Dear colleagues and colleagues

Electronic workshop: invitation to contribute

Future SudanFuture Sudan

Ibrahim Al-Badawi, Ibrahim Ayoub, Abu Al-Qasim Goor, Abu Al-Qasim Haj Hamad, Abu Ghassan, Ahmed Ibrahim Dreij, Ahmed Jabara Allah, Ahmed Abbas, Ahmed Al-Amin Al-Bashir, Ahmed Muhammad Shibreen, Ahmed Muhammad Al-Badawi, Ahmed Elias, Adam Abdel Mawla, Idris Al-Hassan, Idris Salem, Edward Lino, Ismail Abdullah Al-Fadil, Asmaa Mahmoud Muhammad Taha, Akolda Tir, Amal Abbas, Amir Ali Hassan, Amir Idris, Amira Ahmed, Amin Makki Madani, Al-Tijani Al-Tayeb, Al-Tijani Al-Sisi, Al-Hajj Warraq, Al-Khatim Adlan, Al-Fard Taban, Al-Mahboob Abdel Salam, Al-Nour Othman Abkar, Al-Sir Sayyid Ahmed, Al-Shafi’ Khidr, Al-Sadiq Al-Mahdi, Al-Amin Muhammad Othman, Al-Wathiq Kamir, Al-Tayeb Zain Al-Abidin, Pagan Amum, Benjamin Barnabas, Balqis Badri, Peter Adok Nayaba, Taj Al-Sir Makki, Tayseer Muhammad Ahmed Ali, Jadallah Al-Radi, Jamal Ibrahim, Jamal Adam, Jamal Hamed, Jamal Ibrahim, Jamal Mahjoub, Joseph Madsto, Jaafar Karar, Hassan Muhammad Ibrahim, Hassan Makki, Hassan Musa, Hussein Kodi, Hamouda Fatrahman, Khaled Ali Al-Toum, Daoud Gideon, Zainab Abbas Badawi, Sable Slatin, Sarah Cleto Riyal, Samson Wassara, Samia Al-Hadi Al-Naqr, Sperino Farajallah, Suleiman Diplo, Suleiman Muhammad Ibrahim, Souad Ibrahim Ahmed, Shadia Zaher, Charles Bakhit, Sherif Harir, Sherif El-Dachuni, Sidqi Kablo, Siddiq Mohisi, Salah Arkoun, Salah Bandar, Salah Shazly, Salah Mustafa, Aisha Mustafa, Adel Abdel-Ati, Atef Shaddad, Abdullah Boula, Abdullah Hamdok, Abdullah Al-Naeem, Abdul Wahab Al-Afandi, Abdul Aziz Adam Al-Helou, Omar Sharkian, Abbas Abdul Karim, Abdul Majid Ali Bob, Abdullah Ali Ibrahim, Abdullah Adam Khater, Abdullah Jalab, Abdul Salam Nour Al-Din, Abdul Rahman Al-Zaki, Othman Al-Khair, Adlan Al-Hardallo, Ali Al-Toum, Ali Abdul Qadir, Ali Abdullah Abbas, Ashari Ahmed Mahmoud, Amr Abbas, Atta Al-Bathani, Ghazi Salah El-Din, Farouk Muhammad Ibrahim, Fatima Al-Rashid, Fathi Saleh, Fadwa Abdel-Rahman Ali Taha, Francis Deng, Fadlallah Muhammad, Faisal Abdel-Rahman Ali Taha, Faisal Abdel-Qadir, Faisal Mustafa, Kamal Ibrahim Ahmed, Kamal Al-Jazouli, Kamala Ibrahim, Kuat Wall, Kimo Adebo, Lam Akol, Laila Samsaa, Magda Ali, Muhammad Ibrahim Naqd, Muhammad Ibrahim Kabaj, Muhammad Al-Amin Al-Toum, Muhammad Hassan Pasha, Muhammad Al-Makki Ibrahim, Muhammad Al-Qadi, Muhammad Nouh, Muhammad Suleiman Muhammad, Muhammad Mirghani, Muhammad Youssef Al-Mustafa, Mahjoub Al-Tijani Mahmoud, Mahjoub Muhammad Saleh, Mahjoub Othman, Mahmoud Jadin, Mukhtar Ajouba, Manzul Al-Asal, Mansour Khaled, Mona Khojali, Mustafa Babiker, Mustafa Al-Mubarak, Mustafa Khojali, Musa Al-Khalifa, Mai Al-Tayeb Ahmed, Najm Al-Din Karam Allah, Nelson Liben, Hashem Muhammad Ahmed, Howaida Atabani, Yasser Arman, Youssef Eidabi, Youssef Mukhtar Al-Amin, Yassin Hassan Bashir.

Greetings,

Sensing that our Sudanese nation is going through a dangerous and decisive turning point that threatens its continuation as one great entity for its peoples, we decided to address you with the aim of developing a minimum national consensus on the future of Sudan.

This platform aims to formulate a national consensus project through dialogue between Sudan’s living and active forces at home and in the diaspora countries.

In this file you will find a preliminary concept for an initial project: a declaration of basic principles for voluntary unity and peace in Sudan.

The file includes a group of documents, opinions and contributions that were published in various platforms on the current crisis in Darfur and on issues of building a unified Sudan.

What is required

1- Opening a broad dialogue among the members of the selected group that we are addressing through this message, and whose selection we sought to represent, as much as possible, all colors of the political and intellectual spectrum.

2- This dialogue aims to discuss the draft declaration of principles above, enrich it, and amend it in a way that achieves consensus.

3- We also aim from this dialogue to reach an agreement on a national consensus to stop the bleeding of war in Darfur and all marginalized regions of Sudan, by proposing solutions guided by the proposed Declaration of Principles after its final approval.

We suggest

Contributions and interventions should be directed to trying to answer the following:

* Since both parties to the Machakos-Nivasha Agreement have acknowledged the existence of many deficiencies in the agreement they reached, the question is: Can Sudan - with its ethnic, cultural and religious diversity - be able, in your estimation, to take that agreement based on “one state, two systems” and its three protocols (sharing power between the government and the SPLM; the status of the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile states; on resolving the Abyei conflict) a valid basis for establishing a stable governance system that maintains unity. Voluntary Sudan, land and people

* Do you think that this agreement, with its three protocols, serves as a model for resolving the issues of other marginalized regions - such as the current Darfur issue?

* If the agreement needs amendments, what amendments do you see as necessary to introduce, in order to develop it and adopt it as a basis for national consensus?

The answer should take into account the historical, ethno-demographic and cultural specificities of Darfur and marginalized areas.

The group that volunteered to manage the dialogue welcomes any additions to the set of documents included in this file for use.

How to manage the dialogue

This dialogue is considered an “electronic workshop” in which each contributor sends his contribution to the dialogue management group, which in turn will circulate it to all the above-mentioned participants through this file.

Given the seriousness of the situation and the historical embarrassment, we hope that the dialogue will continue to formulate a future vision, after which the dialogue management committee will formulate what it deems a consensus among the interlocutors and circulate it to them for approval.

Contributions should be sent as attachments in either Arabic or English to the group’s email address: nurkamani@yahoo.com

Dialogue management group

Ibrahim Al-Nour, American University, Cairo

Osama Abdel-Rahman Elnur, Sebha University, Libya

Elias Fath Al-Rahman, researcher and publisher, Cairo

Bashir Abdel Qayyum, Canadian Development Agency, Cairo

Abdel Ghaffar Muhammad Ahmed Population Council, Cairo

Magdy Al-Naim, researcher, Cairo Center for Human Rights