The coup launched on Monday by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan was supposed to be a swift and decisive seizure of power by the Transitional Military Council (TMC). But the coup plotters did not count on the strength of the revolutionary people, who have risen in their hundreds of thousands, launching protests and strikes all over the country to oppose any return to military rule. Lessons have been learned since Sudan’s 2019 uprising, which was never fully defeated. The seasoned masses have forced the military to a stalemate. Now, they must win victory.

Sudan’s transitional government has been toppled by a military coup. This long-threatened putsch was the inevitable consequence of attempted reconciliation between the leaders of the 2019 uprising and forces of counter-revolution. The enraged masses have returned to the streets in huge numbers, showing that the reserves of the Sudanese Revolution are not exhausted. What is required now is a relentless struggle to defeat the reactionary military leaders, once and for all. Read also our article from 2019, which predicted these events.

We here republish an article written by Hamid Alizadeh in July 2019, which predicted the events of the Sudan coup on Monday almost to the letter. For our latest report on the October 2021 coup, click here.

Turmoil has engulfed the impoverished west African country of Guinea since an army special operations unit announced that it had captured president Alpha Condé and dissolved his government on Sunday. The coup leader and head of the country’s special forces, Colonel Mamadi Doumbouya, announced on the state broadcaster on Sunday that the country’s constitution had been suspended and the borders closed. He also announced a 24-hour curfew in all areas except the mining areas.

On 2 August, the Liberia National Police (LNP) stormed the Capitol Hill campus of the University of Liberia (UL). They allegedly fired live ammunition and teargas to disperse hundreds of protesting students, leaving many severely injured. Many more were arrested. 

A decade after the 2010/11 revolution threw out the hated dictator Ben Ali, a wave of anti-government protest has rocked Tunisia. The government has been ousted in a palace coup, but there can be no faith in any bourgeois faction. The masses can trust only in their own strength. A new revolutionary upsurge by workers and youth is necessary to win a real future. 

The popular uprising that erupted in June has changed the situation in the Southern African country of eSwatini. Banks are still closed, the media is being heavily censored, foreign media is banned, access to the internet is being tightly controlled, and the security forces are clamping down on innocent and unarmed civilians.

Over the last few days two of South Africa’s most economically important provinces have been rocked by widespread rioting. Riots in Kwazulu-Natal and Gauteng have been fuelled by anger, desperation and frustration over deepening poverty and the economic impact of COVID-19 restrictions.

The civil war in the northern Ethiopian region of Tigray entered a new phase over the last few weeks when Tigrayan rebels recaptured Mekele, the regional capital, and forced the federal government forces to retreat. The swift defeat of the Ethiopian forces was a stunning reversal in a civil war that has led to the displacement of nearly two million people in the Tigray region, widespread hunger and atrocities on all sides.

Late on 28 June, news started emerging in the South African media that the monarch of eSwatini (formerly known as Swaziland), a landlocked kingdom in Southern Africa, had fled the country due to an ongoing protest movement. King Mswati III has ruled this kingdom, which is bordered by South Africa and Mozambique, with an iron fist since 1986. He is the last absolute monarch in Africa, and the masses have forced him to run.

The 12 June parliamentary election was meant to give the Algerian regime a degree of legitimacy and put an end to two years of revolutionary hirak (movement). Instead, the call for boycott was overwhelmingly observed, despite a widespread clampdown in the run up to the polls.

The so-called “assault” on the Ceuta border (a Spanish enclave on the African side of the Strait of Gibraltar) by thousands of young migrants in the past few days is part of the same migration crisis that has plagued Africa in recent decades. However, the most recent events have been triggered by a new diplomatic dispute between Spain and Morocco, rooted in the economic crisis unleashed by the pandemic and the worsening of the conflict in the Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara.

Over the last few days, dockworkers of the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU) in the port city of Durban have refused to handle cargo from an Israeli ship, in protest against Israel's bombardment of the besieged Gaza strip over the last few weeks. Currently, the ship is still lying in the Durban harbour waiting to take on cargo. 

Concerns are rising about the impact that the catastrophic situation in India could have on the COVID–19 pandemic on the African continent. Africa’s vaccine supply relies heavily on India’s Serum Institute, the source of the AstraZeneca vaccines distributed by the global COVAX project which is supposed to provide vaccines to poor countries. India’s export ban on vaccines has severely impacted the predictability of the rollout of vaccination programs and will continue to do so for the coming weeks and perhaps even months.

Huge fires have inflicted massive damage on Cape Town, destroying priceless cultural artefacts and forcing thousands to evacuate. This preventable disaster was a product of the decrepit capitalist system, and has thrown the deep inequality and social rot in South African society into sharp relief.

Over the last few days, a social eruption has shaken the West African country of Senegal. The movement, emerging apparently from nowhere, has quickly gained insurrectionary features with the state completely losing control of big parts of the capital Dakar to the demonstrators.

On Wednesday, 24 February, 21 unions of the South African Federation of Trade Unions went on a general strike against deep and sustained cuts in the living standards of workers, and to fight for a radical change in the country’s economic policies. Frustration runs high amongst the working class over mass retrenchments, wage freezes and brutal austerity measures in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. 

On 6 February, thousands of protesters took to the streets in Tunis, chanting the slogan “the people want the fall of the regime” against the Islamist Ennahdha party, a member of the government coalition. Riot police had in advance of the rally deployed cordons around central Tunis

A new, powerful mass movement has erupted in Tunisia. The explosion of anger is due to the economic crisis, which has degraded the lives of Tunisians to a life of poverty and suffering. Exactly 10 years after the 2011 revolution that toppled Ben Ali, none of the problems of the Tunisian masses have been solved.

Just before Christmas, outgoing US Attorney General Bill Barr announced additional charges relating to the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988. This announcement is clearly politically motivated, and is symbolic of how the entire investigation has been focused on imperialist interests, rather than a genuine desire to bring the perpetrators to justice.