Sudan’s votes and violence, can the conditions of the tragedy be improved?! Beyond the Framework Agreement: Transitional Justice, Criminal Responsibility, and Political Responsibility for Political Violence Crimes

 Sudan’s votes and violence, can the conditions of the tragedy be improved?!

Beyond the Framework Agreement: Transitional Justice, Criminal Responsibility, and Political Responsibility for Political Violence Crimes

Amgad Fareid Eltayeb

Nothing is final in political variables. Dealing with reality always requires us to search for ways to improve it, especially if the impact of what is happening now extends to long-term consequences.

The Forces of Freedom and Change imposed their understandings with the coup leaders as a fait accompli, in their framework agreement with the military concluded on December 5. They are currently seeking to expand the circle of formal participation in it, with whomsoever even if they were an organic part of the Bashir regime in its final stages, in pursuit of producing an authoritarian political alliance who adopts the rest of the understandings that have already been reached in the form of a final agreement and laying it out through a sham mediation process by the international community.

In fact, striving to design a sham political process, through the trilateral mechanism and the rest of the international community's partners, just to formally layout these prior understandings in the form of a final agreement is something that must be firmly and strictly opposed, instead we should be striving to defeat the October 25, 2021 coup through various means, including engaging in a real political process, that is structured, public, gradual, with a specific agenda that addresses October 25 coup without drowning it in other details, and without pre-cooked outcomes.  This may allow improving its outcomes in a way that makes them closer to the demands of the revolution and the street in achieving the slogan (freedom, peace and justice), to the maximum possible extent, And not just the implementation of the terms of a bad political deal, which was cut by the controlling group of the FFC with Hemidti first, then Hemidti and Burhan later, and it is currently being promoted as the Noah’s Ark of Sudanese politics. International mediators and facilitators, if they want to play their role in supporting the Sudanese people and fulfilling their mandate as they should, should be aware that they are not Steven Spielberg (or maybe they would be closer to being Alfred Hitchcock  if they continued the current practices) and that the design of any serious and real political process should not be subject to the desires of one party in the political equation, especially since it cut off its own political deal apart from the masses it claims to represent. 

It is worth noting that naming the December 5 agreement as a framework agreement is a misnomer. The agreement did not contain any framework or plan for an anticipated political process, but rather contained final clauses, agreements and commitments on issues mainly related to the structure of the state and the course of the transitional period, and guarantee/ of the independence of the military -whose two components signed the agreement separately, represented by the coup leader and his deputy in a comic scene that reveals the extent of the misery of the coup, whose masters agree on nothing but getting rid of the civilian rule framework at the time-. The agreement claims transferring the basic issues due to which the coup took place to a later stage. But in fact, these issues have been agreed upon in what the FFC called understandings, so that the purpose of the next stage becomes to search for a suitable layout for these agreements - or understandings. The current calls by the Forces for Freedom and Change to sign the framework agreement, without discussing its provisions or a real possibility of changing them through an open political discussion and debate, are nothing more than attempts to divide the blood between the tribes, and a relentless effort to expand the circle of those bearing the consequences of this political deal. However, working to improve the terms of this deal and creates sufficient political guarantees to prevent future coups or military influence on the political processes in Sudan is a must.

One of the pre-made understandings is with regard to transitional justice, which has been deceitfully reduced to the form of criminal immunity for the leaders of the coup. This is planned to be promoted through a workshop supervised by FFC, or its new alliance, in a way that makes the focus of transitional justice is about the usurpers while it should be victims-centred. 

In its proposal for the implementation of the framework agreement, FFC proposes that it choose a “civil Sudanese group with a respectable reputation” to hold a conference with the families of the martyrs, and international technical support, in order to layout the immunity clause that was agreed upon with the military within a period not exceeding two weeks. While the trilateral mechanism put forward its proposal to bring out the understandings on all issues, including transitional justice, through working groups that meet for half a day every two days - this is, of course, to prevent overlap between the work of the different groups, and allows the Supermans of the Sudanese politics to exercise their guardianship by participating in all working groups- to develop an initial roadmap that addresses these issues and to summarize the commitments - according to the text of the plan - in order to include them in the final agreement.  And all this happens within four weeks  (Which makes the working period of the groups the same as the two-week period proposed by the FFC). The trilateral mechanism here is more honest in its endeavour to summarise the commitments and formulate their practical translation, as it is fully aware that the final agreement already exists and what is missing are the details of its practical implementation.

Regardless of the distorted shorthanding of these proposals, which deal with the issue of transitional justice as a mere clause in a political agreement, and not as a mechanism for real and comprehensive national reconciliation that is centred around the victims in the first place and guarantees their rights and ensures that past crimes will not be repeated, the question remain; what are the crimes that the this transitional justice is aiming to address?  Are they the crimes of after April 11, 2019 and until now only, or are they issues of central political violence related to the martyrs of peaceful demonstrations, or are they - as it should be - related to all crimes of violence that took place in the political dynamics in Sudan, which includes the crimes of all actors and the tragedies of civil wars including the the issues of the displaced and refugees, and issues of torture, persecution, and other practices done by the Sudanese state apparatus and other political actors against Sudanese citizens at different times.  And if the purpose is the latter, how can it be imagined that this matter can be dealt with within two weeks, without a real grassroots participation from those affected and a real study of the existing literature, writings and experiences on the subject.  Of course, the implementation of this matter within the framework of reaching a quick political solution is impossible, but what is necessary is to define the goal, which is to be reached clearly, and not just cook it like boiling eggs to implement a prior immunity agreement.

Transitional justice may give the usurpers an escape from criminal accountability - in cases other than grave crimes - but it should not mean complete impunity. This high price does not include avoiding the political responsibility. Needless to say, the Sudanese military and security establishment (its army, rapid support force, intelligence apparatus and police) and the bearers of weapons and those with official and self proclaimed  military ranks in Sudan in general are the ones who practiced political violence the most. So it is logical to put a clear text in any long-lasting agreement prohibiting those with military rank of a general or above from running in elections for a period of at least five to seven years after their retirement, especially in light of the elections that were agreed to be held within two years of the start of the implementation of these understandings. This is neither strange nor innovative in order to build any democratic system.  Rather, it is something that exists in many modern democracies. Its purpose is not only political accountability - as it is in our case - but also to maintain the required political neutrality of the law and order enforcement agencies and to prevent them from political influencing and political bias that could affects the principle of civil leadership of the state.  Even civil servants working in the ministries of defense in some countries are prevented from showing any partisan political leanings during the performance of their duties - see the US Hatch Act for example - while there are other rules that limit the ability of the military personnel to even make political comment on social media.  And this is not only in Western democracies, but even in the nearby Algeria, which discussed and approved in 2019 a law that prevents the military personnel from practicing politics and running for elections for a period of five years after their referral to civilian life.  All of this is to preserve the neutrality of the legitimate violence apparatus, whose monopoly defines the concept of modern government itself, from political use.

Talking about the special situation of Sudan, its own peculiarities, and so on are mere justifications repeated by politicians who are eager to re-share the influence over the state apparatus, and they are striving now to restore the control over the state apparatus from outside of it, instead of standing to their natural duty as politicians in its administration and taking its responsibilities. This makes them turn a blind eye to the fact that if they allow themselves this supra- institutional influence, it will allow others, and of course the military establishment, to do the same.  And that such rules are necessary to build any real and stable democracy.  The attempt to limit our dreams and aspirations for democracy in Sudan by talking about “dangerous and grand” secrets that should not be circulated and discussed except within the narrow circle of the political elite and to avoid broad public debate about them in order to protect (and what is meant here, of course, is to protect the influence of this elite in determining them), is just rationing political tutelage and it is a flagrant violation of the right of the masses who revolted valiantly to uproot Al-Bashir and lay the foundations for their equal participation in shaping the political future of their country.

May God save Sudan and the People of Sudan