29 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –
Sudan’s charge d’affaires in the United Kingdom, Khalid Mohamed Ali Hasan, has partially blamed the current conflict between the Army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on the “negative pressure” of the international community in adopting the so-called Agreement Marco, the initiative developed by the military for the transition to civilian rule, finally collapsed with the start of fighting on April 15.
This framework agreement ended up collapsing due to differences between the leader of the Army, Abdelfatá al Burhan, and the paramilitary leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, alias ‘Hemedti’ over the integration of the RSF into the regular ranks.
In addition, various Sudanese civil and political groups refused to participate in these negotiations, suspecting that the military had no intention of relinquishing power and chose an alternative path of talks, based in Cairo, which was ultimately abandoned due to lack of support.
“You have to know that we have always told the British that the framework agreement could end up creating what we are seeing now,” said the business manager in an interview with Arab News, where he specifically addressed the main point of conflict between Al Burhan and ‘ Hemedti’, the terms for the integration of the paramilitaries in the Army.
“In the previous discussion workshops, ‘Hemedti’ advanced that he would only accept the integration within a period of ten years. Why so long, when the Army considered that only two would be enough?”, he stated.
“The Army knows the paramilitaries well, they know their personnel, their salary depends on the Army. We are not talking about a rebel movement that is difficult to integrate. Ten years is a long time, and this period is one of the reasons why we are attending these fights”, he added.
Hasan has also lamented the absence of “very important political figures” who participated in the peace agreements signed in 2020 in Juba between the then Sudanese government and the country’s five main rebel armed groups, under the umbrella of the so-called Sudanese Revolutionary Front. Some of these leaders, such as the head of the Movement for Justice and Equality, Jibril Ibrahim, are members of the opposition to the Framework Agreement.
In general terms, Hasan was convinced of the victory of the Sudanese Army in the conflict but has asked the international community to understand the conflict as a “rebellion” instead of a “battle between equals”.
“The Sudanese Army is a professional army that is over 100 years old, competent and made up of recruits from all over Sudan. They represent different ethnicities and different tribes, and they can all see themselves in this army, which is responding to this attack by a rebel group”, has settled.
