SUDAN INSIGHT ALERT: Open Democracy – In this new Sudan, will the elite protesters stand up for suffering in Darfur?
Rebecca Tinsley, who founded Waging Peace, an NGO supporting human rights in Sudan, addresses worries that the Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC), will continue the neglect and marginalisation of Sudan’s non-Arab communities, amid the power-sharing agreement.
Tinsley notes that the FFC-military power-sharing deal omitted the Sudan Revolutionary Front’s agreement with the FFC that peace in Sudan’s peripheries should be prioritised, “[breeding] suspicion that the provincials were being sidelined once more.”
Niemat Ahmadi of the Darfur Women’s Action Group said: “elites in Khartoum are still repeating the exclusive approach that has divided the people of Sudan…and led to genocide in Darfur.”
Waging Peace’s Maddy Crowther argued: “the agreement between the civilian and military delegations is welcome, [but] there is a danger it just becomes power-sharing between Nile elites.”
However, Sudan expert Gill Lusk attributed the FFC’s lack of focus on marginalised areas to weak political strategy skills, rather than indifference.