For some time now, I have been following discussions about renewed attempts to launch a Sudanese-Sudanese national dialogue. Like every Arab, I hope one of these efforts succeeds in bringing an end to this tragedy, which has dragged on far longer than it should have.
Yet Arab experiences, and Sudanese ones in particular, make optimism difficult. After more than three years of a brutal civil war, in which Sudanese have devastated their own country, millions have been displaced, people have gone hungry, and countless others have lost their homes and livelihoods, a legitimate question arises: Can internal dialogue alone pull Sudan out of this spiral? I doubt it.
Sudan’s problem long predates the current war. Since independence, the country has moved from one coup to another uprising, from civilian government to military rule, and from conflict in the periphery to conflict at the center. Names and slogans change, but the crisis remains, only to return years later in a different form. It is as though Sudan is trapped in a closed circle, with each cycle exacting a new and painful price from its people.
The current war may be the most dangerous yet because it has struck at the state itself. The dispute is no longer merely about who governs Sudan. The more pressing question has become: Will there still be a state left to govern once the guns fall silent? That is why I believe that repeated calls for dialogue, important as they are, risk becoming just another platform added to previous platforms. Politicians gather, talk at length, issue statements, and then each side returns to its old position.
In my view, Sudan does not lack conferences, nor is it short of documents and declarations. What it lacks is a political decision capable of stopping the war first. Only after that can the discussion move to the remaining details.
Here I am reminded of the Syrian experience.
For more than a decade, the Syrian opposition had multiple slogans and platforms: The Cairo Platform, the Moscow Platform, the Istanbul meetings, and a succession of coalitions, councils, and alliances whose names changed constantly.
Each group believed it was best placed to represent Syrians, while the war raged on, the state eroded, and ordinary people paid the price. The divisions were not only between the regime and the opposition. The opposition itself failed to agree on many fundamentals: Priorities, allies, the shape of the future state, and even who was friend and who was foe. Meetings multiplied, yet Syria drew little closer to a solution. What ultimately changed the landscape was not another conference. Rather, a shift occurred on the ground. A force emerged that was able to impose a new reality, aided by regional and international circumstances that had become favorable.
Events then moved with a speed that many did not expect.
Sudan, in my opinion, is even more complex in some respects. There are two warring sides, fragmented political forces, economic interests, a social and tribal mosaic of extraordinary diversity, neighboring countries fearful that instability may spread across their borders, and above all, regional and international powers, each with its own calculations and interests.
For this reason, I believe the antidote to Sudan’s poison will not come from within alone this time. The idea may sound harsh, because in principle Sudanese should determine their own future. There is no disagreement on that. But what are we to do when the domestic actors are unable to make decisions, when the gun becomes the primary means of negotiation, and when every side believes that a few more months of fighting may improve its position?
This is where the outside world must step in.
Arab and African countries with a direct stake in Sudan, together with influential international powers, must first reach an understanding among themselves. In my view, that is the starting point. There is little sense in one capital calling for an end to the war while one side or another continues to receive money, weapons, or political cover from a different capital. Peace cannot be built if every country pursues its own Sudan policy.
The answer is not another conference to be added to the long list of conferences, nor another group photograph in which rivals shake hands before the cameras. What is needed is a clear decision agreed upon by the influential states: This war must end. Sudan must remain united. Humanitarian aid must reach the people. State institutions must not be destroyed. Then a political process must begin, with a defined timeline and a defined endpoint.
But any agreement of this kind must show teeth.
Those who refuse to stop the war must know there will be a price to pay. Those who obstruct the delivery of food and medicine to civilians must be held accountable. And those who imagine they can rule all of Sudan through the force of arms must understand that this path is closed.
The problem in Sudan today, as I see it, is that nearly everyone talks about dialogue, but very few are willing to make the difficult decisions. Long civil wars do not always end because the belligerents wake up one morning endowed with wisdom. More often, they end when the circumstances around them change and each side discovers that the cost of continuing the war has become greater than the cost of compromise.
That, in my view, is the role of the international community in Sudan: Not to choose Sudan’s rulers, nor to write its constitution, but to close the doors of war to the warring parties. After that, Sudanese can sit together and debate their state, their constitution, and their desired government as they see fit.
But to ask them to reach an agreement while the guns are still speaking, and while each side waits for a more favorable balance of power, is simply to resign ourselves to further destruction.
Sudan certainly needs dialogue. But before dialogue, it needs someone to stop the war.
One final thought: Sometimes the antidote does not come from the same place as the poison.
