Sudan and the United Nations Initiative

Dr. Elshafie Khidir Saeid

The killing and bloodshed in Sudan are no longer confined to the known civil war and the bloody conflict zones. Rather, it is expanded to reap the lives of young demonstrators who took the streets armed only with chants of throats, yet their heads were blown up by the “Doshka” and sniper bullets, and the brains of the future were scattered over their tender bodies that dreamed of a civil democratic Sudan. I will keep repeating that the political space in Sudan is pushing the country into various terrifying possibilities. The political crisis could drag the country into a societal civil war similar to the fire raging in Libya, Syria, and Yemen. Unfortunately, many factors are supporting this possibility, including:

• The ongoing war in Darfur and the possibility of its spreading to the rest of the country, since the groups affiliated to the conflicting parties are present all over the country. * The escalating tension in East Sudan with internal and external complexities that enable these tensions to be open to all possibilities.
• The increasing hostile discourse that fuels ethnic strife and tribal fanaticism. * The country, especially its capital, Khartoum, has become an arsenal of heavy arms, not in stores but the hands of several armies, and not the Sudanese army alone, and these armies will not remain silent towards attempts to change as long as this change will affect their situation. * The continuation of fragmentation among the political forces and the clear big differences in their political discourses, and their failure to formulate and adopt practical steps to address and manage the escalating crisis.
• The deterioration of the living conditions, especially in light of the suspension of the international economic support program after the twenty-fifth of October coup. All these factors, and others, provide a suitable incubator for the outbreak of the civil war in a country in which good governance has been absent for more than thirty years. A country endemic with poverty, increasing intolerance, poisonous practices of extremism, and could slip rapidly towards the abyss if we do not adopt a mechanism to prevent that.

Today, we live in a world that does not accept isolation and is governed by the inextricable laws of globalization which provide fertile soil for the positive and useful interaction between the various components of this world, under the banner of achieving world peace and stability. One of the manifestations of this positive interaction is the contribution of the international community to address the political crises in this or that country, when the national political forces fail to resolve such crises that afflict the homeland to the point of erupting wars and undermining stability, inside and outside the homeland. I think this is our situation today in Sudan, which prompted the United Nations to launch an international initiative announced by Mr. Volker Perthes, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations in Sudan and head of the “UNITAMS” mission in charge of supporting the transitional period in Sudan. Mr. Volker is emphasizing that the United Nations will play the role of a facilitator only, and will not impose any specific proposals or agenda, but will leave that to the Sudanese themselves.

I do believe that this international initiative will provide a needed viable mechanism to i) prevent further bloodshed and the sliding of the country into the abyss, ii) reunite the fragmented political actors based on the commonalities between their various visions and covenants, iii) lay a provisional framework to resolve our crisis. That is why I do support it!