KHARTOUM — The signing of an initial deal by
Sudan’s military
regime and civilians has been widely hailed by the international community, but
many at home eye it with deep skepticism.
اضافة اعلان
Sudan, one of the world’s poorest countries, has
been mired in deep turmoil since army chief
Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan carried out
a military coup in October last year, derailing a transition to civilian rule.
That power grab came just two-and-a-half years after
enormous street protests had pressed the army into ousting long-time autocrat
Omar Al-Bashir.
Many dared believe the resultant power-sharing
arrangement would guarantee freedoms and provide justice, but the coup
extinguished those hopes, provoking donors into suspending funding and
exacerbating a long-running economic crisis.
Events of the last year have also fed into worsening
security crises in far-flung regions.
On Monday, senior military figures and civilian
groups agreed an accord laying the groundwork for re-establishing civilian
authority — a move welcomed by the UN, US, UK, EU, UAE, and Saudi Arabia, among
others.
The deal, phase one of a two-phase process, was
signed by the main civilian bloc, the
Forces for Freedom and Change, which had
for months opposed engaging with the army in the wake of the coup.
It stipulates that non-military signatories will
agree on a prime minister to steer the country through a new 24-month
transition.
“The soldiers will go to the barracks, and the
parties to the elections,” Burhan promised during the signing ceremony, to loud
applause.
His deputy, paramilitary commander Mohamed Hamdan
Dagalo, even admitted that the coup had been “a political mistake.”
But Sudanese analysts, a senior cabinet minister and
a regional governor caution that the deal risks being over-hyped.
‘Merely symbolic move’
Kholood Khair, founder of
the Confluence Advisory, a Khartoum-based think-tank, notes that the agreement
improves the international community’s perception of Burhan.
But “it works out less well for the civilians ...
who will have to do the hard work and sell it to the public.”
And “it does not inspire confidence that it will
lead to the kind of reforms that people want to see.”
Pro-democracy activists have voiced strong
opposition to the deal.
Crowds of angry protesters took to the streets on
Monday, chanting “no to the settlement” and “betrayal”.
“It’s merely a symbolic move that should be
developed further to a more concrete deal,” said Sudanese analyst Othman
Mirghani.
Otherwise, “it would be a meaningless step.”
Monday’s deal sets broad guidelines for a
civilian-led transition that largely fell short on specifics and timelines.
It pledges accountability, reforms to the security
sector, and bars the army from conducting non-military related businesses, in a
country where this institution has wide-ranging commercial interests.
Dagalo himself — head of a long-feared paramilitary
group — has pledged justice to families of people killed by security forces
over the years, a key demand of activists.
Signatories to the deal have pledged to hammer out
the details of transitional justice, accountability and security reform “within
weeks”.
Mirghani says such complex issues could instead take
months to thrash out.
‘No trust’
The deal “is also contingent
on ... public trust in the agreement and the protagonists,” Khair said.
“And frankly that doesn’t exist,” she added.
The deal was met by strong opposition from key
ex-rebel leaders who two years ago signed a peace deal hammered out with the
short-lived transition government.
Discussions over implementation of the 2020 peace
deal have been slated for phase two of Monday’s agreement.
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