Armed groups prepare to meet Sudan’s transitional authority
August 29, 2019 (KHARTOUM) – Yasir Arman, the Deputy Chairman of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North-led by Malik Agar (SPLM-N Agar) has disclosed contacts for meetings between the Sudanese Revolutionary Front (SRF) and the transitional administration in Khartoum.
He pointed out that the situation in Sudan is now more serious than all previous transitional periods when the October 1964 and April 1985 revolutions occurred.
“The security sector is not the same as it was in the years 64 and 85, the wars have widened and the number of displaced people and refugees has reached 6 million. Also, the number of migrants has reached millions and the Sudanese economy is now completely destroyed.”
Based on this gloomy picture of the present situation in the country, Arman said that the SRF meetings in Juba are an extension of the previous meetings to aimed at linking between the issues of democracy and peace. Also, to establish a state where every Sudanese has equal rights without discrimination based on race, ethnic origin, and religion, as well as sex.
Further, he revealed that contacts are underway to organize a meeting between the transitional authority and the SRF groups, as part of the ongoing efforts to achieve peace during the first six months of the transitional period.
“Now there is a possibility that contacts will be undertaken for a meeting with the new power structures including the Sovereign Council and the rest,” Arman said.
In this context, he welcomed the statements of the U.S. State Department and the United Nations Security Council calling for linking the issues of peace with the issues of democratic transition and “fairness of the marginalized” in Sudan.
The SPLM deputy leader further called on the Sudanese Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok to make peace his top priority.
Arman said that the Forces for Freedom and Change are still without leadership and that the recent nominations they made to form a government made clear the importance of leadership.
“The revolution must be completed towards a comprehensive peace, towards equal citizenship without discrimination and the transition from a unilateral state to a state of diversity,” he said.
Relations are strained between the political and armed factions of the Forces for Freedom dome and Change following the former’s rejection to include in the constitutional declaration a disposition stipulating the primacy of peace agreement over the transitional constitution.
Also, the FFC political forces rejected a demand to give the armed groups some cabinet seats after the signing of peace agreements.
Strong Relations for Two Sudans
The SPLM-N leading figure further called for a regional confederation to be started by strong economic and politic cooperation between the two Sudans.
We need “strategic relations between two independent states like the European Union and to develop to include all neighbouring countries.”
Several Sudanese commentators criticised “arrogant” slogans by Sudanese youth protesters who called for the reunification of the two Sudan.
In a recent article widely circulated a Sudanese colonist, Elshafei Khidir said that South Sudanese lost confidence in North Sudanese who sought to islamicize and arabicize them.
Instead, he called to strengthening bilateral relations, pointing to the strong social, economic and historical between the two Sudans.
In such a way “We will raise the possibility of uniting the two countries in the future in one homeland, according to new foundations,” which intrinsically lead to rebuilding the Sudanese state itself according to the aspirations and concerns of its multiple and diverse ethnic and cultural components.
(ST)