Envisioning A Path to Peace and Stability in Sudan (1-3)
by Mohamed Salih Mohamed YASSIN
The Sudan is an African country located within the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea Region. The Horn of Africa is a region located in the eastern part of Africa, known for its distinctive horn-like shape that protrudes into the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Aden, shaping a peninsula in Northeast Africa (Illustrated in IGAD’s reported map). These regions have been characterized by evolving complex geopolitical, cultural dynamics and challenges of significant importance. These regions include the countries of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan, which is geopolitically considered as a constituent player within the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea regions. While on the other coast, on the Asian continent, we find Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, and Palestine up to Egypt on both sides of the Mediterranean and Red Sea. These countries, historically and geographically, must be considered in the peace and security ties of Sudan.
The current Sudan is influenced by land marking events ranging from slavery, colonization, incomplete revolutions, protracted wars and conflicts, genocides, territorial disintegrations. Furthermore, as evident by the ongoing growing war and the repeated genocides, Sudan will never be the same. Doubtless, the current dilemma in Sudan will drastically transform it to an unpredictable destiny, compromising its existential being, unless concerted cooperative and coordinated serious actions are taken by the Sudanese people, amalgamated by the support of the regional and international stakeholders and partners.
Achieving and sustaining peace through comprehensive political systems in the context of geopolitics in Africa and in Sudan in particular is a challenging and demanding dilemma. As the peace and security in Sudan and the Horn of Africa are directly interconnected and interdependent on the peace and security of the Red Sea Region, which makes it a complex territorial system not only of national but rather of trans-boundary nature and characterization. Therefore, achieving and sustaining peace requires comprehensive efforts that should not exclude fundamental aspects, including but not limited to economic, social, environmental, and cultural dimensions. Thus, hereafter, let us enumerate some points that can help analytically and critically understand the built political systems entitled to promote peace at local, national, and transnational level, to mention but a few such as the:
1. Good governance and democracy: Any effort aiming at achieving sustainable and durable peace and security, and eventually construction-reconstruction or rehabilitation and sustainable development in Sudan should boldly consider promoting good and democratic governance systems that include citizens’ participation in decision-making and ensuring human rights. Additionally, it should work seriously and consistently on developing strong and transparent institutions that regulate governance and fight corruption. The protracted man-made and natural crises, conflicts, genocides, partial disintegration, and the continuity of the war in Sudan have led to dilapidated governance systems which imperatively require a comprehensive reform and resetting. Sudan as a federally governed country is currently composed of 187 localities distributed between 18 states, with an unbalanced developmental status.
