Security Briefing: Military exploiting disagreements between the rebels and the FFC.

Overview

Although the Sudanese government agreed a new peace roadmap with the rebels, the picture is complicated. The threat of the military exploiting the rebels continued disagreements with the Forces of Freedom and Change coalition remains.

Ceasefire

Although rebels and bandits remain active in western Darfur, South Kordofan and the Blue Nile state, a ceasefire was agreed between the transitional government and some rebel groups in Juba, with a view to ending war in Sudan by the end of the year. (Multiple sources, September 12).

Bloomberg's Okech Francis (September 11) raised the prospect of Himedti using the ceasefire as an opportunity to support his political ambitions.

Divide and rule

An alliance with the rebels would provide Himedti a support base in Sudan's peripheral regions, which have long accused the Khartoum government of neglect. This would also compensate for the support that Himedti lacks among the Khartoum elites who have traditionally led Sudan.

Then, we saw a sign that the military would be more willing to give the rebels what they want. Yasir al-Atta, a military representative of the Sudan's ruling sovereign council, hinted at the possibility of increasing sovereign council members to include the rebels, or creating a deputy prime minister post if necessary (Sudan Tribune, September 16).

Since the power-sharing negotiations began, the FFC been firmly opposed to the idea of quotas to guarantee the representation of Sudan's armed movements in the transitional government. As a result, rebels feel that the FFC is not fully supportive of the rebels' insistence that peace should be a priority of the power-sharing document.

Meanwhile, the FFC re-iterated its position that the Constitutional Declaration will not be amended to include rebels in the transitional government, until a comprehensive peace agreement is reached.

The disagreements between the rebels and the FFC may spell danger for the Sudanese democratic transition, As academic Yasir Zaidan noted (Foreign Policy, September 9) - to protect against the military's divide-and-rule tactics, a broader consensus in forming the new constitution will be needed.