Face of Truth: The Quartet and the Theater of Sudanese Blood
Ibrahim Shaglawi
In the theater of the Sudanese war — filled with spectacle and tragedy — talk of a three-month truce and a ceasefire seems like new chapters in a tragedy whose end has yet to be written. One truce after another unfolds under glittering titles and humanitarian slogans such as “delivering aid” and “protecting civilians,” yet behind this soft diplomatic language, the nation’s bleeding widens, hope shrinks, and challenges grow heavier.
Since the outbreak of the war in April 2023, a series of initiatives led by what is known as the International Quartet — the United States, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates — have come and gone without putting an end to the conflict. Instead, the Quartet has become something like a “directing room” for a cleverly managed conflict aimed at dismantling the Sudanese state, with its scenes written in distant capitals while its blood is displayed on the homeland’s stage.
It has become clear that these truces were not designed to save civilians but to allow the militia to catch its breath and reposition itself on the battlefield, while the army continues to fight a war intended to drain both the institution and its resources.
The greatest mistake the Quartet committed was reducing the Sudanese crisis to a narrow political equation — ignoring its national and historical depth and turning a blind eye to the reality that this war is not over power but over the survival of the state itself.
In every round of negotiations, the same scene repeats: international pressure under the name of “de-escalation,” repetitive statements, and a total disregard for the strategic dimension of the conflict. The result is always the same — militia expansion, state retreat, and growing human tragedy.
The Quartet still holds the diplomatic reins, yet it has lost its moral compass when it equated a national army defending the country’s sovereignty with an armed militia committing the most heinous crimes. What is needed today is not another externally imposed truce, but an internal vision that rearranges national priorities in a way that ensures the survival of the state.
If there are proposed solutions, they must begin with a reassessment of the Quartet’s role, responsibilities, and composition — with a clear separation between the humanitarian and security tracks on one hand and the political track on the other. The humanitarian catastrophe must not remain a hostage to bargaining, nor should the relief file be managed with a mindset of pressure and exchange.
According to media leaks, the Chairman of the Sovereignty Council, General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, at the beginning of the week, rejected a joint American-Egyptian initiative that sought to arrange a direct meeting between him, militia leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo “Hemedti,” and Dr. Abdalla Hamdok. The aim was to break the political deadlock and pave the way for a ceasefire. Al-Burhan considered that any negotiations at this stage serve the interests of forces supporting chaos and explicitly accused Abu Dhabi of being involved in backing the militia that seeks to dismantle the state.
Meanwhile, the initiative lost one of its key elements after the exposure of Abdalla Hamdok’s limited role. Domestically, he is seen as a figure aligned with external pressures, lacking popular legitimacy, symbolizing the failure of the transitional period, and associated with regional axes led by the UAE.
As for the Rapid Support Forces militia, its chances of political integration have diminished after the horrific crimes it committed in El-Fasher and elsewhere — crimes condemned even by the international community and the United States itself. The militia has become socially and morally rejected, and it can no longer be considered a legitimate actor in the country’s future.
Thus, the prospects of international mediation and artificial truces that attempt to bring together parties that have lost both national and moral legitimacy have eroded. This recalls the Naivasha experience, when John Garang exploited a ceasefire to expand militarily, prompting the Sudanese army then to cancel the truce and reclaim the towns.
History repeats itself: a truce at the wrong time may mean both political and military defeat. Today, after more than two and a half years of war, it has become evident that international mediators have failed to enforce any meaningful or effective ceasefire.
Between five and six major truces were announced — the most prominent being the Jeddah truce of May 2023 for seven days, another in June for 24 hours, a second in June for 72 hours, and finally the Eid al-Adha truce in late June. Yet all collapsed within hours due to militia violations and their use of truces to reposition and rearm, amid the absence of an effective monitoring mechanism. The truces thus turned into media propaganda rather than reality.
Therefore, if there is genuine intent to save Sudan and stop the bloodshed, the serious beginning must be a re-engineering of the Quartet itself — excluding the UAE and including Turkey and Qatar, as they are two states trusted by the Sudanese people — while defining the limits of mediation and clearly separating the tracks.
The security and humanitarian tracks must be managed independently from the political one — to ensure aid reaches civilians without being used as a bargaining chip. The security track should be subject to a Sudanese and regional monitoring mechanism involving trusted countries such as Egypt, Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia — to guarantee a genuine ceasefire and prevent the rebuilding of the militia.
The political track must be purely Sudanese, through an inclusive internal dialogue involving national, civil, and trade-union forces to design a transitional constitutional framework that lays the foundations for the post-war phase. The crisis, at its core, is political before it is military, and unless its political roots are addressed, any truce will become a new opportunity for betrayal and rearmament.
It is time to redefine the meaning of “peace” in Sudan. Peace is not a memorandum signed in Washington nor a statement from a capital seeking influence — it is a national decision that emerges from within, placing human dignity before interests and sovereignty before alliances.
The blood of Sudanese people cannot be a subject of political maneuvering or a test of intentions. Sudan today needs a mediation of conscience, not a mediation of influence — and the political courage to recognize that the road to peace begins within, not in dimly lit conference rooms.
Sadly — and according to #Face_of_Truth — our country has become a stage directed from abroad while its blood is spilled within. The question hangs over the entire scene: Is the Quartet still capable of being a mediator, or has it become part of the play itself? The answer, unfortunately, is now written in a single color — the color of greed and the blood of Sudan.
Wishing you safety and well-being.
Monday, November 3, 2025
Shglawi55@gmail.com