Mahgoub El-Tigani
May 18, 2002

April 26, 2002, Mr. John Danforth, the US Special Envoy for Peace, submitted his Report to the President of the United States on the Outlook for Peace in Sudan.

The report referred to "the anguish felt by many Americans for the suffering of the Sudanese people" as expressed by President George Bush, Jr., who mandated the envoy to "determine the commitment to peace by the parties to the Sudan conflict and whether the United States should engage energetically in efforts to bring peace to that country … The United States would not create its own peace plan … Instead, we would encourage advocates of existing plans to move forward in cooperation with one another" affirms Danforth.

Mr. John Danforth must be commended for the humanitarian approach adopted in his plan, the important closure of the gap he managed to erect between the Government of Sudan and the SPLM towards the peace process, the Days of Tranquility's well attended objectives to facilitate humanitarian aid to the Nuba, the completion of the bovine rinderpest eradication programs, besides the steps taken to eradicate polio and guinea worm, and the important assurance the Envoy obtained from Egypt and Kenya to "harmonize the Egyptian Initiative with the IGAD."

Equally commended are the Envoy's factual assessment of the human rights situation, the attacks against civilians by both government and SPLM and their militias as factors that hinder the advancement to peace, the war-inciting zero-sum game, and the clear mention of Sudan Government's acts of war that indicate, for the most part, the government's negativity.

Mr. John Danforth met with "the senior leadership of the Sudanese Government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), the chief antagonists in the Sudan conflict, as well as numerous other groups and individuals of civil society."

Here, it is clear that the US Envoy did not place an equal weight to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the largest democratic opposition entity that is a major partner in our country's conflict, despite the fact that the SPLM is a prominent NDA force that is strongly supported by the NDA's leadership and political constituencies to negotiate for the just and permanent peace, in accordance with the NDA Charter and Resolutions.

In the opinion of this writer, the apparent sidelining of the NDA in Danforth's report, which never mentioned the NDA in name all over the report, needs to be avoided in the next peace rounds to deal with the Sudan crisis in the best way possible.

Because the "movement toward peace would produce both short-term benefits and the prospect of long-term rewards," as the Envoy's report states, the role to be played in this vital process by the NDA as the biggest opposition entity needs to be fully recognized and realized by the Sudanese government, the US, and the International Community.

Although the Envoy met with "numerous other groups and individuals of civil society," the Envoy did not say in his report that he met with the NDA.. Reader thus infers that the Envoy might have considered the NDA only as part of these "numerous other groups and individuals" that most likely included leaders of several political parties and professional organizations.

Still, these groups and/or individuals are not fairly comparable to the NDA's national democratic opposition with respect to the size and weight of the supporting populations, political agreement, etc. Mr. Danforth report seems quite cognizant of this important fact. The Envoy says that he "has been told there are at least a dozen different significant politico-tribal factions in southern Sudan as well as influential religious and other civil society groups."

The Envoy goes on to say that, "A similar situation prevails in northern Sudan where there are a number of influential politico-religious parties, ethnic, regional and civil society groups and a politically powerful army as well as the existing government." The Envoy, however, did not specify the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) as the biggest and most unified entity of all these "influential" groups.

The need for the NDA's broad national umbrella is quite evident throughout the report, although the writer never specified the NDA in his report. For sure, there are several reasons that warrant a clear call upon the NDA to participate as a full partner in all upcoming peace negotiations side-by-side with the Government of Sudan and the SPLM.

(1) The "suffering and injustice that is the reality in Sudan" in the words of Mr. John C. Danforth is a cause of democracy, justice, and peace for the whole country, north and south. Naturally then, the best strategy to improve this reality is to increase the largest national involvement possible through both short-term and long-term strategies.

(2) As a one-party single-candidate presidential system, the ruling regime of Sudan is not representative of the national democratic opposition, which includes most of the significant and influential political, economic, and religious forces of the country. These forces are well represented in the NDA.

(3) Grave irreconcilable political, economic, and religious disagreements equally exist between the northern Muslim and Christian opposition and the government's fundamentalist group as they continue to exist between the SPLM and the government. The configuration of the crisis as the north Arab Muslims versus the south African Christians fails to capture the reality of Sudan.

(4) The government's and the SPLM's commitment to the Envoy's plan needs to be strengthened by encouraging and guaranteeing the direct participation of the NDA in the resolution of the Sudan crisis. The NDA is the only national democratic entity that includes on equal terms the largest Arab, non-Arab, Muslim, non-Muslim democratic opposition groups of the whole country.

(5) The need to insure democratic governance of the country through a principled application of the right to self-determination and the distribution of wealth, as the US Envoy correctly observes, requires a broad national commitment that only the NDA agreements sufficiently provided and is capable to guarantee between the south and north in the best manner possible. It is therefore the Government's turn to live up to the NDA's national democracy.

(6) The Envoy's contention that "No enduring settlement to Sudan's war can be achieved unless the oil dimension is effectively addressed" is quite insightful. The best settlement for the oil issue, nonetheless, would be possible with the NDA's confidence building agreement between north and south - the plans and agreements the government wastes the oil wealth to hinder.

(7) The discouragement of the NDA from acting as a full partner in the peace process will polarize the conflict on the oil fields between the competing military forces at the expense of the NDA's Comprehensive Political Solution, the best Sudanized version of a possibly workable transition to democracy in the Sudan..

(8) The emphasis of the Envoy on the insurance of religious freedoms would be best maintained with the NDA's Nairobi Declaration and the NDA's commitment to social justice, democratic constitutionality, and international human rights norms.

(9) The meeting of the Envoy with Muslim and Christian clergy indicates that the groups with whom he met "had not known each other, and had not previously heard the other side express its views" before the meeting

(10) The Sudanese Muslim religious entities, for example the large constituencies of the Ansar and the Khatmiya as NDA-related politico-religious groups, and the NDA's Christian groups, members of the SPLM or the other accommodating southern and/or northern political groups maintain good understanding on the right to religious beliefs and the spirit of tolerance the Sudanese had always enjoyed before the extremist rule of the existing fundamentalist government, and are determined to exercise under the NDA's next democratic systems.

To conclude, the Danforth Report is a significant contribution to the peace process in our country. The Envoy's wisdom is eloquently expressed in his reference to the role to be played by Sudan's political and civil society groups: " It will be important to ensure that these various groupings have the ability to make their views known and to participate in decisions relating to peace and the political future of Sudan." This is a clear advocacy of political solution to the Sudan crisis, which is a legitimate outcome of the Envoy's righteous analysis of the Sudanese problem.

The NDA is a national democratic entity rather than an ambiguous peace affiliate or some individual leadership. Similar to what the late General Fathi Ahmed Ali, the Commander-in-Chief of the Sudanese Armed Forces ascertained, the US Envoy emphasized the fact that no party would win the war by military action.

The strategies adopted and the steps encouraged, however, would perhaps attain more success if the US Government and the International Community recognize the NDA as the biggest unified body of the Sudanese opposition groups and act energetically to support the NDA's participation in the peace process together with the Sudanese civil society groups, instead of only concentrating on government/opposition military forces to solve the political crisis of Sudan. The Danforth report might have delineated the need to acknowledge this fact, even though the report never mentioned the NDA in name.

On its part, the NDA is advised to perfect its homework a step forward with popular support to occupy the position it deserves as a most promising player in the Sudanese contemporary affairs. For that purpose, the Umma should be encouraged to rejoin the NDA ranks and the democratic parties, unions, and professional groups that have not yet acquired the NDA's membership should be wholeheartedly welcomed in the struggle for peace via the NDA's Comprehensive Political Solution.