“In his first televised address, Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan Abdelrahman said he was also cancelling a night curfew ordered by his predecessor and ordered the release of all prisoners jailed under emergency laws put in place by ousted President Omar al-Bashir,” reported New Zimbabwe.
“A coalition of groups leading the protests said it had accepted an invitation by the armed forces to meet on Saturday to discuss a new civilian government.”
In a rare but welcome show of visionary leadership the AU has reportedly give the military council two weeks to hand over power to civilian rule.
The days, weeks and months before and after revolution are the most important time in a nation’s history because, in that short window of opportunity, the nation’s core is melted and cast anew. If the new cast is deformed and hideous it can be improved upon whilst it is still hot and malleable but with each passing day it will be cooling and hardening.
Once the core is set the character and temperament of nation, whether democratic or tyrannical, will cast in stone. If the nation gets it wrong, it may take another generation or more for another revolution and another opportunity to melt the core and make a new cast. All this is a familiar tale in Zimbabwe.
In 1980 Zimbabwe had its golden opportunity to replace the racist and oppressive white colonial government with a just and democratic government in which the freedoms, rights and dignity of all were sacrosanct. Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs hijack the revolution and instead imposed a corrupt and tyrannical de facto one-party dictatorship on the nation. For the last 39 years the nation has been stuck with the dictatorship with tragic economic and social consequences!
Sudan gained independence from Britain on January 1, 1956, after a military coup in Egypt forced the British government to grant Sudan independence. The country has blundered from one crisis to another because of bad governance; the last 30 years under the dictator Omar Al Bashir have been particularly bloody and chaotic.
The removal from power of Al Bashir has melted the core and the people of Sudan have golden chance making a new cast of Sudan. May God and Allah grant the people them the serenity and wisdom to cast a new Sudan the nation and posterity and we, their friends and well-wishers, can all be proud of!
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