The Sudanese Dialogue... Why?

The Sudanese-Sudanese dialogue conference may be the best opportunity—and perhaps the best thing that could happen to Sudanese people—since the outbreak of the war. The difficult conditions, escalating suffering, and growing risks facing the country cannot afford continued political bickering, nor can they tolerate any further waste of time in elite power struggles.

Under the current circumstances, dialogue is not a political luxury. It is a national necessity for bringing Sudan out of its crisis as the war enters its fourth year. There is something approaching a consensus that a military solution alone will neither end the crisis of instability nor guarantee that this war will not be the last in a succession of wars. A comprehensive political process, by contrast, remains the most viable path toward building sustainable peace and a stable state.

Why?

First, because ending the war and protecting the state from disintegration require a political track running in parallel with the military track. Continued fighting threatens Sudan's unity and deepens its geographic and social divisions. Dialogue can provide a framework for consensus that paves the way toward, and helps facilitate, an end to the war.

Second, because Sudan needs to reclaim its national decision-making. The longer the war continues, the more important it becomes for Sudanese people themselves to have the decisive voice in determining the future of their country. Regional and international support can provide facilitation and guarantees, but it should not replace Sudanese agency. This is the essence of the growing calls for a Sudanese-led and Sudanese-owned political process.

Third, because serious dialogue must not be confined to power-sharing or ending the fighting. Sudan's crisis is deeper than that. It requires discussion of the nature of the state, citizenship, transitional justice, development, and the concerns of the country's regions, alongside addressing the grievances accumulated over decades of crises.

Fourth, because successful dialogue requires broadening participation. It should not be a dialogue among a limited political elite, but rather a platform that includes civil and community forces, women and young people, and all components of Sudanese society. The voices of displaced people and refugees must not be absent either. Sudan is larger than its parties and elites, and its future cannot be decided in isolation from its people.

There is, of course, considerable controversy surrounding the nature of the dialogue. Is it an independent national initiative, or a covert arrangement between its proponents and the state, designed to engineer the political landscape and create conditions for strengthening General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan's position in power?

The reality is that Sudan's political arena has always been—and remains—open to any genuinely Sudanese effort aimed at achieving national reconciliation. This is nothing new for the Sudanese. Indeed, regional and international actors themselves have increasingly become convinced that any sustainable solution must be Sudanese in character, under Sudanese leadership and ownership.

Based on what has been proposed so far, the dialogue preparation committee's role is to facilitate the dialogue, not monopolize it, and to bring the various parties together in pursuit of comprehensive national consensus. If the dialogue is to be held inside Sudan, that does not necessarily mean that the committee will determine its agenda or outcomes. The state's responsibility, according to the proposals put forward, is to provide the necessary logistical support and legal, political, and security guarantees. The government has already declared its readiness to provide those guarantees, support the dialogue, and implement its outcomes without interfering in its proceedings or dictating its conclusions.

This is precisely where intentions should be tested through action rather than assumptions. If the necessary guarantees are available and the door is open to participation, the wiser course is to enter the dialogue and test what it can produce, rather than issue premature judgments about it. The participants themselves will lead the dialogue and shape its outcomes, thereby helping to define the path toward restoring the transitional process.

The dialogue being sought is not a political quota-sharing arrangement, nor does it give any party an automatic ticket to power or government positions. Its purpose is to break deadlocks, bring divergent positions closer together, and establish a roadmap for a transitional phase culminating in free and fair elections, through which the question of legitimacy can be settled democratically and the Sudanese people can choose who governs them.

Some argue that dialogue cannot begin until the war has stopped. But making a ceasefire a prerequisite for dialogue would, in practice, paralyze the political track and leave citizens under the weight of suffering that grows worse by the day.

The war did not emerge from a vacuum. It erupted amid political disputes, a zero-sum struggle, and an atmosphere of exclusion and tension. For that reason, reaching agreement on a roadmap out of the crisis, together with transitional arrangements leading to civilian rule and elections, can itself help create the political conditions necessary for ending the fighting.

Sudanese people have done this before. Following the December 2018 revolution, they engaged in political dialogue with the military component, ultimately producing constitutional arrangements and power-sharing, without anyone insisting at the time that all wars on the country's periphery had to stop before the political process could begin.

Power is not an end in itself. It is a means to serve the country and its people—or at least that is what it should be. Sudan has suffered for far too long from elite disputes and zero-sum struggles over political office. The time has come for efforts to turn toward saving the country itself.

Sudan, in its current crisis, cannot afford failure, nor can it afford to squander yet another opportunity for reconciliation. Its patient people are watching and waiting. What they need now is not more political grandstanding, but a genuine window of hope.