SUDAN INSIGHT ALERT: The National.AE - Sudan reckons with bid to separate religion from state

9/9/2020: The National.AE -  Sudan reckons with bid to separate religion from state, by Hamza Hendawi

 Hamza Hendawi’s feature piece on the Juba peace agreement identifies “daunting challenges” and “politically costly” concessions that Khartoum must offer to secure lasting peace.

 Hendawi notes that the steps required to bring peace may “spark resistance from groups with economic interests” such as Islamists and supporters of the National Umma Party who “have a sense of ethnic and cultural superiority over the people living in Sudan’s western and southern regions.”

 With the details of the Juba peace deal “mirroring the ineffective or eventually unravelled” peace deals signed under previous dictators Omar al-Bashir and Jaafar al-Nimeri, Hendawi identifies concerns that Sudan’s government “may simply offer rebel groups political bribes as part of shaky agreements…which failed to secure peace or led to the rise of new rebel groups.”

 Analyst Attiya Issawi suggests that integrating rebels into a national army is the “trickiest” task, given the “likely friction between former enemies.”