Follow Us on Google
Observers of the delicate negotiations going on in Sudan since the ouster of President Omar al-Bashir in April had a feeling of relief last week when the two sides in the Sudan political deadlock came forward to announce a political accord in Khartoum. The generals, represented by the Transitional Military Council (TMC) and the coalition of protest groups represented by the Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC) had signed a power-sharing agreement which had seemingly resolved the disagreements, setbacks and delays arising from the opposition’s objections to military rule as a replacement for the al-Bashir junta.
Both sides agreed to create an 11-man joint transitional administration which will govern for three years and usher in a democratically elected government. The 11-man body will be known as the “Sovereign Council,” composed of five military personnel chosen by the TMC and five civilians selected by the FFC. The 11th member will be a civilian picked by a consensus of both sides. In the first 21 months of the transition, the Sovereign Council will be headed by a general to be followed by a civilian who would head the council for the remaining 18 months of its tenure. The FFC will nominate the prime minister, who will name a cabinet of 20 ministers, excluding the interior and defence ministers who would be appointed by the Sovereign Council’s military officials.
Much of the credit for the breakthrough must go to the African Union Commission and the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Abiy Ahmed, who on June 6 visited Sudan and offered to mediate the crisis and appointed Ambassador Mahmoud Derir, one of Ethiopia’s top diplomats, to represent him. The deal is an indication that some measure of trust is gradually being restored on both sides following the military’s forcible expulsion of the protesters from their sit-in near the military headquarters in Khartoum in which 128 protesters were killed.
That incident continues to cast a shadow over the negotiations as protesters continue to call for accountability. Last week, thousands marched in Sudan to honour the ‘martyrs’ killed in the “revolution” since December 2018 when the protests began. They converged on the Green Yard, a prominent square in Khartoum, waving Sudanese flags and chanting revolutionary slogans.
The second phase of the negotiations scheduled for last weekend to discuss “Constitutional Declaration” was postponed when it appeared that some members of the opposition coalition were raising objections to the demand by the TMC for immunity from prosecution.The immunity sought by the officers is against the rule of law. International law does not offer immunity for war crimes or the violation of human rights. The FFC is objecting to blanket immunity that would prevent a truly independent investigation into the massacre of June 3.Dozens of bodies were recovered from the Nile River.
Witnesses had said the crackdown was staged by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group commanded by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who is also the deputy head of the TMC. The general has dismissed the allegations even in the face of overwhelming evidence. Secondly, the autocratic tendencies of the TMC have not calmed many nerves. Al Jazeera was expelled from Sudan, its correspondents now report Sudan from neighbouring Ethiopia.
In addition to the above, even more substantive objections are being raised by three ‘armed’ rebel groups who think that no effort was made to settle the underlying issues in the ‘forgotten’ wars instigated and fanned by the deposed president al-Bashir in western Darfur, and the provinces of the Blue Nile and South Kordafan. These groups now in exile in Ethiopia have been fighting the Sudanese government for years.
In 2003 al-Bashir mobilised Arab militia known as the Janjaweed who carried out waves of atrocities against ethnic African groups in Darfur on the strength of which the International Criminal Court indicted him, and for the first time issued an arrest warrant for a sitting head of state. The fear is that if these issues are not settled, the united opposition coalition might fracture and true peace would elude Sudan. The Sudan Revolutionary Front says it finds last week’s agreement unacceptable because the agreement did not talk about bringing peace to Sudan’s war zones or addressing the needs of those affected by the conflicts.
The AU and the Ethiopian mediators must see this as an opportunity to tackle these niggling disputes which al-Bashir left to fester for so long. They must do everything to ensure a united opposition front so as not to let the entire peace process unravel.
