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SUDAN’S FOREIGN MINISTRY has urged the international community to back the country’s new military rulers to help “democratic transition”.
“The ministry of foreign affairs is looking forward to the international community to understand the situation and to support the transitional military council … in order to achieve the Sudanese goal of democratic transition,” the ministry said in a statement
Sudanese protest organisers have presented demands to the country’s new military rulers, urging the creation of a civilian government.
Thousands remained outside Khartoum’s army headquarters overnight to keep up the pressure on a military council that took power after ousting veteran leader Omar al-Bashir on Thursday.
A 10-member delegation representing the protesters delivered their demands during talks with the council late last night, according to a statement by the Alliance for Freedom and Change umbrella group.
“We will continue… our sit-in until all our demands are met,” including the formation of a fully civilian government, said one of the alliance’s leaders, Omar al-Degier.
The group insists on civilian representatives joining the military council and on the creation of a fully civilian government to run day-to-day affairs.
Later today, the military council is due to hold meetings with several political parties, state media reported.
“We surely want our demands to be met, but both sides will have to be flexible to reach a deal,” said a demonstrator who spent the night at the army complex.
Talks between protest leaders and Sudan’s new rulers were followed today by a meeting between Washington’s top envoy to Khartoum, Steven Koutsis, and the military council’s deputy.
Mohammad Hamdan Daglo, widely known as Himeidti, told Koutsis “about the measures taken by the military council to preserve the security and stability of the country,” the official SUNA news agency reported.
Himeidti is a field commander for the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) counter-insurgency unit, which rights groups have accused of abuses in the war-torn Darfur region.
Burhan talks the talk
Yesterday, the new chief of the military council General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan vowed to dismantle Bashir’s regime, lifting a night-time curfew with immediate effect.
Burhan also pledged that individuals implicated in killing protesters would face justice and that protesters detained under a state of emergency imposed by Bashir during his final weeks in power would be freed.
Burhan took the oath of office on Friday after his predecessor General Awad Ibn Ouf stepped down little more than 24 hours after ousting Bashir.
Tens of thousands of people have massed outside the army headquarters since April 6, initially to urge the military to back their demand that Bashir be removed.
But while celebrating the fall of both men in quick succession, protesters remain cautious.
Degier said their demands include restructuring the country’s feared National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS), whose chief Salih Ghosh resigned yesterday.
Amnesty International urged the military council to examine Ghosh’s actions during a crackdown against protesters during the final weeks of Bashir’s rule.
Gulf allies voice support
The newly formed 10-member transitional council contains several faces from Bashir’s regime.
Yesterday evening, the new military ruler named NISS deputy head Jalaluddin Sheikh to the council, with Himeidti as its deputy head.
Key regional power-brokers Saudi Arabia and the UAE voiced backing for the transitional council.
Saudi Arabia has promised an aid package, the Saudi Press Agency reported. Sudan is part of a UAE and Saudi-led military coalition fighting Iran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen.
That marked a dramatic shift by Khartoum, which aligned itself with the Gulf Arab monarchies at the expense of close ties with their arch-rival Iran.
The International Criminal Court has longstanding arrest warrants against Bashir for suspected war crimes during the regime’s brutal campaign of repression in Darfur, where a decade-and-a-half of conflict has killed 300,000 people.
Amnesty demanded Saturday the deposed president be handed over to the Court. But the military council has said it would never extradite Bashir or any other Sudanese citizen.
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I still can’t fold a shirt.
I still don’t know what a tracker mortgage is
Who’s taking the horse to France?
……..She swallowed the origami robot to catch the fly,
I don’t know why she swallowed the fly,
Perhaps she’ll die. :-)
Are those my feet?
What’s the bets they’ll have to send a robot in to retrieve a stuck robot….:-D
Guys ,get used to it ,you are ALL going to be MICRO CHIPPED in the very near future .Accept your Medicine or it will be Forced into your Body. TIME TO EXIT European Onion ASAP.
Well it’s not halal
How do they get it out? It doesn’t say.
The video interview has it that it wraps around the battery safely, then passes through normally. Is the novelty that it’s swallowed instead of a surgeon (or vet) having to go after a stuck battery?
It bursts out of your chest like an alien
It stays there on permanent patrol
I would rather let Dennis Quaid do it in his little ship.
What a time to be alive.
they were saying the same thing in the steam age
Is it gluten free ?
Not vegan.
A bit confusing: what problems are solved, and who’s prone to swallow batteries? Oh wait, pet dogs. Still, how could it track what it’s found without an expensive scanner?
That’s my music in the video :D
have your say