What is the story of the “East Path” that ignites the ground under the feet of the Sudanese government? ‎

KHARTOUM -

The "Eastern Sudan track" in the peace agreement ignited the situation in the region, which puts the transitional government between two options, the most bitter of which is either canceling the track and angering its owners, or sticking to it and continuing to close the region, which includes the country's ports on the Red Sea.

The difficult choices explain the government's silence and inaction regarding the closure of the eastern region in its three states, Gedaref, Kassala and the Red Sea, as it seemed confused in dealing with the head of the Hadandawa tribes, Sayyid Al-Amin Turk, who leads the protest movement.

Since last Friday, supporters of Al-Nazer Turk, who leads the Supreme Council of Beja Opticals, have closed the national road along the eastern states, isolating the capital, Khartoum, from the ports of Port Sudan and Suakin.

And the isolation of the east from the rest of the country developed today, Sunday, to the closure of Port Sudan airport, Bashayer port for oil export, and the branch of the Central Bank of Sudan in Port Sudan.

What is the story of the east path?

In order to understand the extent of the predicament caused by the East track, the Al-Handawa tribes seem to lead the opposition to the track, while the Bani Amer tribes stand as supporters of the track, which was signed by its affiliates in Juba on the 3rd of October 2020.

Al-Handawa sees the East Path as a reprobate of the East Sudan Peace Agreement signed in Asmara in 2006 between the Sudanese government and the Beja Conference.

The roads began on the necessity of sorting out a route to the east during the negotiations of the previous government, headed by the ousted President Omar al-Bashir, with the armed movements in Addis Ababa.

The Political Secretary of the Supreme Council of Beja Opticals, Syed Ali Abu Amneh, says that the demand to involve the path in the peace negotiations began in 2014, when the Revolutionary Front - which includes the armed movements in Darfur and the regions of South Kordofan and Blue Nile - demanded that a path be set aside for the east in the negotiations.

Abu Amna, who headed the United Popular Front for Liberation and Justice for Eastern Sudan within the Revolutionary Front, confirms to Al Jazeera Net that "the previous government and the African mediator, Tabu Mbeki, at the time, refused to allocate a path to eastern Sudan."

He adds that Al-Bashir's government refused any negotiation with any civilian factions in the Revolutionary Front under the pretext of their weak weight, and asked to negotiate with the Revolutionary Front as movements, while the African mediator stated that he was not authorized to enter new paths.

The path of eastern Sudan created a crisis for the transitional government in Khartoum (Al-Jazeera)

How the East track returned to the negotiating table?

Sayed Abu Amneh says that when the allocation of a platform for eastern Sudan failed in the Addis Ababa negotiations, the United Popular Front for Eastern Sudan demanded that the Revolutionary Front negotiate - the alliance of armed movements in Darfur and the two regions - on the basis of a comprehensive solution for Sudan.

He explains that even this option did not work because a meeting of the negotiating parties in Berlin, sponsored by the Berkoff Organization in 2015, approved the negotiation of only two tracks, Darfur and the regions of South Kordofan and Blue Nile.

He added, "At that time, we had no choice but to leave the alliance of armed movements, but after the fall of the Bashir regime, the armed movements wanted to enter the eastern path, to have agents in the region, and the government rushed to make peace in 6 months."

Abu Amneh accuses some of the negotiating parties at the time of being dependent on the agenda of a neighboring country that wants to get rid of opposition groups inside Sudan, and a Gulf country that has ambitions in Sudan's ports on the Red Sea.

Opponents of the Eastern track see that the track paves the way for the stability of foreign components in the country, and their participation in ruling the country.

Closure of the national road along the eastern Sudanese states (social networking sites)

Who supported the inclusion of the East track in the negotiations?

Despite the objection of the Forces of Freedom and Change - the ruling coalition - to the involvement of the East, North and Central tracks in the peace negotiations in Juba, the military component, which led the negotiations through the two members of the Sovereign Council, Lieutenant-General Muhammad Hamdan (Daqlo) and Lieutenant-General Shams al-Din al-Kabbashi, insisted on including the tracks in the negotiations. .

As soon as the signing ceremony took place, the situation erupted in eastern Sudan between the Hadandawa and Bani Amer tribes.

It is ironic that the path of the East in the Juba negotiations was led by Secretary Daoud, but the one who won the signing and the gains of the agreement was Khaled Shaweesh, who is close to the UAE, and who pushed Daoud out of the United Popular Front for Liberation and Justice for Eastern Sudan.

With the escalation of events in eastern Sudan, the governor of Darfur, head of the Sudan Liberation Movement, Minni Arko Minawi, was forced - while addressing a crowd a few days ago - to admit that the eastern path was bought by a wealthy Shawish.

What is the fate of the path of the East?

Since Al-Nazir Turk succeeded in inciting the tribes and gaining the support of other groups outside his clan, such as the Al-Batana Minbar Al-Hurr Kassala and the Eastern Sudan Gathering in Al-Qadarif, the chances of the Eastern Path to maintaining it began to dwindle.

The protests against the eastern path disrupted his participation in the authority, which was granted to him by the Ministry of Education, as well as the position of the governor of Kassala State.

The disruption of the eastern track angered the signatories, and the chief negotiator for this track, Abdul Wahab Jamil, says that the escalation in eastern Sudan now has exceeded the demand to cancel the track to dissolve the government, which failed to fulfill its obligations.

According to Jamil, the signatories to the Eastern track are now meeting with the demands of the Beja Optic Council, which rejects the track, and as a chief negotiator, he has previously sat with the rejectionists and reached points of convergence with them.

He added, "What is happening in the east is a government crisis before it is a crisis related to the track."

How will the government deal with the crisis of the eastern path?

So far, the government has not moved a finger about closing the eastern region and its vital facilities, including seaports, amid leaks that the military component requires a mandate to deal with the security protests with a mandate that immunizes the security services from prosecution, which civilians in the transitional government reject.

Cabinet Affairs Minister Khaled Omar Youssef said, in a weekly Facebook meeting, that the government, following the Juba Agreement, recognized that the East track is incomplete because it did not include all parties, although it raised the issues of the region.

The minister pledged to complete the East track by creating a mechanism to involve the rest of the parties, especially since the agreement approved the establishment of an inclusive conference for all of the East, and the government agreed to form a separate forum for all components that did not participate in the East track.

He pledged that the government will communicate with all parties without exception, and stressed that the political solution to the East issue is the best, not security solutions.

It seems that the government wants to hold the baton in half in light of the demands of the Supreme Council of Beja Opticals, which is now closing the east and isolating it from the rest of the country by canceling the eastern path and establishing a new negotiating platform with the federal government in Khartoum.