A Stalemate That Does Not Ripen: On the Stagnant Busyness of Sudanese Conflict Mediation

The war in Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, nominally also the President of the country after the military coup of October 2021, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) under the dismissed former Vice President Mohamed Hamdan Daglo (‘Hemedti’), has entered its tenth month. While fighting is still ongoing in large parts of the country, the areas of control appear to be set. The RSF controls most of the capital Khartoum, areas to the South up to Wad Madani, and large parts of Darfur, where the SAF is restricted to a limited presence in al-Fasher and air bombardments. The SAF, in turn, had to retreat to the East, with their political-military headquarters now in Port Sudan.

Further substantial movement out of these positions is possible, yet unlikely. SAF is under constant pressure to consolidate and unable to launch any meaningful counter-offensive. The RSF, despite continuous successful recruitment and considerable arms supply from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), struggles to maintain control over the large territories they occupy and is probably overstrained to advance further east towards regional hubs like Kassala at the Eritrean border or Port Sudan at the coast. While this de-facto stalemate no doubt hurts both parties, Zartman’s theory of the mutually hurting stalemate that ripens a conflict enough to be successfully mediated is not materialising. As the recent busyness of conflict mediation clearly shows, the conflict just will not ripen – and the busyness is, in fact, nothing but stagnation.

Stagnant busyness

The current flow of meetings and negotiations follows on the disastrous failure of both main conflict mediation attempts after the outbreak of armed conflict. The United Nations Transition Mission for Sudan, UNITAMS, after an already abysmal performance in supporting the Sudanese transition process that resulted in the war, struggled to maintain trustful relationships with the meaningful actors in Sudan and was finally terminated. The Jeddah ceasefire talks, orchestrated by the United States and Saudi Arabia, led to a small number of agreements that were never implemented and then stalled. The diplomatic initiative by SAF-leader al-Burhan around the UN General Assembly meeting in September 2023, after his clandestine and risky escape from a besieged position in Khartoum a few weeks earlier, did not show any tangible results and, in the end, was nothing more than a flash in the pan.

In this context of a largely undefined mediation landscape without any credible lead institution, RSF leader Hemedti launched a diplomatic initiative of meeting each of the IGAD heads of state over Christmas and New Year, triggering a new series of hectic meetings. In a clever way, Hemedti played with the new role of IGAD as the regional lead of the Sudan mediation file while using the opportunity of trying to impersonate a credible statesperson. After meetings with Uganda’s long-term leader Yoweri Museveni he visited Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya, South Africa, and Rwanda, only to return to Uganda for an IGAD summit to which he was invited as a guest – and which was, as a result, boycotted by Sudan. While in Kampala for the summit, Hemedti also had a face-to-face meeting with South Sudanese President Salva Kiir. The publication of a communique and pictures of this meeting, in particular, must have hurt SAF, given that Kiir was thought to be their last reliable diplomatic ally in the region. SAF’s response was harsh: it strongly condemned any negotiation attempts with the RSF, which they brand as a ‘terrorist organisation’, and suspended the Sudanese membership of IGAD as a consequence of Hemedti’s presence at the Kampala summit.

At the same time, former Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok is attempting to gather all oppositional forces under the heading of Taqaddum (‘standing up’ or ‘moving forward’ in English). Taqaddum is a broad alliance, ranging from Hamdok’s personal allies to the Sudanese Congress and the National Ummah Party and other figures of the formerly influential Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC). Hamdok’s ambition has been to widen this alliance to non-aligned groups and the ‘non-signatories’ of the Juba Peace Agreement, in particular, Abdelaziz al-Hilu and the SPLM-N, and Abdel Wahid al-Nur and the SLM/A.

However, shortly after formally establishing Taqaddum at a meeting in Nairobi, Hamdok embarked on a peace initiative with the RSF, leaving the SAF aside. He met Hemedti in Ethiopia and signed with him the Addis Ababa declaration, meant to facilitate humanitarian aid delivery and to pave the way for a return to a democratic transition. This initiative put Taqaddum’s neutrality in the conflict in severe doubt, leading to a new scepticism not just among the non-aligned and hold-out groups, but also among Taqaddum allies such as Ummah. After this tactically questionable initiative, Taqaddum will have to work hard to regain a credible stance that opposes the narrow power interests of both military factions.

Mitigating war

These events reveal three insights into the efforts of mitigating the war in Sudan. First, the current busyness in talks and mediation is contradictory. On the one hand, it reflects the new realities on the ground without which Hemedti could have never gained such diplomatic standing in the region. On the other hand, however, they ignore the situation on the ground. With the fundamental contradiction – RSF aiming for political legitimacy through negotiations, SAF denying everyone else political legitimacy by refusing negotiations – unresolved, all this busyness is not going to lead anywhere. It is stagnation camouflaged as perpetual activity.

Second, where there is movement is in the realm of the mediators. Negotiations become increasingly regionalised, with key roles for neighbouring countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, and South Sudan. These negotiations are increasingly based on narrow interests and are substituting more geostrategic approaches, such as those of the United States and the other Troika countries. In this ecosystem, IGAD has managed yet another comeback to relevance, but probably not in the way the organisation has envisioned: instead of its mediation capacity coming to the fore, it is the member countries using IGAD as a tool for their national initiatives. IGAD might not be alone in this experience: the Sudan negotiations demonstrate how the future of multilateralism might look like.

Finally, the negotiations show that nothing excludes the dominant regional player in this war and the wider region, the UAE. The UAE entertain strong linkages with most IGAD member states and increase their presence, especially in agricultural projects and other investments. Officially, they spearhead a return to the days of secret diplomacy by routinely denying their involvement and obscuring their interests, even at a high diplomatic level. At the same time, they are not immune to tactical blunders, such as the Addis Ababa declaration between RSF and Taqaddum shows: if they wanted to bolster RSF’s political credibility with this initiative, they failed miserably.

Recommendations

For international stakeholders, two recommendations can be derived from this overall unfortunate situation. Most importantly: do not attempt to rush into a ceasefire, since such a rush will take longer than a more comprehensive effort. Direct and exclusive negotiations between the two conflicting parties, SAF and RSF, are unlikely to lead to a breakthrough. The recent statements by SAF once again branding the RSF as a terrorist organisation confirm this. Negotiation dynamics have to be opened by including additional parties, ideally a credible oppositional alliance that maintains equidistance to both belligerents.

To revamp meaningful talks, humanitarian access negotiations can be used as an entry point. Both parties and the neighbouring countries are conscious of a general willingness to invest in humanitarian relief. As cynical as it may be amidst the unimaginable human suffering this war has caused, the profit that many can make from these relief efforts might ease ceasefire talks, even if confined to a subnational level. South Sudan, for instance, has indicated its willingness to open the borders and to become the hub for humanitarian aid distribution to Darfur. Apart from the wider impacts, tangible agreements on aid delivery will help to alleviate the suffering of the people still living in the war zones – so this opportunity must be taken seriously.