Success of Sudan negotiations in Jeddah ‘depends on army’s purge of Al Bashir supporters’

Lt Gen Abdelfattah El Burhan says that the new round of the Jeddah negotiations is a continuation of previous talks. Neighbourhood committees and the Islamist Popular Congress Party welcomed the resumed talks, while prominent members of the mainstream Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC-Central Council) say that the many affiliates of the Al Bashir regime should be purged from the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the Sudanese society in order to realise democracy in Sudan.

Following ‘the fall’ of Nyala, capital of South Darfur, to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) last week, and the Central Darfur capital Zalingei early on Tuesday morning, Gen Abdelfattah El Burhan, Sovereignty Council president and SAF commander, visited several SAF sites in Omdurman on Tuesday. 

Addressing military troops at the Sedna military base in northern Omdurman, he said that the Jeddah negotiations are a continuation of previous talks. The RSF paramilitaries are to leave the neighbourhoods they are occupying and should assemble in specific areas, he stressed.

“What is now happening in Darfur confirms that the RSF do not want peace,” El Burhan added, and warned that “the army will definitely work on a military resolution if the RSF does not commit itself to peace”.

The SAF commander further accused unnamed politicians of schadenfreude concerning the losses suffered by the army in Darfur and called them “a hidden enemy”.

According to retired Lt Col Omar Arbab, El Burhan’s visits to military sites in Omdurman on Tuesday, the second time since he left the SAF General Command in Khartoum in the end of August, aim to address the “boredom” within the armed forces and their growing conviction that the SAF should not enter into any talks with the RSF.

“The visits come within the framework of the army’s preparation for any agreement with the RSF,” he told Radio Dabanga yesterday. “They are an attempt to convince the army that its command did not compromise but achieved its goals.”

A new negotiation round between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah started on Sunday.

In a statement issued by the Saudi Foreign Affairs Ministry on Sunday, the joint US-Saudi-IGAD facilitation said the negotiations focus on a truce, facilitating the delivery of humanitarian aid, and confidence-building measures, as well as the possibility of a permanent cessation of hostilities.

‘A chance’

The neighbourhood committees of Khartoum North (Khartoum Bahri) also welcomed the Jeddah platform.

“Resumed negotiations mean there is a chance for a ceasefire and a peaceful future,” they said in a statement on social media on Monday.

They called on Sudan’s neighbouring countries and the international community “to play a positive role in alleviating the suffering of the Sudanese people and in the opening of safe humanitarian corridors”.

The grassroots activists also urged the release of the many people who have been arbitrarily detained by both parties to the conflict.

‘Purely political’

Kamal Omar, political secretary of the Popular Congress Party, an Islamist political party founded by Hasan El Turabi in 1999 following a split with President Omar Al Bashir, said he is convinced that the Jeddah talks will lead to peace.

“After months of conflict, the army and the RSF now finally responded to the voice of reason,” he told Radio Dabanga on Tuesday.

“The problem of the integration of the RSF into one singular army can only be solved by a civilian authority,” he said. “All political forces in Sudan agree that the Jeddah platform is an appropriate and effective platform for ending the war, as the facilitators of the platform, the USA and Saudi Arabia, who were also part of the political process that led to the signing of Framework Agreement by the military junta [the SAF and the RSF], and more than 40 civilian parties in the end of last year.”

According to Omar, the problem of Sudan is purely political. “No one supports the war except the remnants of the National Congress Party [set up by Al Bashir in 1998 and dissolved in 2019] and their ‘either ruling or burning Sudan’ perception.

“They think that any political process will be at their expense, so that is why they are the ones who ignited the battles and are still beating the drums of war.”

He stressed that any military institution in Sudan since independence suffers from problems related to politics. “During the political process in the second half of last year, which led to the Framework Agreement, we therefore prioritised the reform of the military structure and the building of an army whose commanders represent all parts of Sudan.”

Omar also welcomed the recent “positive statements” of El Burhan in which he repeated that the SAF will not be a party to any future political process.

“When El Burhan made the same statement during the political process, his remarks were questionable, but this time he says it during the war, which indicates that they are positive and encourages democratic transition.”

Al Bashir ‘remnants’

Khaled Omar Yousef, secretary-general of the progressive Sudanese Congress Party, which is a prominent member of the Forces for FFC-CC, also states that the war in Sudan cannot be resolved militarily.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday, he said that “only peacefully negotiated solutions can lead to a civil-democratic transition and one professional national army and stop the escalation of ethnic and racist discourse by the remnants of the former [Al Bashir] regime”.

The SAF should “completely abandon politics and economics, and hand these matter to a civilian authority. Only in this way, the presence of Islamist elements of the former regime and any political party influencing the army can be removed, and a single national army will be formed that reflects the plurality and diversity of Sudan in a real way”.

The October 25 coup d’état in 2021, staged jointly by the SAF and RSF, was planned by affiliates of the Al Bashir regime, as they had lost their power after Al Bashir was ousted in April 2019 and his NCP was dissolved in November that year, Yousef said.

“Through their abundant presence in the security and military establishment, they caused the October coup. They were also the ones who caused the April 15 war.

“The ongoing war is not a war of dignity or sovereignty, but a war of [Al Bashir regime] remnants to return to power, even if this leads to the destruction of the entire country and its division,” he stressed.

As for the civilian opposition, the politician warned that a broad civilian front is necessary to preserve the unity of Sudan. “Any agenda for Sudan’s transition to democracy will fail unless all democratic forces unite.”

Yousef called for “a new social contract that preserves the unity of the Sudan on a just basis, ends all forms of domination, exclusion, and discrimination, and distributes the country’s resources and governance fairly and equitably among all its components”.

‘Implications’

Yassir Arman, head of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North–Democratic Revolutionary Movement (DRM) and spokesperson for the FFC-CC, in a statement on X on Tuesday also accused supporters of the Al Bashir regime of being behind the war.

“The attack on El Medina El Riyadiya [Sports City, in southern Khartoum] on the morning of April 15 was prompted by the Islamic movement that wanted to involve the armed forces in the war. Whether it takes time or not, in the end the leaders of the NCP will bear responsibility for the war and the destruction of the SAF,” Arman stated.

The former rebel leader warned that the control of the RSF over three Darfur capitals “will have profound political, economic, and military implications for the balance of war and politics” and said he is certain that the RSF victories will extend to other regions.

“Duty requires from the civilian and military forces to deal courageously with this situation and put forward comprehensive, national alternatives that reduce human and material losses,” he suggested.

“The Jeddah negotiations need a new vision that takes all internal and external factors into account, the SAF need to liberate themselves from the remnants before it is too late, while the RSF should take advantage of their current position to reach sustainable strategic solutions and benefit from the failed experience of the remnants, which was based on force and violence.”

In August, when political opposition groups met in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, to discuss an inter-Sudanese conference, Arman strongly opposed the presence of inclusion of Al Bashir supporters in the dialogue. The conference did not take place until today. The opposition groups are now working on a united front, Civil Front to Stop the War in Sudan, chaired by former PM Abdallah Hamdok (2019-2021).