Sudan’s dialogue body to meet rebel groups abroad
May 10, 2015 (KHARTOUM) – Sudan’s national dialogue coordination body known as 7+7 committee said it plans to send two of its members to meet with the rebel groups abroad.
Member of the committee from the Popular Congress Party (PCP), Kamal Omer, said the dialogue’s body decided to send him alongside the minister of the cabinet affairs and member of the committee from the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), Ahmed Saad Omer, to meet with the rebel groups abroad to convince them to join the dialogue.
Speaking to Sudan Tribune on Sunday, the PCP political secretary further said that the dialogue committee would later set the travel date of its delegates to meet with the rebel groups abroad.
Following the government refusal to participate in a pre-dialgue meeting last March, the Sudan Call forces including rebel groups, political opposition parties and civil society groups questioned the viability of the national dialogue process and called for a new African Union process involving the UN Security Council, and EU.
However, the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) reiterated its commitment to the dialogue process adding it should maintain its national character without further interference.
The leading figure at the opposition Reform Now Movement (RNM), Hassan Rizq, ruled out that the government-led dialogue could resolve the country’s issues, noting the NCP is currently engaged in a monologue following withdrawal of the major parties from the dialogue process.
“We in the RNM and the Just Peace Forum (JPF) were much closer to the [national dialogue] than the [rebel umbrella] Sudan Revolutionary Forces (SRF) and the “Sudan Call” forces and the opposition alliance [National Consensus Forces (NCF) ,” he said.
Initially the 7+7 was comprised of the NCP and allied political forces including the DUP, former Darfur rebels from one side and the opposition National Umma Party (NUP), PCP, RNM and JPF.
However, three opposition forces – NUP, RNM and JPF – suspended their participation in the national dialogue mechanism to protest the refusal of the NCP to implement a number of measures related to the creation of a conducive environment for the process.
Rizq demanded the NCP-led government to implement the roadmap and Addis Ababa agreement signed with the opposition forces and rebel groups in order to breathe new life into the national dialogue.
He stressed the need to offer guarantees and allow freedom of expression and press freedoms besides releasing political detainees before the start of the dialogue, adding they only demand the government to implement the signed agreements.
The RNM official expected that the delegates of the 7+7 committee would fail to convince the opposition forces and rebel groups abroad to join the dialogue, saying they wouldn’t even be able meet with the rebel leaders.
The Sudanese government has been fighting the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/North (SPLM-N) in Blue Nile and South Kordofan since June 2011 and several Darfur rebel groups since 2003.
(ST)