Sudan’s civil war has been the focus of multiple mediation initiatives. In the 18 months since fighting erupted, the two warring parties (Sudan Armed Forces, SAF, and Rapid Support Forces, RSF) and various civilian groups have been called to Jeddah, Cairo, Bahrain, Djibouti, Addis Ababa, Geneva and other locations for talks under different auspices and with different formats. None has yet succeeded.
This blog post examines key elements for effective mediation in the Sudanese conflict.
Background
The engagement of multiple mediators in a civil war such as Sudan’s is to be expected. External powers have interests in the country, in part because the impacts of the conflict reach far beyond national boundaries. The existence of such efforts should be welcome as many helping hands will be required. However, multiple efforts need to be coordinated so that they do not negate one another by providing opportunities for ‘forum-shopping’ by the parties to the conflict, cancelling out the different efforts and enable them to procrastinate, failing to engage in a meaningful mediation.
The political elites of the Sudans have a long history of engaging with domestic and foreign mediation and in direct negotiations with one another. Examples of internal mediation include the 1965 ‘Round Table’ conference, the 1988 accords between John Garang of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and Mohamed Osman al-Mirghani of the Democratic Unionist Party, and the 2006 Juba Agreement between President Salva Kiir and Paulino Matiep of the South Sudan Defense Force. Examples of externally-facilitated negotiations include the 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement that ended the first civil war, mediated by Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie; the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, mediated by the InterGovernmental Authority on Development backed by the ‘Troika’ of the U.S., Britain and Norway; the 2012 Cooperation Agreements between Sudan and South Sudan, facilitated by the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel; and the 2019 Khartoum Declaration, mediated by the ‘Quartet’ of the U.S., Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Britain, with the AU providing a public face and legitimizing formula. Hybrids include the 2006 Eastern Sudan Peace Agreement, which was at root a bargain between Sudan and Eritrea, and the 2020 Juba Peace Agreement, between the Government of Sudan and several armed opposition groups, facilitated by South Sudan.
Sudanese elites have all the necessary skills to navigate a peace process. They have learned how to pretend to be engaged without making real progress if that is what they decide, and to leverage the gaps between parallel process for tactical advantage. Sudanese experience with peace processes underlines the reality that success requires a coordinated mediation architecture.
The Architecture for Mediation
A well-designed coordination mechanism can be called the architecture of mediation.
The actors for peace include international, state, and non-governmental actors, civil society, and social movements. All bring their own capacities to the table. What can make them work is proper coordination and the correct division of labor, to ensure that they are complementary to one another.
The readiness and capacity of the warring parties to resolve a conflict and agree to a lasting peace is determined by numerous factors, most of which are beyond the reach of any mediator. These include the balance of military forces, the availability of external sponsors and their readiness to fund the war, the willingness of the warring parties to persevere despite conflict-related pain, the material benefits that may arise from a peaceful settlement, and the capacity of the parties to reach a shared definition of the problem and its resolution.
One task for mediators is to incentivize and help the parties arrive at a solution and sanction any spoiler behavior by the parties. Mediators who are unable to influence the key factors enumerated above need to continue engaged with more limited objectives. The objectives could include understanding the capabilities, priorities, threats, and strengths of the parties with the objective of developing a plan for such time as when the factors are conducive, and seize that moment. Promoting local and partial ceasefires whose intention is to create a favorable ground for civilian protection and humanitarian operations could also be part of that limited objective for the continued engagement.
It follows that a conflict resolution exercise has two major stages: options development and decision-making.
Options Development
The options development stage is when conditions are not yet conducive for peace but the warring parties are ready to engage in a process of some kind. They may refuse to talk to one another but be ready to engage with a third party mediator, formally or informally.
Initially, conflict parties will not send decision-makers to represent them in negotiations. In most instances, decision-makers will send loyal lieutenants. The leaders have more pressing responsibilities and do not want to expose themselves or be put in a situation in which they are compelled to make a decision from which they cannot backtrack. Hence top leaders send representatives to develop options for their ultimate decisions.
Understanding these dynamics is important in creating a coordination mechanism for external stakeholders.
A framework for external actors requires that they coordinate. There should be collaboration in support of a single process. Once a coordinated process is in place, external stakeholders can play their roles effectively. Some (for example major external powerbrokers) might have a special capability to leverage in decision-making once options are developed. Others (for example civil society actors) might have the capacity to assist the parties in problem definition and solution identification. Multilateral actors bring legitimacy, inclusiveness and transparency to the table.
The chief mediator should be capable of mobilizing and deploying those resources constructively. He or she should be the central pillar of the mediation architecture, to which everyone else relates.
One of the critical tasks of a successful mediator is taking the parties through a process of problem definition and solution identification to enhance their capacity to develop options. A first stage is obtaining a consensus on the broad definition of the problem to be solved. This is followed by exploring a range of legitimate potential solutions.
An important criterion for the parties to engage constructively in developing options is their confidence in the mediator. This requires not only that the mediator be neutral, but also that he or she enjoy the trust of the parties in giving a fair hearing to their positions. Once such confidence exists, the parties can genuinely engage in defining the problem and developing options.
Long experience in Sudan demonstrates the importance of the options development stage. The point of origin for the CPA was the 1994 IGAD Declaration of Principles, which became the focal point for the Sudanese parties, military and civilian, exploring a series of options, in parallel and jointly, that came together in the 2002 Machakos Protocol and the detailed negotiations that followed. The 2005-06 Abuja negotiations on the conflict in Darfur did not lead to an agreement signed by all the parties, but the options developed became the basis of all subsequent agreements for Darfur, from the 2011 Doha Document for Peace in Darfur to the 2020 Juba Agreement.
Decision Making
The final decision for peace lies in the hands of the leaders of the warring parties. They will make the decision—or fail to do so—based on their own interests and calculations, depending on circumstances, including the leverage and incentives provided by external powerbrokers.
Sudanese leaders’ decisions for peace are typically based on assessing brute forces not resolving root causes, on the logic of guns and money not on norms of democracy and justice.
However, mediators have influence over the legitimacy. Peace deals include both the private bargain and the public document. A multilateral mediator can influence the formal document and open the door for civilian participation, democratization, transitional justice and other elements.
Towards an Effective Mediation Process
Similar to previous conflicts, the current war in Sudan has given rise to multiple—and sometimes divisive—mediation efforts. In May 2023, the US and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia launched the Jeddah Process, bringing the leaders of SAF and RSF to negotiate a ceasefire. The process arrived at the Jeddah Declaration of Commitment to Protect the Civilians of Sudan but the declaration remains to be implemented to date.
Several critics claim that the process has major limitations that restrain it from achieving its objectives. It excluded the civilian leadership of Sudan. It excluded other armed groups, such as the signatories to the Juba Peace Agreement, the SPLA-North and the Sudan Liberation Army, which in turn pushed some of those armed groups to align themselves with either of the parties. Recognizing these shortcomings, the Americans and Saudis reached out to the AU to convene consultations with the civilian parties. Those meetings, however, became preoccupied with the question of who was represented and who should be excluded.
In most conflicts, warring parties agree to a ceasefire when they are confident that they are on the road towards a political settlement. The Jeddah process, by contrast, planned to achieve a ceasefire prior to political negotiations. The process also lacked a coordinating mechanism for all external stakeholders and actors. Following these limitations, it failed to achieve its objective creating space for other processes to emerge.
Recognizing that the exclusion of the UAE was a serious handicap on progress in Jeddah, talks were also convened in Bahrain, at which both warring parties along with their respective external patrons could be present.
Under the chairpersonship of President William Ruto of Kenya, IGAD launched peace initiative. Its roadmap contained a four-point plan of action and assigned an IGAD High-Level Delegation chaired by Pres. Ruto along with Djibouti, Ethiopia and South Sudan. This Quartet was also meant to work in close coordination with the African Union Commission. They called for a face-to-face meeting of the leaders of the warring parties, which did not materialize.
Furthermore, Egypt and Chad, the two neighboring states deeply impacted by the war that are not members of IGAD felt sidelined from the process. In response to their exclusion from the Jeddah and IGAD processes, Chad and Egypt jointly called for a summit of neighboring countries including also Libya and Central African Republic. This was later expanded to include Eritrea, South Sudan, and Libya and launched as the Cairo Initiative in July 2023.
The AU’s initial engagement in Sudan was in support of the civilians. It suspended the membership of Sudan following the 2021 coup mounted by the leaders of SAF and the RSF, at that time working together. After the outbreak of the war, the AU established a high-level panel to engage the Sudanese parties. The panel was headed by Mohamed Chambas (Ghana), along with Speciosa Wandira-Kazibwe (Uganda), and Francisco Madeira (Mozambique).
As the AU seemed to engage, the United Nations appeared to be constrained by the principle of subsidiarity. The UN’s initial call for a more inclusive approach, in the form of an extended mechanism appeared to be its way of circumventing this limitation. Later, the UNSG appointed Ramtane Lamamra as his personal envoy who began engaging directly with the Sudanese. Once appointed, the personal envoy visited the capitals of key member states and called for proximity talks in Geneva to which the two parties responded positively. The talks achieved some commitments to civilian protection and humanitarian operations.
The problem of parallel initiatives cancelling one another out was clear to all. In August, the US attempted to overcome this by calling the warring parties and the key stakeholders including Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, AU, UN, and IGAD for direct talks in Geneva. These aimed to enhance civilian protection and facilitate humanitarian operations. The RSF and the other stakeholders attended but SAF failed to attend. Representatives of the Middle Eastern powerbrokers were present, though not at decision-making level. Despite this, however, the meeting created what it called Aligned for Advancing Lifesaving and Peace in Sudan (ALPS) Group and achieved small concessions in opening some critical passages that facilitate humanitarian operations.
Currently, there is little movement in any of the processes but the killing and rampage on civilians have continued. Both warring factions are committing crimes against their citizens with impunity. The type and magnitude of the crimes against humanity are horrendous and escalating. In September, the UN fact-finding mission reported that both sides were responsible for war crimes, while the RSF was also committing crimes against humanity. Others accuse the RSF of ethnic cleansing or genocide.
Recently, the RSF, in what it was meant as collective punishment for the defection of its Jazira state commander, Abu Aqla Keikel, the RSF attacked 30 villages, killing and detaining men, raping dozens of women, and burning crops. Meanwhile, SAF has mounted indiscriminate bombing in Khartoum and committed atrocities in the town of Dinder and its environs. Despite strong condemnation, including from UN Secretary General António Guterres, no urgency has been injected into the peace process.
Conclusion
The decision to make peace in Sudan is in the hands of the Sudanese military leaders.
However, with the right architecture for peacemaking, the capabilities for a mediated peace process exist in abundance.
The US can leverage its relationships with the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other external powerbrokers so that they refrain from supporting one or the other action and arming them. The front-line states can leverage their influence on the warring parties encouraging them to work for peace. The UN, the African Union, IGAD, and the League of Arab States are the sources for any international legitimacy to the parties and can play that card to influence the final outcome.
What is needed is the right architecture. This blog post has shown that two processes need to be distinguished and coordinated.
One process is options development, focusing on the substantive elements of a final deal that will be recognized as legitimate. This process needs to be recognized by the warring parties, the civilians and the external powerbrokers. The requirements of this process are such that it can only be led by multilateral organizations. The UN has the ultimate responsibility. The AU, the Arab League and IGAD can also be engaged. The choice of focal point for facilitating this must be accessible to all parties and perceived as neutral.
The other process is decision-making, which involves creating the right mix of incentives for the military leaders to make the right call. This is a task for the external powerbrokers, which have the leverage on the warring parties. They will make their decisions based on the cruel logic of realpolitik, framed by their security, political and economic interests in the wider region. But they may also be influenced by the fact that the humanitarian cataclysm in Sudan will impact on their interests, and failure to prevent that disaster will damage their reputations.
