{"id":20066323,"date":"2024-01-09T11:17:26","date_gmt":"2024-01-09T10:17:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dabangasudan.org\/?p=20066323"},"modified":"2024-01-09T11:17:28","modified_gmt":"2024-01-09T10:17:28","slug":"sudan-river-nile-gov-bans-ffc-and-resistance-committees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dabangasudan.org\/en\/all-news\/article\/sudan-river-nile-gov-bans-ffc-and-resistance-committees","title":{"rendered":"Sudan River Nile gov bans FFC and resistance committees"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Acting governor of River Nile state Mohamed El Badawi declared that Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) committees, resistance committees, and administrative committees were banned and will be replaced with steering committees yesterday<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

El Badawi, who was appointed following the joint coup d\u2019\u00e9tat of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in October 2021, issued an \u201cemergency decree\u201d to dissolve and ban the committees in all villages, nomad settlements, and neighbourhoods in the state. The governor ruled to form steering committees instead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each steering committee should consist of five to nine members. It will include an Imam of the oldest mosque, a supervisor of the \u201cemergency situation,\u201d a director of the locality, and representatives of women, youth, veterans, farmers, and traders in the locality. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An extra stipulation was that \u201cthose selected for the new steering committees should not have been members of the now-banned committees.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The decree warned of strict penalties against anyone who tries to obstruct the new steering committees\u2019 formation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The decree follows the announcement of a large-scale mobilisation campaign<\/a> to counter a possible attack by the RSF in River Nile state on December 23. The mobilisation is reportedly based on ethnic background, which caused \u201canger, sorrow, and sadness\u201d in activists in Shendi and El Matamma.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week, the Sudanese Observatory for Human Rights<\/a> noted particular concern for a statement by El Badawi \u201cwhich gave members of the FFC 72 hours to leave the state.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commenting on the decree, lawyer El Sadig Ali said: \u201cThe resistance committees are a mass movement, and their support comes from the street. They are grassroots organisations bolstered by the popular base, not the governor or state.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ali told Radio Dabanga of his uncertainty that this decree will have much impact on the ground. “These decisions will have no value or impact. They will be like the statements of other stakeholders, including those of [Sudan\u2019s Commander-in-Chief of the SAF and President of the Sovereignty Council Lt Gen] Abdelfattah El Burhan himself. They will be taken by the wind,” he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said that the governor of River Nile state is improvising \u201cin the spirit of political emotion.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

BBC journalist Mohanad Hashim, in a post on X (formerly Twitter), noted that the decree could be a \u201cmajor blow\u201d for local emergency rescue committees in the state, along with grassroots activism in general. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kholood Khair, Sudanese think tank founder, said that these committees are \u201cquite literally the only service providers left. The RSF, which has made significant territorial gains<\/a> in the region, is expanding this rapidly \u201cpartly because SAF is busier fighting civilians than fighting the RSF,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cState authorities and the SAF have been harassing the resistance committees since their formation. It has continued throughout the war despite the resistance committees consistently fulfilling state services from healthcare (emergency response rooms) to evacuations. This is a farce,\u201d said Sky News Africa correspondent Yousra Elbagir. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Resistance committees are decentralised and hyper-localised in their ways of operating and are mainly made up of urban youth, crossing many geographical and social boundaries of class and ethnicity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They emerged during the 2018 December Revolution and played an incredibly important part in Sudan\u2019s pro-democracy movement ever since. The Revolutionary Charter for Establishing People\u2019s Power<\/a>, which regulates the work of the resistance committees, was due to be signed in its final form in January 2023. <\/p>\n