Sudan Democracy First Group The Political Developments in the Peace Process in Sudan

11:44 PM November, 25 2018

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25 Nov. 2018



Since the end of October 2018, Sudan has witnessed an accelerated political developments in an attempt to jumpstart the peace process tracks and to open a new prospect for political solutions to the Sudanese problem. These developments came after the miserable failure of the National Dialogue track, which was initiated by the Government of Sudan (GoS), to advance the political process forward, and ended in a mere accommodation of participants in a power sharing scheme. It is worth noting that the current attempts to push the stalled peace process forward, are essentially initiated by foreign actors, namely; the Government of South Sudan, Qatar and the African Union's high-level implementation panel. Moreover, the consultation meetings that are on swing now, between a number of the opposition forces and the GoS in capital cities around the world (Juba, Johannesburg, Doha, Berlin, Paris... etc.), are held behind closed doors in complete secrecy and the statements provided by parties involved are short and do not avail enough information about took place behind these closed doors. The lack of detailed information ensued has led to speculations, assumptions and fience discussions about the agenda and objectives of these meetings. To address these shortcomings and to put an end to theses speculations and assumptions, the parties involved in these meetings, including the GoS, should publicly announce their positions and the minutes of these consultation meetings to the Sudanese people on regular basis.

Despite the downside of the consultation meetings mentioned above, the Sudan Democracy First Group (SDFG) welcomes and supports all efforts exert with the intention of stopping the war in Darfur, Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan. Furthermore, we would like to highlight the concerns, which should be at top of the consultation agenda, of the poor people affected by the long years of war, as well as related national agenda that directly affect their wellbeing and the wellbeing of the general public at large, and not to turn these meetings into power sharing discussions. Among the issues that we hope to see in the consultation/negotiations agenda are the concerns of displaced and refugees, the individual and collective reparations, land ownership, the lack of social and public services, the humanitarian assistance which is urgently in the areas affected by war, the lack of freedoms and rights and the opening up of the political space for a genuine democratic transition. It is also important that the agenda of consultations and negotiations should include a realistic and genuine discussion of justice and accountability and to propose approaches and generate discussion to achieve a Sudanese model of justice for the crimes committed in the past years and break away from the tradition of impunity in Sudan.

The Sudan Democracy First Group call upon all civil society organizations, professional associations, students and trade unions, community organizations and political forces to mount pressure on the parties involved in the current consultative processes to provide and avail all information about what transpire in these meetings to the people of the Sudan, especially those in conflict areas. The release of such information would ensure the widest possible popular participation in the discussion of the future processes and that in turn would provide the best guarantees for comprehensive and genuine solutions to the Sudanese problems. In addition, it would prevent the GoS from splitting the opposition forces and put an end to the piecemeal approach.



Sudan Democracy First Group