Sese: ‘Multiple initiatives complicate Sudan negotiations’

Special consultations to end Sudan’s conflict and deliver humanitarian aid began in Geneva on Wednesday. According to El Tijani Sese, chair of the National Movement Forces (NMF), the choice for a new negotiating platform in Geneva instead of resuming the talks in the Saudi city of Jeddah “will lead to more intransigence among the warring parties”.

The Sudanese political scene is filled with uncertainty about the proceeds of the negotiations in Geneva in Switzerland, organised by the USA, could lead. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) sent a delegation, but the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) refused to participate directly in the talks.

On Saturday, however, the Sudanese Sovereignty Council announced that the SAF agreed to send a delegation to meet with US and Saudi mediators in the Egyptian capital of Cairo, following calls from the US Special Envoy to Sudan, Tom Perriello, and Egyptian officials.

El Tijani Sese, chair of the National Movement Forces alliance and former governor of Darfur, is not happy with the Geneva platform, and expressed his preference for the resumption of talks in Jeddah.

The Jeddah talks, under joint auspices of the USA and Saudi Arabia, were suspended in December last year after the negotiations reached a stalemate.

Sese told Radio Dabanga on Sunday that “as political forces, we have continued to engage with all international and regional initiatives that could lead to a solution to the Sudanese crisis”. He warned, however, that “these multiple initiatives will lead to more confusion for the political forces.

“We had hoped that the humanitarian and security issues would be contained in one initiative, which is the Jeddah platform, where SAF and RSF delegations agreed on several truces before reaching the Jeddah Declaration concerning the protection of civilians signed on May 11 last year,” the politician said.

“It would have been better when Saudi Arabia would have continued its efforts, with the support of the regional and international community, to firstly implement what was agreed upon in Jeddah, to be followed by talks about a permanent ceasefire to end the military confrontations.

The former governor of Darfur warned that “if the Geneva negotiations start from scratch, this will lead to many complications in the military and security scene, making it difficult for the parties to reach any formula for a ceasefire agreement. The talks should definitely start with the Jeddah Declaration”.

Moving the negotiating platform to Geneva “is an attempt to impose more pressure on the belligerents,” he said and warned that this “will lead to more intransigence among the warring parties”.

RSF controlling Darfur

Sese also noted concerns related to “widespread rumours” about the RSF agreeing in Geneva to withdraw from certain areas in Sudan and reposition themselves in the west, where they completely control four of the five Darfur states and parts of North Darfur.

“The RSF would create a major problem as if it would continue to consolidate its control over Darfur. It would create a situation similar to that in Libya, with two governments, one in Tripoli and the other in Benghazi. Such a development would create a very dangerous situation that will not lead to stability in Sudan in any way.”

He also referred to “the existence of a contradictory external agendas that could ultimately lead to more divisions in Sudan”. He called for the integration of efforts, “which should be national in order to lead to the unification of the country, because Sudan will not be united unless the Sudanese are united”.

‘Alternative Furi leader’

El Tijani Sese, from the Fur tribe in Darfur, served as a state minister and Darfur governor during the democratic government of El Sadig El Mahdi between 1986 and 1989. Following the coup d’état headed by Brig Omar Al Bashir on June 30, 1989, he left the country.  

Since 2005, he worked with the UN Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa, but when Qatar proposed peace negotiations for Darfur after the 2006 Abuja Peace Agreement between the Sudanese government and the Sudan Liberation Movement breakaway faction of Minni Minawi failed, Sese arranged for an unpaid leave in 2010. He formed the Liberation and Justice Movement (LJM), made up of splinter factions of Darfuri rebel movements in Doha, reportedly as an alternative to represent the Fur tribe in the peace process after the rejection of Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM-AW) leader Abdelwahid Nur to join the talks.

The talks led to the signing of the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur (DDPD) by the LJM and the Sudanese government in July 2011 in the Qatari capital. The displaced in Darfur rejected the accord.

In September that year, the Sudanese government appointed Sese as president of the Darfur Regional Authority (DRA).

According to Darfuri displaced and refugees, nothing approved in the following years. The coordinator of the Central Darfur camps in January 2015 described the DDPD to Radio Dabanga as “corrupted” and stated that “there can be no peace without security on the ground, and the disarmament of the militias”.

He further called “the current conflicts” among the LJM leaders a “natural result of this incomprehensive peace accord”. These conflicts began that month when LJM’s Secretary-General Bahar Abu Garda, accused Sese of entering fighters of his personal militia into the Disarmament, Demobilisation, and Reintegration (DDR) programme, instead of LJM ex-combatants. A few days later, on January 18, Sese was ousted as LJM chairman. He remained the head of the DRA – which was dissolved by President Al Bashir in June 2016.

In the end of 2021, Sese launched the National Movement Forces (NMF) was launched in Khartoum. The new political alliance, chaired by him, included the Nidaa (Call) National Programme headed by Sese, Sudan of Justice headed by Farah El Agar, the National Nation parties, the mainstream Democratic Union, the Beja Congress, the Coordination of Dismissed Government Employees, and the National Front for Change – set up by dissidents of the National Congress Party of ousted President Omar Al Bashir.

The NMF said it aims “to exchange views on the political crisis suffocating Sudan, discuss the current political situation and the dangers of blatant foreign interference targeting the country’s unity, the increase in conflicts and civil wars in the regions, the collapse of public services, and the deterioration of people’s living conditions”.

The group was among the four Sudanese political alliances that met in Cairo in July last year, three month after the devastating SAF-RSF war broke out in Sudan, and called on SAF Commander Abdelfattah El Burhan to form an interim government as soon as possible.

In May this year, the NMF alliance, together with 47 other political and civil blocs backing the SAF, signed a charter in Cairo, outlining their vision to manage the transitional period after the war.

The NMF is not to be confused with the National Forces Coordination formed by Malik Agar, vice president of the Sovereignty Council, in March, that announced its intention to sign a political accord with the SAF.