The Inability to Address the Sudanese Crisis

Dr. Al-Shafie Khader Saeed

Today we review a phenomenon that manifests itself with the same features and similarities to the point of identicalness, despite the different contexts and details, on both the parties of the Sudanese civil forces, parties and organizations, and the parties of the external forces dealing with the catastrophe of war in Sudan, from the international and regional community. As for the Sudanese civil forces, in addition to the blocs and initiatives that already existed before the war, new blocs and initiatives emerged after the outbreak of the war, and they continued to reproduce and multiply until recently.
It is true that we may witness in this bloc or that initiative a tendency toward one of the two warring parties, but in general its overall goals are identical regarding stopping the war, urgent humanitarian aid, building a single professional army, leading civilians to the democratic civil transition, and rejecting hate speech… and other goals that two people seeking peace and security of the country will not disagree on. The diagnosis of simple logic says, as long as the mechanism of the war disaster continues to destroy the people and destroy the homeland to the point of being close to realizing the possibility of its disintegration and disappearance, and as long as the founding statements and declared goals of all these blocs and initiatives, whether they arose before the war, multiplied after it, or announced themselves only recently, are almost identical. Even in language and formulations, why does the generation and reproduction continue, and even every new group begins its founding discourse as if it were the first of its kind, and there were no previous groups for it, or as if it was born because it was the only one qualified to overcome the failure of those previous blocs and initiatives?
There are many answer options to this question, but we see three of them that are closest to the truth.
We discussed the first option in a previous article and said that the reason lies in its explanation for political selfishness, the predominance of private interest, and irresponsibility among some of these forces. However, this explanation, in addition to being perhaps correct and accurate, is also subject to refutation and error, but only through a courageous initiative and practical steps to reject and refute it. It is initiated by one of the parties of these blocs and civil initiatives, instead of entrenching itself in the position of I am the only correct one! For our part, we have been calling on “Taqaddum” to play this role.
The second option is inability and lack of resourcefulness in confronting the complexities of reality and the inability to present convincing and implementable theses and solutions. In our opinion, preventing and treating this lies in the collective mind of the civil forces, which will not be achieved or materialized except through unity or effective coordination between the parties of these forces.
As for the third option, perhaps some of these blocs and initiatives that announce themselves with every new morning are the creation of non-Sudanese circles, international or regional. If that is true, it is a major blow! In general, regardless of these aforementioned options, the unity of all national blocs and initiatives seeking to stop the war, or at least their organization within an effective coordination framework, is the only key to playing an effective role against the war. Otherwise, the activities of these scattered blocs and initiatives will remain mere media chatter. Once again, we repeat that calling for an end to the war does not mean stabbing the Sudanese army in the back or allowing it to be defeated and destroyed. Rather, it simply means rejecting the Sudanese killing his Sudanese brother, rejecting the destruction of the homeland, absolutely rejecting war in all parts of the country, and refusing to let fighting be an alternative to dialogue and negotiation to resolve political and social differences and crises, no matter how severe and complex they are.
As for the parties of the international and regional community dealing with the Sudan crisis and the disaster of war, the phenomenon, the subject of the article, and as we indicated above, manifests itself with the same similarities and features in a number of key stations. Before the war, it was UNITAMS, then the African Union and IGAD joined it to form the tripartite mechanism, then the quadripartite mechanism sponsoring the framework agreement came before the war broke out. After the war, the Jeddah Platform was organized under Saudi and American initiative and sponsorship, and several truce agreements and the May humanitarian agreement was issued, all signed by both sides of the fighting. However, the African Union quickly became restless and held a Security and Peace Council meeting at the presidents’ level. Then the IGAD group moved to form an expanded mechanism with the African Union, before the heads of the countries neighboring Sudan held a meeting and launched the Neighboring Countries Initiative. Initiatives continued to multiply, as we witnessed the formation of the high-level mechanism of the African Union, the visits of the Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, then the new American envoy, and the role of the European Union in supporting these platforms from the beginning. Then came the summit in the recent UN Security Council resolutions, which called on both sides of the fighting to cease fire during the month of Ramadan. Add to all of this, the number of workshops and seminars organized by European and American governments and organizations on Sudan over the past year. During the short period from April 15 to 25, five special meetings will be held in Sudan, in Paris, Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, and Kenya! It is a manifestation of the same phenomenon empowered by the Sudanese civil forces referred to above, with the difference in context. If we leave aside the workshops and seminars, and we may discuss them later, the initiatives of regional and international institutions, and the decisions and agreements issued by them for implementation, such as the Jeddah Humanitarian Agreement signed by both sides of the fighting, The recent UN Security Council resolutions to cease fire during the month of Ramadan, in addition to the decisions of the African Union and IGAD, are all, unfortunately, locked up in the archives of these initiatives and there is no possibility or method of implementing them on the horizon. It is very difficult to accept the explanation for this phenomenon under the pretext of inability and lack of resourcefulness, as we indicated when it was caused by the Sudanese civil forces, just as it is difficult to reject the explanation that says that some external parties do not want to stop the Sudan war quickly and want it to continue for some time, as we explained in a previous article.
Finally, to hear noise and not see grinding from the multiple blocs and initiatives of Sudanese civil forces and external forces, while the people of Sudan face destruction and killing, is a failure that amounts to a crime.

Al Quds – London
March 24, 2024
Sudanese writer