Sudan, 15-18 April 2023, Part 1
Hello everybody!
In the light of receiving lots of related questions and requests, have decided to take a closer look at developments in the Sudan.
Up front: I’m far from being anything like an ‘expert’ in regards of that country. At most I’m following the build-up and operations of the Sudanese Air Force (SuAF) for decades. However, thanks to few good old books and some search through the internet, nowadays it’s easy to obtain a reasonably good insight. The question is only that of knowing where to search for.
Even then, mind that I tend to ‘oversimplifications’: that in turn is likely to result in some who know better, finding certain of the following for ‘lacking details’, or even being ‘wrong’.
….and, don’t worry: I’ll continue with my coverage of the Ukraine War, too.
For the start, a little bit about the history of Sudan, the way I know it, and how comes the country is where it is nowadays.
Usual stories of the Sudan start with critique of Great Britain and Egypt, and their designs for the country from the 19th- and the first half of the 20th Century. Have no doubt: a lot of that is correct (if for no other reason then because the machinations in question drew a lot of borders where they have never been before, and bunched together people who do not want to live with- or next to each other). However, the way I see it, this was the primary reason for the separation of South Sudan as an independent country in 2011. The affairs in the rest of the country are slightly different.
Historically, agriculture was the primary source of income in the Sudan at least until the 1990s, and up to 80% of the workforce remains employed in this sector until this very day. However, agriculture was repeatedly devastated by long and extremely bitter wars – usually run by or on behalf of people with illusions of grandeur – and natural catastrophes.
The process of ruining the Sudanese agriculture through wars began already in the 16th and 17th Century and resulted in local states being weakened to the degree where the Egyptians and the British were able to establish themselves in control. The Sudanese countered during the Mahadist War of 1881-1899, which prompted another Anglo-Egyptian invasion. In turn, the British were not enthusiastic about helping Egyptians establish themselves in control, and thus while negotiating a withdrawal of their forces, they secured Cairo releasing Sudan into its independence, on 1 January 1956.
The population of Sudan – which, within borders valid since the separation of South Sudan in 2011 – is 97% Muslim, is split along ethno-religious and economic principles. See tribes of farmers; tribes of herders (keeping cattle, other chickens); and tribes of nomadic people (some of them herders, others not). On the other hand, there is a constantly growing segment of ‘liberal-minded’ urban people. Obviously, all have entirely different interests and thus nomadic people are usually unhappy with farmers, farmers are unhappy with nomads, and both are making the urban people unhappy… Add to this the fact that Muslims of Sudan are no solid block: some are Sufi (and split into two different sects), others are Salafis…. Over the last 70 years, this resulted in rifts within the Sudanese political landscape roughly along the following lines:
- Umma Party = Ansar Sufis, dominating the West and South (i.e. Darfur and Kordofan; pursuing ideologies of the Sudanese nationalism and Islamic democracy)
- Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) = Khatamia Sufis (strong in the North and East; former Nationalist Unionist Party, which used to propagate a union with Egypt, back in the 1950s; more recently, it’s perhaps the most moderate of all the political parties in Sudan)
- National Congress Party (NCP) = Islamists, Salfists, Wahhabists, and other conservatives; strong in the North and West (former National Islamic Front; dominating party from 1998 until 2019, when it was banned; still influencing the Lawyers’ Union and most of agricultural and university student unions and, reportedly, linked with the RSF);
Above all, it’s the top brass of the Sudanese Defence Force (SDF; colloquially ‘army’, though including the SuAF and the Navy) that ‘know they can better’: its actions deeply overshadowed all the ethno-religious differences and activity of political parties over the last 70 years – because their rule not only prevented the establishment of the rule of law and order, but also resulted in endemic corruption (Sudan is one of most corrupt countries ever), haphazard decision-making, massive overspending ‘for defence purposes’, near-constant armed conflicts, and (more recently) the spread of what can only be characterised as ‘organised crime, big style’.
- 1958-1964, Aboud’s Era: General Ibrahim Abboud run the first coup that toppled the elected government and dissolved the parliament in 1958. Abboud attempted to rule with help of a ‘pyramid of councils’ (local councils electing representatives into a central council), and might have succeeded, but his policies conflagrated the long and bitter armed insurgency (or ‘civil war’) in the south (First Sudanese Civil War, fought 1955-1972).
- 1969-1985, Nimeiri’s Era: in 1964, corruption, mismanagement, and the devastation and losses in that war forced Abboud to resign. A provisional civilian government was removed by another military coup, in 1969, which established Colonel Jaafar Nimeiry in power. Nimeiry managed to negotiate a cessation of the war in the south, in 1972, and his rule stabilised the situation for a while. Between others, and with some help from Egypt, West and China, he promoted mechanised export agriculture. However, he also provoked the Second Sudanese Civil War, in 1983…
- 1989-2019, Bashir’s Era: Nimeiry was toppled in a coup by General Dahab, in 1985; in 1989, Dahab was toppled by a coup led by Lieutenant-General Omar al-Bashir, backed by the Nationalist Islamic Front (something like ‘Wahhabist Wing’ of the NCP).
While earlier military regimes could have been described as ‘relatively progressive’, Bashir was nothing of that: he not only banned political parties and independent media, or imprisoned thousands of political figures and journalists, ‘as usual’, but heavily Islamised the state and its institutions. Later on into his period of rule he also helped establish a ‘suitable’ political body to rule on his behalf, in form of the National Congress Party. Make no mistakes: it was the only legally sanctioned organisation of that kind, as Sudan was a one-party state during the Bashir Era.
While involved in negotiated settlement of the Second Sudanese Civil War (fought 1983-2005), and leading the country through a period of ‘oil boom’ in the 1990s and 2000s, Bashir and his hardliners have provoked the outbreak of several insurgencies in the eastern and western Sudan, and a war with Chad, all fought in period 2003-2020. Moreover, in 2007, the Sudan was hit by catastrophic floods, which caused additional, massive damage to the agriculture. Unsurprisingly, the country is also one of hungriest on this planet…
During the War in Darfur (fought 2003-2020), the SDF and police proved unable to counter the insurgents of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). The insurgents were complaining about chronic neglect and marginalisation by Khartoum, but at last as motivated by a severe drought and the resulting famine, which in turn caused increased immigration from Chad. However, the SLM and the JEM were primarily composed of non-Arab Muslims: the Fur, Zaghawa, and Mesalit ethnic groups, and farmers, from West and South Darfur, which have relatively rich, fertile lands. Thus, Bashir reached back upon networks of already existing militias to hire mercenaries from (nomadic) Arab- and Arabised tribes of North Darfur. Thus came into being militias best known as the ‘Janjaweed’ (something like ‘Devils on horseback’) – but who are calling themselves the ‘Fursan’ (Horsemen).
(Origins of the Janjaweed can be traced back to the militias of the Abbala and Rizeigat Arab tribes of camel herders of North Darfur. In the 1980s, Libyan leader Muammar Qaddaffi used these to establish the Islamic Legion: a militant, pan-Arabist, but racist militia the task of which was to de-stabilise Nimeiri’s regime at the time this was receiving Western support. Subsequently, Qaddaffi was deploying them for attacks into Chad – at least until a combined Franco-Chadian ‘raid’ destroyed their main base, in 1987… essentially, it was always the same old story of one or another dictator misusing racism and religion for own purposes.)
Through the second half of the 2000s, Bashir deployed the Janjaweed into a campaign of ethnic cleansing of the Fur, Zaghawa and Mesalit from Darfur. The strategy was quite simple: SDF-troops, commanded by Colonel Abdel Fattah Abdelrahman al-Burhan, would surround the area of interest and this would then be subjected to air strikes by the SuAF. Finally, the Janjaweed would be let in to ‘mop up’…. it was something the SLM and JEM couldn’t counter and resulted in displacement of up to 2.5 million, and over 400,000 killed (that’s what prompted the International Criminal Court (ICC) to indict Bashir of war crimes).
Bashir’s strategy in Darfur was not entirely popular within the SDF: indeed, concerned with growing dissent within ‘his’ armed forces, in 2013 Bashir formalised the status of the Janjaweed through re-organising them as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Nominally controlled by the National Intelligence and Security Service, the RSF was commanded by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, with his brother Abdul Rahim Hamdan Dagalo as deputy (Dagalos are from the Hemetti clan of the Abbala tribe; which earned Mohammed the nickname ‘Hemetti’). Burhan’s star was on the rise, too: he was advanced in rank to General, and eventually appointed the Chief-of-Staff SDF.
….and then the business started to flourish…
While gaining control over large swaths of West and South Darfur, the RSF established control over the local gold mines, too. Burhan and Dagalos began smuggling that gold via the United Arab Emirates (UAE; see the Tradive General Trading LLC) to the Russian Federation, and by 2017 Dagalos were the richest men in the country. In turn, the income from illegal gold exports secured arms and training from Russia (and reported cooperation with the Wagner Private Military Company: ‘Wagner PMC’), a steady influx of other equipment from the UAE – and other sorts of income, too: when Saudis were recruiting foreign mercenaries for their war in Yemen, in 2015, they hired about 40,000 from the RSF. When Khalifa Haftar in Libya needed troops to fight the official government in Tripoli, the Emiratis helped him hire mercenaries from the RSF, too….
‘The spice must flow’, of course and thus when popular protests against Bashir’s regime swept over the Sudan, in 2018-2019, the RSF (meanwhile expanded to about 100,000) was at the forefront of protecting the regime in Khartoum. That didn’t quite work out, and thus Dagalos changed their opinion: in April 2019 the militias helped arrest Bashir (and about 100 closest aides) during a coup led by Bashir’s Vice President and Minister of Defence, General Ahmed Awad Ibn Auf…
A day after the coup, Auf handed power to (meanwhile) Lieutenant-General Burhan, who established the military junta de-facto ruling over the Sudan until today. While banning the NCP and confiscating its property, and then ‘arranging a power-sharing agreement with civilians’, Burhan actually showed no interest in enabling the re-establishment of democracy. On the contrary: he appointed Dagalo as his deputy and, when confronted with continuous mass protests, in late May 2019, toured Cairo, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, securing backing for their regime. On return to Khartum, on 3 June 2019 Burhan and Dagalo deployed the RSF into a crack-down of protesters that became known as the ‘Kharotum Massacre’: about 300 oppositionals were tortured and raped on the streets of the capital, and at least 118 were killed. About 40 ended as bodies in the Nile River…
Of course, this backfired and reignited the mass protesting: in August 2019, Burhan pledged to transfer control to a quasi-civilian government supposed to rule for about 20 months, pending elections. Officially, the Sudan was subsequently led by the ‘Transitional Sovereignty Council’, composed of civilians led by prime minister Abdalla Hamdok al-Kinani (economist, specialised in agriculture). Actually, Burhan and Dagalo still had the final say in all affairs.
To secure their positions, and on Emirati insistence, in 2020-2021, the two then run something like ‘highly successful PR-campaign’, which included normalisation of relations with USA and Israel, and a promise of ‘free, fair, and transparent’ general elections for July 2023. Moreover, they became something like ‘hero democratisers’ when, in September 2021, spoiling a coup attempt by Bashir loyalists (apparently officers of the 1st Mechanised Brigade, SDF).
However, as soon as Hamdok began firing ministers and governors appointed by the junta, on 25 October 2021, Burhan ‘dissolved’ (read: arrested) the entire (civilian) wing of the government in the next coup.
At the first look, Burhan’s plot appeared to be failing because it prompted a new wave of mass protests. However, with Egyptian, Saudi, and Emirati backing, after re-instating Hamdok and freeing all the political prisoners – to ‘quieten critique’ – Burhan centralised all the power in his hands. Once again, everybody outside Sudan was happy, just the Sudanese not: frustrated, Hamdok resigned in January 2022. Before soon, even Dagalos felt ‘marginalised’, too: it’s easy to imagine their frustration about the fact that their power-base – the RSF – was about to be fully integrated into the SDF, which in turn mean that as no qualified military officers, they would lose all of their official positions and privileges…
Reportedly - and combined with Burhan’s efforts to gain support from within circles of Bashir-supporting Islamists, and his permission for Moscow to build a naval base on the Red Sea, early in 2023 – this is what encouraged the two brothers in charge of the RSF (probably supported by the Emiratis, who continue maintaining commercial ties to the militias) into staging a new coup...which was just as fine with Burhan: the resulting ‘crisis’ was certain to ‘prevent him’ from holding the much-promised elections in July 2023…
(…to be continued….)
This is excellent and you wouldn't get such analysis from the news. All you see is two groups apparently fighting for simply power yet there are these intricacies. Growing up I faintly remember stories of the Janjaweed but good to see it explained here. As I told you earlier I enjoy your books from the African war series, I've read about 3 of them and bought others which I'll read in due time. I wish there was a way I could reach out to you and share some extremely rare books to you that I'm certain you'd like but dont have.
Thank you for the background article!