African Union officials attend a meeting of the Extended Mechanism on the Sudan Crisis at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa on May 2, 2023 [File: Amanuel Sileshi/AFP]
 

This op-ed was originally publish at Aljazeera English

As the United States-Saudi-sponsored ceasefire negotiations between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) ground to a halt at the end of last week, the African Union (AU) stepped in. Its proposed Expanded Mechanism on the Sudan Crisis, a body made up of AU officials and experts conceptualised in April, is preparing to take charge of negotiating a solution for the conflict in Sudan.

There is a positive angle to this development, indicating a regional proactiveness that has characterised the AU and regional bodies, such as IGAD in East Africa and ECOWAS in West Africa, in recent decades. They have spearheaded peacemaking and peacekeeping on the continent and worked to foster and safeguard democracy.

But there is also another angle to this development: "international dumping". The international community usually champions peacekeeping when it seems promising and "delegates" to a regional body when things do not look so good.

It appears that this is now happening in Sudan. After the conflict broke out, Saudi Arabia and the US – part of the self-constituted "Quartet" (along with the United Arab Emirates and United Kingdom) – took charge, trying to negotiate a ceasefire. Their intervention came from nowhere as did the suspension of the talks last week.

Thus, the AU is stepping in amid an obvious "dumping", which was made even more obvious by the recent exodus of diplomats and other foreign nationals from Khartoum and which underlines the failures of previous initiatives by the international community.

The recent conflict was precipitated by an abortive UN-led process that sought to return the country to civilian rule after the October 2021 coup carried out by SAF. The UN sponsored December's shaky Framework Agreement between the army and civilian forces, which failed to put the country back on the transition path….