Sudan

Hamid Khalafallah is a democracy activist in Sudan. He talked with Sacha Ismail from Solidarity . The occupation of the streets around the army headquarters in Khartoum, which began on 6 April, was the spearhead of the revolutionary movement; on 3 June that was repressed and dispersed. However, protests are still happening in Khartoum and in other parts of the country. This sit-in was very large; on the first day something like a million people marched on the army HQ, and the occupation grew out of that, to protest against the regime and try to at least neutralise the army. Its size fluctuated...

Left-wingers mostly around the SWP have launched a statement for solidarity with the popular revolts in Sudan and Algeria. The statement has been posted on the website of the Sudanese Professionals’ Association, a grouping of trade unions in Sudan based among “professional” workers (teachers, doctors, lawyers, vets, pharmacists, journalists, accountants…) which has been leading the mobilisations there. It calls for “greetings to trade unionists in Algeria and Sudan who are mobilising support for the popular uprisings’ demands through strikes, protests and sit-ins, and fighting to create...

Mass protests in Sudan have been ongoing since December 2018. The rising cost of bread and fuel has sparked calls for “Just fall – that’s all” against President Omar al-Bashir and his ruling National Congress Party. Leaders of nine opposition parties have been arrested. The individuals reportedly include Siddiq Youssef, a senior leader of Sudan’s Communist Party, and leaders from the pan-Arabist Ba’ath and Nasserist parties. Sudan’s opposition is weak, split on ethnic and religious lines. There seems almost no chance that any of the existing political parties could topple the regime, which has...

According to the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) seven majority Muslim countries still maintain the death penalty for homosexual activity. They are Afghanistan, Iran, Mauritania, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Yemen. In northern Nigeria, where some states use Sharia law, homosexuality is also punishable by death. In Iran gay men are normally arrested under other trumped up charges. But in September 2011 three men were executed for homosexuality. And when execution is not used other brutality can be. In 2010 a Saudi man was sentenced to 500 lashes and five years in jail for...

Tim Flatman ( Solidarity 3/192) claims labour movement organisations were “culturally alien” to South Sudan and that we should not “impose” them on the new country. Undoubtedly, labour movements as we know them in the advanced-capitalist world cannot be wished into being in a massively less developed country. But what is the “culture” that workers’ organisation seeks to embody? Simply the “culture” of organising the exploited against their exploiters. This is something common to all human culture throughout history. Even in a country where advanced-capitalist class-relations do not yet...

Tim Flatman, who has recently returned from the region, concludes a series of three articles about South Sudan. The process of referendum has had positive consequences for grassroots independent political organisation in South Sudan. People had to come together to demand separation for themselves (as political parties were by law banned from doing so). It has been the central demand of many groups whose purpose was previously primarily social, those traditional structures which still exist, etc while specific forms of association have also sprung up to fill the political gap. Southern Sudan...

In the first complete results of a referendum, 99% of South Sudanese have voted to secede from the north. Tim Flatman recently spent three months in South Sudan and continues a series of articles on the future of a new country, set to become independent in July. Jobs, working rights, public services and control of resources are the current demands of southerners. They are important not only in themselves, not only because they impact on the environment in which social movements operate, but also because they are a precondition for further political organisation. And implementing separation...

Tim Flatman recently completed a three-month tour of South Sudan. In the first of a series of articles he reports on the recent referendum on secession and the future of the social movements in the new country. Any election or referendum where the final result is expected to beat Alexander Lukashenko’s latest showing by nearly 20% on a 95% turnout would normally be regarded as suspect. To anyone familiar with the politics of South Sudan, however, a 99% vote for secession in a free referendum (held on 9-15 January) is highly plausible. There were always going to be difficulties holding a vote...

The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has issued a warrant to arrest the Sudanese President, Omar al-Bashir. He has been indicted for war crimes, but not for genocide. For sure, behind the legal process lie the political interests of the big western powers. After effectively tolerating Bashir for many years, they now want to see the back of him. But it does not at all follow that socialists should oppose these moves (whether the ICC succeeds in arresting Bashir or not). Bashir is responsible for brutal, sometimes “genocidal” war, against many groups in Sudan — Arab, African...