FFC prepare to include Sudan’s peace plan to constitutional declaration
July 18, 2019 (KHARTOUM) – The text for peace in Sudan prepared by the opposition Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) will be added to the constitutional declaration which they are elaborating with the ruling military council in the upcoming days.
Several FFC sources told Sudan Tribune that their initial plan was to pass the political agreement first while the document on peace will be added to the constitutional declaration.
The political and armed groups that have been holding consultation meetings in Addis Ababa since a week ago, finalized a joint vision on ways to achieve peace in Sudan during the transitional period and sent it to their negotiating team since three days.
However, they were surprised when they realized that the peace document was not included in the political agreement on the transitional period. Accordingly, the Sudanese Revolutionary Front (SRF) leaders immediately issued a statement rejecting the initialled text.
Nur al-Din Salah al-Din, an FFC official told Sudan Tribune that the understandings reached with the armed groups will be included in the constitutional declaration as it is the most important document and contains the details of the full agreement.
Further in a briefing via the social media to activists from Addis Ababa, Mohamed Nagy al-Asem of the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA) said that consultations with the SRF leaders focused on drafting a document on peace to be attached to the constitutional declaration as a unified position of all the FFC groups.
“We hope to declare the peace paper, then the legal bodies and the negotiating committees, which include the SRF representatives, will seek to include this document in the constitutional declaration as a legal text binding on the transitional authority and the government, alike”.
He stressed that the issue of peace will be one of the top priorities of the transitional government to be settled within the first six months, pointing out that the armed movements that are not part of the FFC coalition will not be isolated and their positions will be included.
The opposition coalition during the part weeks reached the rebel groups in Darfur and South Kordofan that are not signatories of the Document for Freedom and Change in order to identify their position and prepare for future meetings with them.
Digair to Addis Ababa
The Sudan Tribune learned that the leader of the Sudanese Congress Party and leading FFC’s figure Omer al Digair will travel to the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa to meet with the armed movements.
Also, the FFC requested the joint African Union Ethiopian mediation to postpone the negotiating session on the constitutional declaration, which was scheduled Friday, to a later date until the conclusion of consultations with the armed forces to resolve the internal row that emerged recently over the signing of the political declaration with the military council.
Both the Communist Party and the civil society groups voiced reservations over the political agreement signed on Wednesday morning saying they want that the full transitional authority to be only composed of civilians without the participation of the military council.
Al-Mahdi’s Call to SRF
For his part, Sadiq al-Mahdi, leader of the National Umma Party and head of the Sudan Call alliance which includes the armed groups called on the latter to reconsider their rejection of the political agreement and to endorse it.
“The agreement will transfer power from the current military junta to a joint sovereignty council and a council of civilian ministers,” Mahdi said in a letter to the SRF leaders seen by Sudan Tribune on Thursday.
“My dear ones, please send us urgently your support of the step forward, and we will think about assigning positions without quotas.”
The armed groups recently said they want that 35% of the transitional institutions be dedicated to the armed groups.
But there is an agreement within the FFC to not allocate any seats to the members of the coalition in the Sovereign Council and the transitional government. The opposition groups will only be represented in the transitional legislative council.
(ST)