SRF groups stick to add peace document to Sudan’s Constitutional Declaration

August 10, 2019 (KHARTOUM) – The Sudanese Revolutionary Front (SRF) has urged to add to the constitutional declaration the peace document agreed in Addis Ababa with political groups of the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) last July.

After three weeks on discussions in Addis Ababa, FFC political and armed factions endorsed on July 17 a document providing that the provisions of the peace agreements that would be negotiated with the transitional authority would override any other provisions in the Constitutional Declaration, any other law or agreement.

In a statement to Sudan Tribune from Cairo where he will participate in a meeting convened by the Egyptian government for the FFC groups on the contested Constitutional Declaration, Hadi Idris, SRF leading member and the head of the Sudan Liberation Movement-Transitional Council (SLM-TC) emphasized the need to add the peace document to the transitional constitution.

He said that they are in Cairo at the invitation of the Egyptian government to discuss with their political partners the row over the constitutional declaration, which they reject because it does not include the Addis Ababa peace document.

“We come to Cairo to demand one thing which is to annex the peace document to the Constitutional Declaration,” Idris said before to add ” This is all we have. If this is not done, our options remain open.”

He stressed that they are not seeking positions but what they want is the supremacy of the would-be signed peace agreement because this clause ensures that no one can “veto the peace agreement in the future.”

He stressed that they are not students of authority but all they are interested in is the text of the sovereignty of the peace agreement because that guarantor “not to veto the agreement in the future.”

“It is also necessary to mention the Sudanese Revolutionary Front in the constitutional declaration, not the armed movements as it is proposed because the SRF includes also unarmed factions that are part and parcel of the Front.

Idris was referring to the Unionist Party of al-Tom Hajo and some factions from eastern and northern Sudan.

In principle, meetings between the Forces for Freedom and Change are supposed to begin in Cairo on Saturday evening, but the delegation of political forces left Khartoum to Cairo late in the evening.

The SRF requested the participation of mediation and the Transitional Military Council (TMC) in these meetings. But it is not certain that they will participate in this meeting because of the Eid al-Adha holiday, which begins Sunday. Also, several members of the Transitional Military Council travelled to Saudi Arabia to perform the pilgrimage (Hajj).

The FFC and TMC have agreed to hold the signing ceremony of the Political Agreement and the Constitutional Declaration on 17 August.

Also, the National Consensus Forces, one of the FFC blocks said they will not take part in Cairo’s meeting saying « We believe that it would be appropriate to convene it in September so as to be the basis for the opening of the whole peace file in the country”

(ST)