The peace agreement discussion workshops come as part of 5 issues that the Sudanese parties seek to resolve in preparation for reaching a final agreement to transfer power to civilians. As stipulated in the framework agreement signed between the army and a number of political parties and entities on December 5, 2022; Which paves the way for the transfer of power to civilians and has broad international support.
The five issues include, in addition to the peace agreement; Security and military reform, justice, eastern Sudan, and dismantling the empowerment of the Brotherhood regime that ruled the country for thirty years before it was overthrown by a popular revolution in April 2019.
Amid great criticism from the Sudanese over the results of the peace agreement over the past two years; The parties to the framework agreement say that they are seeking to reach decisions that allow the implementation of the agreement in an optimal manner that guarantees real peace on the ground.
Khaled Omar Youssef explained; former minister in the dismissed civilian government and spokesperson for the political process; The discussions of the peace agreement aim to broaden the base of the national discussion on how to promote and discuss the reasons for the failure to complete the peace agreement with the armed movements that did not sign the Juba Agreement. And come up with recommendations that will form the basis of the texts that will be included in the final political agreement and a road map that will help the transitional civilian government to implement and complete peace.
But on the other hand; Jibril Ibrahim and Minawi’s movements reject any attempts to discuss the peace agreement or the negative aspects resulting from it. The latter threatened, in a statement on Wednesday, to return to war. Considering that discussing the agreement means amending it without the participation of some of its main parties, which leads to a return to war; While the Jibril movement said that the workshops for the current discussions are based on amending the agreement; Considering that this constitutes a clear breach of the agreement itself.
In conjunction with the launch of the discussions; The Troika countries consisting of Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States of America affirmed their support for the peace agreement discussion workshops and their full commitment to the framework agreement, which they said constitutes the basis upon which a new civilian-led government can be established that will lead Sudan through a transitional period leading to free and fair elections.
In a statement, the troika warned of the seriousness of the lack of effective and rapid implementation of the peace agreement. Noting that achieving a stable and prosperous future in Sudan requires addressing the root causes of the conflict and empowering all its people in a just manner.
Despite the participation of a number of movements that signed the peace agreement, such as the movements of Al-Hadi Idris and Al-Taher Hajar; However, the absence of Jibril Ibrahim and Minawi movements sparked great controversy.
Ibrahim and Minawi refuse to join the framework agreement so far, on the grounds that it does not include all parties. However, Shihab Taha, a leader in the Forces for Freedom and Change and the Sudanese Alliance Party, which signed the framework agreement, told Sky News Arabia that the reason for the failure of efforts to include the Ibrahim and Minawi movements in the political process is their adherence to their share in the division of power.
So far, all efforts to bring the views of the forces of freedom and change closer together, which includes a number of parties and civil entities that signed the framework agreement on the one hand, and the Ibrahim and Minawi movements on the other, have failed.
On Sunday, the last attempt was made to include the two movements in the political process, but it did not succeed either. After a statement, he spoke of its closeness to 95 percent of agreement with the parties to the framework agreement, as a result of a meeting held by Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo, Vice-President of the Sovereignty Council, with leaders of the two movements, which lasted for 6 hours. The Democratic Bloc, which includes the two movements, retracted the statement and said that the first statement was a “procedural error”; Noting that some leaders of the bloc met with the deputy head of the Sovereignty Council and issued their statement without referring to the bloc.
And the journalist analyst, Shawky Abdel-Azim, believed that Jibril Ibrahim and Minawi showed, during the period following the signing of the framework agreement, a greater adherence to the part related to the division of power, which justifies their rejection of the agreement.
Abdel-Azim told Sky News Arabia that the framework agreement clearly stipulated the adoption of competence and adherence to the principles of the December Revolution as a basis for selection in political positions. He has bypassed this part, which has proven to be a failure during the last period.
While the movements of Jibril Ibrahim and Minawi reject any attempts to discuss or review the peace agreement; A broad spectrum of Sudanese, especially those affected by the war, believes that the peace agreement has so far failed to stop the death machine that erupted in 2003, claiming hundreds of thousands of lives and displacing millions. After more than two years of the agreement, the suffering and killings continue. This sparked great criticism of the agreement. And many questions about the reasons that led to the failure of the agreement to achieve the aspirations of the real stakeholders; Especially after the recent events in Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan, which led to the killing and displacement of tens of thousands.
What is the Juba Peace Agreement?
- After negotiations that lasted for several months in Juba; In October 2020, the Sudanese government signed a peace agreement with a number of armed movements, most notably the People’s Movement-North, the Sudan Liberation Army Movement, Archie Minawi’s wing, and the Justice and Equality Movement led by Jibril Ibrahim, in addition to unarmed groups that include the central, eastern, and northern paths.
- The most prominent provisions of the agreement were summed up in completing the security arrangements within 39 months, stopping the war, reparating the damage, respecting religious and cultural pluralism, and positive discrimination in the war zones, namely Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan.
- The agreement provided for the participation of the signatories in the transitional authority with three seats in the Sovereignty Council, 5 seats in the Council of Ministers, and 75 seats in the Legislative Council, which was expected to be composed of 300 members.
The most prominent criticism
- Observers believe that the agreement failed to stop the bloodshed. After its signing in October 2021, acts of violence were repeated more than 5 times in Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan, killing more than 2,000 people, including women and children, and burning entire villages.
- The agreement has so far failed to return the displaced to their areas of origin due to the general deterioration of the security situation and the continuation of fighting in most parts of Darfur; This reinforced the belief among most of the population of Darfur and other war zones that the peace agreement has not yet been implemented on the ground.
- The delay in implementing the security arrangements clause greatly weakened the agreement.
- The agreement did not include clear details of the places of assembly and did not limit the numbers of forces affiliated with each movement before the signing process, which led to large recruitment and sale of ranks and a large concentration of the forces of some armed movements in the center of the capital, Khartoum, which led to increasing security concerns.
- The period that followed the peace agreement witnessed a large concentration of armed movement leaders and their auxiliary elements in the capital, Khartoum. Most of them held leadership positions in the central executive branch; Their relationship with the war zones became limited to limited visits.
- The eastern Sudan track emerged as one of the controversial aspects of the agreement. Where a group led by the head of the Hadandwa tribe in eastern Sudan announced its refusal to include the route in the agreement and worked for long periods to close the main port for the country’s exports and imports in the city of Port Sudan on the Red Sea, in addition to closing the main road linking the port with other cities of the country, which caused a major security and economic crisis.
- The agreement was negatively affected by the absence of major movements such as the SPLM-N, led by Abdel Aziz Al-Hilu, which controls large areas in South Kordofan and Blue Nile; In addition to the Abd al-Wahed Muhammad Nour movement, which is stationed in the Jebel Marra regions of Darfur, while the Nour movement did not join the negotiations in the first place; Al-Hilu’s movement withdrew from the negotiations from its early stages.
- Observers consider that the focus of the peace agreement on the sharing of power and positions has tempted many to establish new armed movements or break away from the parent movements.
Estimates indicate that the number of armed movements increased after the signing of the agreement to 87 armed movements in Sudan, 84 of which are in the Darfur region alone.
Kamal Ismail, head of the Sudanese National Alliance Party and a leader in the Forces for Freedom and Change – Central Council; The biggest problem lies in the major imbalance that accompanied the agreement.
Ismail told Sky News Arabia that the defects that accompanied the implementation of the agreement made many call it a failure, which requires the need to open it again, review it, and purify it from all causes of failure, including quotas and other privileges that were granted to the leaders of the armed movements and created an unacceptable reality.
For his part, journalist and political analyst Wael Mahjoub says that the agreement has not yet achieved the aspirations of the real stakeholders in the war zones and has not addressed the basic issues that led to the outbreak of the war.
Mahjoub told Sky News Arabia that the interest in power-sharing at the expense of the issues of war zones and those affected by them, and the structural imbalance in the agreement itself, in addition to the fragmentation of the agreement and its lack of inclusion of basic armed movements, are among the most important reasons that led to the failure of the peace process.
He added, “The constitutional document signed in August 2019 stipulated that the executive government would handle the peace file, but the file turned to the military component, with limited representation of ministers and civilians.”
In turn, Ammar Amoum Daldom, Secretary General of the Northern People’s Movement led by Abdel Aziz Al-Hilu, believes that peace in Juba did not achieve its goal and focused on sharing positions and did not address the roots of the crisis that led to the war.
Daldom told Sky News Arabia that the SPLM’s position is clear and calls for peace based on addressing the roots of the crisis.
He affirmed the movement’s readiness to return to the path of peace whenever a civilian authority comes with full constitutional, political and economic powers.
In the context, the security arrangements official in the Darfur track confirms; Mubarak Bakhit, that work is currently underway to implement the item on security arrangements on the ground, despite the difficulties associated with the current political reality.
Bakhit told Sky News Arabia that there are a number of leaders separate from their original movements, but they do not have much power on the ground. Pointing out that the biggest problem lies in the wide spread of weapons among the population.
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