Sudan civil Tagaddum alliance ‘ready for meeting’ with El Burhan

The Civil Democratic Forces alliance (Tagaddum) is continuing its efforts to arrange a meeting with army leader Abdelfattah El Burhan. The alliance, chaired by former PM Abdallah Hamdok, is in contact with the mainstream Arab Ba’ath Party, the Sudan Liberation Movement-AW and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North El Hilu with the aim to convince them to join the group. Tagaddum also seeks to arrange for three safe areas for the displaced in the country in case the war spreads to north and east Sudan.

Mohamed El Faki, one of the spokespeople* for Tagaddum and member of the Sovereignty Council during the government of Abdallah Hamdok (2019-2021), confirmed in an interview with Radio Dabanga yesterday that they have received a response on their invitation for a direct meeting with Lt Gen Abdelfattah El Burhan, commander-in-chief of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and head of the de facto Sovereignty Council to discuss means to end the more than eight-month-old war with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

“We are waiting for the time and place to be determined,” he said. “We are ready for this meeting, and we believe that it is vital for the future of the peace process to meet with the SAF given that the army is a key player in the ongoing war.

“We have already met with the commander of the RSF and it is most important to also meet with the SAF commander because we believe that as democratic civilian forces, we are qualified to play a decisive role in the peace process in Sudan,” he explained.

“As everyone is knows, prominent Muslim Brotherhood members of the ousted Al Bashir regime are seeking to prevent this meeting from taking place. We insist on this meeting with the army commander, and our battle with the remnants of the Al Bashir regime will continue despite all the barricades they are putting to hamper our efforts to reach peace.”

The alliance is also in contact with Sudan’s Arab Ba’ath Party**, the mainstream SLM Darfur led by Abdelwahid Nur (SLM-AW), and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North under the leadership by Abdelaziz El Hilu in South Kordofan and parts of the Blue Nile region (SPLM-N El Hilu) “to unify all Sudanese civilian forces” in order to reach peace and rebuild a democratic Sudan.

“We are in the process of scheduling meetings, especially because the three parties have expressed their desire to cooperate with us. We thank them for their spirit of responsibility and comradeship they have shown in these pivotal circumstances the people in Sudan are living in.”

El Faki said that Tagaddum is open to discuss conditions of the three parties to work together with the alliance. “We are determined to take the same path together, being aware that the situation in Sudan is very complex and that no single group can lead this country to safety. There are a lot of questions ahead of us, but what is most important, before going into any details, is stopping the war.

“The entire Sudanese political spectrum, just like all the civilians in the country, need the war to end as soon as possible. This is our main goal, and there may be a difference in views and details after the end of the war, but everyone, except for the Muslim Brotherhood, now agrees on this common, main goal.”

Peaceful solution

The politician further said that they have not yet received official information regarding the resumption of the US-Saudi-led negotiations platform in the Saudi city of Jeddah.

“In any case, we have been betting from the beginning on a peaceful solution through the Jeddah platform, the initiative of the Horn of Africa’s Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD), or any political process leading to a comprehensive peaceful solution.

“All these platforms are working tools that we should keep open at all times, even if the parties to the conflict disavow political action. These meetings are very important to have them clarify their views and explain their position to the regional and international community,” he stressed.

“Therefore, we should not be led by rhetoric that says that the warring parties are not serious because even if this is true, they must be led to these platforms. If the political process rejects platforms for a peaceful solution, the alternative is war.”

Political crisis

Bakri El Jak, specialised in public policy and organisational behaviour, and leading member of the Tagaddum alliance regrets the political and diplomatic situation in the country after the decision of the de facto government in Port Sudan on Saturday to freeze Sudan’s membership of IGAD.

“The war is essentially a political crisis,” he told Radio Dabanga in an interview earlier this week. Rejecting the IGAD initiative is “a mistake in strategic thinking of the SAF and the Islamists behind them, as there is a custom in diplomatic work that says that every empty chair is an invitation to your opponent to benefit from it, so it is natural not to antagonise everyone and not turn friends into enemies.

“The African Union’s position was positive toward Sudan, although it has frozen the country’s membership since the joint SAF-RSF October 2021 military coup. Lt Gen El Burhan was treated as a de facto authority. The Jeddah platform refused to treat military representatives as representatives of the Sudanese government, but the AU and IGAD dealt with the form of legitimacy of the nation as a fait accompli.”

As for the Jeddah negotiations, El Jak described the behaviour of the de facto government in Port Sudan as “stupid”, as “It was clear from the outset at the Jeddah platform that once there was progress and a return to the voice of reason, the Sudanese Foreign Affairs Ministry issued a more radical statement.”

‘No military vision’

The politician said he does not rule out that the failure to deal with any external initiative to stop the war is a form of internal conflict between the various parties of the de facto authority.

“The danger is that there is currently no formula to deal with what is happening in Sudan. The Jeddah platform has become almost frozen after the withdrawal of the army leadership from signing an agreement at the last minute.

“As for the IGAD initiative, the SAF refused to participate in the IGAD summit in Kampala on January 18 under the pretext that the decisions of the Djibouti summit in early December. The Djibouti summit is the same summit whose decisions were rejected by the de facto government with the now famous statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs the following day.”

The Tagaddum leader called what is happening now in Sudan “confusion, absurdity, and lack of clear vision, but worst of all is that this ruling group does not even have a military vision.

“They did not specify whether they want to continue fighting or seek to make peace,” he said.

“The only conclusion any observer or reader can draw is that their overall goal is to bring the country into open war in all directions and end any chances to bring about peace. The strategic plan may be that if you [members of the Al Bashir regime] are not able to return to power, you burn the whole country.”

Working on three levels

The Civil Democratic Forces is working on three levels “to confront the political vacuum now prevailing in Sudan,” El Jak explained.

“Firstly, we continue communicating with the RSF leadership about the need to protect civilians. They should stay away from urban areas devoid of army forces and where clashes are not supposed to occur.

“What happened in El Obeid and Bara [in North Kordofan] is a positive indication that there are places that do not need to be controlled because there are no SAF troops there. This is the approach we follow. We will also continue to urge the RSF that military escalation is not necessary at this time when opportunities for diplomatic pressure arise.

“We will definitely continue to talk with the SAF and will not despair of their possible responses at some point.

The second level is that of the population. “We will try to convince the people in the country not to engage in the ethnic and racial holocaust that is being prepared daily. What is happening in Nile River state, Northern State, and the eastern states [El Gedaref, Kassala, and Red Sea state] is frightening because they are targeted people from Darfur, as they suspect them of supporting the RSF – while in Darfur itself, the ethnic and racial mobilisation among the Arab tribal groups is also an unacceptable approach.”

Thirdly, Tagaddum will continue to communicate with neighbouring countries, and regional and international organisations. “We will communicate with IGAD and the African Union, as well as the United Nations, via the special envoy of the UN secretary-general, and the European Union,” El Jak stated.

“It is time to seriously think about safe and internationally protected areas. It is possible to think of three areas, in the southern, northeastern, and northwestern parts of Sudan, bordering South Sudan, Chad, and Egypt respectively.

“This would provide safe places for displaced people, especially if the war continues and reaches the eastern states and there won’t a safe place in Sudan no longer. No neighbouring country will be able to receive 30 million displaced Sudanese and if no political solution to the military conflict happens soon, it is necessary to think about safe corridors and places for the displaced civilians and humanitarian aid providers.

“We will also continue diplomatic pressure on the de facto authority in Khartoum or Port Sudan, wherever it is, because the reality cannot be so extreme, to reject all peaceful solutions and at the same time have no vision for any solution, including a military solution.

“Now you demand civilians to do their military duty and at the same time push them into a holocaust.”

Sudan may fall apart

El Jak does not rule out that “the de facto authority will change its mind within a week or so and waive some conditions and accept some.

“This is not new to the experience of the Al Bashir regime [1989-2019] and the Islamists who have spent 30 years in a state of conflict with the international community and have a long experience in political recklessness, in twisting the neck of facts, and trying to criminalise opponents and portray reality differently.

“This vacuum may be intentional and is a form of manoeuvring to scare the international and regional community that the war could expand and that there will be 30 million people displaced.

“If this situation turns into a strategic position, the world must prepare for a dire reality that will be even worse,” he warned.

“Sudan is a multilingual and multi-tribal state, and the continuation of such extreme violence could threaten to divide Sudan into several regions and possibly mutually conflicting regions.”

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* On Wednesday, the media committee of Civil Democratic Forces announced the names of the official spokespeople for the alliance: Mohamed El Faki Suleiman, political scientist, Rasha Awad, editior-in-chief of El Taghyeer newspaper, human rights defender Alaa Nugud, Osama Saeed from eastern Sudan, specialised in international relations, and Abdelkarim Saleh.

** The Civil Democratic Forces alliance (Tagaddum – meaning progress in Arabic), consists of the Sudanese Congress Party, the National Umma Party, the SPLM-Democratic Revolutionary Movement, and other members of the Forces for Freedom and Change-Central Council (FFC-CC). The Communist Party of Sudan withdrew from the FFC in 2020, the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party two years later. While the Ba’ath Party is still deliberating joining Tagaddum, the Communist Party categorically refuses to cooperate with those who support a “legitimisation of the presence of the military on the scene in the future”. The resistance committees that signed the Revolutionary Charter for People’s Authority in September 2022, have not been invited yet by Tagaddum to join the building of “the broadest democratic civil front possible”.