Vice Chairman of the Sovereign Transitional Council, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, upon returning from his visit to the Darfur region said Aug. 11 that the government in Khartoum is actively engaged in promoting the peace process, which last week saw the signing of four reconciliation agreements between several local tribes.
According to local sources, however, the Rapid Support Forces under the command of Dagalo himself have reportedly been responsible for violence in the region on several occasions, especially in the Kordofan area.
Instead, a three-day seminar sponsored by the Sudan Lawyers Association, whose theme was to identify suggestions for defining the country’s constitutional transition, concluded on August 10, and was attended by representatives of the Forces for Freedom and Change and the Democratic Unionist Party. The main element that emerged at the conference was the recommendation to promote a clear separation of the role of the military from politics, while adding that the role of the armed forces as a guarantor of the transition is not permissible (https://www.dabangasudan.org/en/all-news/article/previously-attacked-constitutional-workshop-concludes-military-to-be-distanced-from-sudan-politics).
Instead, on August 14, a two-day conference entitled “Appeal of the People of Sudan” was held, promoted by circles close to the armed forces and, among others, the cleric al-Tayeb Aljid, under which the establishment of a Supreme Council of the Armed Forces was proposed to be given broad powers to manage the country’s difficult crisis (https://sudantribune.com/article262779/). At the conference, which was largely attended by members of the dissolved National Congress Party, an expression of the former regime, delegates agreed to define last October’s coup as a necessary step for the country’s stability and called on the armed forces to continue managing Sudan’s transition. As part of the conference’s work, the cessation of the UN UNITAMS mission in the country was also explicitly called for.
On August 17, however, two separate meetings were held between the Forces for Freedom and Change and the armed forces-backed Sudanese People’s Appeal initiative under the trilateral mediation mechanism. Opposition forces reject the proposals of committees close to the armed forces and denounce the army’s attempt to want to reassume full powers.
