The Sudanese Sovereign Council and citizens are becoming reluctant to the intervention of the United Nations, which aims to carry out the transition process after last October's coup d'état

Sudan's Sovereign Council rejects foreign interference

photo_camera AFP/ASHRAF SHAZLY - Maintenance personnel who are part of the UN-African Union mission in Darfur (UNAMID) stand guard

At the beginning of January, the United Nations announced the official launch of a cooperation initiative for bilateral meetings to carry out the transition process in the African country after the fall of Omar Al-Bashir's regime and the October coup d'état. This initiative was supported by the Sovereign Council of Sudan, as well as by the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

On the other hand, the main opposition bloc in Sudan, the so-called Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC) coalition, accepted the initiative of the International Organisation, as long as the ultimate goal is to "restore the democratic transition", they said. However, the proposal was rejected by the Communist Party or the National Congress.

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The UN has been consulting throughout the month on Sudan's political process, which is "expanding the participation of Sudanese groups from different states", according to a statement from the UN Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS). The Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Sudan and Head of the UN Integrated Transition Support Mission in Sudan, Volker Peretz, said that "last week he received representatives of civil society and political groups as part of the consultation sessions facilitated by the mission under the umbrella of consultations on a political process". He added that "these consultations continue to provide space for Sudanese stakeholders to present visions and proposals on how to move forward with the democratic transition process".

The statement from the UN Mission for Transitional Support in Sudan also said that "last week, there were a series of consultation sessions with representatives of various groups from states outside Khartoum, including representatives of the Darfur resistance committees, women's groups in Darfur". Through these preliminary consultations they want to guide and assist the Sudanese in the aftermath of last October's coup d'état. 

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Ali al Sadiq, Sudan's foreign minister, presented to the Sudanese Sovereign Council the activities of some of the diplomatic missions based in Khartoum. They also pointed out that many of the activities violated diplomatic rules and infringed on the country's sovereignty. "The meeting heard a statement from the foreign minister in charge of foreign relations and the activities of some diplomatic missions residing in Khartoum that violate diplomatic rules and violate the country's sovereignty," Sudanese news agency SUNA quoted Transitional Sovereignty Council member and Council spokesperson Salma Abdul Jabbar Al-Mubarak as saying in a statement.

In addition to the announcement by the Sovereign Council, a series of rallies in front of the UNITAMS headquarters in Khartoum took place this week, on Wednesday, called by a new movement called "Sudanese against foreign interference", in which various political and social currents of Sufi and tribal leaders took part. Ozman Al-Bashir, spokesman for the demonstrators, showed his support for Sudan to the demonstrators, but expressed his rejection of foreign interference and called for the expulsion of Volker Perthes, as well as the expulsion of several Western ambassadors.

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The demonstrators were reluctant to the intervention of the United Nations and carried banners with different slogans such as "respect for national sovereignty"; and "because we are a sovereign country, we reject your interference in our internal affairs", as well as showing their rejection of Volker Perthes as UN Special Envoy for the intervention in the country with slogans such as "we don't want you Volker" and "don't interfere, Volker".

UNITAMS via Twitter assured that their stay in the territory is by an express mandate of the UN Security Council, also defended the freedom of expression exercised by the protesters and stated that they offered to start negotiating with the delegation of protesters, but they refused.
 


 

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