Amir Nour Al-Da'im and the Comparison Between the Proposals of Sumoud and the Communist Party on Achieving Peace

Siddiq Al-Zailai writes an objective article discussing the vision presented by the Communist Party regarding the issues of war and peace, comparing it with the vision of the Sumoud alliance. He analyzes both perspectives, highlighting areas of agreement and points of difference. He concludes that the Communist Party's vision is the most correct because it relies on the masses, and he declares his agreement and support for it. This article discusses the lack of realism in the approach presented by the Communist Party over the years and praises the shift that has recently begun in its position. I begin by praising the colleague's style of calm dialogue, reliance on comparing the presented theses, and avoiding haste in passing summary judgments on complex issues, as is often the case with many. I will present my points of disagreement with him and call for a vision that understands the current reality of our country and defines a logical methodology to lead our country out of this catastrophe. I agree with colleague Amir's opinion that he focused on discussing what is currently proposed as a solution to the crisis facing our country and our people. He did not resort to common rhetoric such as: 'we will not ally with them because they are soft-landing, implementing the policies of international financial institutions, have completely renounced the revolution's economic program, killed youth in the streets, and so on,' which is constantly raised during any discussion about the issue of stopping the war. These are issues that are easy to answer and refute. However, the current call is for the necessity of unifying the civil voice through various coordination or networking mechanisms or a unified proposal to address the world with a single civil discourse. A discourse that calls for stopping the war, addressing the roots of its causes, and establishing a transitional civil rule that paves the way for a solid democracy. Amir stopped at the Sumoud station, as most colleagues do, when discussing the war issue. But civil effort has expanded, and the Sudanese Declaration of Principles appeared, which was signed in Nairobi in May 2026. In addition to the Sumoud alliance, it included the Sudan Liberation Movement led by Mr. Abdel Wahid Mohamed Nour, and the original Ba'ath Party. Then came the Addis Ababa meeting to form the largest Sudanese civil umbrella under the name of 'Civil Forces Against the War and Unaligned with Either Side,' with the participation of the Popular Congress Party, the Umma Party led by Mubarak Al-Fadil, and a number of civil society organizations. Colleague Amir summarizes the Communist Party's vision in the following paragraph: 'The Communist Party initiative places "restoring the role of the mass movement" at the forefront of its project, and proceeds from the premise that stopping the war and restoring the revolution pass through "broad mass mobilization and organizing the masses," reaching a "deep grassroots mass unity." It calls on citizens in locations of displacement, rural areas, cities, and refuge to organize themselves and define their demands and position on the war, as they are the direct stakeholders in stopping it and bringing about change.' Colleague Amir also wrote: 'In the party's initiative, it is assumed that the path begins with organizing the stakeholders themselves, formulating their demands, linking their organizations, and building their social power so that they become capable of imposing a ceasefire and influencing the subsequent form of power.' I agree with colleague Amir that restoring the role of the mass movement is the foundation. This is true in principle and under normal circumstances. But proposing it now, as an immediate duty and a basis for stopping the war, is abstract, theoretical talk that is far from the reality lived in Sudan under the de facto authorities. This is for several reasons: The most important reason is that the essence of Marxism is the specific analysis of a specific reality, not jumping over stages to distant future horizons. The specific reality now is a destructive war, and a people suffering from famine and the lack of basic necessities. Therefore, the right to life becomes the priority over everything else. The world has witnessed hundreds of peace operations on all continents, in which peace was achieved by an external international force; for example, more than thirty UN peacekeeping operations have taken place in Africa to resolve armed conflicts. Building a strong and unified mass movement requires a long period before it has the ability to impose any position on the parties to the armed conflict. We struggled for thirty years to build a strong mass movement to remove Bashir from power. This approach ignores the urgent needs of the hungry, the sick, and the displaced (internally and externally) until we build the unified mass movement capable of imposing the conditions of change. We say, as confirmed by the experiences of the world around us, that the international community, with all its mechanisms and violent and non-violent pressure tools, is the one that will achieve the cessation of the war. Will Sudan, as we know it, still exist when our mass movement completes the construction of its grassroots alliance inside Sudan, or will our country turn into failed ministates fighting each other? At that time, the duties of the grassroots alliance, fragmented between those ministates, will be to perform tasks more difficult than now. Will the grassroots alliance rebuild what the war destroyed, or will it resort to the international community? Colleague Amir poses a central question: 'The most important question is not only: How does the war stop? But rather: Who makes peace, and who possesses the power that determines its conditions?' But he answered in a way that skips over the priority of stopping the war. He also did not address the proposal of the civil forces (according to their documents approved in Nairobi and Addis Ababa) that the peace process must begin in parallel with the ceasefire process, not after it. Because if it is left after the ceasefire, the parties to the war will determine the form of the political system that will follow the war. The civil forces also confirmed that the political dialogue is a completely Sudanese process, and that the role of the Quintet is only to facilitate the political process. The position of the Communist Party: Colleague Amir's talk reflects the position of the Communist Party during the years of war, but it contradicts the change that took place in the position, represented in the Communist Party's memorandum to the Quintet, which was presented by colleague Saleh Mahmoud and colleague Adam Sharif last June, which stated verbatim: 'The success of any political path requires stopping the war and involving the forces that led the December 2018 revolution.' What colleague Amir wrote was indeed the Communist Party's position throughout the war period, and that position was repeated and clearly expressed through its continuous and frequent attack on the international community and on those who engage in dialogue with the international community to help stop the war. Also, what was stated in the headline of Al-Midan newspaper issued on October 15, 2026, is as follows: 'The Radical to the Quintet: Stop the war and a comprehensive solution without quotas.' Inside the issue, it stated: 'The Radical Change Forces Alliance intensified its contacts with the Quintet representatives regarding the Sudanese crisis, in a move aimed at pushing towards broader coordination on ending the war and opening a political path that leads to a democratic civil transition in the country.' When the party presented its letter to the Quintet in June 2026, I wrote an article titled: 'A Step Forward and Another Backward,' the text of which is: A delegation from the Communist Party submitted a memorandum to the Quintet, which consists of the African Union, the United Nations, the Arab League, IGAD, and the European Union. This article discusses, in a calm, objective reading, the positive and negative aspects of this position. I start with the positive aspect of the memorandum: The most important positive aspects are: Meeting with the Quintet and presenting a written vision to reach a ceasefire. This position comes after refusals and rejection of invitations to sit down, and refusal to sit with blocs while sitting only with individual parties, which did not happen. And the rejection of all international invitations, the last of which was the Djibouti meeting. In addition to the media and political campaign that the party carried out against the international community, accusing it and accusing other civil forces of dealing with the international community. Welcoming the Quintet's effort to stop the war. The memorandum proposed good suggestions, centered around two axes: security and political. The call for a national constitutional conference that includes representatives of the Sudanese people through their political parties and their civil and civil society organizations. The most important negative aspects: The absence of clear implementation mechanisms, which is a matter that has been repeated in all the party's statements since the outbreak of the war, most importantly the initiative that the party proposed a long time ago. The proposal is generalized demands, and it is not known who will implement them or how they will be implemented. And the inclusion of words such as: 'confirming,' 'the necessity of,' 'we see,' and others. There is no clear answer: Will the party implement its demands alone, or will an alliance implement them, and who consists of this alliance? Will other parties participate in this alliance, and does their participation require sitting with them and engaging in dialogue to reach a common vision and a collective opinion, or will we address them with electronic statements? There is an internal and external consensus that the Sudanese people are the only ones responsible for the political solution; how do we address the existing divisions and polarization until we reach the agreed-upon civil opinion? The party, in its memorandum, called for holding the constitutional conference at the end of the transitional period, with the participation of representatives of the Sudanese people through their political parties and their civil organizations. This is good, but if these forces are to decide the fate and future of Sudan through constitutional frameworks, is it not a contradiction that these forces do not work now, in any form of coordination, to stop the destructive war? What was stated in the memorandum is a literal match with what was decided by the Nairobi workshop, to which the party was invited and refused to attend, despite the organizer confirming that it has the right to attend and present its vision to others and convince them of it. And it has the full right not to sign the outcomes if it does not agree with them. These, in short, are observations and an invitation to a transparent, serious, and responsible dialogue on how to stop the war. siddigelzailaee@gmail.com