Sudan war: RSF ‘ready for a ceasefire’, signs declaration with Tagaddum civil alliance

The meeting of the commander of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Lt Gen Mohamed ‘Hemedti’ Dagalo, with a delegation of the Civil Democratic Forces alliance (Tagaddum), headed by former PM Abdalla Hamdok, in the Ethiopian capital on Monday, concluded yesterday with the signing of an declaration. Hemedti said the RSF are ready to agree with the army on an immediate ceasefire.

In the Addis Ababa Declaration, signed by Hemedti and Hamdok, the paramilitary RSF agrees “to immediately and unconditionally stop hostilities” in direct negotiations with the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), provided that the Tagaddum coalition of progressive parties and groups agrees with the army commanders “to adhere to the same procedures”.

According to the declaration text, the RSF will open safe corridors for the transport of humanitarian aid in areas under their control. The paramilitaries will provide security in these areas through the deployment of police forces and work on the restoration of civil services and production facilities, so that the millions of displaced people will be able to return to their homes in these areas. A national committee for the protection of civilians will be set up to monitor the procedures for this purpose.

The declaration also stipulates full cooperation with the fact-finding committee formed by the UN Human Rights Council in October to ensure that “the facts are presented, victims are treated fairly, and violators are held accountable”. An independent Sudanese committee will investigate human rights violations throughout the country.

The RSF, as a goodwill gesture, will also release 451 prisoners of war and other detainees.

Both parties further agreed that the joint Declaration of Principles, and Tagaddum’s draft roadmap for peace “constitute a good basis for a political process that ends the war in Sudan”.

‘Positive spirit’

Rasha Awad, editior-in-chief of El Taghyeer electronic newspaper and member of the Tagaddum Executive Office, told reporters in Addis Ababa yesterday that “extensive discussions about how to reach peace in Sudan took place during the meeting on Monday evening”.

“A positive spirit prevailed at the meeting,” she told reporters on Tuesday morning. “All those gathered agreed that the war is a major disaster, and that all parties must strive to stop this war and achieve peace.”

It was agreed to immediately set up a joint technical committee between the RSF and Tagaddum to further study the latter’s roadmap and draft declaration of political principles. “The meeting will continue today, Tuesday, after the authorised technical committee has met,” Awad said.

She further referred to the letter sent by Tagaddum to the SAF command, requesting a similar meeting with the army leadership. “We are still waiting for a response.”

‘Building block’

In a joint press conference with the RSF commander after signing the Addis Ababa Declaration yesterday, Hamdok praised Hemedti’s quick response to the meeting with Tagaddum, and said he expects the SAF leadership also to respond to the request for a meeting.

He described the Addis Ababa Declaration as “the first building block for stopping the war in Sudan” and appealed to the Sudanese “to forget all their differences, big and small, and unite now to stop this war”.

Hemedti said that he is ready “to sign a cessation of hostilities today if the army agrees to the Addis Ababa Declaration to stop the war”.

He called on Tagaddum to include the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North led by Abdelaziz El Hilu (SPLM-N El Hilu) and the Sudan Liberation Movement under the leadership of and Abdelwahid El Nour (SLM-AW) in the declaration.

The RSF commander said he welcomes “any investigation into who started the war in Sudan,” and stressed that “the RSF are not militiamen, but forces to be reckoned with”. He condemned the killing of Sudanese by army soldiers under false accusations that they belong to the RSF. 

Hemedti further referred to the joint SAF-RSF coup d’état that toppled the civilian government of Hamdok on October 25, 2021, and said that “the coup was determined to cause chaos”.  

He said once again that “the Islamists [affiliates of the Al Bashir regime] were the ones who planned and ignited this war and destroyed Sudan and its infrastructure” and affirmed his commitment to achieving “a just and comprehensive peace that establishes a new Sudan in which the values ​​of freedom, democracy and justice prevail”.

Tour

Hemedti, who did not appear in public since the war started on April 15 last year, began touring the countries of the Horn of Africa in end December, after SAF commander Lt Gen Abdelfattah El Burhan, following the fall of El Gezira in central Sudan to the RSF on December 18, finally agreed to the Intergovernmental Authority on Development’s (IGAD) decision in a special summit on Sudan in Djibouti in mid-December to organise a face-to-face meeting between the RSF and SAF commanders.

The meeting was supposed to take place in Djibouti on December 28, but was postponed to January for “technical reasons”.

Tagaddum has been operating from the Ethiopian capital since October. Hamdok met with South Sudanese President Salva Kiir in A delegation visited Kenyan President William Ruto in mid-December.

Speeches by El Burhan and by Hemedti to the Sudanese people on the occasion of the 68th anniversary of the country’s independence have been strongly criticised.

El Burhan appeared to contradict himself. “He denounced advocates for stopping the war and at the same time he said that he supports calls for peace,” lawyer Majdi El Naeem told Radio Dabanga on Monday. Journalist Shamayel El Nour called “both speeches contain an evasion of responsibility and a denial of reality in a way that hardly deserves comment”.