Former West Darfur State Governor Mohammed Abdallah Al Doma. (Courtesy photo)

Former West Darfur governor roots for roundtable to end Sudan’s impasse

The immediate former governor of West Darfur State has said the ideal solution to the ongoing conflict in Sudan lies in a roundtable conference.

The immediate former governor of West Darfur State has said the ideal solution to the ongoing conflict in Sudan lies in a roundtable conference.

According to Mohammed Abdallah Al Doma, there is a need for all Sudanese including the myriad political parties and actors to sit down in a constitutional or roundtable conference to debate and agree on how best Sudan is governed and to set real standards for eliminating historical injustices.

Al-Douma told Radio Tamazuj Monday that the reason for the recurrence of crises in Sudan is the problem associated with governance and that Sudanese gained independence as an inheritance from the colonialists without caring about how the country would be governed.

“The solution to the ongoing conflicts is the roundtable conference and it must not target anyone,” he stated. “And no one should impose his opinion or ideology but rather there must be agreement and compromise.”

The former governor explained that Sudan inherited democracy as a system of government after colonialism without giving any consideration to its suitability for Sudanese society. He said that those who inherited power from the colonialists were not concerned about justice and the equitable distribution of power, wealth, development, and services.

“These people focused all their attention on serving themselves and their families to the point that some ministries, in some eras, became assigned to some tribes by seizure,” Al-Douma charged.

The former governor said that the central authority worked to legalize tribalism until some jobs became exclusive to some tribes and pointed out that central budgets were spent on select states, which caused severe injustice that led to explosions of armed insurrections in some parts of the country.

“Instead of addressing the injustice through political and development means, the central governments resorted to describing the protesters with terms that contained a lot of contempt, which led to armed conflicts,” A-Douma added.

He said that the previous government worked to form semi-criminal organizations such as the Popular Defense, the Mujahideen Brigades, and finally the Rapid Support Forces which killed, looted, burned homes, stole livestock, and impoverished citizens, which worsened the situation in Sudan.

The former official appealed to the warring leaders to listen to the voice of reason and embrace dialogue.