Al Burhan and Militia leader meeting determines fate of Sudan War
Report/ Sudan Events
Nine months intoa the war and the Commander of the Sudanese Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Abdul Fatah AL Burhan announced he was willing to meet the leader of the Militia
Rapid support Forces (RSF), Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, a move seen by the man in the street in the Sudan as a hope for putting an end to the ongoing war and a final full stop to the conflict
Preconditions for the meeting
The said meeting was called for by the inter-governmental authority for
development (IGAD) during its extraordinary summit meeting held on the 9th of December in Djibouti. IGAD has said the meeting was being organized after obtaining the consent of the two sides to hold a meeting with no preconditions set. This element was quickly denied by the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stressing that the Sudanese army commander Al Burhan had in fact set preconditions for the meeting, namely that the RSF evict all houses and public and private utilities and houses, a precondition the RSF has been dragging its feet to implement since the May 2023 Jeddah Declaration.
The consent made by the Commander of the Sudanese army to hold a meeting with RSF leader Hemedti was considered the first approval at the heel of several nay responses from Burhan to have an encounter with Hemedti in Addis Ababa, in August this year. That rejection was justified at the time by Dr Osama Aidaroos, a professor of Security and Strategic Studies, as being spurred by sovereign considerations. Aidaroos added in an interview with the “Al-Masa’iya” program on Al Jazeera Channel that Sudan accepted all initiatives and truces aimed at stopping the war, whether it was the Jeddah talks or the IGAD and African Union initiatives, but “without any of these initiatives tarnishing the sovereignty of Sudan as a state nor touching its and the particularities of the Sudanese.”
Burhan…An agreement accepting no insult
The Foreign Ministry’s view is actually the vision of Army Commander Al-Burhan, who expressed it clearly again during a meeting with the officers of a military base in the Red Sea State, end of last week, when he announced his consent to attend the negotiations with the “militia,” according to what he said, and to agree with it. There is no objection to that, however, save accepting any debasing for the armed forces and the Sudanese people. Burhan told the officers that the Sudanese Armed Forces will remain cohesive, strong and a guarantor of Sudan’s security, pledging at the same time to hold accountable those whom he described as “the cancer”, Rapid Support Forces.
Al-Burhan’s statement to the military base officers agreeing to the meeting was consistent with press reports that revealed that Foreign Minister-designate Ali Al-Sadiq had delivered a written message to the Prime Minister of Djibouti, whose country,
Djibouti is current president of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), through the Djiboutian ambassador to Morocco during the Arab Forum held in Marrakesh. Last week, it was reported that Al-Burhan was ready to meet Hemedti under specific conditions.
Political Forces Welcome
The step of the two leaders agreeing to the meeting was greatly welcomed by the political forces in Sudan, as the Sudanese Freedom and Change Forces welcomed this step and said through their official spokesman that they encourage the meeting between the head of the Sudanese Transitional Sovereignty Council, Burhan, and the commander of the Rapid Support Forces, Hemedti, indicating that peace and stability deserve to be bought at the highest of prices, and the political forces hoped that the two, “the army general and the militia commander,” would apply reason in order to stop the killing, displacement, and asylum, and preserve a unified homeland.
Thursday…a cut-off date
Today, Tuesday, the sources have reaffirmed once again that the President of the Sovereignty Council of Sudan has received a letter from the President of IGAD inviting him to meet with the Commander of the Rapid Support Forces the day after tomorrow, Thursday, December 28, in the Djibouti.
Hopeful Meeting
The expected meeting is much awaited by the Sudanese people, and the world will see it as an important milestone in ridding Sudan of the furnace of a war that has raged for nine months, leaving behind devastation that will be difficult for the Sudanese to repair even if everyone’s intentions were good in building a unified Sudan based on the foundations of peace, justice, and a homeland that can accommodate all and everybody… So one would wonder if the coming meeting between Al-Burhan and Hemedti will help repair what war has devastated?
