Sudanese activists launch initiative to bring about regime-change

October 10, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – A group of Sudanese activists has floated an initiative aiming to create consensus among “agents of change” in the country on a plan of action to change the existing regime. The initiative, dubbed “A Charter of Rights for the Sudanese People: Towards A New Dawn,” urges Sudanese stakeholders, including major political forces, independent civil society, youth and new movements and independent democratic personalities to engage in dialogue to reach a unified and effective formula to bring together “Sudanese agents for change.” “Our country is rapidly slipping into an abyss, driven by the policies of a regime that find its foundation in oppression, marginalisation, racism, imposition of unilateral cultural and religious identities in a multi-cultural and multi-religious society, destruction of state and public institutions through control of the ruling party, corruption, the creation of parasitic businesses and waste of resources,” said the text of the initiative which has been launched by the Kampala-based anti-government online newspaper Hurriyat and the rights watchdog Sudan Democracy First Group. “In the face of both the existing and looming threats, our country is in need of maximum commitment and determination from its forces, civic and armed,” the two groups said, urging these forces to “work together, beyond narrow partisan and personal interests,” so that “we can lift our country from the precipice on which it teeters, and create a new regime that guarantees the rights of Sudanese people to be free from totalitarianism, from repeated atrocities and genocides, and to enjoy democracy, social justice, development, welfare, national integration and peace.” The initiative says those who undersign the charter will strive to change the existing regime through various means, whether civic resistance methods (strikes, demonstrations, uprisings, etc) or armed methods, in order to create an alternative regime that meets a wide-range of criteria, including democratic and federal system that is committed to: guarantee of international human rights standards; upholding the rights of the people of the marginalised areas; governance of the country according to democratic principles in an interim period that comes to an end with the approval of a permanent constitution; the conduct of a fair and professional census, and the organisation of fair and free elections based on proportional representation at all levels. It also proposes a conference bringing together major forces of change to approve the final version of the Charter of Rights for the Sudanese People, the structure of the Sudanese agents for change, their plan of work and mechanisms. (ST) Full text of the initiative is attached below

Attached documents