One of the fundamental issues that would be necessary for securing the conditions for a transition is the political dialogue, really, between the government and all sectors of the opposition and civil society. We are very concerned that a rapid transition to democracy or a rapid-fire shift from one ruling regime to another could really destabilize the system and unravel the stability of the country in a way that would undermine democracy going forward.
Our view is that we need to begin with dialogue to establish the conditions for what it would look like to have a transition. For example, as to the members of the security forces who are implicated in human rights violations, how would we eliminate those individuals and give them a chance to be investigated fairly and also provide witnesses and testimony of their own crimes in a way that would allow the institutions to persist while a transition would be taking place?