Peace be upon Sudan… The Almighty’s damnation be upon the Islamists 

 Mohammed Al-Hassan Ahmed

A brief statement from US President Donald Trump regarding his efforts to end the Sudanese crisis was enough to instill hope in the Sudanese people, exhausted by the senseless war. As soon as the media circulated the statement, the Sudanese timeline was adorned with the white of peace, whilst the harbingers of doom —the war’s instigators and those who advocate its continuation for their own gain— vanished.

The Islamic Movement  deployed its most insidious elements, spreading its poison to affect the public sentiment through speeches of murder and hatred. Furthermore, the Movement established media outlets in allied capitals and spent vast sums to shape a peculiar version of public opinion, one which finds joy only in bloodshed, bitterness, and the rubble of destruction. With the first glimmer of hope, their plundered wealth and wasted efforts were to no avail, leaving them with regret and ultimately defeat.

Trump effectively returned the ball to the Quad’s court, from which the criminal Islamic Movement had withdrawn its negotiating delegations of politicians and military leaders. They went as far as to launch frenzied campaigns accusing every advocate of peace of treason, moreover, their pens, voices, and social media accounts rejoiced at the failure of efforts to sign a humanitarian truce. Such is the way of the enemies of the Almighty and humanity, the Islamists.

While entities and parties rushed to welcome the efforts to stop the war, the vultures of the Islamic Movement remained silent. It is rather certain that its senior criminals are plotting amongst themselves as the noose tightens around their necks. If they accept, they will have placed their hands, stained with the blood of the Sudanese people, in the shackles of being designated a terrorist group —which, perhaps is the only point on which the Quad countries agree, for they have even enshrined it as law.

It was striking how quickly the so-called Sovereignty Council, and before it, its Chairman and Commander of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, welcomed Trump’s statement. This is the same Council whose Vice-President, Malik Aqar, declared, “We’re neither going to Jeddah nor (Jeddadah)” -i.e, Chicken, in common Sudanese dialect, when referring to their rejection of the Jeddah negotiating platform in Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, the Council’s Chairman has repeatedly affirmed their rejection of negotiations, both in actions and in public statements. Hence, the question arises: what new development prompted such a change in stance?

Perhaps what has changed in regards to the negotiating process is the widespread popular rejection of the continuation of the war,  after the people realized its futility. As they have been its fuel, paying a heavy price in lives, property, and a portion of their future, whilst the Islamists who ignited and fanned the war’s flames have continued to prosper. This was evident, as well, in the spontaneous reaction of, demanding peace and rejecting the continued bloodshed, to the SAF Commander’s call for mobilization. Nevertheless, the most significant development is the involvement of the powerful American force, wielding the heavy stick that even the wolves fear.

Every discerning observer understood the futility of this war, which will not end —nor will the endless cycle of death and gunfire that began in the far reaches of South Sudan (Torit) and has now reached Khartoum, the capital— except through a political solution that addresses the core of the crisis, represented in: Marginalization, impunity, and the failure to manage diversity. This solution must involve a consensus on a single, unified national project for all Sudanese people. Such a solution is impossible to achieve without uprooting those who view the homeland as a pagan, and they will soon cry out, but it will be too late to escape.

 In Conclusion:

To exaggerate the significance of a mere statement and rely on it to bring about peace is a grave mistake unless it is supported by a receptive and civic national vision, and unless it is nurtured by a conscious popular will. For those who plunged the country into the depths of this crisis are more than capable of dragging it further back into the same den they occupied in stagnation in their previous dealings with the world.