AFRICA

TALKS TO END SUDAN CRISIS COMMENCE AMID ANTI-COUP GROUPS BOYCOTT

TALKS TO END SUDAN CRISIS COMMENCE AMID  ANTI-COUP GROUPS BOYCOTT
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Faith Nyasuguta 

Talks seeking to end Sudan’s ongoing political deadlock have kicked off, according to the United Nations.

The nation’s main pro-democracy alliance is boycotting the meeting following a continued police crackdown on those protesting last October’s military coup.

The U.N. political mission in Sudan, the African Union, and the eight-nation East African regional group Intergovernmental Authority in Development, IGAD, sparked the joint peace effort.

The effort aims at bringing the generals and a string of political and protest groups to the negotiating table.

The military’s takeover has upended Sudan’s short-lived fragile democratic transition and plunged the East African nation into turmoil. 

Sudan had been transiting to democracy after nearly three decades of repression and international isolation under Islamist-backed strongman Omar al-Bashir.

The UN, AU and IGAD launched the process on Wednesday with a technical meeting involving the military and civilians. It came after months of separate discussions with an array of groups including the military and the pro-democracy movement.

The U.N. envoy to Sudan, Volker Perthes, said the process would discuss a “transitional program,” including the appointment of a civilian prime minister and arrangements for drafting a permanent constitution and elections at the end of the transition.

Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, the leader of the coup who also heads the ruling sovereign council, welcomed the talks as a “historic opportunity to complete the transitional phase.”

A man holds a Sudanese national flag before flames at a barricade as people protest against the military coup in Sudan, in the east of capital Khartoum on November 13, 2021 /AFP/

In a speech to the country late Tuesday, he called on all factions to take part in the talks, promising that the military will implement their outcome.

“We are fully committed to working with everybody to end the transitional period as soon as possible with fair and transparent elections,” he said.

However, The Forces for the Declaration of Freedom and Change, or FDFC — an alliance of political parties and protest groups — is boycotting the meeting. 

They note that the talks should lead to “an end to the coup and the establishment of a civilian democratic authority.” They also decried the participation of pro-military groups and Islamists who had been allied with al-Bashir’s government.

The alliance further called for the implementation of trust-building measures, including the release of coup-related detainees, and the ending of violence against protesters.

The talks come as the violent crackdown on anti-coup protests continues in the capital of Khartoum.

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Faith Nyasuguta

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