Report

Mrs. Maryam Adamin fled from West Darfur, leaving behind her home and everything she owned after the outbreak of bloody incidents in Kerinik in the middle of this year, to settle with her and her small family in the outskirts of Khartoum.

 

 The 58-year-old remembers how she and her companions danced to celebrate the signing of the peace agreement in Juba, but is now very disappointed: two years after it was signed, she is still homeless.

Red line

Mrs. Maryam Adamin sat at the front of a wide tent erected to hold a political seminar organized by the Alliance for Freedom and Change, the National Accord, on the seventh of last October, in the Haj Youssef area of East Nile locality, to celebrate the two-year anniversary of the signing of the Juba Peace Agreement.

 

She told Darfur24 that the agreement, which the people of Darfur received with a standing ovation, caused the creation of new displaced people and did not achieve any of the promises it contained or heard from the mouths of the leaders of the agreement previously, and she does not see any difference if it was canceled or not.

 

While the alternate chairman of the Joint Higher Military Committee for Security Arrangements on the Darfur track, Lieutenant-General Suleiman Sandal Haqar, during his address to the crowd at the same symposium – monitored by Darfur 24 – stresses that the peace agreement is a red line that cannot be reviewed or canceled.

 

 He added, Papers have been submitted to the Sovereignty Council demanding a review of the peace agreement, which we reject altogether. This agreement is guarded by the blood of the martyrs and we drafted it after 20 years of war. It is not a geography test to be reviewed.

 

 On October 3, 2020, the Sudanese government signed a peace agreement with the Revolutionary Front coalition, which includes five armed movements and four political movements, in the city of Juba, capital of South Sudan, amid hopes that the nascent agreement will be the entrance to a new phase of stability after long and bitter years of war.

 

 The agreement was signed by the representative of the transitional government of Sudan, the First Vice-President of the Sovereign Council, Lieutenant-General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, and for the parties to peace, the head of the Sudanese Alliance, Khamis Abdullah Abkar, the head of the Justice and Equality Movement, Dr. Hajar, and head of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement North Malik Agar Aer.

 

The two main factions refused to join the agreement were :the Sudan Liberation Army movements led by Abdel Wahed Mohamed Nour, which controls large parts of Jebel Marra in the Darfur region, and the SPLM led by Abdelaziz El-Hilu, which is fighting in South Kordofan and Blue Nile.

 

 What has been achieved?

Many voices, including the official spokesperson for the Coordination of Displaced Persons and Refugees, Adam Rijal, are calling for a review of the peace agreement as soon as possible. In a telephone interview with him, Darfur24, “Rijal” justifies his demands that the agreement did not address the roots of the historical crisis and did not meet the aspirations of millions of displaced people and refugees in various camps in Darfur.

 

 He added: The Juba Peace Agreement failed to provide security and disarm the militias under their different names, and to stop the war, killings, displacement, burning villages and raping women, because the goal of the signatories was to gain power, hoard money and ride luxury cars just like him and the rest of the agreements signed during the era of former President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.

New IDPs

Rijal says that the outbreak of the conflict in the Darfur region shortly after the signing of the agreement supports what he said, and clearly indicates that it is nothing but ink on paper and contributed to creating a new displacement   .

 

According to his speech, the Kolgi and Qallab regions of North Darfur witnessed bloody events in August 2021 that caused the displacement of 5,300 families to the camps of Zamzam, Shakra J, and Tawila. There is also the incidents of Jebel Moon in West Darfur state, which killed 32 people, injured 16 others, and displaced 10,000 people, of whom 2,000 sought refuge in Chad. Then, the incidebts of Kareng area in West Darfur state erupted last April, which killed 200 people and wounded 37.

 

He added: The Ramifications of the  conflict in the Darfur region over two years amounted to about 500 dead, 150,000 displaced, hundreds of wounded, raped women, completely burned villages and looted livestock.

 

 Huge  mistakes

 Rijal  says that the agreement included serious mistakes, foremost of which is the division of the country into paths, which caused conflicts in Darfur, Blue Nile and eastern Sudan, especially the states of Kassala and the Red Sea, in addition to the agreement’s leaders supporting the October 25 coup and the subsequent suspension of international financial support and the intensification of violations against demonstrators in the states and the Center .

 

 He stressed that the voluntary  return of the displaced  people , which is one of the most important clauses of the agreement, is difficult to achieve at the present time, because it requires first providing security, disarmament, stopping crimes against humanity, arresting the perpetrators of crimes, handing them over to justice, compensating the victims individually and collectively, and providing clean water, electricity, good education and the necessary health facilities.

Back to war

The parties to the peace process meet all voices criticizing the agreement or demanding its review or cancellation very firmly, and the spokesperson for the Sudanese coalition, Hazifa Muhyiddin al-Bulul, says in an interview with Darfur24 that the aim of signing the agreement is to stop the war and to cancel it means returning to it again, but this time it will erupt from within cities and not in the periphery, we have forces stationed in all parts of Sudan..

 

 Hudhayfa,  believes that only 3% of the provisions of the Juba Agreement have been implemented. As for the rest of the files related to the displaced, refugees, compensation for victims, integration and demobilization, they have not yet seen the light of day due to the government’s lack of commitment to implementing the security arrangements clause, the absence of political will and the conflicts in the political arena.

 Under the agreement, the signatories obtained three seats in the Sovereignty Council, five ministries, a quarter of the Legislative Council’s total 300 seats, 40% of government positions in their regional governments, and 40% of locally collected revenues. A new fund will pay $750 million annually for a period of 10 years to support poor areas.

Power sharing

 The Secretary of Negotiation and Peace in the Justice and Equality Movement, Ahmed Taqd Lisan, confirms that the attack on the Juba Agreement, as an opponent of the democratic transition, is not supported by logic., he said  during his speech at a symposium on the peace agreement at the House of the Justice and Equality Movement, which was monitored by Darfur 24 – that peace is the solid ground upon which the democratic transition is based, and that the agreement is not an opponent of the democratic transition, but rather a basis for how to transform from a state of fighting and chaos to stability.

 However, political analyst Wael Abu Karrouq sees the opposite of what Tuqd has said, as he said in an interview with Darfur24 that the Juba Peace Agreement is nothing but an agreement to share  power and has failed to address the roots of the historical crisis to the real stakeholders, and stressed that the refusal of the signatories to review the agreement despite their failure to implement 90% of its clauses are due to their fear of losing their political positions, and he pointed out that two years passed without the agreement achieving anything other than the adherence of its leaders to the power they obtained through political quotas.