A-Infos (en) Sudan: Anarchists against the Military Dictatorship - An Interview with Sudanese Anarchists Gathering (ca, de, it, fr, pt)

Yesterday, in Sudan, during nationwide demonstrations against the military 
dictatorship that seized power on October 25, state forces repeatedly used live 
rounds against protesters, killing at least four people and wounding many more. 
Security forces have killed scores of demonstrators since the coup of October 25. 
Nevertheless, a powerful movement based in local resistance committees and 
courageous street demonstrations continues to resist the consolidation of power 
under the military. We present the following interview with anarchist 
participants in the demonstrations in hopes of helping people outside Sudan to 
understand the situation.

In December 2018, massive countrywide protests broke out against dictator Omar 
Al-Bashir, who had ruled Sudan for some three decades. Al-Bashir fled in April 
2019; yet riots, blockades, and sit-in protests continued against the 
Transitional Military Council that seized control of the government, and a 
massive protest occupation held territory in Al-Qyada Square at the heart of the 
capital city of Khartoum. Militarized forces associated with the Council stepped 
up their attacks on protesters, culminating on June 3, 2019 when they brutally 
evicted the sit-ins. They committed a particularly brutal massacre when they 
attacked the occupation in Al-Qyada Square.

In response, a general strike gripped much of Sudan from June 9 to 11. Yet some 
representatives of the movement consequently entered negotiations with the 
regime, establishing a power-sharing agreement in which a provisional government 
composed of military and civilian representatives was to manage the transition to 
a new administration. This came to an end with the military coup of October 25.

The first part of this interview with anarchists in Khartoum, the capital city of 
Sudan, took place on December 28. The second part was written immediately after 
the nationwide demonstrations of December 30. You can learn more about Sudanese 
Anarchists Gathering via their facebook page. We will update this article with 
more information as we learn how people outside Sudan can best support them.

The interview was conducted in Arabic and hastily translated. We've combined some 
questions and answers together for clarity.

Interview: Sudanese Anarchists Gathering, December 28, 2021

First of all, tell us a little about your group.

The group was created in Khartoum at the end of 2020 after we assembled all 
anarchists in Khartoum. We've been together since the revolution of December 
2018, and some of us have known each other since high school and university.

We, anarchists of Khartoum, are members of the "resistance committees" and we 
raise our flags during marches with the rest of revolutionaries, and we promote 
anarchy by writing graffiti on the walls.

We oppose all types of authoritarianism. We are for freedom of expression and 
individual autonomy.

Do you have any connections with anarchists outside of Sudan?

You're the only anarchists we have connections with outside Sudan.

Are there other anarchists and anarchist groups besides you? Or as far as you 
know is it just you?

There are other anarchists in Sudan in the city of Port Sudan, and we're reaching 
out to them so that we can get together with them and then hopefully eventually 
with anarchists in the rest of the world-and with earnest efforts, we will spread 
anarchy throughout the world together.

Does Sudan have a history of anarchist struggle or is it a newer thing there?

Anti-authoritarianism as an idea and practice emerged for the first time in Sudan 
during the first march of the 2018 revolution. But the media coverage was very 
weak and thus it was overlooked.

How have people been responding to anarchists? What is the relationship of 
anarchists to the broader protests and the social movement?

The people are polarized about the anarchist movement, but what matters to us is 
that our fellow revolutionaries are in cohesion and complete solidarity with us; 
we are together with them in this struggle to subvert the fascist system and to 
create a horizontal system, organizationally speaking, and a socialist system, 
economically speaking. The demands of the "revolution" are very similar to ours.

Can you tell us about the current situation in Sudan? As we understand it, 
protests have been ongoing since at least 2019, first against[former 
head-of-state]Omar Al-Bashir and now against the military junta. What forms of 
repression are state forces or others carrying out at this moment?

The revolution has been ongoing since December 2018. When the revolution started, 
protests were suppressed violently at the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood 
government led by Omar Al-Bashir, which we overthrew on April 11, 2019, when we 
occupied and sat-in at the general headquarters of Sudan's military. But 
unfortunately, the occupation was later suppressed: 500 revolutionaries were 
killed and our revolution was stolen by the military's commanders and the "soft 
landing."[1]

 On August 17, 2019, they (the Transitional Military Council, or TMC, and the 
Forces of Freedom, or FCC[2]
) agreed to a 39-month transition process to return to democracy. We the 
revolutionaries, however, didn't stop-we kept protesting against the military in 
the hopes of making the transitional government transition to an actual 
"technocratic" civilian government[i.e., a government composed of civilians, not 
career politicians].

And then the coup[of October 25, 2021]happened and the military dissolved the 
civilian government and arrested its members.

But we're not giving up. The streets are brimming with defiance and opposition to 
them again, although they've murdered 47 revolutionaries and injured 1200 others 
using tear gas, stun grenades, and live rounds ever since the coup. We're still 
protesting and aiming to overthrow them now.

What is your position on the non-anarchist groups in the Sudan? Do you work with 
them? If you cooperate with them, what is the nature of your cooperation?

We've separated ourselves from the "political incubator"[3]
 that participated in the revolution and we've formed resistance committees with 
fellow revolutionaries consisting of all revolutionary movements; we started 
leading the revolution on the streets to overthrow the government despite the 
violence we face from them. We face their violence and bullets with unprotected 
chests and non-violent means.

And they sometimes shoot live rounds at us, which leads to either injuries or deaths.

Is there something else we should know? Do you have any requests of the 
international anarchist movements?

We've got plenty of marches and protests planned on Thursday. We've already 
decided the routes of the marches with other revolutionaries before the 
authorities could block the internet; all of them are headed toward the 
Republican Palace. These marches will be met with excessive violence; I might end 
up dead, because we anarchists are always at the front and we organize the 
marches on the streets.

We ask for material support because we don't have any sponsors. We spend money 
out of our pockets and the money we have doesn't cover our needs because prices 
have become prohibitive in Sudan and as youth we don't have enough money. We hope 
all anarchists in the world will support us.

Update: December 30, 2021
Two days after conducting the above interview, at the conclusion of the 
demonstrations of December 30, we received the following message from our contact 
in Sudanese Anarchists Gathering.

We couldn't reach the palace. They had obstructed the roads with huge dry 
containers and they blockaded the cities of Omdurman and Bahri (nobody from those 
cities was allowed to get into Khartoum) and then they committed atrocities 
towards us in Khartoum (where the palace is).

They shot live rounds at us and they even used a DShK
4
 which inflicted injuries and deaths on our numbers. They also assaulted 
journalists and raided the buildings of Al-Arabiya (a TV news channel) and al 
Hadath (another TV news channel); they had arrested their employees but have 
already released them. They also raided hospitals, attacked doctors, arrested 
them, and arrested our injured comrades too.

They're not allowing us to take the martyrs' bodies to bury them. We've only 
retrieved and buried two from so far. We're working on doing the same for the rest.

Our cell phones were not advanced enough to capture their atrocities on film, but 
some people who had advanced cell phones managed to capture some of the 
atrocities they committed.

There are four martyrs so far, but there are many live-round injuries. Glory for 
the martyrs and death to the military and to authority.

Ahmed Alaamin Alkununa, Mustafa Mohammed Musa, Mohammed Majed Muhammad "Bebo," 
and Mutawakil Yousef Saleh were killed by the Sudanese state on December 30, 2021.

Footnotes
[1]In 2011, the expression "soft landing" was used in Sudan to describe the 
proposal to offer Omar Al-Bashir a negotiated transfer to civilian rule, complete 
with some sort of amnesty for his war crimes. Since then, it has been used to 
describe a proposed alliance between the regime and the opposition, in which the 
latter would stop attempting to overthrow the regime in return for sharing power, 
as well as to describe submission to US policy and the status quo in general.

[2]The Forces of Freedom and Change (FCC) is a coalition of civil society groups 
and political parties that has been organizing protests. It was part of 
negotiating a return to civilian rule with the Transitional Military Council (TMC).

[3]roughly translated, "political incubator"-describes the role that the 
transitional government was supposed to serve in Sudan.

[4]The DShK is a Soviet-era belt-fed heavy machine gun.

https://de-crimethinc-com.translate.goog/2021/12/31/sudan-anarchists-against-the-military-dictatorship-an-interview-with-sudanese-anarchists-gathering
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