Sudan’s anti-war parties meet in Addis Ababa to answer Burhan’s offer of immunity

Sudanese anti-war political and civil groups opened a two-day consultative meeting in Addis Ababa on Saturday 22 August to agree a common position on Abdel Fattah al-Burhan’s call for an internal Sudanese dialogue, Sudan Tribune reported from the Ethiopian capital. Attendees include signatories of the Sudanese Declaration of Principles, the Islamist Popular Congress Party and a faction of the Umma Party. The National Umma Party said in a statement, relayed by Anadolu and Middle East Monitor, that the meeting was organised by groups affiliated with neither the army nor the Rapid Support Forces — a characterisation by a participant, not an independent one. No closing statement had been reported at the time of writing. Burhan’s offer, delivered in a speech that outlets date variously to 14 or 15 August, pledges immunity to participants; Al Jazeera reported he framed it not as a pardon but as a temporary suspension of criminal proceedings, and ruled out any return for Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.

Refusals are already on the record. Darfur24 reported on 20 August that the National Umma Party and the Umma Party rejected the invitation in its current form, and that the stated purpose of the exercise is to “complete state institutions, including the formation of a Legislative Council.” Sudan Tribune reported on 11 August that senior figures in the Civil Democratic Alliance, Somoud, held reservations, and that the process is designed to exclude only the National Congress Party and the RSF-led Tasees alliance — a report resting largely on unnamed people and one named but unquoted official. The external track, meanwhile, has stalled: Mada Masr’s Sudan Nashra of 21 August reported that the Quintet — the African Union, United Nations, Arab League, European Union and IGAD — is preparing to resume consultations after its late-July Addis meetings failed to bring the political forces into joint discussion. That this failure created the opening for Khartoum’s domestic track is the judgment of a single unnamed source in that report.

Assessment: Read the offer as recruitment rather than reconciliation. A temporary suspension of proceedings is a lever that can be withdrawn, and it is aimed at the one constituency Burhan needs and does not have: civilians willing to sit in a legislative council he convenes. The parties in Addis have no armed force, which is why they can meet freely and why their consent is worth buying cheaply. Distrust three things: a party’s own statement that a meeting is unaligned; a Quintet “resumption” announced by no one on the record; and the fact that three outlets give two dates for the speech, which means the Sovereign Council has not published its own text. Nothing here binds the RSF, which was excluded by design.