Written by Jehron Muhammad
“If this war (in Sudan) last for several years… the country that we knew as Sudan, (once Africa’s largest nation state, divided by a referendum) a sort of regional linchpin, between the Red Sea, the Horn of Africa, the Sahel and Central Africa will no longer exist,” said Sudan policy and political analyst, Kholood Khair, the founder and director of the U.K. based Confluence Advisory think tank.
As Israel’s war on Gaza, that is spreading to include the West Bank, dominates global media coverage, the war in Sudan struggles for recognition. Now entering 2024, “the conflict in Sudan is shaping up to be one of the worst crises in the world. Nearly seven million people have been displaced, hunger is widespread and a hallmark of this civil war has been ethnic cleansing that may have crossed the threshold to genocide. Despite being a calamitous catastrophe, Sudan has not received much media attention, nor sustained high level engagement by policy makers, particularly in the West,” said Global Dispatches – World News That Matters podcast host Mark Leon Goldberg.
Global Dispatches podcast opened the new year with the discussion theme:”Sudan is the Worst Crisis in the World That Receives The Least Amount of Attention.” During the 34 minute episode, Kholood Khair put the listening audience in touch with the tragedy that is Sudan.
Giving a synopsis of recent Sudan history, Ms. Khair said the two waring factions, the Sudan Armed Force (SAF), headed by General Abdul Fattah al-Burham and the Rapid Support Force (RSF) militia, headed by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, “were once closely allied.” And though they had conflicting interest, they also had mutual interest. “But at certain point their mutual interest was superseded by their competing interest. That is why the war started.”
Their mutual interest included being instrumental in “genocide” in Darfur in 2004-2005. The RSF has its roots in the Janjaweed. This is because the government of now former president Omar al-Bashir officially organized the Janjaweed militia as the RSF under the command of the National Intelligence and Security Services. They were used to engage various Sudan based rebel groups. Later Hemedti and Burhan joined forces, encouraged by the 2018 civilian revolution, in overthrowing the 30-year regime of Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s former president. This hybrid or “transitional government” was predated by a 2018-2019 protest movement that helped lead to the removal by coup of President el-Bashir.
“They became a part of the (coalition) civilian military hybrid government, during the transitional period under Dr. Abdalla Hamdok as prime minister,” according to Ms. Khair. Later in 2021 they joined forces and led a coup against the hybrid government. “So in effect,” according to Ms. Khair, “they consolidated, during the coup more power than they already had within the hybrid government system.”
Director of the Foreign Policy and Security program at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, Adel Abdel Ghafar explained, that one of the main reasons for the war between the two military factions was, “The RSF… resisted integration into the army understanding it would lose (its influence and) its power.”
Khair said leading up to the conflict you had both militaries trying to “avoid any kind of transitional requirement as dictated by the new democratizing Sudanese political landscape.” Both militaries were determined to maintain their troops and not to “downsize their troops or integrate their troops.”
What emerged out of the 2021 coup was Burham and Hemedti having different ideas of how they wanted to consolidate power, Ms. Khair said, Burham wanted a sort of Egyptian President Abdul Fattah el-Sissi scenario. El Sissi, a former general, who also took power of a democratic elected government by coup, military controls much of the Egyptian economy. His government included quick elections and the military consolidating, not just political power, but also economic control.
Hemedti, according to Ms. Khair, was somewhat of a political outlier, “wanted to recreate a Sudanese state that would embrace him and the people that were seen as marginalized since independence.” Hemedti to this very day, while touring the region, says he wants to bring about a civilian democracy in Sudan, but his track record, with RSF being accused of unlimited atrocities, including sexual violence, says otherwise.
The mediation of any kind of cessation in hostilities doesn’t seem a possibility. Khair told Goldbreg, in the case of Sudan you have three players, who have divergent interest.
“You have Cairo’s neighboring countries initiative. You have the U.S., Saudi (Arabia) joint Jedda platform, and you have the sort of IGAD (Intergovernmental Authority of Development), AU (African Union) political talks. And there is no reason why these three mediation platforms should not work together, with Cairo looking at humanitarian assistance and access, Jedda looking at ceasefire and IGAD, (and) the AU looking at the political agreements, or first of all a settlement.”
Ms. Khair added, “But because Egypt has vastly different interest in political outcomes in Sudan than for example the AU and IGAD, who themselves as member state entities are also made up of countries that have very different interest to each other, you won’t necessarily get the complementary that you need.”
On top that, in terms of Jedda, “the joint Saudi U.S. initiative, has continuously failed to bring about ceasefire. That’s because the logistics of Jedda are predicated on an assumption that you can, through only two international actors, of all the international actors I previously mentioned, bring about a ceasefire, ignoring the main international and regional backers of both sides, that is Egypt and the UAE (United Arab Emirates).”
Perspectives in Anthropology 