Juba Peace Agreement in terms of the Content is one of the Best Peace Agreements signed in the history of Sudan, Says Togud (1-2)

The Citizen: By Omer Ahmed Elhaj and Alaa Babiker

 Ahmed Togud, one of the important political figures of Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), who has active participations at the political scene in Sudan since the 90s. The Citizen Executive Team visited him at his office in Khartoum and conducted an exclusive interview.

Togud calls the Sudanese political powers to agree on a political agreement leading to the formation of a civil transitional government. He also briefed us on several significant political issues. Read the interview to know the important current political situation and issues in Sudan.

Q1: Tell us a little about you?

A1:  I’m Ahmed Mohammed Togud Lissan, Secretary of Peace and Negotiation of Justice and Equality Movement, the Executive Member of JEM, and one of the leaders of the Democratic Block.

Q2: What are your past contributions in politics?

A2: I was involved in the political activities since my graduation and ever since I have been part of two main political entities. During the 90s, I was the member of Sudan Federal Democratic Alliance, which was led by the Late Ahmed Ibrahim Deraig, the former Governor of Darfur.

After the rebellion emerged in Darfur I joined Justice and Equality Movement, and during the last 20 years I have assumed a number of positions at JEM, I was mainly the Secretary of Foreign Relations, the Secretary for Political Affairs, and the Lead Chief Negotiator of JEM in my capacity as Secretary of Peace and Negotiations.

Q3: Building an agreement on power sharing should not be considered a point of weakness, how would you respond to that statement?

A3: When formulating any Peace Agreement people mainly focus on what they want to achieve by thinking about political gains. On one side, if we look at our current ‘Political’ situation is Sudan, we see root causes of our conflicts that we inherited over decades in the country. On the other side, there are numbers of consequences emanating from war and destruction, so on that basis when you decide to adopt positions during negotiations to make a peace agreement, you bear in mind what you want to achieve. The ultimate objective we want to ‘achieve is to’ address the root causes of the conflicts, and also to find solutions to the consequences of war, and how to make these two issues achievable in the foreseeable future. For us making a peace agreement is important, but what is most important is how this PA is going to be implemented, to change the life of the affected people, and to achieve the objectives of the post-war era, and to put the country back on the right track.

Q4: Tell us a bit about Juba Peace Agreement?

A4: Juba Peace Agreement came after quit a long time. Since the conflicts, in Darfur for example, erupted, we have been negotiating in a number of venues, Juba, Abuja, Doha, Addis, Berlin, and Tripoli. All those previous venues before Juba failed to achieve a reasonable peace that stops the war and opens a new chapter for Sudanese to live in peace.

When we started the peace process in Juba, most of the people thought that Juba was not the right place to achieve peace; some thought that Juba does not have the experience the others have in terms of resolving conflicts like those in Sudan. Others believed that Juba as place cannot be compared to Doha, Abuja or other capitals like Berlin and London. Therefore, most of them undermined the process before we started it, but from our experience, it does not matter whether you are in London or Khartoum, what defines factors of achieving peace is not the place nor the knowledge of the people who are mediating the process, but what is important is to what extent the warring parties have the will to achieve peace.

He said the main factors that led to achieving peace in Sudan are the following: –

1. The change that happened in Sudan after the fall of Al-Bashir regime.
2. The intentions of the transitional government, led by Hamdouk and others at the time, were in line with the constitutional text that requires them to abide by the obligation of achieving peace within six months. Consequently, achieving peace was a priority.
3. The people who were in charge of the peace portfolio. They were very keen to achieve peace and results. On that basis, when the government delegations came to us in Juba, our side had the intention and the will to end the crisis in Sudan, to stop the war, and to capitalize on the changes that happened in the country to achieve peace. All those factors came together in order to make what has happened in Juba a reality and a possibility. Therefore, we entered into a very constructive peace process, achieved results, and signed the PA.

Although when we came to the phase of the implementation of the PA, we were faced with a number of challenges, but Juba Peace Agreement in terms of the content is one of the Best Peace Agreements signed in the history of Sudan.

Q5: Does JPA presents a comprehensive political solution to Darfur issues only, or to all issues of Sudan?

A5: In JPA, we tried to address the problems of the whole country, and we looked at Sudan conflicts comprehensively in terms of issues. In the PA, there were some issues related to the national causes that concern all the people of Sudan, meanwhile, there were other issues that were  related to regions and to the war affected zones. JPA is not comprehensive in terms of parties, e.g.: Abdelwahid and Abdelaziz Alhilo are not part of this agreement, but is comprehensive in terms of issues that have been addressed. But the issues that Abdelwahid and Abdelaziz Alhilo were talking about have been addressed, discussed, dealt with, and agreed upon between the parties in JPA.

Q6: Is it possible for Darfur region to unite under JPA, or are there some terms that need to be reviewed and changed?

A6: When we signed the agreement, it was warmly received, although people of Darfur knew that some elements from the region were not part of this agreement, but they were fully backing the agreement, and they believed that is was time for the people of Darfur to live in peace, to stop the war, and to open a new chapter. On that basis, all of us (the people and the negotiators) believed that the results we achieved at Juba were very satisfying to all the people of Darfur.

Within the context of Sudan conflicts, it is better not to just focus on some of the small issues and isolate the issues that concern all the Sudanese. Problems in Sudan are interconnected and interlinked and cannot be separated. If we want to address Darfur issues and reconstruct the region, it cannot be done in isolation of the involvement of the national institutions; the different entities of national character need to be part of what is happening in Darfur. Therefore, we believe that all the problems of Sudan need to be addressed within the context of the national perspective rather than focusing on the regional level.

Q7: Tell us about the Tracks of JPA?

A7: We came with the idea of the Tracks ‘to solve problems comprehensively’, as we know that some of the Tracks don’t have the same problems as the other ones. In Darfur we have hundreds of thousands  people living in the Internally Displaced People Camps, we don’t have the same situation in the East, the Center, or the North.

The idea behind having multiple Tracks in one agreement was entirely based on the fact that we have  multiple problems of the country, thus we had  the opportunity to address and solve them all, and move to open a new chapter in Sudan.

Having multiple Tracks came under very aggressive opposition and criticism from some people, who did not focus on the content of the agreement and saw to what extent their ‘judgment’ is compatible with what is actually in the agreement. This is why we say don’t take issues from a political perspective, but look to the content and see what is the genuine matter that needs to be addressed or otherwise ignored. We still believe that having a multiple Track is a good idea, irrespective of the individuals who were representing these Tracks.

Q8: Can you give us a comparison between the workshops held in Juba, and the others of FCC held in Khartoum?

A8: Peace Agreements generally should not be a political game between political parties.  A Peace agreement needs to be respected, isolated from political competition, and looked at to see to what extent it is achieving benefits to the beneficiaries on the ground. Setting programs for the implementation of PA should be a priority to the government. What happened out of the blue, is that the issues of PA have been incorporated, indulged, and put in the Political Framework Agreement that has been signed by the FFC Central Council. Then they decided to carry out workshops to address, assess, and evaluate the PA. On that basis they held their workshops at the Friendship Hall and came out with recommendations.

What happened in Juba is completely different than what happened at the Friendship Hall in Sudan. We basically focused on how to implement the Peace Agreement and how to make the modalities that we stated on the peace agreement workable. When we went to Juba we brought the PA, the modalities, the details, the timeline, we looked at the mechanisms that should be established, and then ‘we’ made our amendments, which resulted in coming up with new modalities and  defined, categorized and prioritized the issues that need to be implemented into 3 categories (the more important, the less, and the lesser important). Basically ‘at the workshops we hold’ we are trying to find the most possible ways on how to implement the PA.

Q9: To what extent do you think JPA affected the security status in Darfur, and so far, are there any efforts, arrangements, and actual implementation made regarding the displaced people?

A9: Since we signed JPA we succeeded to completely stop the war between the movements and the government, and ever since no single bullet has been shot. But, we failed to achieve dealing with some outlaws, militias, and those who have their own objectives with some local communities, and who are trying to destabilize the region.

Yes, the PA achieved good results in stopping the war, but a lot of work need to be done to tackle the issue of security on the ground for the benefit of the people. On the other side; we have not yet managed to establish the mechanisms that are supposed to be on the ground to implement the AP and let the people on the ground feel safe and secure and reap the fruits of the PA in terms of providing service, education, reconstructing, and rebuilding the damaged regions.