With whom do we stand and what solution do we want? 

by Yasir Arman,

SPLM-N Revolutionary Democratic Current Chairman

Forces for Freedom and Change leading figure

The guns of April destroyed the structure of the state as we know it and the old nation-building project because this war is taking place in the vital areas of the centre. We are facing a moment of truth, a historical milestone shining like the unfiltered glare of the noonday sun. This centre of power, that had suffered from deep distortions that were accumulated over more than six decades, and that reached their peak during “the Salvation Regime” of Omer al Bashir, has exploded. It had captured the state and linked its fate to that of a political group – the National Congress Party and the Islamic Movement.

This war calls for a new discourse, a close look at the past and what comes next, and an ability to learn new things. What is happening now is not an attempt to change a government but the collapse of the state after many decades of mounting failures before and after independence in 1956.  No matter how great the losses caused by today’s catastrophe, it must be turned into an opportunity to build a better future and a national project that unites, not divides, and that is based on equal citizenship without discrimination, democracy, justice, peace and sustainable development.

The guns of April are an echo of the rural wars of the past, dating back to the eruption of war in Torit in August 1955.  There is a common thread and link between what happened on 15 April 2023 and the previous wars in the peripheries and the failure of the nation building process that culminated in the secession of South Sudan and the genocide in Darfur and that continued to spread until it reached the centre of power in Khartoum. Many wise Sudanese men and women had anticipated what happened on 15 April 2023 since the dawn of the national movement and had warned against such an eventuality.

Instead of allowing ourselves to be overcome by anger and sadness because of the shock, we must believe that hope will rise again. We are not the first country to go through harsh times and we should learn from the experience of our neighbours.

Among the national and democratic forces, we should speak in the language of respect and tolerance, focusing on what unites us rather than what divides us, and we should address our opponents objectively.

The guns of April left the “soft landing” behind and replaced it with a “crash landing” that shed the blood of innocent people and turned the lives of millions into hell.  After so much blood has been spilt, lies and posturing are not acceptable. We need to answer today’s questions with the seriousness that they deserve. This must be done in a way that strengthens trust between us and our people so as to inspire hope, instead of despair, in our search for a new national project. We need a sustainable solution, based on the December Revolution, to preserve the sovereignty of the state and adhere to the goals of the Revolution, with clear priorities, the first of which is addressing the humanitarian disaster and stopping the war. Today, even the most radical of us calls for stopping the war, preserving what remains of the frail state and its battered institutions, and thereafter embarking on a new national project.

Before answering these questions, we must highlight two of the achievements of our people. We are proud of our people, whose resilience has been demonstrated amidst the flames of war and whose achievements have been written in human history in letters of light.

The first achievement is that, despite the talk about humanitarian assistance, little has arrived so far, and for fifty days, the Sudanese people crucially took on the task of providing humanitarian assistance to the needy in an impressive manner, like the woman, who was praised by Jesus for sharing her meagre possessions. “People are partners in three, water, pastures and fire” as our true religion taught us. If the world does justice to the Sudanese people, it will award a prize for humanitarian assistance in their name. The other achievement of our people is that an overwhelming majority turned their back on the war, rejected hate speech and refused to spread ethnic and geographical divisions. Those who reject war are capable of making peace.

This war did not come out of the blue.  It was the result of decades of exclusionary rule by the Salvation regime, which resorted to subjugation. oppression, wars, and the capture of state institutions and ended with the creation of multiple armies to maintain power. This met with fierce resistance from the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) itself and led to the dismissal of thousands of officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers.

The main objective of the National Congress Party (NCP) group after the Revolution was to thwart the transitional period with a clear spoiling strategy based on the following tactics:

Creating obstacles and tension between the forces of the revolution and the regular forces as the most effective way to destabilize the transition and weaken the civilian forces. This tactic is still ongoing until now and can be seen in the poisonous propaganda against Doctor Alaa Nugud, accompanying his detention, and the vile utterances on social media of Brigadier General Doctor Tariq Al-Hadi and others who kidnapped the name of the SAF as spokesmen for the Islamists.

After the RSF broke away from the grip of the Islamist  leaders at the time of (the December Revolution, the group’s aim was to bring the RSF back under their control by inducements and threats, including war.

Isolating the forces of the armed struggle and undermining the relationship between them and the forces of the Revolution by poisoning the public space between them and tempting them with offers of power and positions. This tactic succeeded to a large extent with the “Banana Group” (the Democratic Bloc) that supported the October 2021 coup and was used to sabotage the Framework Agreement. There is an undeclared alliance between some leaders of the armed struggle and the leaders of the NCP group.

Subverting the relationship between the forces of the revolution itself, using media platforms and agents of the security apparatus, and exploiting the mistakes of the revolutionary forces.

Exploiting some leaders of the Native Administration and the Popular Defence Forces to hijack some just causes and block roads and vital infrastructure.

Winning support from external actors by playing on their fears that democracy might lead to instability and that the Revolution could undermine the state.

The NCP group acted like the wise woman, Um Hamad, in the folklore story of the pot and the bull in all its details.  Maybe she would protest that she was wiser than the NCP. When Um Hamad was asked for her opinion about the bull which got its head stuck in an earthenware pot, she advised that the head of the bull should be cut off to get it out of the pot and when the head of the bull was cut off and still did not come out, she suggested breaking the pot.  The NCP’s prescription for getting out of the dilemma caused by the Revolution was to recommend launching a coup and, when the failure of the coup created divisions within the military leadership and the Framework Agreement became the only way out, they doubled down by starting a war. They saw in the coup first and then in the war an opportunity to return to power.   Before the war, we had already seen a campaign in the press and platforms of the group attacking the Commander-in-Chief of the SAF, accusing him viciously of not wanting to fight the war. Even Aisha Al Majidi, a very junior, pro-Islamist journalist, has threatened the Commander-in-Chief! I am afraid that the NCP group will call for the division of Sudan to get out of the dilemma of war.

Lieutenant General Hashim Abdul Muttalib was appointed as Chief of Staff of the SAF in April 2019 and dismissed in July 2019. In May 2019 he visited Juba. Prior to that, I had announced to the media my intention to return to Khartoum with my colleagues to strengthen the ranks of the Revolution, although I faced a death sentence issued in absentia. In Juba, my dear friend and brother, Deng Alor, conveyed to me a strange threatening message from Lieutenant General Hashim Abdel Muttalib that I should not try to return to Khartoum and he was angry during that exchange, as relayed to me by Deng, who tried to stop me from going for fear of what might happen.   Lieutenant General Hashim’s message only increased my determination.  I was surprised by the message and two months later Lieutenant General Hashim admitted in a video confession during an investigation into his attempted coup that he had owed allegiance to the NCP group since he was a lieutenant, that he had consulted leaders of the group about the coup, and he mentioned some of the names of his sheikhs. This explained to me why he was agitated about my return to Khartoum. The question is whether Lieutenant General Hashim had been the sole officer in this cell since he was a lieutenant or whether the group had wider tentacles in the SAF? Based on this, isn’t it about time – after thirty years of the NCP group’s control and the distortions brought about by wars – to raise the issue of reforming the SAF and turning it into a single professional army, that has no link with any political forces?

First, we stand against impunity and call for justice and transitional justice and we support the statement that came out of the transitional justice workshop. We tried hard to prevent the war happening and met with the Commander of the SAF at his home until dawn on 15 April. The committee was also in communication with the commander of the RSF and his deputy and both parties agreed to meet a committee that included Dr Al-Hadi Idris, Mr Al Tahir Hajar, Lieutenant General Khaled Abdin and Major General Osman Hamid, to avoid war and resolve their dispute through dialogue, not with violence. Meanwhile, the NCP group was calling for war. Last week in Addis Ababa, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni was puzzled as to how the two parties could have gone to war over the integration of their forces. The reason they went to war is to protect their political and economic interests. We were on the verge of signing the final agreement with the SAF and the RSF. So what possible interest could we have in their war?

Those who oppose the Framework Agreement are the warmongers, and the roots of this war lie in the policy of creating multiple armies to protect the NCP system. They are the ones who approved the Rapid Support Forces Law in 2017 and armed the RSF, while it was the forces of the Framework Agreement who took the initiative to raise the issue of a single national army. This Agreement was signed on December 5, 2022. A month before the war, the Commander-in-Chief of the SAF and the Commander of the RSF signed the document on the principles and foundations of integration put forward by the Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC). Only one issue remained, which was the issue of command-and-control arrangements. This could have been negotiated in Khartoum without resorting to war rather than subsequently in Jeddah after fighting a war.

The RSF concluded that the NCP posed a threat to it, but the FFC did not sign an agreement with the RSF only, but with the SAF and the RSF on the basis that the SAF was the army into which the RSF would be integrated, as proposed by the FFC. Does this mean that we are lean towards the RSF?

The group that chose war has asked a question of us. Why not condemn the RSF’s violations? This war has two sides and violations have been committed by both sides. These violations are to be condemned, and both parties deserve to be held accountable. The two parties chose a mediator, and the mediator determined that both parties had committed violations.  There must be a peace mission on the ground, victims must receive redress, and targeting civilians and civilian facilities must stop, starting with hospitals. The proper position is to reject all violations. We do not support the arrest of Anas Omar, Al-Jazouli, or Ali Mahmoud, just as we reject the arrest of Abdullah Masar and Dr Alaa Nugud. We stand against all the violations by the two parties who agreed to respect International Humanitarian Law in the Declaration of Commitment to Protect the Civilians in Sudan signed in Jeddah on 11 May.  We fear that this war could slide into an ethnic or geographical civil war and we call for a sustainable solution. We will not stand with any parties to the war in the name of dignity, resolute action or democracy as this war is a crime against the Sudanese people and civilians above all and against the Revolution and political and civilian action. The group that wants to continue the war is the one that wants us to condemn violations selectively. Our people will put a smile back on the face of Darfuris and young people will again walk safely along Nile Street at night, just as they will repeat the roar of the streets that frighten the NCP group.

The end of the war in Khartoum and in the whole of Sudan must coincide with its end in Darfur at the same time because there are factors in this war that make Darfur more fragile than the rest of Sudan. The sanctity of Sudanese life is the same wherever they live.

The group’s dilemma in April and the end of their ability to use religious and ethnic cards

The NCP group has always exploited ethnicity and religion in its propaganda against the southern Sudanese, in particular, as well as against the Nuba, people from Blue Nile and some Darfurians. But it is significant that the war with the RSF has stripped the group of their ability to use ethnicity and religion as mobilising tools against the RSF, who come from the same ethnic and religious background, leaving them with nothing but lies and propaganda to use against the forces of the Framework Agreement.

The FFC and the forces of the Framework Agreement do not believe that democracy and civilian rule can be achieved through the SAF or the RSF.  That is why we agreed to form transitional government structures that are entirely civilian and that the SAF and the RSF should return to the barracks, which is a strategic demand of the December Revolution.  This must be achieved harmoniously through consensus so as to establish a productive relationship between civilians and the military as was done in Ghana, South Africa, Senegal, Nigeria, Botswana and Kenya. This does not diminish the role of the regular forces but opens the way towards sustainable development.

The top priority is reaching a comprehensive ceasefire and delivering humanitarian assistance.  There must be a peace mission on the ground without which ceasefire violations will not stop. The Jeddah process should be expanded to include civilians and African, Arab and international actors.  The war needs to end as soon as possible to protect civilians, preserve the remaining state institutions, establish a transitional civilian government, and agree on the formation of a single national army. This war must not end by destroying the December Revolution and bringing back the old regime.

Messages to both parties

The dialogue in Jeddah should be supported by a dialogue in Khartoum.  All the Sudanese negotiations that took place in Kenya, Abuja, Cairo, Asmara, Juba, N’Djamena and Tripoli were supported by internal dialogue. Why don’t the SAF and RSF leaders meet with the national and democratic forces and the revolutionary forces to support the search for solutions and the Jeddah track without replacing it? The Commander-in-Chief of the SAF or his representative and the commander of the RSF or his representative could meet with the civilian parties and support that final agreement in Jeddah which regional and international guarantees will back.

Why not form a joint committee between the two warring parties in Khartoum and other combat zones to facilitate the lives and movement of civilians and  facilitate services such as electricity, water, bread, medicines and medical treatment, the exchange of goods in the areas of both sides, the passage of workers in essential service sectors, and the movement of families to search for the missing and visit their homes to settle or to collect their vital possessions. This is our responsibility both before and after Jeddah.

In the current critical historical situation facing the SAF, its command should not leave politicized officers such as Tariq Al-Hadi and Ibrahim Al-Houri to speak on its behalf, as this distances the SAF from important sectors of society. Despite different opinions about the current Chief of Staff and his staff, it has been drawn to my attention that he has set an excellent example of professionalism. We did not hear Lieutenant General Muhammad Osman Al-Hussein or Lieutenant General Khaled Abdin Al-Shami or Major General Muhammad Ali Sabir talking about controversial political issues, and this is a good thing. We call on the Commander-in-Chief to release Dr Alaa Nugud and for the SAF to refrain from arresting civilians.

The mediators in Jeddah have reported violations by the RSF, and there is much talk about attacks on hospitals, citizens’ homes and political party offices, some of which have been published on social media. We urge you to take these issues seriously and form a working group to receive complaints, announce phone numbers, and facilitate a meeting of those affected directly with the working group to stop the violations and allow all citizens to return to their homes or collect their vital possessions and release the civilians you have detained. This is the right thing to do and will silence the voices that call for the war to continue. Some complaints have a special symbolism and require clarification of your position, including the occupation of the Communist Party headquarters and the house of leader Ismail al-Azhari and the late Prime Minister Abdullah Khalil.

A sustainable solution based on the slogans of the December Revolution will only be possible if all the forces of the December Revolution unite without excluding anyone and in close association with the masses. Only the masses can do the work of the Revolution.

We support calls for dialogue between the forces of the revolution and building a civilian front from all the forces of the revolution using the language of tolerance, respect, ending divisiveness and principled interaction.

This war is at the expense of civilians the state, the Revolution, and politics.