Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

Sudan, Rebels to Ink Peace Agreement on Oct. 3


Thu 01 Oct 2020 | 10:43 PM
Ahmed Moamar

On Saturday, the Sudanese government is going to sign a peace agreement with the rebels in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, ending decades of war in Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile.

The two sides signed the agreement with initials in Juba at the end of last August.

The location of the signature bears a historical significance for the states of Sudan and South Sudan, which separated from Sudan after a civil war that spanned 22 years and left two million dead and four million displaced and refugees.

The civil war between the south and north of Sudan ended with the signing of a peace agreement that gave the citizens of South Sudan the right to self-determination, and in 2011 southerners voted in favor of their independent state.

The Sudanese hope that their transitional government, mixed between civilians and the military, will succeed in silencing the rifles after it toppled dictator Omar al-Bashir in April 2019 after ruling the country for thirty years.

This is a historic day, as we hope that the signature will end the fighting forever and pave the way for development," said Sudanese Peace Commission head Suleiman al-Dobilo.

He described the agreement as "realistically" looking at the roots of Sudanese issues.

"The agreement will be signed by most of the armed movements, except for two, and we hope that it will encourage them to sign a peace agreement and join the peace process in the country, because this document looked at the Sudanese issues in a realistic way, and if implemented, it would achieve peace," he said.

The agreement will be signed by the rebels (the Sudanese Revolutionary Front), which is a coalition of five armed movements and four political ones operating in the regions of Darfur in the west of the country, South Kordofan and the Blue Nile in the south.

The Sudanese hope that reaching the agreement will contribute to the development of these regions afflicted for many years of conflict.

But two main factions, the Sudan Liberation Army led by Abdel Wahid Nur, who is fighting in Darfur, and the Popular Movement, the wing of Abdel Aziz Al-Hilu, which is active in the regions of South Kordofan and the Blue Nile, did not participate in the peace negotiations.

The conflict in the Darfur region, which broke out in 2003, left about 300,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced people and refugees, according to United Nations data.

The war began in the regions of South Kordofan and the Blue Nile in 2001, affecting one million people.

The agreement consists of eight protocols: land ownership, transitional justice, compensation, nomadic and pastoral sector development, wealth sharing, power-sharing, and the return of refugees and displaced persons, in addition to the security protocol for integrating movement fighters into the government army to become an army that represents all components of the Sudanese people.

Although a group of rebels describes the agreement as to the culmination of their "struggle against the Bashir regime," analysts point to pitfalls that may face the implementation of the agreement.

"The signing of the agreement is the culmination of the revolutionary fronts struggle project against the Bashir regime, and the agreement addresses the roots of the Sudanese crisis and paves the way for the democratic transition in the country," said the spokesman for the Revolutionary Front, Osama Saeed.

But the editor-in-chief of Al-Tayyar daily, Osman Mirghani, pointed out "pitfalls" on the way to implementing the agreement.

He said the agreement is based on sharing power between the government and the signatories of the rebels (but) what about the others?

Jean-Baptiste Gallopin, a specialist in Sudanese affairs in France, emphasized that the government, in light of its current economic situation, will face difficulties in financing the implementation of the costly agreement.

"Without foreign aid, the Sudanese government will not be able to finance the consequences of the peace agreement because the economy is collapsing.

It is likely that financial priority will be given to integrating thousands of fighters at the expense of demobilizing them or compensating the victims," ​​he said.