As I see it .. The People Negotiate, not the SAF

Adel El-Baz

1
The SAF denied yesterday that it had issued a statement announcing its approval of the American invitation to the Geneva negotiations, and while waiting to know the position in the coming days, several questions came to my mind, particularly after reading the US State Department statement, and I will try to raise these questions and make attempts to answer them in coming articles.

2
The first of these questions that came to my mind about the SAF and the negotiations, why does the army negotiate alone if negotiations take place? If we are fighting with the army, why not negotiate with it? Why are we forced to fight with the SAF and when negotiations are taking place, does it negotiate alone?
This question has nothing to do with our trust in the army, but because it is our right if we are fighting with it to negotiate with it? Isn’t that fair?
3
Put yourself in the place of the armed movements that are currently fighting with the SAF .
Don’t they have the right to have their voice heard in the fateful negotiations anywhere? Isn’t it the right of the mujahideen and the mustafirs ( popular resistance)who are martyred by the hundreds every day, don’t they have the right to have a voice? Isn’t it shameful that they come forward to be martyred while others decide their fate in Geneva?
The people who were killed, whose women were raped and whose property was looted have the right to have a say in the negotiations. Aren’t they among the stakeholders? How can they submissively accept the results of negotiations to which they are not a party, while they are the ones who bear the burden of the war and the entire tragedy?
Where is the voice of the people? Here is the crux of the matter.
4
The army should not go into negotiations alone, as this would harm its position. The SAF should rally the entire Sudanese people behind it, and this will give it a wide margin for maneuver and reduce the pressures that will be imposed on it. How?
The SAF is supposed to engage from now on in broad consultations and meetings with all sectors of the people to present its negotiating position and listen to the people’s opinion through broad consultations with the masses in the states through the governors and leaders of the armed forces and the movements, then come out with a unified position based on a broad popular base so that this position becomes the negotiating position that the SAF ’s negotiators will not accept anything less than achieving for the people. The SAF here is not negotiating as an army, but rather as a State, SAF and people.
At that time, those who are preparing themselves to adopt all methods and means of pressure on the negotiators will realize that the negotiators are speaking about what the people have demanded, and thus their negotiating position will be stronger, as they are negotiating in the name of the people and their eyes are on their demands, guarding them and achieving them, and they do not care about pressures and do not submit to temptations because they are not sent by anyone, but rather they are sent by the people and not the SAF alone.
5
I was surprised by the SAF that agreed to represent itself and not the people.!! The worst thing about the Americans’ invitation is that it equated the armed forces with (the rebel forces), and equated a militia with a state.
The invitation should have been made to the Sudanese government representing the state and not the SAF – if the United Nations UN and the whole world recognize the legitimacy of the government and recognize the State of Sudan, then whoever comes as a mediator should first recognize the State that he wants to agree to his mediation…!! Amazing, by God.
6
The delegation that will negotiate, whenever the negotiations come, should not represent the SAF alone or the government alone, but a wide spectrum of experts and fighters who stand with the state and are now fighting battles with it… An army without a people will be defeated, and just as the army stood firm and foiled the coup plot thanks to the people, nothing will be imposed on it if it brings with it real representatives of the same people who supported it and fought with it.
7
If the SAF tries to confront the negotiations alone, it will weaken its position in them, as well as weaken its position on the ground, and lower the morale of the army itself and those fighting with it… No one accepts to fight and die without his voice being heard.
There should be negotiations supported by the people. Otherwise, a delegation isolated from the people and their desires will go and be exposed to enormous pressure to sign tattered papers that are not worth the price of the tickets to the Geneva flight, and it will return with an agreement that the people who have no connection to it will reject.
At that time, it will be buried in the Ahmed Sharafi cemetery, just as 44 agreements were buried before it that were signed throughout the history of Sudan, and all of them produced nothing but more wars. Oh God, have I conveyed the message?