Sudan Appeal forces discuss ‘way-forward’ in Paris

The newly established Sudan Appeal Coordination Committee will begin its first meeting in the French capital today.

In April, the armed and political opposition forces allied under the Sudan Appeal formed the committee to improve the work of the various Sudan Appeal signatories.

The Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF, an alliance of the main rebel movements), the National Umma Party, the National Consensus Forces (NCF, a coalition of opposition parties), and the Civil Society Initiative signed the Sudan Appeal, a two-page political communiqué calling for regime-change and democracy, in Addis Ababa on 3 December 2014. Other Sudanese groups and parties joined them in the following year.

Dr Maryam El Sadig El Mahdi, Co-Vice President of the National Umma Party told Radio Dabanga from Paris on Sunday that the Coordination Committee meeting will discuss “urgent political issues” and “the ways to activate the various opposition bases” in Sudan.

The absence of a number of NCF parties will also be discussed, she added.

The Secretariat of the Communist Party of Sudan issued a statement on Saturday, saying that the party will not participate in the Paris meeting as “the consensus forces did not agree on a unified position”.

The party has denounced the procedures of the previous Sudan Appeal meetings in the past, and criticised its leaders of not siding with the NCF, when the AU mediation team limited its invitations for a meeting in the Ethiopian capital in August last year to the SRF and the NUP leaders only.