Behind the Ceasefire Curtain: A Reading of the Leaked Document

As I See It

Adel Al-Baz

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In the labyrinth of complex politics, leaked documents often serve either as a torch illuminating dark corners or as a trap laid along the path to peace. The latest document, titled “Restoring Peace in Sudan,” is no exception. It reflects the clash of competing wills and exposes potential pitfalls that could jeopardize Sudan’s future.

When the first document from the Naivasha negotiations was leaked—a letter from Ali Osman Mohamed Taha to John Garang—I went to Ali Osman, may he rest in peace, and asked him: “Does this represent the government’s final position, or is it merely a negotiating stance?” After a lengthy explanation of the document’s foundations, he told me that it was simply a negotiating position. He then asked why I was posing the question. I replied: “If it is a negotiating position, then there is room for the talks to succeed. But if you insist on treating it as a final position, then you should not waste your time on negotiations that will lead nowhere.”

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After reading yesterday’s leaked document, titled “Restoring Peace in Sudan,” I found myself asking the very same question: Is the government’s response to the American proposals a negotiating position, or is it final?

If it is merely a negotiating stance, then all possibilities remain open. If, however, it represents a final position and has been accepted by the United States, Sudan may be on the threshold of a genuine peace process.

Why—and how?

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The Document’s Pitfalls: An Analysis of Key Points Across the Five Tracks

The government’s response, as reflected in the leaked document, contains provisions across its five tracks from which it can hardly retreat. Any such retreat would risk shattering the coalition gathered around the army, including volunteer forces, the Joint Forces, Islamist brigades, and perhaps even the military institution itself, which is unlikely to accept concessions on any of the document’s principal tracks.

Any attempt to amend these provisions would mean that proponents of the ceasefire have succeeded in undermining the unity of the Sudanese people and the various factions aligned with the army, leaving the military exposed and isolated.

Conversely, if the army remains steadfast in the position outlined throughout the document, it will preserve its cohesion. Since the document has entered the public domain, one possibility is that it emerged from a long and secret negotiating process that secured the approval of international actors as well as the parties aligned with what is known as the “War of Dignity,” before eventually being leaked. Another possibility is that it was deliberately leaked by a party seeking to derail the process, especially given that the militia and its allies are unlikely to accept its terms, as Khalid Omar Yousif suggested in his article yesterday.

Low Negotiating Ceilings: Why?

This document reflects a negotiating position with surprisingly modest ambitions. The government would have been better served by raising its demands to the highest possible level in order to strengthen its leverage at the negotiating table.

For example, the document contains no reference to the crimes committed by the militia. The government should not allow the militia to evade accountability for its actions. How can a force accused of destroying large parts of the country, committing grave human rights abuses, and devastating infrastructure continue to negotiate its return to political life while its leaders remain untouched?

The document could also have included provisions on compensation. Can the militia and its supporters be allowed to inflict such destruction and loss of life without contributing a single penny toward reconstruction or even compensation for victims?

Numerous additional provisions could have been included to strengthen the government’s negotiating position. It remains unclear why the government chose to negotiate from the lowest possible threshold while simultaneously treating those positions as non-negotiable.

Does this make sense?

Key Issues in the Document

This article focuses on five points spread across four tracks of the document.

6.1 The First Track: A Humanitarian Truce

The document calls for: “The withdrawal of militias from all cities occupied since May 11, 2023, including the areas listed in the attached schedule, as part of confidence-building measures and the creation of an environment conducive to a permanent ceasefire.”

This provision represents the central obstacle to any future negotiations. The rebels are unlikely to accept withdrawal from the cities because doing so would amount to an admission of defeat and, effectively, the end of the rebellion and its backers.

The rebels’ dilemma is that they already accepted this principle in the Jeddah Declaration, under the watch of international observers and American mediators. As a result, they will struggle to justify their continued presence in urban areas. Likewise, the Joint Forces cannot accept their remaining in cities where civilians continue to suffer.

One proposal suggested that both the army and the militia withdraw from the cities, leaving security responsibilities to the police and a civilian administration appointed by the state. Yet even this option appears unacceptable to the militia.

The clause requiring militia withdrawal from urban areas is non-negotiable and remains one of the government’s most firmly stated commitments to the Sudanese people.

6.2 Using the Truce for Negotiations

Another clause states: “The truce shall be used to negotiate a permanent ceasefire and initiate a peaceful civilian-led transition in accordance with an agreed roadmap.”

What caught my attention here is the phrase “an agreed roadmap.” Agreed by whom?

By political forces that have failed for years to reach consensus on virtually anything—even within their own camps, where fragmentation has become the norm?

Now that these negotiations are tied to power, prestige, and political spoils, expecting meaningful outcomes from such divided actors may prove impossible. We may find ourselves waiting years for agreement—or, more accurately, waiting for Godot.

6.3 The Political Process and Governance Track: Exclusion and Unequal Treatment

One particularly striking clause reads: “Ensuring that the dialogue and political process are free from violent extremist groups and those responsible for atrocities among the rebel militias.”

Who exactly are these “violent extremist groups”?

The immediate assumption is that the clause refers to Islamists. If so, it places those who fought against the militia on the same footing as the militia itself.

The message is troubling: whether one fought alongside the militia or alongside the state, one is excluded from the political process and denied a role in shaping Sudan’s future. Islamists, it seems, are expected to sacrifice themselves for the nation without being allowed to participate in its reconstruction.

Undoubtedly, this provision was included to appease certain external actors that have long championed such demands in documents like the Quad initiative and others. Yet, if Islamists—who, in the author’s view, neither deserve such a characterization nor exclusion—are to be barred, then militia forces and their allies should face the same fate.

It is difficult to justify allowing the militia’s allies to remain at the negotiating table while excluding those aligned with the army. Such logic is questionable and serves neither the military nor the transitional period.

Sudan has already experimented with exclusionary politics twice—after the revolution and during the Framework Agreement process. The outcomes are well known. Why repeat the same approach and expect different results?

6.4 Comprehensive National Dialogue: Aspirations or Reality?

Another provision under the governance and political track calls for: “Launching a comprehensive national dialogue inside Sudan under civilian leadership and United Nations supervision, resulting in a transitional civilian government and a Sudanese political process aimed at achieving a comprehensive settlement, a unified Sudan under civilian rule and civilian-led state institutions, the establishment of a transitional civilian government to implement the outcomes of the dialogue, oversee free elections, and ensure justice and accountability.”

This is, in principle, an excellent proposal—but one that belongs more to the realm of aspiration than political reality.

Can any reasonable observer truly expect seventy political parties—many of them detached elite groupings—to agree on the composition of a civilian government when they have repeatedly failed to reach consensus on far simpler matters?

Furthermore, would political factions that have long depended on foreign support accept a civilian government that grants them only limited influence proportional to their actual political weight?

Who would accept such an imbalance?

The army itself is unlikely to endorse a government perceived as being controlled from abroad by factions associated with the Forces of Freedom and Change.

Such proposals, the author argues, amount to little more than political fantasy at a time when Sudan can least afford it.

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The Only Way to End the Chaos

There is, in the author’s view, only one path out of this chaotic transitional period.

The army must decisively declare that legitimacy derives from the people and that elections constitute the sole route to political authority. It should establish a fixed timeline for the transition, allowing political forces and those aspiring to power to prepare for elections conducted under international and regional supervision.

Whoever earns the confidence of the Sudanese people should assume power, while the army returns to its barracks.

According to the author, this is the only realistic and achievable scenario. Anything else merely prolongs the nation’s crisis and deepens the suffering of its people.