging Khartoum. Packed on the back of pickup trucks or on foot in
groups, armed militiamen have been stopping people at random, tearing down
barricades, looting shops and beating up or flogging protestors and raping countless
women. At the same time, the Transitional Military Council (TMC), breaking off talks
with the opposition, has announced a transitional government and elections within nine
months.
Counter-revolution never wastes time. Since the beginning of their counter-offensive
yesterday morning, groups of gunmen, spearheaded by Rapid Support Forces (RSF)
militiamen, have been relentlessly targeting anyone resembling revolutionaries in
Sudan’s capital, Khartoum. At least 100 have reportedly been killed and hundreds more
wounded so far, although the real figures are probably much higher. Many of the bodies
have been thrown in the Nile, as part of a campaign to terrorise the masses.
There have also been several reports of women being raped by armed gangs openly on
the streets. According to one report, militiamen raided a medical clinic, raping the
practitioners and beating up everyone else. This is clearly intended as a message to all
those Sudanese women who dared come out and challenge a system that has condemned
them to the most abject oppression for generations. The more powerful and widespread
a revolution is, the more bloody and brutal must the counter-revolution be to put an end
to it.
Barbarism of the Junta
The leaders of the Junta know full well that the revolution had unleashed powerful
forces from within the mass of the population, who have come to realise their own
strength. They therefore need to strike as hard as possible before the revolution has a
chance to reorganise. Their aim is to terrorise, disorientate and demoralise the
movement, before it has a chance to find its feet again.
All of this was evidently carefully planned weeks ahead, as militiamen slowly increased
their presence throughout the city. Channel 4 journalist Yousra Elbagir has a very
interesting series of tweets where she quotes from conversations with a defected
member of the intelligence agency:
“Finally got in touch my intelligence source (a defected NISS officer) he says:
"‘This is all a planned attack by the RSF, NISS, People's Police militia, People's
Security Militia, Defence Miltia, Student Security Militia & AbdelHai Islamist Militia.
They were a force of 10,000.’"
“He asked me what the published death toll is currently (he has no access to internet
due to the blackout)
“When I said 40 people, he sighed and said:
"That's not even a quarter of the number of people killed."
“He says, ‘some people were beaten to death and thrown in the Nile, some shot
multiple times and thrown in the Nile and others were hacked with machetes and thrown
in the Nile. It was a massacre.’
“He says, when the forces entered the sit-in site, they entered the make-shift clinic
and raped two female doctors.
“He says the forces then turned to the tea ladies and started beating them. They yelled
‘civilian or military?’ at them as they beat them.
“He says that the army was withdrawn from the site from 4pm on Sunday. The orders
for them to withdraw came from the Transitional Military Council.
“The army vehicles guarding the entrances were replaced with Rapid Support Forces
vehicles. (...)
“He has seen army soldiers in tears. Mid-ranking officers & below have told him that
the Transitional Military Council does not represent them.
“There were higher orders to strip the army of their weapons four days ago. Some
have broken into weapon warehouses & found them empty.”
At the same time as this dirty operation is being carried out, the TMC has announced
that it is implementing a transitional government and organising elections within nine
months. Clearly, this is aimed at undermining the political alternative proposed by the
leadership of the movement, which had been insisting on a minimum three-year (!)
transitional period under a “technocratic government”. The problem with this demand is
that it did not satisfy the needs of the masses who desire democracy now, not in three or
four years’ time.
The demand for a three-year period originally came when the regime was raising the
idea of a four-year period. By offering swift elections, the TMC is now cleverly trying
to paint itself as being even more democratic than the Sudanese Professional
Association (SPA), which has been the leading force behind the revolution so far.
They are also attempting to isolate the most radical and revolutionary layers of the
movement. Tellingly, the Ummah party, a semi-legal bourgeois Islamist party which
until now was a part of the SPA-led Forces for Freedom and Change (FFS), has shown
signs of reconciliation with the regime and has come out in support of the coming
elections. This merely goes to reveal their true face as a conservative, anti-revolutionary
loyal opposition of the old regime.
With power in the hands of the TMC, however, there will never be fully open and
democratic elections. If elections were to be organised this would come only after the
ruling clique had carefully manoeuvred and manipulated them, in order to guarantee
their total grip on power. It would be elections with a crushed opposition, with total
control of the media and the legal and justice systems in the hands of the TMC designed
to benefit Hemeti, Burhan and all the rest of the reactionary forces.
The core of the counter-revolution is made up of various reactionary militias, in
particular the RSF, which reportedly has thousands of armed troops in Khartoum,
recruited from criminal and backward tribal layers. These young men, often in their
early teens, are recruited from the lowest, most downtrodden and illiterate layers of
society and shaped into rabid reactionaries. It is revealing of the hypocrisy of the
western powers such as the US and Britain, who are crying crocodile tears over these
events, while the RSF is in fact the key mercenary force fighting in the US and British-
backed and Saudi-led assault on Yemen. Apart from Yemen, many RSF soldiers have
participated in the atrocities in Darfur and elsewhere in Sudan. Today, these men are the
shock troops of the counter-revolution, rabid dogs unleashed to “clear the decks” for the
ruling class to re-establish its rule.
Furthermore, there are rural kingpins, tribal chiefs and other similar figures that Hemeti
has been campaigning amongst, who provide him with foot soldiers. These privileged
layers are terrified of the revolution because they see it as a direct challenge to their
barbaric and primitive form of rule. Hemeti has been building up support amongst these
conservative traditional layers, presenting himself as a defender of “order and tradition”
against the “atheist” and reckless radicals involved in the revolution. Finally, the
counter-revolution is backed by Egypt and Saudi Arabia, whose ruling classes are
equally terrified by the power of the revolution, which was becoming an inspiration
throughout the region.
Revolution stalls, reaction takes the initiative
The Sudanese Revolution has been one of the strongest and certainly the best-organised
in the recent history of the region. The bravery of the Sudanese masses, with the heavily
oppressed women at the forefront, has been an inspiration for the working masses
everywhere. The SPA in particular has played a pivotal role, organising radical action
and attempting to broaden the struggle. The heroism of the people heading the SPA
cannot be underestimated
However, one thing has been lacking, and that was a real plan of how to move forward.
While it is true that the revolution completely overwhelmed the ruling class, technically,
the movement did not overthrow Omar al-Bashir. This was the key moment where the
SPA could have organised a widespread general strike movement, appealed to the army
ranks to come to its side on an organised basis, and taken power peacefully without any
bloodshed!
Instead, the TMC, which stepped into the vacuum of power that was created, removed
Bashir and snatched victory out of the hands of the masses. The main reason this was
possible was that the SPA leaders did not have any concrete plan for taking power.
Following the fall of Bashir, the SPA did not offer any alternative other than to negotiate
with the TMC, which consisted of people from Bashir’s regime.
Why, we must ask, was it necessary to negotiate with the TMC? What role did it play in
the revolution? The fact is that the only role the forces behind the TMC ever played was
to play for time and attack the revolution. In spite of this, the SPA accepted many of the
TMC’s demands, such as retaining their hold over the armed forces and the ministry of
defence.
During the “negotiations”, it was abundantly clear that the TMC was not interested in
reaching any sort of agreement. Instead, it was playing for time until it finally left the
negotiation table on 15 May after the protests had been attacked by RSF forces and
several people had been killed. And still, the SPA leaders did not point to any new way
out than the negotiations.
Last week, as we have reported, the movement reached its highest point when the SPA
organised a massive general strike. This was the first, properly organised political
general strike for years and it clearly put the question of power on the agenda.
Throughout the country, it was clear that a dual power situation had developed, with the
state and the SPA competing for control. In fact, all the main ministries were following
the SPA lead during the strike, as were other sectors such as the airline workers, port
workers and so on. The working class and poor had risen up.
At that point, to issue a call for the army ranks to organise and join the movement,
linking up soldiers’ and workers’ committees on a national level and taking over the key
strategic infrastructure of the country, would have been a relatively easy operation and it
could have led to a relatively peaceful transition. Reactionary militias such as the RSF
could easily have been disarmed by the armed masses, backed by the rank-and-file
soldiers.
Instead, what happened was the strike was brought to an end, with the SPA threatening
to possibly follow it up with another general strike. For two months since the fall of
Bashir, the masses have been kept mobilised on the streets with no clear plan of action.
In their eyes, even finally organising a very powerful and successful political general
strike, did not lead to any concrete gains. At such a juncture, demoralisation can begin
to set in, in particular among the petit-bourgeois and more politically backward layers.
Having reached such a point, you either go forward or you step back; you cannot stand
still.
Revolution must defeat the counter-revolution!
As Leon Trotsky explained in his Military Writings:
“...if the premises for revolution are present, that is, if a revolutionary situation exists,
if there is a class which is interested in revolution and which constitutes a decisive
force, but there is not a party, an organisation that can lead it, or if this party is weak, if
it lacks a clear plan, then the most favourable revolutionary situation can end in failure."
(...)
“A revolution is a combination of gigantic events, a revolution cannot be appointed
for a certain moment, one cannot allocate roles in it beforehand: but when a
revolutionary situation has been created, the revolutionary class is then confronted with
a practical task: ‘Take power!’ (...) If the moment is let slip, the situation may alter
radically, and the disintegration may set in among the ranks of the revolutionary class,
with loss of confidence in their own strength..." (The International Situation and the Red
Army, IV. The Events in Germany in the Autumn of 1923)
This is what we risk seeing now in Sudan. The fact is that, while the counter-revolution
prepared, the revolution did not. Hemeti has spent the past months building up a
political base, consolidating it as an enemy of the revolution, preparing it for the taking
of power. Meanwhile, the SPA refused to build a party and declared itself a non-political
force! Hemeti kept his control of the arms, while the SPA refused to arm the protesters,
even when they knew an assault was coming. The SPA was presented with several
opportunities to take power, but failed to do so. Hemeti then stepped in decisively,
wielding all of his forces to strike a decisive and powerful blow against the revolution
as soon as he saw the moment was right.
Clearly, the aim of the men of the old regime is to put an end to the Sudanese
Revolution, which in their view they have tolerated for long enough. They were
terrorised by the power of the general strike, but they are also astute enough to see that
the revolution had reached a point where it did not know where to go next. They saw
their chance and moved quickly and decisively. The initiative moved from the
revolution to the counter-revolution. We have seen this many times in history. The best
of opportunities, as Trotsky explained, can be lost.
One of Franco’s senior generals in Spain after the defeat of the revolution in the 1930s
declared, “It is necessary to spread terror. We have to create the impression of mastery,
eliminating without scruples or hesitation all those who do not think as we do.” These
words explain what is presently happening today in Sudan.
The power was there for the taking last week, but who was there to raise that slogan?
The leadership issued appeals to keep everything "peaceful", thereby disarming the
movement and handing it over to the butchers of the old regime who are very happy to
have such "peace"!
We are not yet, however, at the end of the Sudanese Revolution. The present repression
could prove to be the whip of the counter-revolution that spurs on the revolution. What
happens in the coming days will show which way it is going to go. It is also difficult to
judge the real mood on the ground. The internet has been blocked by the regime, a
measure clearly aimed at stopping the movement from organising, but also at stopping
news spreading. There are some reports of sporadic protests in the neighbourhoods of
the capital and in other cities, but there are also reports of the brutal repression
spreading to other parts of the country.
The heroic and courageous masses of Sudan have shown the world once again – as their
brothers and sisters in Egypt and Tunisia did in 2011 – that the most despotic of regimes
can be brought down once the working people rise up. They have answered the cynics
and sceptics who are always ready to point the finger at the “low consciousness of the
masses”. It is “low” until – dialectically – it becomes high. The pent-up anger of the
masses sooner or later bubbles to the surface and when it does it seems to take everyone
by surprise. For the Marxists, however, there is no surprise, for we look deep below the
surface at the molecular processes going on among the downtrodden masses.
The point, however, is that it is not enough for the anger to come to the surface. Once
the masses set out on the road to revolution, they require a leadership that is up to the
tasks posed by the situation. This is lacking in Sudan. And now the masses are paying a
heavy price. The counter-revolution has struck.
We are not ready to hold the requiem of the revolution yet. The masses have shown
enormous resilience, and they could yet rise up and strike back. What must be done is to
put aside all illusions that the revolution can negotiate with its hangmen. It is either the
victory of the revolution or defeat at the hands of the counter-revolution. There is no
middle road.

Sudan: the whip of the counter-revolution spurs on the revolution

Fred Weston
10 June 2019
The number of casualties at the hands of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia in
Sudan, after they clamped down on the protests last week, has reached 113. But if the
people at the top who ordered this butchery thought it would quell the revolt of the
Sudanese people, they clearly miscalculated.
The counter-revolution has been manoeuvring to try and create a situation of apparent
breakdown in social order, using criminal gangs pretending to be revolutionaries. This is
a means of provoking open conflicts in which the RSF could step in and claim to be
restoring law and order. But these manoeuvres have also failed, as the people can see
straight through them for what they are. They are not falling for the provocations, but
instead have been stepping up the movement.
In a statement issued on Friday, the SPA (Sudanese Professional Association) alerted the
Sudanese public to these dirty tactics being used by the TMC in its desperate attempt to
cause the general strike and the civil disobedience to fail, and called for mass civil
disobedience and a further general strike.
Regime’s internal divisions
Faced with this mass reaction, the regime is revealing its internal divisions. These were
already present and they were the classic divisions present in all revolutions. One wing
of the ruling class tends towards greater repression, as it views giving concessions as
merely strengthening the resolve of the revolution. The other wing highlights the fact
that to increase repression when a revolution is on the rise merely serves to harden its
resolve. The point is: they are both right and both wrong at the same time. Whatever
they do, the revolution is on the rise.
It seems, however, that the hard-line wing may have moved too early. Their brutal
repression has even had effects within the ranks of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF),
sections of which were disgusted by what they witnessed being carried out by the RSF.
Many rank-and-file soldiers, but also officers, were saying they were not represented by
the TMC regime. There are even reports coming out of SAF forces intervening to
protect protestors from the militiamen.
Such events will be a warning to the men at the top of the TMC (Transitional Military
Council) presently in power, in effect the old regime minus al-Bashir. Let us not forget
that the TMC has at its disposal some brutal military forces. The RSF under the
command of General Mohamed Dagalo (“Hemeti”) was forged out of the infamous
Janjaweed militias who carried out mass killings in Darfur. There is no limit to the
brutality these forces are prepared to unleash on the Sudanese people. The only thing
that can stop them is a mass mobilisation that wins over the rank-and-file soldiers in the
process. There are also the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) that carry
out similar atrocities to the RSF, and other reactionary militia groups linked to the old
National Congress Party.
If the regime pushes the situation too far with the use of these forces, however, they
could provoke a reaction of those layers within the ranks of the army who sympathise
with the revolution. This confirms what we have said in a previous article. Had the
leadership of the revolution issued a call to bring down the TMC immediately via an all-
out general strike, with appeals to the ranks of the army, these would have come over
and the revolution would have been armed. But no such call has been issued.
On the contrary, to this day, in spite of the brutality of the regime, the leaders of the
opposition continue to issue calls for peaceful protest! Therefore, the instinctive
solidarity of the rank-and-file soldiers remains as potential, but is not transformed into
active support for the revolution. For soldiers to break ranks and turn against the state,
they need to be sure that the revolution is prepared to go all the way. Unless that
happens, the regime will do its best to keep them in their barracks, thus maintaining the
balance of physical force in favour of the RSF and the other counter-revolutionary
security forces.
General strike prepared
On Friday, after prayers, people coming out of different mosques around the country
organised big demonstrations. In some cases, the mosques where pro-regime speeches
had been made were boycotted. The people were calling for the overthrow of the ruling
junta and among their slogans was the call for another general strike.
A general strike was then prepared for yesterday, Sunday 9 June, and is now ongoing.
The Alliance for Freedom and Change (AFC) [also referred to as the FFC, Forces for
Freedom and Change] of which the Sudanese Professionals’ Association is a key
component, together with trade union organisations, called on people to stay away from
work, bringing the capital and all main cities and ports in the country to a standstill,
involving millions of people. The SPA has posted photos that reveal that Khartoum
international airport has been totally paralysed. The same has happened at the Central
Bank, where many of the staff have stayed away from work.
Reports indicate that bank workers, doctors, airport workers, pilots, electrical engineers
and other sectors have been on the receiving end of the security forces’ attempts to
break the strike. Hundreds of workers and protestors have been arrested. The BBC has
published reports of security forces using tear-gas and live ammunition to break up
demonstrations and disperse protesters setting up barricades in Khartoum. In spite of
this, the strike seems to be holding. The TMC, on the other hand, is hoping the general
strike will not last long. Whether their hopes will be met, we will see in the coming
days.
For now, reports from around the country indicate that the movement is on the rise
again. In Ed Damazin, in the Blue Nile state, the local resistance committees are
blocking roads despite the militias attempting to stop them. In El Gadaref, similar
preparations have been underway. The AFC in El Obeid in North Kordofan has held
mass rallies, with a large response from the local resistance committees, and widespread
participation in the strike. Port Sudan Airport is also on strike, as are also the port
workers. The railway workers’ union in Atbara has also organised a strike.
Attempts at mediation
The Ethiopian prime minister, Abiy Ahmed – no doubt expressing the concerns of his
imperialist masters – rushed to Khartoum on Friday in an attempt to calm the situation
down. He met with two opposition leaders, with the aim of getting them to resume
negotiations with the TMC, something easier said than done in the present conditions,
when the masses are calling for the downfall of the regime. Abiy’s role is to mediate
between the opposition and the regime, but is finding it difficult when the two
opposition leaders were promptly arrested by the regime after they had met with the
Ethiopian premier.
Faced with such a widespread mass reaction, sections within the regime itself, however,
may be thinking that they might have to temporarily retreat and return to the strategy of
playing for time. So-called “international observers” (i.e. US and European
imperialism), the Egyptian and Saudi regimes and other interested parties in the region
have also been putting pressure on the TMC to back off and return to the negotiating
table. China also has a stake in the country, being one of the major trading partners of
Sudan, holding for a 40 percent share in the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating
Company for instance, and also selling Sudan small weapons, which have been used in
the various internal conflicts in the recent period. The Chinese regime will undoubtedly
be intervening behind the scenes to stabilise the country.
Resilience of the revolution
The revolution is proving to be far more resilient than the men of the old regime had
imagined, however. This is because they do not understand what is driving the
revolution. Official unemployment stands at around 20 percent; over 45 percent of the
population lives below the poverty line; inflation stands at over 30 percent; public debt
is more than 120 percent of GDP; external debt stands at over US$60bn; a third of
Sudanese children are considered underweight. There are chronic shortages of bread,
petrol, diesel and cash. The collapse of the local currency in the recent period, with the
Sudanese pound dropping from 26 to almost 100 to the USD in one year alone, in effect
wiped out the middle class, not to speak of the devastating effects on the poor masses,
both urban and rural. On top of this, we have to add years of corruption,
mismanagement and sanctions on the economy imposed by imperialism.

All this eventually left the people of Sudan with nothing – and so, nothing to lose – and
they took to the streets, demanding an end to the old regime. This is an element that no
amount of manoeuvring by the TMC can magic away.
Thus, although they have come out with brutal violence, they have not finished off the
revolution. Last week’s vicious clampdown may have temporarily emptied the streets,
but it has proven to be a pyrrhic victory.
So where do we go from here? The counter-revolution may have to change tactics.
Some of the men of the old regime may have to be removed if they wish to restore a
“dialogue” with the opposition. They could do this by blaming “extreme elements”
within the RSF – who have done the dirty work for them – and give the military a
greater role in the process. This could involve heaping all the blame on RSF leader,
Hemeti.
Then they could adopt the Egyptian model, which was to first use the Muslim
Brotherhood to cut across the revolution before power could be placed back firmly in
the hands of the military. There is such an organisation in Sudan, the National Umma
Party, which is part of the opposition, but in reality is the Trojan horse of the regime
within the opposition movement. It is a Muslim Brotherhood type of loyal opposition,
which was semi-legal before.
Here is a statement of the Ummah Party leader that they tweeted yesterday:
“1) The continual exchange of escalations between the Opposition Alliance (Freedom
& Change Announcement) + TMC will harm the country.
“2) There is still a chance for a peaceful way out; especially with Abiye Ahmed’s
involvement & the suspension of Sudan from the African Union.
“3) There is a strong need for a recognised international body to investigate the
violent circumstances & crimes.
“4) It’s not right to continue a civil disobedience without a timeframe.”
These people are still a part of the opposition. The role of such organisations is to
pretend to be with the revolution, while constantly holding it back. The problem is that
the SPA, in spite of its radicalism, refuses to break with them, even though they
sabotage the movement at all stages.
The truth is that parties like the Ummah Party will exploit the fact that they were a kind
of semi-opposition to the regime in the past – in reality tolerated by the regime, as the
Muslim Brotherhood was in Egypt – to step in when and if elections are held, in an
attempt to fill the vacuum. Whether they will achieve this is another matter, but that is
their aim. Even if they did not win an outright majority, they could emerge as a
sufficiently large force to hold back any radical elements that could emerge.
Let us not forget that Sudan is still a very underdeveloped country, with only 34 percent
of the total population living in urban areas, with the remaining 66 percent in the rural
areas. In such conditions, unless the revolution resolutely moves forward, the initiative
can pass to more reactionary forces, who would dress in the clothes of the revolution in
order to derail it. This is what happened in Egypt.
Counter-revolution biding its time
Thus, the counter-revolution could be forced to bide its time, put to one side some of the
uglier and more-exposed elements from within its ranks, and present its more
“reasonable” figures. This would be a counter-revolution in “democratic clothing”. If
this were allowed to take place, the country would end up with some form of
government, coalition or otherwise, made up of forces that would preserve the essence
of the old regime, the private property of the means of production, of the land, etc.,
which would not solve any of the pressing problems the masses want addressed.
If this doesn’t work, then they can always play the ethnic card. The 43 million
population is 70 percent Sudanese Arab, with the remaining 30 percent being Arabized
ethnic groups of Beja, Copts, Nubians and other peoples. There are also close to 600
tribes in Sudan who speak more than 400 dialects and languages. And although 97
percent of the population adheres to Islam, the vast majority of which are Sunni, these
are divided among different forms of Sufism. There is also a small Shia minority,
mainly in Khartoum. Such divisions can be exploited, as they were in Syria and Libya,
to split the people and push the country towards barbarism.
This is not the immediate perspective, but the warnings are there. If the revolution is
derailed, the RSF would have no scruples in unleashing the bloodiest of civil wars if
this served the purpose of keeping in power the privileged elite of Sudan.
Sudan Rev Image fair useThe executioners are waiting. The Sudanese masses must not
let them get the upper hand / Image: fair use
To avoid such possible future scenarios, the revolution must move forward. Last week it
received a serious warning of what could happen in the future. The counter-revolution
reared its ugly head. The masses, recognising what it represents, have reacted
courageously. But courage alone is not enough. The masses want an end to corruption,
to privilege, to the unjust distribution of wealth, to poverty and unemployment. None of
this can be ended if capitalism survives in Sudan. The country will remain subject to
imperialist domination and its wealth will be sucked out, vampire-like.
The opposition should first break with the false friends who are simply waiting to stab it
in the back when the moment is right. Then they should build on the general strike,
bring together all the resistance committees under one body with elected delegated from
all the workplaces and neighbourhoods, extending these committees to the ranks of the
army, winning over the soldiers, and they should then declare themselves as the
government of the country and take power. By doing so, they would offer the masses a
concrete way out of the present impasse. It is either this or the slow death of the
revolution. The executioners are waiting. The Sudanese masses must not let them get
the upper hand.

Algerian students retying the knot of history

Anass Rahimi
04 June 2019
Sunday 19 May marked a new turning point in the Algerian Revolution, which is still
growing day by day, when tens of thousands of students hit the streets of Algiers calling
for a real change.
The student’s assembly took place in front of the central university in Algiers, where
they decided to organise a march towards the headquarters of the National People's
Assembly (the Algerian parliament), but the forces of repression intervened brutally to
prevent them, leaving many wounded and detaining many others.
The students then walked to the Central Post Square, which has been the meeting point
of all rallies since the beginning of the revolutionary movement. There they staged a sit-
in in and raised slogans condemning repression and demanding the overthrow of the
dictatorship, the departure of all figures of the old regime, calling for all power to the
people.
Revolutionary traditions
This protest is not the first of its kind. Since the beginning of the current revolutionary
movement, on 22 February, the Algerian students have been demonstrating every
Tuesday. But what distinguished (19 May was its coinciding with the “National Day of
the Algerian student”, which was an important development in the contemporary history
of Algeria, dating to the memory of the students’ mass and organised participation in the
Algerian Revolution, 63 years ago. This means that students have begun to re-tie the
threads of history to connect the present with the past.
Algerian students had participated decisively in the Algerian Revolution against French
colonialism, especially when they decided on 19 May 1956 to strike, leaving their
universities and high schools to join the ranks of the revolution inside and outside
Algeria.
The most important thing they gave to the revolution at the time was ideas. Once they
participated in it, they gave a qualitative boost to the revolutionary media. "The students
took responsibility for the media service during the revolution, such as the radio, the
publication of newspapers and brochures such as ‘the revolution’, ‘the voice of the
mountain’, ‘the war’, ‘the resistance of Algeria’, ‘Al-Mujahid’ and others," said Ahmed
Mariouche in his research about the Algerian student movement (p. 352).
Al-Mujahid pointed out that the Algerian student entered "the field of struggle either in
the mountains as army soldiers, political commissioners, nurses or teachers, who
showed the citizens the general rules necessary for life, from health matters to reading
and writing..." (p.367).
Captain Mohammed Saiki asserts in his memoirs that "the high school student’s strike
on 18 May 1956 enabled the continuation of the revolution” (p. 335).
It should be noted that the internationalist dimension of the struggle was very present
for them as an important priority. The Algerian student unions issued appeals to the
peoples of the world, including the French, to inform them of the objectives of the
revolution and the crimes of the French imperialism. They called for international
solidarity with the Algerian people. This was confirmed by the Al-Mujahid newspaper,
which spoke of the revolutionary students, who "roam the countries of the world
explaining to their peoples the reality of the Algerian revolution, whose image the
colonial propaganda spends great sums of money to distort..." (p. 368)
That is precisely what the current revolutionary movement needs from the students now.
It needs ideas, a revolutionary programme and an internationalist attitude. The
revolutionary masses today know clearly what they don’t want: they don’t want the
ruling gang to continue in power, they don’t want dictatorship, corruption, austerity,
poverty and unemployment. This is evident in the slogans raised in the demonstrations.
But they don’t know exactly what they want: they don’t know what the alternative is
and they don’t have a clear programme to transform society. And herein lies the vital
role that the student movement can play.
Students and workers: unite and fight!
For today's Algerian students to merit their glorious history, to be at the level of the
expectations of the revolutionary movement and the historic tasks facing them today,
they must organise themselves democratically, so that the student masses have the right
to elect and control their representatives. It is necessary to form student councils and
strike committees in all universities and high schools, and coordinate them at the local
and national levels.
They must also create an effective and permanent link with the working class. They
should go to the working class in the workplaces and the poor neighbourhoods and unite
their struggles with them. They have to invite workers and trade union activists to
universities and student assemblies, to learn from them and teach them. The working
class is, in the final analysis, the only revolutionary class that has the power to eradicate
the existing system. They are the real producers of wealth and without their work no
wheel can turn and no machine can move.
1920px Manifestation contre le 5e mandat de Bouteflika Blida Image Fethi
HamlatiStudents played a key role in Algeria's revolutionary history. Now they will
define its future / Image: Fethi Hamlati
Reformists frequently talk about "civilian government", "political freedom", and so
forth. But they do not say a word about who monopolises the wealth and who owns the
big companies, banks, land, oil revenues, etc. Our reply to them is what Lenin said a
long time ago: “Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in
ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners.”  and “No amount of political
freedom will satisfy the hungry masses”.
Therefore, the revolution should not stop at the introduction of some reforms to the
capitalist system, but must eradicate it through the nationalisation of the banks, big
companies, mines, land and run them under the democratic control of the councils of
workers and poor peasants.
The real cause of poverty, unemployment and dictatorship is the capitalist system itself.
Therefore, if we really want to eliminate those injustices and bring about a radical and
lasting change in the living and working conditions of the Algerian people, we must
adopt a revolutionary socialist program.
For socialist revolution in Algeria
The workers of the world, and especially the workers of Sudan, Morocco, Tunisia,
Egypt and the Middle East, are very sympathetic to the Algerian Revolution and salute
its victories. The student movement should give the international dimension the
importance it deserves, and send international calls to the workers of the region and the
world to show solidarity with the Algerian Revolution and follow its example.
Last, but not least, they must learn from the revolutionary experiences of the region in
recent years, especially Egypt, in which revolutionary movements have been defeated
despite the great heroism shown by the working class and revolutionary youth. The
most important reason for these defeats was the absence of revolutionary leadership,
such as the party that led the Russian Revolution 100 years ago to overthrow the mighty
tsarist regime and state, and established the first workers' state in history.
The students, as Lenin told the Russian students before the Revolution of 1905, should
"make it the prime object of their activities to imbue their members with an integral and
consistent socialist world outlook and give them a thorough acquaintance with
Marxism, [...] they should beware of those false friends of the youth who divert them
from a thorough revolutionary training [...]”
They must now begin without delay to build Marxist circles closely linked to the
struggles of youth and workers, so that the Algerian working class has the party it
deserves.
In this way, and only in this way, the Algerian student movement will be able today to
provide a qualitative addition to the current revolutionary movement and give it a push
forward towards the final and complete victory over the gang’s regime and over
capitalism.