‘No diplomatic end to Sudan’s war in sight' -Baldo

NOTE from Sudan Watch Editor: Peace meetings between Messrs Burhan and Hemeti could happen as soon as Hemeti makes his fighters leave Khartoum and move out of the residential homes and properties they've commandeered in Khartoum. It's as simple as that. Once that happens, Gen. Burhan said (many times) he will attend ceasefire and peace talks. The fact that none of it has happened proves Hemeti is not genuine in wanting peace and security for the people of Sudan. He wants Sudan and what's left of it by the time he's hauled off to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

__________________________

From Radio Dabanga
Dated Friday, 12 January 2024; 18:00 NEW YORK - here is a copy in full:

‘No diplomatic end to Sudan’s war in sight,’ warns Suliman Baldo

Map of Sudan showing areas under SAF (in red) and RSF (in yellow) control as of December 21, 2023 (Source: @ThomasVLinge via X)

As the war between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) soon enters its ninth month, there remains no tangible end in sight to the widespread suffering endured by the country and its people. That is despite a flurry of diplomatic mediation efforts, says prominent Sudanese researcher Suliman Baldo.

In his analysis ‘Sudan’s Interminable War, published by the International Centre for Dialogue Initiatives on Tuesday, conflict resolution expert Suliman Baldo* observes that while both the SAF and the RSF “initially believed they would crush the other in days”, the conflict has dragged on into “multiple localised ethnically driven clashes beyond either party’s control”.

On the ground, the RSF has succeeded in expanding its territorial control in Darfur, Kordofan, and Khartoum, while SAF remains in control of northern, central, and eastern regions, including de-facto administrative capital Port Sudan. In December, an RSF offensive “wrestled the central Gezira state from the army’s control and threatened its presence in the White Nile and Sennar states”.

The war unmasked SAF’s ineptitude, Baldo asserts, “as its senior commanders became too steeped in grand corruption practices to pay attention to the decay of SAF as a fighting force”.

Their adversary, the RSF, is “ethnically aligned, with plunder as the main motivation of its fighters”. The paramilitary force “proved incapable of providing for the population” in El Gezira after it took over the former safe haven for those who fled Khartoum and El Obeid in the early days of the war.

At the end of December, the Wad Madani Resistance Committees lamented the deterioration of security, health and humanitarian conditions in El Gezira, continued attacks by the RSF, the lack of functional hospitals, and the ongoing waves of displacement in the state.

The region is divided over Sudan. Sudanese policy analyst Kholood Khair and civil society activist Asmahan Akam wrote in Time magazine in December that “Egypt, Iran, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia support the SAF while the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a UN Security Council member, backs the RSF in seeming violation of the body’s own arms embargo on Darfur, first enacted in 2004 and just renewed (with a yes vote from the UAE) in March 2023”.

‘No tangible solution’

The SAF, with junta leader Lt Gen Abdelfattah El Burhan at its head, conditions a ceasefire on the RSF evacuating private and residential areas. Baldo explains that this is most likely to be rejected by the latter, as it maintains a tactical advantage in doing so, especially in Khartoum where it continues to lay siege to several SAF command stations.

Whilst ongoing conflict threatens SAF’s collapse, Baldo believes, “a traffic jam of diplomatic initiatives” has yet to bring forth any sustainable nor tangible end to the conflict.

The Jeddah talks, facilitated by the US and Saudi Arabia, stalled due to belligerents’ failures to honour commitments. The United Nations (UN) “was relegated to an observer’s seat as Sudan unilaterally terminated its political mission”, whereas “offers of mediation by Russia, Turkey, and a Sudan neighbours’ initiative launched by Egypt in July failed to generate traction because the RSF declined to cooperate with any”.

By the end of 2023, the Horn of Africa Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), whose members include Djibouti, Kenya, the Sudans, Uganda, Ethiopia, Somalia and Eritrea, emerged as a lead mediator for a humanitarian ceasefire and civilian-led political negotiations.

IGAD convened in Djibouti in early December, for an extraordinary assembly session on the situation in Sudan, where members agreed to redouble efforts to achieve a peaceful resolution, including mediating head-to-head talks between El Burhan and RSF commander ‘Hemedti’.

“However, several challenges emerged in the final days of 2023 and early 2024 that risk derailing the IGAD’s role in these processes.”

Hours after the IGAD communiqué of the summit was released, the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs initially denied El Burhan’s agreement to meet with Hemedti without conditions, stating that the communiqué’s content “was not based on consensus nor legally binding.”

Baldo notes that the FA Ministry is “dominated by Islamist allies of the SAF” who are most likely behind the initial rejection of the offer. El Burhan later agreed to meet with Hemedti.

Another challenge facing IGAD’s role is the official reception and hospitality received by Hemedti during his Africa tour, in which he was hosted by the heads of four IGAD member states, including chairperson Ismail Guelleh, the President of Djibouti.

“Hemedti’s reception as a visiting dignitary bestowed on him a diplomatic legitimacy that provoked the ire of the SAF, and made less likely that Burhan would agree to meet with him under the IGAD’s auspices after this slight”, the expert explained.

Last June, Sudan’s Sovereignty Council, chaired by El Burhan, declared that “Kenya is not neutral and is home to RSF rebel leaders”.

Last week, acting FA Minister Ali El Sadig announced that Sudan summoned the Kenyan ambassador to protest against the official reception of Hemedti by the Kenyan president.

* Dr Suliman Baldo is an expert in justice, human rights and conflict resolution in Africa and served as the Africa head of International Crisis group, the International Center for Transitional Justice, and has also held human rights and mediation posts in the United Nations. He has provided expert advice on human rights in Mali and Darfur and currently leads the Sudan Transparency and Policy Tracker. (Source: International Centre for Dialogue Initiatives website)

Continue Reading

Previous

Sudanese in El Gedaref are arming themselves ‘despite hate of Islamists’

View original: https://www.dabangasudan.org/en/all-news/article/no-diplomatic-end-to-sudans-war-in-sight-warns-suliman-baldo

ENDS

SAF chief says "We will fight until the enemy is gone"

In a speech delivered to forces in Jebit in eastern Sudan, Burhan stressed that there is no room for reconciliation or agreement with the RSF, indicating that the army is continuing its battle to recover all of Sudan. "We have no reconciliation with them. We have no agreement with them," he said. "Our battle continues until every site in Sudan is restored." Read more.

From Asharq Al-Awsat English
The English edition of Asharq Al-Awsat, the leading Arab international newspaper @aawsat_news
Dated Saturday, 06 January 2024; 1445 AH - here is a copy in full:

Sudan's Army Chief: We Will Fight Until the Militia is Gone

Army Commander Abdel Fattah al-Burhan (Sudanese Sovereignty Council)

(PORT SUDAN) - Sudanese army commander Abdel Fattah al-Burhan unequivocally dismissed an agreement signed between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and associated political groups, vowing to continue the war that has been going on for nine months.

In a speech delivered to forces in Jebit in eastern Sudan, Burhan stressed that there is no room for reconciliation or agreement with the RSF, indicating that the army is continuing its battle to recover all of Sudan.

"We have no reconciliation with them. We have no agreement with them," he said. "Our battle continues until every site in Sudan is restored."

Burhan stated that the RSF committed "war crimes," vowing that the army would deal with them "in the field."

"We will fight until the enemy is gone."

The army chief called for arming citizens to defend themselves, advocating for them to acquire weapons or enlist in the armed forces.

He regretted that some politicians are praising RSF Commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as "Hemedti," despite all the murders he has committed, criticizing neighboring countries that welcomed him.

Dagalo is on a tour across Africa with stops in South Africa, Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Djibouti.

The Sudanese Foreign Ministry summoned its ambassadors in Kampala and Nairobi to protest the formal receptions offered to the RSF commander.

According to a statement by the Foreign Minister-designate, Ali al-Sadiq, the Ministry summoned its ambassadors for "consultations" in response to the official welcome extended to the "militia" leader.

Hemedti's tour will extend to other African and Arab countries, and some unconfirmed reports suggest he will visit Egypt, among other Arab and regional states.

View original: 

https://english.aawsat.com/arab-world/4772191-sudans-army-chief-we-will-fight-until-militia-gone

ENDS

Sudan's genocidaire bids for legitimacy in Africa tour

NOTE, this article doesn't mention or explain what Sudanese people want.

From AFP (Agence France-Presse)

By Bahira Amin

Dated Saturday, 6 January 2024; 10:54 am GMT - here is a copy in full:

Sudan paramilitary chief bids for legitimacy in Africa tour: analysts

Sudan's paramilitary chief Mohamed Hamdan Daglo (L), with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa (R) in Pretoria, has been greeted as if he were a head of state, analysts say (-)

Sudan's paramilitary chief spent the first months of the country's war in the shadows. Now he has emerged to embrace civilian politicians and tour African capitals in a bid for international legitimacy, analysts say.

Mohamed Hamdan Daglo -- commonly known as Hemeti -- commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) which the United States accused of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity in Sudan's Darfur region during its war with the army.

The RSF has been fighting the Sudanese Armed Forces, led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, since April last year in the northeast African country where the US has also accused the army of war crimes.

Daglo had remained largely out of sight while Burhan emerged from a siege of military headquarters to make overseas trips and address the UN General Assembly as Sudan's de facto leader.

But since late December Daglo has been on his first wartime trip abroad, meeting government leaders in Uganda, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa and Rwanda.

It is part of a strategy analysts see as likely linked to the United Arab Emirates.

Daglo is "in the ascendancy," said veteran Sudan expert Alex de Waal.

So is the war's death toll, estimated conservatively at more than 12,190.

Clement Deshayes, a Sudan specialist at Sorbonne University in Paris, said Daglo had been "welcomed with the attributes of a head of state" on his visits.

The most important, said Deshayes, came in Addis Ababa where Daglo met with and embraced Sudan's former prime minister Abdalla Hamdok, who was placed under house arrest after an October 2021 coup orchestrated by Burhan and Daglo, then allies.

Their putsch derailed Sudan's fragile transition to democracy.

After a brief reinstatement, Hamdok resigned in January 2022 and fled for Abu Dhabi. He remains Sudan's foremost civilian politician and has reemerged as part of a new coalition known as Taqadum.

- 'Kiss the ring' -

In embracing Taqadum, Daglo was making "the single most important move that he could to gain legitimacy," said Andreas Krieg, a security studies expert at King's College London.

Although Burhan's administration continues to put out statements as the Sudanese government, the RSF controls the streets of the capital Khartoum, nearly all of the western Darfur region, and in December pressed deeper into Al-Jazira state, shattering one of the country's few remaining sanctuaries.

The United Nations says the violence is "imperiling regional stability", having unleashed the world's largest displacement crisis that has uprooted more than seven million people, including around 1.4 million who have crossed into neighbouring countries.

Daglo, a former camel and sheep trader, rose to prominence under Sudan's former strongman Omar al-Bashir who unleashed Janjaweed militias after an ethnic minority rebellion began in Darfur in 2003. The militia campaign led to war crimes charges against Bashir and others.

When security personnel attacked pro-democracy demonstrators in Khartoum in June 2019 after Bashir's overthrow, it was the RSF, descendants of the Janjaweed, that witnesses said were at the forefront of the bloodshed, killing at least 128 people.

However, Daglo's embrace of a civilian partner offers the chance to gain international legitimacy, particular from the West, analysts told AFP.

That, said Deshayes, was "despite the ethnic cleansing in Darfur (and) the systematic rape and looting in central Sudan and Darfur".

Kholood Khair, a Sudanese analyst, said rumours of a linkup between Hamdok and Daglo had been "rife even before the war" and were "kicked into overdrive" by the Addis meeting.

In videos of the Addis event, Hamdok and his fellow politicians line up to shake hands with Daglo, who wears a sharp suit instead of military fatigues.

"The optics of the meeting were that Hemeti is in charge," Khair told AFP, with Hemeti "holding court and them coming to him, taking turns to say hello and kiss the ring."

On social media, pro-democracy activists accused Hamdok of betraying civilians for political gain.

- The army isolated -

Hamdok has said he hopes for "an urgent meeting" with Burhan.

However, Cameron Hudson, an Africa expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the general was now "highly unlikely" to agree.

Burhan reacted with fury to Daglo's tour, accusing the host nations of "partnering in the murder of the Sudanese people".

That "is precisely the intent," Hudson told AFP.

"It will make the army look opposed to peace and paint Hemeti as the more reasonable and responsible party," he said.

Multiple analysts, including Krieg and Hudson, told AFP the strategy was probably not Daglo's alone and likely originated with the United Arab Emirates.

The UAE, analysts say, already supplies the RSF with munitions via neighbouring African countries -- a charge the UAE has denied.

Krieg said the UAE was "engineering a narrative whereby Hemeti comes out as a potential political leader", with "Taqadum as a legitimate civilian umbrella for the RSF as the security sector".

The army has grown "more and more isolated," said Deshayes, with its military defeats pushing even close ally Egypt away and Daglo now able to "start (peace) negotiations from a place of strength".

But at the same time, Burhan's alienation "will only confuse and complicate the situation and create more time and space for fighting to continue," said Hudson.

bur/bha/dcp/it

View original: https://uk.news.yahoo.com/sudan-paramilitary-chief-bids-legitimacy-105449551.html

ENDS