Sudanese protest organisers have presented demands to the country’s new military rulers, urging the creation of a civilian government, the group spearheading demonstrations said.
Thousands remained encamped 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 late Saturday, according to a statement by umbrella group the Alliance for Freedom and Change.
“We will continue… our sit-in until all our demands are met,” including the formation of a fully civilian government, one of the alliance’s leaders, Omar al-Degier, said in the statement. The newly formed 10-member transitional council contains several faces from Bashir’s regime.
The umbrella group insists that civilian representatives should be accepted onto the military council, and that a fully civilian government should be formed to run day-to-day affairs.
Degier said their demands include restructuring the country’s feared National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS), whose chief Salih Ghosh resigned on Saturday. Rights group Amnesty International on Saturday urged the military council to examine Ghosh’s actions during a crackdown against protesters during the final weeks of Bashir’s rule.
“It is crucial that Sudan’s new authorities investigate Salah Ghosh’s role in the killings of scores of Sudanese protesters over the past four months”, said Amnesty’s regional director Sarah Jackson.
“We surely want our demands to be met, but both sides will have to be flexible to reach a deal,” said a protester who spent the night at the army complex. On Saturday, the new chief of the military council General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan vowed to dismantle Bashir’s regime and lifted 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. He took the oath of office on Friday after his predecessor General Awad Ibn Ouf stepped down little more than 24 hours after ousting Bashir.