Sudan’s protest movement has announced two days of nationwide strikes, rejecting internationally backed initiatives to return to a power-sharing arrangement with the military following last week’s coup.
The Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), which spearheaded a popular uprising that led to the removal of longtime ruler Omar al-Bashir in 2019, said late on Friday that mediation initiatives which “seek a new settlement” between the military and civilian leaders would “reproduce and worsen” the country’s crisis.
The association, which has a presence across the country, promised to continue protesting until a civilian government is established to lead the transition towards full civilian rule.
Under the slogan of “No negotiations, no compromise, no power-sharing,” the association called for strikes and civil disobedience Sunday and Monday.
Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan reporting from Khartoum said that talks between the military headed by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the civilian component Forces of Freedom and Change has so far failed to produce any results, despite mediation efforts.
Morgan said the SPA has called on civilians on Saturday evening “to set up barricades in neighbourhoods and on main streets to encourage people and to also reduce the number of people who would go to work on Sunday and Monday”.
Earlier this week, Nureldin Satti, Sudan’s ambassador to the United States, told Al Jazeera’s UpFront programme that the coup “cannot continue with the lisation that we have seen and that we are going to see in the next days and weeks”.
The Sudanese military seized power on October 25, dissolving the transitional administration and arresting dozens of government officials and politicians. The coup has been met with international outcry and massive protests in the streets of the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere in the country.
Since the coup, the international community has accelerated mediation efforts to find a way out of the crisis, which threatens to further destabilise the already restive Horn of Africa region.
On Thursday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke separately by phone with the military leader, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and Abdalla Hamdok, the deposed prime minister who was put under house arrest during the coup.
Blinken urged for an immediate return to a civilian-led government and the release of those detained in connection with the coup.
Sudan’s state-run SUNA news agency reported that al-Burhan promised to “complete the transition and preserve the country’s security … until reaching an elected civilian government”.