Resolution of the Conflict in Sudan: Eritrea’s Considered and Long-Pronounced Position

The tragic conflict in Sudan has raged for more than three years now with devastating consequences to the people of Sudan. The conflict is also fraught with deleterious ramifications to the stability and security of the wider region.

In this context, and particularly in the past few weeks, we have seen inordinate intensification of media and other campaigns that revolve around flawed diagnosis and misrepresentation of the underlying causes of the conflict.  The subtle media campaigns – that have reportedly used AI generated tools for maximum impact – seem to be driven by extraneous agendas that could potentially exacerbate the conflict and further jeopardize the welfare of the Sudanese people.

Against the backdrop of these preoccupying developments, it is perhaps timely to reiterate Eritrea’s long-held position and reprint below the main contents of a presentation that was slated for delivery at the International Conference on the Conflict in Sudan held in Berlin in April this year.

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“…This Conference is being convened at a critical juncture of the tragic conflict in the Sudan that has inculcated massive, unnecessary and avoidable loss of life and material destruction in the country.

In the event, while the imperative for the delivery of adequate humanitarian assistance for temporary relief on an expeditious basis is evident, the primary and over-arching focus of the international community should indeed remain, and revolve on, supporting the Sudanese people achieve lasting and irreversible peace.

In Eritrea’s considered and long-pronounced view, the crystallization of this paramount objective rests on the following seven pillars:

1. The solution to the conflict in Sudan rests primarily and solely on the Sudanese people.  Sudan’s friends can only assist in the process in good-faith which must, in turn, be anchored on full respect of its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
2. In this respect, the proliferation of multiple and disjoint initiatives may be fraught with unintended consequences and compound the crisis if various approaches prompted by, and based on, sincere goodwill are not predicated on foundational consensus as well as substantive and meaningful consultations and coordination.
3. The conflict itself should not be misconstrued as a purely internal strife driven by personal or institutional rivalries.  There is indeed compelling evidence – the latest Yale University comprehensive findings on the UAE’s massive involvement in supplying sophisticated weapons, hiring of mercenaries etc. to bolster the RSF is a case in point – of external agendas that have exacerbated the crisis.  Some hidden agendas of polarizing and balkanizing the Sudan fall in the same category.
4. The imperative of a time-bound Transitional Phase for full restoration of a normative civilian governance architecture in the Sudan is also crystal clear.  In this respect, it must be recalled that the Sovereign Council has been, and is entrusted with, this task by the broad Sudanese people.  The Sudanese Army played a critical and pivotal role during the popular uprising that removed the incumbent Government.  The Transitional phase with the Sovereign Council at the helm was conceived as the necessary bridge to prepare the ground for elections and the restoration of a normative civilian governance structure.
5. This task, which could have been accomplished in a matter of two-three years, was and continues to be compounded by externally instigated war that erupted thereafter.  That the military and security entities in any country cannot be devolved and polarized is too evident to merit elaboration.  Under the circumstances, the Sovereign Council must be recognized as the sole State authority in the Sudan in the Transitional Phase; an arrangement which presupposes integration of the armed forces under one national umbrella and command.
6. In this respect, Eritrea maintains that participation of the Sovereign Council in this International Ministerial Conference and other similar platforms remains both vital and mandatory.
7. Finally, temporary ceasefires and half-solutions will not secure and advance the requisite panacea but rather compound the crises because they will only allow the conflicting parties to entrench and undertake preparations for more ferocious rounds of confrontation while also increasing exodus of the civilian population.  The focus must therefore be on a comprehensive cessation of hostilities on the basis of a truly viable peace framework.

I thank you”.