In U.S.-Saudi organized meeting with coup leaders, FFC demand power handover
June 10, 2022 (KHARTOUM) – The Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) demanded, during a meeting with the military component that lasted until the early hours of Friday to hand over power to a civilian government and end the bloody coup.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African affairs Molly Phee and Saudi Ambassador Ali bin Hassan Jaffar who hosted the meeting organized a meeting between the two rival sides after the failure of the trilateral mechanism to bring the main coalition of the anti-coup forces to the negotiating table.
The FFC delegation included Yasir Arman, al-Wathiq Albreir and Taha Ishaq, while the military delegation was composed of Mohamed Hamdan Daglo Hemetti, Shams al-Din Kabbashi and Ibrahim Jabir.
In a statement released on Friday morning, the FFC delegation said the meeting was part of their efforts to reach a genuine political solution that would end the coup and establish a full democratic civilian authority to achieve the goals of the revolution.
“The forces of freedom and change have put forward the need to end the coup and hand over power to the people, through a clear and conclusive roadmap and within the framework of a political process whose parties are the forces for revolution and change on the one hand and those who staged the coup on the other hand,” reads the statement.
The coalition stressed they do not claim to monopolize the representation of the “forces of the revolution” and call to develop a common vision and mobilize the support of the Sudanese people and the international community to restore democracy in Sudan.
They further stressed they are a “tool” for expressing the demands of the street and not a substitute for it.
“The political process is a product of what we do on the ground, not a substitute for the main mechanism we adopt: the daily popular, peaceful resistance and its civilian mechanisms.”
The meeting was meant to “exchange views of how to solve the current political crisis, as well as on a process that leads to a democratic transition,” said the U.S embassy in Khartoum in a tweet posted on Friday.
“This meeting is not a substitute for the UN-AU-IGAD mechanism and is consistent with the mechanism’s support for efforts to build trust & confidence among the parties,” further emphasized the embassy.
Mohamed Nagy Alassam, a leading member of the Sudanese Professional Association (SPA) warned against repeating mistakes and negotiating with the coup leaders instead of bringing them down.
“The repetition of mistakes and miscalculation by the FFC is regrettable and unjustified. It is inconceivable that the coalition’s stated reason for accepting to negotiate directly with the putschist military council was only the invitation made by the U.S. envoy and the Saudi ambassador,” Alassam further said.
He further echoed the Resistance Committees’ call that a democratic transition cannot take place without removing the coup leaders and keeping the military from power, money and politics.
Alassam referred to the military’s numerous attempts to seize power, adding that their failure did not mean that they abandoned the idea but it would be just a truce before arranging a new coup.