Sudan's National Dialogue Conference: The Permissible Questions

Since its independence in 1956, Sudan has been considered as a recipe for civil wars and continuous violent political, social and ethnic conflicts. These wars & conflicts are embracing national crises that have affected all aspects of political, economic, social and the spiritual life in the country. They are endemic and deeply rooted, and looked upon as natural manifestations of the unsolved questions related to the constitutional & structural issues of the state building of the newly independent countries. Since the dawn of the independence, many attempts have been carried, through dialogues & negotiations, to resolve this chronic devastating situation in the country, but none of them has succeeded. In 2014, a newly National Dialogue process was launched at the initiative of the Sudanese president, Omer Elbashir. However, from the start, two main serious questions faced the process: A- Is it a genuine process, or is it just a survival maneuver for the ruling regime? B- In light of the failure of all previous attempts of dialogue, what are the guarantees that this new attempt will not fail? It is worth noting that after the failure of any of the previous attempts, the Sudanese crisis became more complex. This case study is elaborating on the details of this new National Dialogue process in Sudan, exploring its prospects & trying to see how it differs from the previous attempts & what the lessons it will draw from them, and to see if it is capable to avoid the junctions of failure connected with those previous dialogue processes.