IGAD Considers Appointing Special Envoy for Sudan

IGAD's Executive Secretary Workneh Gebeyehu, meets the group's countries ambassadors in Khartoum on January 30, 2022

February 5, 2022 (KHARTOUM) – The east Africa group IGAD said they are well placed to mediate a Sudanese-owned solution or the political crisis in Sudan and recommended its leaders to appoint a special envoy for Sudan.

The recommendation was made in a report prepared by a fact-finding mission that accompanied the IGAD Executive Secretary Workneh Gebeyehu during his recent visit to Sudan from 29 January to 1 February.

“IGAD is (for the time being) perceived as an ‘honest broker’ acceptable to all sides to mediate and lead the engagement between the different parties,” reads the report.

The proposition to appoint a special envoy for Sudan should be discussed and approved by a summit the IGAD leaders should hold next March in Uganda.

The regional bloc further said that several Sudanese stakeholders are not favourable to the UNITAMS facilitated process pointing to “main civilian political actors and sections of the military establishment”.

According to the report, these actors are “questioning the impartiality” of this UN initiative.

Besides the military leaders, Gebeyehu met with the National Umma Party, The National Charter, an FFC broke away alliance supporting the military coup, a Darfur group that was allied to the former regime National Liberation and Justice Party led Tijani al-Sisi and the Sudanese Communist Party.

Also, his delegation met with the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) and some other groups.

With the regard to the role of the proposed IGAD special envoy, the report recommended that he has to facilitate “discussions and broad-based consultations” to forge common ground paving the way for a negotiated settlement.

The Envoy also has to “Assist in the creation of a nationally accepted negotiation framework between the parties in the political dispute”.

The report kept silent on how to work or to coordinate with the ongoing UN-facilitated process as it adopts the same approach.

However, the IGAD delegation said al-Burhan the UNITAMS initiative on condition that the mission “acts as a facilitator, not mediator”.

He further “Expressed a preference for IGAD and the AU to act as guarantors and monitoring agencies for subsequent agreements between the military and civilian blocs and the consolidation of all peace-building initiatives under this umbrella,” the report reads.

(ST)