The UN’s mediating effort in Sudan began with a meeting between UN Special Representative for Sudan Volker Perthes and ousted Sudanese prime minister Abdullah Hamdok at the latter’s home in Khartoum on Sunday, while thousands of Sudanese continued to protest the army’s seizure of power.
Sudan was thrown into turmoil over a week ago when the military overthrew the post-revolutionary transitional arrangement, dissolving the Sovereignty Council and arresting the prime minister and many members of the transitional government. The army commander, General Abdel-Fattah Burhan has pledged to form a government of technocrats to run the country until the elections are held in July 2023.
Burhan said he hopes Hamdok will remain at the head of the new technocratic government. This appears consistent with proposals Perthes has been testing, according to Reuters. Citing politicians involved in the mediating efforts, the news agency reported that the main compromise under discussion was for Hamdok to be given full executive powers at the head of a cabinet of technocrats he appoints himself. The army would continue to head the Security and Defense Council while the 14-member Sovereign Council would be replaced by a three-member honorary council. In addition, a parliament would be formed, representing the three main political contingents in the country from the pre-25 October events period: the military, civilians from the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC), and the rebel movements that signed the Sudanese peace accords.
A mediating delegation from the African Union is due to arrive in Khartoum later this week, headed by Mauritanian Mohamed Ould Labbad and Ethiopian Mahmoud Dardir who participated in the negotiations between the military and civilians following the overthrow of the Omar Al-Bashir regime.
A delegation from South Sudan, headed by Tut Galwak, security affairs adviser to President Salva Kiir Mayardit, met with Al-Burhan and Hamdok on Sunday and Monday, but no information has been released to the press on these talks.
The Sudanese Foreign Minister Mariam Al-Mahdi, who was also dismissed by the coup, does not believe that Hamdok will agree to head a government proposed by the military. In an interview with BBC she said that all components of the interim phase were to blame for the current situation. “All share the responsibilities and gains,” she said.
Sources close to Hamdok cited by Reuters said that he would not negotiate until the interim phase agreement is restored. Hamdok’s former press adviser Fayez Al-Silik told Al-Ahram Weekly that if the prime minister were to accept the UN proposal it would be perceived as caving into the military’s demands and “he would lose a degree of popularity and consensus that no Sudanese leadership has enjoyed for decades.”
On the other hand, Silik said, if the arrangements that preceded the unrest were restored, then Hamdok and the whole of the FFC would be on board the proposal for a government of technocrats.
Political science professor Zein Al-Abidin Hassan questioned the implications of this, however. A return to the transitional agreement would be seen as a defeat for the military and a defeat for the notion that civilians can compete for positions of power, he said.
Silik added, “We cannot deny the conflicts among civilians. But the military are also at odds over important issues.”
Since the fall of the Bashir regime in April 2019 as the result of a grassroots revolution that began in December 2018, Sudan has been governed by a constitutional charter that guarantees a power sharing arrangement involving the military and civilians. To this dual body were added the militant movements based in Darfur, the Blue Nile and other Sudanese states that had fought the Bashir regime for decades.
The Darfur factions, especially the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), led by Gibril Ibrahim who had served as finance minister in the dismissed cabinet, and the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) led by Arcua “Minni” Minnawi, who was dismissed as governor of Darfur, appear to be siding with the military.
In his first statement after dissolving the government and Sovereignty Council and declaring a state of emergency, General Burhan invited Abdel-Wahed Nour, the leader of the most powerful militia faction in Darfur, and Abdel-Aziz Al-Hilu, the leader of the Nuba Mountains faction’s Northern Sector of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM-N) to join the Sudan peace agreements. If they do, Burhan will have succeeded in forging the broad political umbrella made up of the major rebel movements, tribal leaders and Sufi religious leaders which have also supported the army.
“The army has an advantage over civilians. It has the ability to safeguard peace, to protect the voluntary return of refugees and displaced persons from the civil war, and to convince the militias to turn in their weapons and incorporate their members into the ranks of the military,” said Zein Al-Abidin Hassan, recalling that this was precisely the key to the success of Sudanese President Jaafar Numeiri’s peace process in 1972.
The Beja tribal leadership in eastern Sudan has already responded to the army’s call, announcing a one-month end of its siege of Port Sudan starting on 1 November. That day, Al-Sadiq Malik, a Beja council leader announced, “All ports and roads have been opened, and therefore eastern Sudan has been completely reopened.”
In another important signal, General Burhan dismissed public prosecutor Mubarak Mahmoud for ordering the release of a number of Bashir regime figures, most notably the head of the former ruling National Congress Party Ibrahim Ghandour, Security Chief Muhammad Hamid Tabidi and business magnates and politicians Mamoun Hamida and Abdel-Basset Hamza. According to recent news reports, Burhan ordered the arrest of all the old regime figures who had been released.
On the other hand, the general dismissed the deputy governor of the Sudanese Central Bank Farouck Hussin Kambareesi as well as a number of ambassadors who came out against the coup, prompting Foreign Minister Mariam Al-Mahdi to say, “I am proud of the ambassadors who emerged from the womb of the revolution.”
As the situation stands, the parties to the interim political process in Sudan remain committed to their positions. Any compromise at this point will be seen as a retreat that would bolster the adversary. Meanwhile, the demonstrations have sustained their momentum, even if they are pressing for different demands. Some protesters have called for the return to the interim arrangements, others for a complete handover of power to civilians and yet others for military and security commanders to be brought to trial. Naturally, such divisions do not help the protest movement as a whole.
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