The floundering attempts at a ceasefire around Khartoum are ignoring the growing threat of regional conflagration in the west, As international attention flickered on the failing talks in Jeddah mediated by officials from Saudi Arabia and the United States, the war between Sudan s military factions has been intensifying to horrendous levels in Darfur. The lack of focus by Riyadh and Washington on Darfur ignores the risk of a devastating escalation of Sudan s war across the region. Communities are being dragged into the fight and the widespread killings there amount to ethnic cleansing.
The President has abandoned the trappings of transition and is consolidating his rule for the long run, Many of the efforts to broaden the support base of the regime of President Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno (aka Mahamat Kaka ) during last year s reconciliation exercise included genuine efforts at compromise and democratic reform. Now, the experiment has ended and the new regime is falling back on old authoritarian methods shaped around new alliances and networks.
Mahamat Déby s plan to stay on at least until late 2024 and keep control of security is in question after state forces brutally suppressed demonstrations
, Interim President Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno Kaka and his inclusive new government, which boasts reconciled oppositionists and reformed militia leaders, is in deep crisis after security forces, many in plain clothes, unleashed a wave of deadly violence against demonstrators in N Djamena and the southern cities of Moundou, Sahr, Koumra and Doba, on 20 October, the date when the military had initially pledged to hand power back to the civilians.
General Burhan s alliance with Islamist forces is blocking progress on talks to restart the transition and end Khartoum s isolation, A week of false starts and crisis talks to reinstate the transition to elections and constitutional rule made clear there is no prospect of progress without the participation of the anti-coup Forces of Freedom and Change and its allies. This was reiterated in informal talks between FFC representatives and military officers that stretched into the early hours of 10 June, and were organised by United States Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Molly Phee and Saudi Arabia s ambassador Ali bin Hassan Jaffar.
The government is running out of cash – paying the Russians is proving tricky, EU and French aid has stopped, and the IMF and World Bank are sceptical, Amid suspicions that Russia is trying to engineer an alliance between its friends in Bangui and leaders of the military junta in Sudan, the problems in President Faustin Archange Touadéra s government are converging. The resignation of Prime Minister Henri-Marie Dondra on 2 February comes at a bad time and presages further crises.