Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt

Since mid-December 2018, Sudan has been going through a major popular uprising. The social explosion has been driven by poverty, precarious living conditions and unemployment (which strongly affects young people, as elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa). It was triggered by the record inflation Inflation The cumulated rise of prices as a whole (e.g. a rise in the price of petroleum, eventually leading to a rise in salaries, then to the rise of other prices, etc.). Inflation implies a fall in the value of money since, as time goes by, larger sums are required to purchase particular items. This is the reason why corporate-driven policies seek to keep inflation down. that pushed up the price of basic necessities as a result of the measures requested by the International Monetary Fund IMF
International Monetary Fund Along with the World Bank, the IMF was founded on the day the Bretton Woods Agreements were signed. Its first mission was to support the new system of standard exchange rates.

When the Bretton Wood fixed rates system came to an end in 1971, the main function of the IMF became that of being both policeman and fireman for global capital: it acts as policeman when it enforces its Structural Adjustment Policies and as fireman when it steps in to help out governments in risk of defaulting on debt repayments.

As for the World Bank, a weighted voting system operates: depending on the amount paid as contribution by each member state. 85% of the votes is required to modify the IMF Charter (which means that the USA with 17,68% % of the votes has a de facto veto on any change).

The institution is dominated by five countries: the United States (16,74%), Japan (6,23%), Germany (5,81%), France (4,29%) and the UK (4,29%).
The other 183 member countries are divided into groups led by one country. The most important one (6,57% of the votes) is led by Belgium. The least important group of countries (1,55% of the votes) is led by Gabon and brings together African countries.

http://imf.org (IMF), which has contributed to impose economic liberalization for the past thirty years. This liberalization has only benefited the circles closest to the top of the State.

The uprising did not only challenge the social situation, but also the authoritarianism of the regime led by Omar Al-Bashir. After taking power in a military coup in 1989, Al-Bashir had stifled any possibility to express divergent views. Authoritarianism has been supported by a belligerent policy, pointing to scapegoats, particularly among the people of Darfur against whom the regime has committed genocide, and among the predominantly Christian populations of what became the independent state of Southern Sudan in 2011 (and was formerly a region of Sudan). Therefore, the demand to put an end to Omar Al-Bashir’s regime (a regime which was supported by the army and the Muslim Brotherhood) soon completed the social unrest.

The popular uprisings in Sudan and Algeria are a continuation of the popular movements that began in December 2010 in Tunisia and spread to the Arabic-speaking region in 2011. It is indeed a long-term revolutionary process that runs through the region, requiring profound changes in economic and social structures in favour of the working classes. The counter-revolutions of the existing regimes, of fundamentalist forces and of regional and international imperialist forces cannot put a final stop to this process; they can only delay its completion.

The mass uprising in Sudan achieved a first major victory when Omar Al-Bashir was forced to resign on 11 April 2019, almost 30 years after taking power. He was dismissed by the army, which is trying to save the regime by changing its head. A “Transitional Military Council” has been formed. However, as in Algeria following Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s departure on 2 April 2019, the popular movement was not satisfied with this: refusing to have their revolution confiscated by the military high command, as was the case in Egypt in 2013, the demonstrators continued their protest and demanded the fall of the regime as a whole, the setting up of a civilian transitional government and the organization of free elections after a period of three years (the relatively long duration of which is intended to allow democratic debates to take place in a society that has been muzzled by the authorities for thirty years).

The popular uprising demonstrated a formidable collective imagination and tenacity. From 6 April 2019, a giant sit-in was organized in front of the complex housing the presidency and army headquarters in the capital Khartoum. From this moment the occupation of this space only widened, giving rise to a “city within the city” where democratic effervescence could take place day and night. The movement has widely recognized the legitimacy of the Forces of the Declaration for Freedom and Change (FDFC) to represent it. This coalition includes the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), political opposition organizations ranging from politically liberal groups to the Sudanese Communist Party, and political-military groups in the south and west of the country that declared a ceasefire in the wake of the popular uprising. The SPA (originally composed of doctors, journalists and lawyers, then expanded to include teachers, engineers, artists and, more recently, factory and railway workers) plays a central role in the FDFC coalition. Feminist groups are also influential, and women are at the forefront of the popular movement. It must be noted that this coalition has not conceded anything to the military since it embarked on a negotiation process aimed at meeting the uprising’s demands for the formation of a transitional civilian government.

Faced with a popular movement of such determination, the military command, which had until then sought to appear as the guarantor of a peaceful democratic transition, finally showed their true colours by deciding to engage in a showdown. On the morning of 3 June 2019, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary militia fully integrated into the regime, and other security forces attacked and dispersed the Khartoum sit-in and sought to break the democratic momentum by firing live ammunition, raping women and burning camps. A provisional estimate indicates that more than a hundred people were killed and several hundred injured.

The Forces of the Declaration for Freedom and Change have clearly identified the Transitional Military Council (renamed the “Coup Council”) as responsible for this massacre and have ended negotiations with it. They call for a general strike and total civil disobedience until the regime is overthrown.

The international CADTM network:

• fully supports the Sudanese popular uprising, as well as other ongoing and future uprisings in the region against authoritarian regimes that appropriate states and their resources;
• strongly denounces the Khartoum massacre of 3 June 2019 and the counterrevolution led by the Sudanese military command;
• denounces the complicity of regional states, international powers and international financial institutions with the Sudanese regime, whether through active cooperation over the past 30 years to deepen neoliberal policies in the country (in particular the IMF-led debt and structural adjustment Structural Adjustment Economic policies imposed by the IMF in exchange of new loans or the rescheduling of old loans.
  
  Structural Adjustments policies were enforced in the early 1980 to qualify countries for new loans or for debt rescheduling by the IMF and the World Bank. The requested kind of adjustment aims at ensuring that the country can again service its external debt. Structural adjustment usually combines the following elements : devaluation of the national currency (in order to bring down the prices of exported goods and attract strong currencies), rise in interest rates (in order to attract international capital), reduction of public expenditure (’streamlining’ of public services staff, reduction of budgets devoted to education and the health sector, etc.), massive privatisations, reduction of public subsidies to some companies or products, freezing of salaries (to avoid inflation as a consequence of deflation). These SAPs have not only substantially contributed to higher and higher levels of indebtedness in the affected countries ; they have simultaneously led to higher prices (because of a high VAT rate and of the free market prices) and to a dramatic fall in the income of local populations (as a consequence of rising unemployment and of the dismantling of public services, among other factors).
  
  IMF : http://www.worldbank.org/ policies, which have benefited only domestic capitalists —in collusion with the regime— and international capitalists) or through silence in the face of the army’s counter-revolutionary maneuvers aimed at ensuring the continuity of the regime;
• calls for the participation to all actions of solidarity with the Sudanese popular uprising that may be organized in the coming days and weeks.