Sudan Troika welcome new push at national dialogue

September 18, 2014 (KHARTOUM) – Members of a troika group comprised of Norway, United Kingdom and the United States issued a statement on Thursday welcoming “recent efforts to reinvigorate a process of genuine national dialogue in Sudan”.

“As the country confronts a new and critical era in its history, we remain conscious of the continuing governance concerns expressed by the Sudanese people, the problems of center-periphery imbalance, and the articulation of political, economic, and social grievances, particularly in the country’s peripheries,” the statement reads.

The Troika noted that despite continuous peacemaking efforts supported by the international community, the conflict in Sudan persists after failing to reach a sustainable peace.

“We reiterate our support for a mediation architecture that facilitates both resolution of conflict and a comprehensive process of national dialogue, and thus welcome initial progress with Sudanese stakeholders to this end, under the auspices of the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP)”.

The statement stressed that there is no military solution to the conflict and that only a national and comprehensive approach to Sudan’s problems can bring peace by addressing “fundamental issues of governance, political inclusiveness, resource-sharing, identity, and social equality”.

Such a dialogue should also incorporate the country’s diverse actors and include armed and unarmed opposition movements, political parties, a broad range of civil society representatives, and constituents from every region of Sudan, it added.

The Troika also insisted that the dialogue can only succeed “in an environment conducive to meaningful participation of all of the country’s diverse constituents, free from any restrictions to the right to assembly or the right to freedom of expression”.

This week Sudanese authorities released the head of the Sudan Congress Party (ScoP) Ibrahim al-Sheikh after three months of imprisonment for accusations he made against the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) government militia.

Earlier this month the deputy head of the National Umma Party (NUP) Mariam al-Mahdi after nearly one-month of detention following a meeting with rebel groups in the French capital last month.

But Sudanese security continues to crackdown on newspapers and civil society despite previous pledges by government officials.

Last Sunday, the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) confiscated the editions of al-Youm al-Tali and al-Akhbar newspapers at dawn from the printing house.

NISS also prevented civil society groups from organising a regular meeting at a hall in Khartoum last week.

Last April authorities shut down the Ali Zein cultural centre due to alleged exercising of political activities in violation of their licence. Later on they were allowed to partially resume their work but their activities were limited to teaching music.

Two months later, authorities withdrew the licence of Salmmah Women’s Resource Centre and did the same for Development of Civil Society Centre last week.

The statement also emphasized the need to agree on “timeline and benchmarks” for holding the elections, “so as to ensure elections can be broadly participatory and yield legitimate and widely-recognized outcomes”.

Late last January, Sudanese president Omer Hassan al-Bashir announced in a televised address to the nation a four-point plan for reform “to stop the war and bring peace, free political society, fight against poverty and revitalize national identity”.

He further called for political forces and even rebel groups to lay down arms to engage in dialogue to agree on the implementation items to achieve these objectives.

Bashir afterwards held a political roundtable in Khartoum with the participation of 83 political parties and announced a series of confidence-building measures that removed restrictions on the press and activities by political parties.

He also issued a directive to release all political detainees except those implicated in criminal acts.

The opposition alliance of the National Consensus Forces (NCF), gathering left forces, boycotted the political roundtable, asking the government first to stop war and create a conducive environment for the dialogue.

Opposition forces participating in the dialogue are also raising the same concerns but argue that such matters can be discussed within the national dialogue mechanism.

However, NUP leader al-Sadiq al-Mahdi suspended its participation in the political process after his detention in May.

Mahdi now demands the restoration of political freedoms and inclusion of rebel groups in the political process. However, he calls to exclude the small political formation at this stage and to involve only the “six historical parties”.

(ST)