 Thousands of people continue to protest outside army headquarters in Sudan's capital Khartoum, demanding a total end to the structures of oppression. Protesters, while celebrating the removal of President Omar al-Bashir, rejected the military rule and the continuation leadership that was part of President Omar's elites. The Communist Party of Sudan called this an attempt by the elites to steal the revolution from the people. On April 11, 2019, after months of popular uprising, President Omar al-Bashir, who ruled for 30 years, was forced to resign after people's uprising and subsequent intervention by Sudanese forces. These protests are different because it started in the northeastern city of Atabra and it came down to Khartoum and Underman. And basically, all the previous protests that happened in Sudan, such as the 2018 protests against the national budget, started in Khartoum and Underman and tried to spread to other parts of the country, but it didn't happen. But with these protests, because 15 out of 18 states in Sudan were soon participating, it became clear to the Sudanese people that this was a historical moment, that everybody, all parts of Sudanese society were involved and that the regime could not push back and repress the people enough to stop them from coming out. So essentially, it was the mantra that they can't kill a soul. So despite the army having a kind of powerful reputation for repression, the masses of the people were more powerful than the army and that's what encouraged people to come out because they felt that so many of us, that this time we're going to take down Omar Bashir and that's exactly what they did. Though the military released political prisoners, it imposed a two-year transition council steered by a military council and the suspension of Sudan's constitution. So when the Sudanese army declared that they were arresting Omar Bashir and they had informed me that he was no longer the president, many people predicted that they would attempt to take over power themselves and that's exactly what happened. So Howard Ibn A'uf, he was the vice president of Omar Bashir as recently as February. He is also alleged to have committed war crimes in Darfur. Now the protest was about bringing Sudan together after many years of civil war and rebellions in different parts of the country. Now the problem with Howard Ibn A'uf declaring that he was going to be in charge of a military council that was going to lead for two years with three months curfew was two-fold. It firstly showed that the military regime had planned to maintain power but also it was a bad signal towards a new Sudan in which we tried to unite people because this is a guy who's responsible for many divisions within Sudan such as the repressive army pushback against the protesters as well as the acts of genocide and war crimes in Darfur. So the Sudanese professional association immediately made a statement saying that they wanted the power to straight away be handed over to a civilian transitional government and then that would lead to democratic collections. So people continued the sit-ins, protests continued, however the struggle was far from over. So what happened was Howard Ibn A'uf made a statement saying that he was going to resign, he was going to hand over power to General Buhan who again was one of Umar Bashir's generals. Again it is indicated is alleged to have committed war crimes in the war on Yemen so Sudan is part of the Saudi-led war on Yemen and Sudanese foot soldiers have been fighting the Houthi resistance fighters. So again this isn't somebody that is part of a new Sudan that we're trying to build and he's still part of the The wave of anti-government protests that began in December was sparked by increasing human right abuses, unemployment and inequality. The neoliberal economic model and austerity measures pursued by Umar's regime had brutally impacted the livelihood of countries working class. The workers were involved in this protest from the factory workers that didn't have enough money to buy bread because the price of bread tripled in one day to the doctors. Now doctors had previously been seen as a middle class profession but what happened was the high inflation costs and the IMF recommendation which meant that the government slashed the currency slashed the food subsidies meant that the doctors didn't have enough either so doctors earn around $50 a month in Sudan and are forced to work two sometimes three jobs just to make ends me and they were soon targeted by the repressive military regime so the doctors were protecting and obviously treating people that were injured and shot on the protest and then at one point a doctor was shot himself now this caused a lot of anger amongst doctors and they were part of the Sudanese professional association which is the umbrella group which represents the workers to opposition parties to social leaders all demanding democratic change. The Sudanese regime had basically gone to war with the people of South Sudan which eventually led to the country breaking up. Gone to war with the people of Darfur, the Nuba Mountains and the Blue Nile but it also gone to war with half the population the women and that's why two-thirds of the protesters were women because they were fed up so what had happened was these reactionary laws and penal codes basically controlled all aspects of women's lives controlled how they were dressed and if they were deemed to be dressed inappropriately women were beaten in the street by army soldiers it also meant there was no protection for women so girls as young as 10 could marry older men women could be raped by their husbands other women that were raped were offered no protection because their testimony was seen to be lower and of less value than that of a man so women's rights in Sudan under this regime had slumped to an all-time law so women wanted their rights back and that's why they went to the streets. The trade unions and various people's movements called for the continuation of the people's struggle until state power is reinstated to a civilian transitional government that represents the forces of the revolution. From a working class perspective there needs to not be only be change in the political and social order but also the economic order because one thing that's not known about Sudan it's not only a crisis of a dictatorship but also a crisis of neoliberalism so Sudan has been open to marketization and free markets and it's delivered nothing for the Sudanese people we are a resource rich land the only way that we can benefit as a collective from the resource rich land is if the state takes control of those resources and uses it to benefit the collective the majority in society so what I want to see is after we have a transitional civilian government it's up to the Sudanese people who they elect and I hope they elect somebody that kind of wants to move towards a in my opinion socialist leaning policy because when we have resources when we have so many young people in Sudan we have wealth human resources and mineral resources then we've got enough to sustain ourselves it shouldn't be that the riches of Sudan the young people of Sudan are used to enrich the rest of the world we need to enrich the people that have suffered for 30 years and it's about time that Sudan has the living standards that the people deserve