Introduction
In a few days, the April 15 war will complete its first year, and without a doubt, every day of this war is a piece of hell for our people who are stranded in fighting sites, displacement stations, and countries of asylum. A year of war, and no family or home was spared from shedding tears, whether due to the loss of a loved one or due to the violation of human dignity, after millions of families lost all their material possessions. A year of war in which the Sudanese state vanished and civil life was disrupted, as the number of displaced persons approached 11 million citizens, whether displaced or refugees, and the number of war victims reached nearly 100,000, and the specter of famine threatens 25 million people in Sudan, and the horizon has been closed for dozens of people. Millions of school and university students.
A year after the April 15 War, and it is certain that it did not break out to defend the interests of the Sudanese, but was ignited by the dissolved National Congress Party and its militias to crush the glorious December Revolution and block the path to the process of democratic civil transition with the aim of returning to power to continue the process of corruption. The truth before us is that the nature of this war is changing, leaving several disasters, most notably three phenomena, any of which threatens the chances of the Sudanese state remaining united and may contribute to the continuation and prolongation of the war.
The first one
A sharp societal division on ethnic, racial, and regional grounds has reached the point of targeting, killing, and liquidation on the basis of race outside the framework of the law. What is certain is that this division fuels the war by supporting the narratives of its parties and gives it legitimacy to continue under the pretext of defending the right to exist for social components, as if the survival of any component does not exist. This can only be done through killing, and this state of division will inevitably contribute to expanding the circle of war and turning it into a comprehensive civil war throughout the country.
The second one
Reconciling with violence to the point that celebrating it in our visuals has become a normal matter, and the idea that God has honored man with the blessing of life is no longer part of our social imagination in light of the increasing sounds of bullets and the expansion of the circle of violence. This reality creates fertile ground for the spread of the phenomenon of terrorism, especially with the spread of violence. Weapons under the pretext of popular resistance and mobilization on the one hand, and panic on the other. Carrying weapons in the name of defending the right to life, as a justification with moral value, will inevitably turn victims into perpetrators, especially in light of the state of belittling the value of life and in a reality full of perceptions of imaginary enemies for no other reason than their appearance, their dialects, or their place of birth, and these are all things that were not chosen. There are no humans in it.
The third one
Sudan is one of the countries that is experiencing a unique demographic phenomenon, which is that the average lifespan of a person in our country is estimated at 19 years. In light of the disruption of civil life, the cessation of the educational process, and the militarization of public space, it is a matter of time until war and its accompanying economy become the only option available to millions of young people in the country. Our country, other than that the war will create an entire generation without education, but the fear is that millions of young people will become fuel for its continuation and prolongation.
A year has passed since the war, and it portends several consequences: the first of which is that, as we said, we are in “progress” before, and many others have said that, it is not likely that any of its parties will be victorious because victory in it does not have a clear definition, but rather the reality of control over the land indicates… To the possibility of dividing the country, especially with calls to practice life normally in areas controlled by the army, such as continuing the educational process, holding Sudanese certificate exams, or forming civil administrations in areas controlled by the Rapid Support. In this matter, “Taqaddam” seeks to communicate with both sides of the war and urge them to refrain from making such decisions.
The second of these consequences is that the regional and international reality does not herald the possibility of broad international intervention along the lines of Chapter Seven to protect civilians and deter violence by war parties, for reasons related to the nature of the work of international organizations, especially in light of an international reality dominated by competition for influence and interests.
The third of these outcomes is the worst scenario of all, which constitutes an existential threat to the Sudanese state itself, which is the possibility of the disintegration of the armed forces and the Rapid Support and their leadership losing control over the forces. Although there is evidence that this will happen to some extent, the consequences of this scenario will have Disastrous consequences for Sudan, the region and the world. This is another reason for effective local, regional and international powers to propose a different approach to dealing with the changing nature of the war, provided that at the top of this approach is a phase of cessation of hostilities for humanitarian reasons, followed by a comprehensive ceasefire and confidence-building measures to launch a comprehensive political process to end the war and Rebuilding the Sudanese state on new foundations based on equal citizenship for all Sudanese men and women.
Principles and foundations of a comprehensive political solution
We, as civil forces, at the meeting of the leadership body of the Coordination of Civil Democratic Forces “Taqaddam”, which was held in Addis Ababa from April 2 to 4, agree that stopping the war and preserving the unity of the Sudanese state must be based on foundations that achieve the interests of Sudanese men and women and ensure the establishment of a state that maintains peace. Regional and international and rejects religious extremism and political violence. Therefore, we present these principles while emphasizing our openness to any visions presented by others from the parties to the political process:
First: Visions for political solutions must preserve Sudan’s unity and sovereignty over its entire territory, and ensure the establishment of an independent, democratic, sovereign civil state.
Second: The guarantee for Sudan to remain united is the establishment of a state of citizenship, which defines itself in a comprehensive manner that includes the historical and cultural dimensions of its multiple and diverse components. A state established according to a democratic, developmental, participatory and just vision that allows all Sudanese men and women to contribute to the creation of a national project that enables all components of society to see themselves in it, and in which the state stands at the same distance from all religions and cultures and criminalizes all forms of discrimination.
Third: Efforts to stop the war, rebuild and establish a stable civil democratic state must be based on a negotiated political process that does not exclude any political faction except the National Congress, the Islamic Movement and its facades, and everyone who supported and continues to support the April 15 war.
Fourth: Providing protection for civilians from killing, slaughter, displacement, extermination and all forms of violations, including sexual violence against women due to this devastating war, and taking all measures and measures to achieve this goal in cooperation and coordination with the regional and international communities while providing protection and delivering humanitarian aid to all those in need. .
Fifth: Establishing a system of government with foundations and rules that guarantee the participation of Sudanese men and women throughout the country at all levels of government, a participation that expresses pluralism and diversity, provided that people agree in the permanent constitution whether this will be a decentralized system based on symmetric federal foundations or asymmetric federalism. .
Sixth: Building and establishing a professional national army from all military forces (the Armed Forces, Rapid Support, and Armed Struggle Movements), distancing itself from politics and the economy, and reflecting the diversity and multiplicity of Sudanese at all levels according to population weight, will end the phenomenon of multiple armies within the state.
Seventh: The withdrawal of the security system (the army, the security apparatus, the Rapid Support Service, and the police) from political and economic activity, their acceptance of the principles of security and military reform mentioned in Sixth, and their pledge to support the democratic civil transition processes, work on the sustainability and stability of the democratic system, and provide the guarantees required for the establishment of a government to complete the transition tasks. Constitutional and political establishment, administrative, financial and economic reform, removing the effects of war, rebuilding and reconstructing what was destroyed by the war, and preparing the country for free and fair elections after the necessary conditions for that are completed.
Eighth: Agreeing on a practical, implementable program for transitional justice that reveals the truth and ensures accountability for the crimes committed since the coup of June 30, 1989 until the war of April 15, 2023, including the handover of wanted persons to the International Criminal Court, and at the same time allows for the achievement of peace, reconciliation and compensation. Redressing the damage and opening the country’s mind and heart towards the future.
Ninth: Adopting a balanced foreign policy based on common interests and achieving regional and international cooperation in all economic, social and security fields, with a focus on transient issues that threaten regional and international security and peace.
Tenth: The Sudanese state is based on the principle of good neighborliness, ensuring mutual cooperation and the benefit of the region.
Cessation of hostilities and humanitarian aid
“Taqaddam” is aware that the history of humanity is full of wars, violence, and injustice, and that wars may be fought for just reasons, and sometimes they are fought to raise the value of life, that is, accepting smaller harm in order to ward off greater harm. However, the April 15 war is moving in the direction that it does not give any value to life. For the Sudanese, neither in the present nor in the future, to the extent that there is no longer any value to the victory of any party in this war if the country has been destroyed and life has been wasted. What is the value of victory in a land that is desolate and lifeless?
Accordingly, we in “Taqaddam” will work to push the parties to the war to stop all hostilities for humanitarian reasons so that local and international organizations can provide relief to people, ensure that safe paths are opened, and work to facilitate the mission of international organizations supporting education in times of emergency to resume the educational process. People You die of famine and oppression before you die of weapons.
Stopping hostilities for humanitarian reasons is enough to give people a chance to breathe and will have a positive impact in rethinking the effects of war. The history of this war indicates that its violence leads to an expansion of its circles, but stopping it, even for weeks, will have a positive impact in changing the dynamics of conflict and violence. Ceasing hostilities gives people an opportunity to think about how to resume all aspects of civilian life, the most important of which is the educational process in emergency situations, so that we avoid punishing our children with ignorance on top of punishing them with displacement and homelessness.
The negative social effects of the war began to appear clearly in the lives of Sudanese at home and in displacement centers and countries of asylum. For example, the crimes of systematic rape of women have created profound psychological and social effects, represented by pregnancy outside of marriage. In our conservative societies, these phenomena will have a catastrophic impact on women, families, villages, and cities. We are making progress and within the framework of assuming our responsibility and participation. With our people and its components, we work to contribute to dealing with these effects and their remnants, including working to spread awareness and reject the criminalization of victims for violations in which they and their families have no control.
In this context, we send a distress call to both sides of the war and in coordination with regional and international powers, and we call for the formation of a monitoring center from a joint force from the countries of the region to participate in creating a mechanism to monitor the cessation of hostilities, a ceasefire, opening safe paths, and ensuring the flow of humanitarian aid to civilians.
The political process for a comprehensive political solution
After a year of war, we are faced with two options: the first is to end the war with a cessation of hostilities agreement and a comprehensive ceasefire through a comprehensive political process that sets an approach to the causes of the war and how to address its historical roots of historical injustices, multiple armies, and competition for power through violence, by establishing a political system that allows competition. To power peacefully and ensure the participation of all components of the Sudanese state in shaping the nature of the state and in enjoying its resources. The second is for the country to move towards the worst scenario, which means the absence of any form of central authority and the creation of a state of fragmentation and the control of warlords over specific areas with The development of a new formula for the war economy.
The ideal option that we are working towards is a comprehensive political solution through a negotiation process that includes a political process to lay the building blocks to rebuild the Sudanese state. Determining the parties to the political process must be based on specific criteria, and at the top of these criteria is that its parties be from well-known political forces and armed movements. And defined and specific, in addition to the components of civil society, women’s groups, professionals, unions, resistance committees, and other societal forces. In this, we warn and even reject efforts to flood the political process with false facades for the purpose of weakening the democratic forces to stifle the December Revolution and obstructing the democratic civil transition to preserve the interests of the people. The National Congress through its various interfaces.
The forces that destroyed the country and turned all of its capabilities into mere private fiefdoms cannot be allowed, and at the same time did everything they could to defeat the December Revolution by first creating all the reasons for failure for the transitional government and then carrying out the coup second and finally by igniting the war as the greatest evidence of indifference. For the life and capabilities of the Sudanese person. Our rejection of the dissolved National Congress Party’s participation in any political process is based on the following grounds:
First, the dissolved National Congress is not a normal civil political party, but rather a military and security system, an organization that has control over the state bureaucracy and through which it has taken control of the country’s government through a military coup for 30 years and has not, to this day, written a single line criticizing its corrupt authoritarian experience. Rather, it is He considers that the revolution in which millions of Sudanese women and men participated is nothing but a military coup against his brutal totalitarian rule. These words are not just imaginary delusions or “Kayzanophobia” as some intellectuals call it, but rather are facts attested by reality in the course of the current war (Al-Baraa and Al-Bunyan Al-Marsous Brigades, the Operations Authority, etc.) and also attested by the authoritarian practices in the states controlled by the army (the National Congress). ) Which is represented by political decisions, mobilization and war discourse, inciting racial strife, persecution, and liquidation targeting all spectrums of revolutionary forces, including political parties, resistance committees, change committees, and independent figures.
Secondly, most of the “state joints” that were controlled by the Islamic Movement and the National Congress were the military and security joints (the army, the police, the intelligence service), as these joints remained the “hard core” and the destructive machine for defeating the national democratic project. This was clearly demonstrated during The auspicious transitional period in which these agencies represented the main means of obstructing the process of democratic transformation, and there is no clearer evidence of that than the October 25 coup.
The participation of the dissolved National Congress in the future of the country depends on answering a number of important and difficult questions: The first of which is: Will the National Congress agree to stop the war that it has sparked now and immediately? Secondly, will the dissolved party give up its empowerment in public state institutions and its military and security agencies in particular, which represent the solid core of its party, and accept the dismantling of its militias to become a normal political party competing with other parties according to the rules of democratic practice? Third, does he accept justice for the victims and the oppressed, and for the accused to be brought before local and international justice? Fourth, will he return the money illegally seized due to empowerment and corruption? The clear answer to all these questions so far is no, and therefore the National Congress’s participation in the political process aims primarily to go beyond any talk about “dismantling the regime of June 30, 1989,” which is the item because of which the militias of the Islamic Movement ignited the current devastating war, and it is also the item. Which it employs all its political, military, diplomatic, economic and media tools in order not to include it as a condition in any upcoming political process.
Therefore, any attempt to involve the National Congress, the Islamic Movement and its facades in the political process means blocking the path to the process of democratic civil transformation, as this party does not yet acknowledge the change brought about by the revolution and does not have the slightest desire to review its experience in governance and does not think about abandoning the security and military system. With which he pleads for power.
In the same context, the upcoming political process is open to the various components of the political forces and individuals who corrected their position on the December Revolution and its slogans, opposed the military coup and demanded an end to the senseless and destructive war. In this direction, “Taqaddam” has made tireless and tremendous efforts to communicate with many civil and political forces and armed struggle movements, and this effort will continue to include societal forces. And here we are now proposing to hold a preliminary meeting for these forces and those individuals, followed by a round table to reach consensus on a comprehensive vision for the political process and its parties.
Issues of the political process
1. Humanitarian issues: including relief, health and education
2. Security and military arrangements, including rebuilding the security and military system, including the issue of a single national professional.
3. Political issues include:
a. Post-war arrangements (emergency tasks, relocation and establishment)
B. Transitional period structures
C. Constitution of the transitional period
Dr.. Mechanisms for forming the transitional authority
H. Laws regulating elections
4. Justice and transitional justice (including accountability and reparations)
5. Institutional reforms (judicial agencies and civil service)
6. Making a permanent constitution
Negotiating platform
“Taqadum” supports all persistent efforts seeking to reach a cessation of hostilities followed by a comprehensive ceasefire that leads to ending the war and establishing peace in conjunction with the start of a political process that leads to a comprehensive political solution. However, we see that the multiplicity of platforms and the multiplicity of mediators is a waste of energies and giving… Opportunities for the stubborn party to shop and shop in the initiative market and even to use these initiatives as a means to evade any commitments made in other platforms and start from scratch in every new negotiating process. The negotiating process must be based on what was previously agreed upon in previous negotiating rounds, regardless of the platform through which it took place, and a new negotiating process must not be allowed to start from scratch in every initiative or platform.
In this regard, civilian forces must have a presence and participation in the negotiating process, and we will work with regional and international powers to unify the coordination process between all mediators and initiatives and ensure the presence of civilians in it.
Evaluation of the Addis Ababa Declaration (signed on January 2, 2024)
In the wake of Taqadum’s signing of the Addis Ababa Declaration on January 2, 2024, tendentious propaganda campaigns were launched that aimed to use the declaration as an argument and evidence to stigmatize the Coordination of Civil Democratic Forces as a political ally of Rapid Support, and that by signing the Declaration it legitimized Rapid Support and gave it an opportunity to form civilian administrations.
In our evaluation of this declaration, “Taqadum” confirms that it includes six principles, the essence of which is ensuring the unity of Sudanese territory and forming objective foundations for rebuilding the Sudanese state, including the issue of a single national professional army. Therefore, in our assessment, accepting a force that carries weapons and controls large areas of territory With these principles, it is considered a political victory in itself for civilian forces that do not carry any weapons. Another common mistake about Addis’ declaration is that “Taqaddum” should not sit with any of the parties to the war alone in order to maintain the principle of neutrality as a mediator. The absent or missing truth is that we at “Taqaddum” are not mediators or facilitators as we have been portrayed by some, but rather we are Genuine stakeholders, and we have the right to have our views and it is our duty to call on the warring parties to them. If the armed forces had committed to their pledge to meet with us, the Addis Declaration would have had great political value, at least in alleviating the damage and alleviating the suffering of people in areas of armed confrontation, because the declaration It would have formed a solid basis for reaching sustainable and agreed-upon solutions between the two parties to the conflict. Another point raised about the Addis Ababa Declaration is blaming “Taqaddum” for sitting with forces accused of committing grave violations. In our estimation, the issue of stopping the war for us as forces that reject it in principle cannot be achieved without talking to its parties. Otherwise, the other option is to We become one of its parties.
However, there are several shortcomings that accompanied the Addis Ababa Declaration, especially in its political cost to Taqadum, as it became an excuse for the remnants of the former regime to brand Taqadum as a political supporter of fighting forces. However, the political value of the Addis Declaration was represented in the fact that it obtained pledges of support. Rapid agreement on fundamental principles that establish a comprehensive and sustainable political solution, and this is something that still has value and political feasibility in the journey of searching for solutions. It is known that the agreement would have had practical benefits, too, if the armed forces had agreed to sit down to negotiate ways to end the war.
We, in “Taqaddam”, must make more efforts to complete the work of the committees that were formed as a result of the declaration. We must also intensify communication with Rapid Support to pressure it and push it to adhere to what was stated in the Addis Declaration, including stopping violations against civilians in areas under its control and deployment, and urging it to move away from areas where There is no presence of the armed forces or any military formations, while we strongly condemn all forms of violations against civilians by all parties to the war.
Taqadum renews its call, with a sincere heart and an open mind, to the armed forces to respond to our call to meet with the aim of discussing ways to end the war with our own hands as Sudanese.
Conclusion
As we present this vision one year after the April 15 war, we are aware of the destruction, sorrow, resentment, and gross violations that the war left behind, and we are aware that what is worse is the deep state of societal division that has befallen the country, which is exacerbated by the misinformation campaigns that… It is carried out by the National Congress and its arms with the aim of emptying the civil space of democratic and revolutionary forces so that they can engineer the country’s future for the continuation of totalitarian rule to monopolize the country’s resources for a few that have been tampering with its capabilities for more than three decades, including undermining the democratic civil transition and igniting the April 15 war.
We, in the Coordination of Civil Democratic Forces “Taqaddam,” share this vision with all the daughters and sons of our people and their civil and democratic forces, and we call on them for dialogue and coordination on how to build a different future for the homeland, a future that guarantees the establishment of a state of freedom, peace, justice, equality and well-being.
Policy recommendations
1. Expanding progress according to a vision that specifies the parties that should be targeted for communication and setting a timetable for communication.
2. Activating the Liaison Committee’s regulations, especially in how delegations are selected, taking into account the issue of the size and composition of delegations.
3. Assigning the head of the leadership body to form a committee concerned with developing the negotiating position for progress based on the outcomes of the specialized workshops that were held, and that the committee should have the authority to respond to any invitation to participate in the negotiating process.
4. Applying the principle of inclusion and representation in the communication committee and the method of its formation.
5. Forming a delegation to visit Sudanese refugee camps in neighboring countries to find out their conditions and needs and communicate with these countries for the purpose of facilitating the conditions of the Sudanese.
6. Renewing contacts with the armed forces with the aim of reaching an agreement on a political declaration similar to the Addis Ababa Declaration.
7. Raising the level of sensitivity in dealing with cases of violations in general, especially cases of sexual violations against women committed by both sides of the conflict.
8. Addressing both sides of the war to open safe paths and open the way for international organizations supporting education in a state of emergency to fulfill the conditions for starting the new school year to ensure educational continuity.
9. Strengthening coordination between the political communication and media committees for the purpose of exchanging information and the “Taqadum” political and media discourse unit, including statements issued by the media committee.
10. Approval of the general framework for the topics, parties, and mechanisms of the political process.
MinBane 