Abdel Fattah al-Burhan | A force of the status quo

For several Sudanese who took to the streets in protest after General Abdel Fattah Abdelrahman al-Burhan ousted civilian Prime Minister Adballa Hamdok and took absolute power in a military coup on October 25, the events would have reminded of Karl Marx’s words — “the first time as tragedy, the second as farce”. After civilian protests, aimed at rejecting this council which consisted of military officers who either served or were seen as close to the Bashir regime, were violently put down, the African Union suspended Sudan and imposed sanctions even as agitations led by Force of Freedom and Change, a joint social movement comprising 22 Sudanese political parties and social groups, escalated. But tensions between the civilian leadership and the military leaders remained over at least one issue — bringing Bashir’s regime to account for genocidal acts, human rights abuses and corruption. A New York Times report points out that Gen. Burhan and Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, the head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that is accused of genocide in Darfur and is also the deputy Chairman of the TMC, together controlled “hundreds of state-owned enterprises dealing in the production and sale of minerals, including gold, imports and exports of livestock, construction materials and pharmaceuticals”.