Nothing is going well between diplomats in Khartoum. On Tuesday, June 21, the African Union ambassador and the governor of Darfur, an ally of the junta in power since the October 25 coup, violently denounced the parallel discussions aimed at bringing the military and the civil opposition, which continues to refuse any sharing of power and any negotiation with the putschists.
Tuesday evening, the ambassador of the African Union, Mohamed Belaïche, did not mince his words. During a last-minute press briefing, he announced nothing less than his ” withdrawal of the tripartite dialogue initiated with the UN and the regional organization Igad. ” The African Union cannot continue these discussions that are dishonest, opaque, exclude participants or treat them unfairly », he said. A withdrawal ” of certain activities Only, however, said the ambassador in the morning.
” Dishonest », « opaque »… Why such declarations? A partial response was given yesterday evening in the same place, in front of the same microphones, by Minni Minnawi, the Governor of Darfur and leader of a former rebel group now allied with the military junta, which the African Union ambassador had just met.
He clearly denounced the parallel discussions – “ under the table even – between the Forces of Freedom and Change, the main civil opposition coalition, and a delegation of military personnel, under the patronage of the United States and Saudi Arabia. A first unprecedented meeting took place on June 10 and a new invitation was issued for a new meeting. But the African Union and Minni Minnawi are formal: according to them, these are, in the long term, doomed to exclude major political actors from a possible solution to the crisis.
This dialogue process, supervised by the UN, AU and IGAD, has failed to win the confidence of Sudanese politicians or pro-democracy groups who have mobilized in the streets in recent months. Now is therefore a real opportunity to rethink the technical and political aspects aimed at obtaining a real political agreement in Sudan.
Cameroon Hudson, researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
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