The dilemma of delay in Africa’s rise (3)

SUDAN HAS BEEN BETRAYED and abandoned by its leaders within, at the continental level in Africa and the wider world. Children and adults in the city and in the countryside are panicking. Lives are in danger. Hunger stalks the land and diseases are ravaging the country as guns are roaring, all because two people are pulling the power levers in different directions, thus straining the ordinary Sudanese populace whose expectations have been cut short, their optimism washed away and their hope dashed. Sudanese people heaved a sigh of relief on 11 April 2019, when President Omar al-Bashir was overthrown by the Sudanese Armed Forces after popular protests demanded his departure. That ended a 30-year despotic rule of a man who turned armed militia groups against his people in 2003. The brains behind the coup d’état took advantage of the protests in Sudan to win popular support and quickly legitimise their hold on power as the new kids on the block. Little did the people know that those taking over would tear Sudan further apart faster than al-Bashir did in 30 years.

The gladiators raised the expectations of their countrymen and women in the aftermath of the coup d’état. A fragile transition to civilian rule was cobbled together, following the transfer of power from the Transitional Military Council to the Sovereignty Council of Sudan during the 2019 plan for what was made to have a semblance of democracy. In the process, the Sovereignty Council appointed Abdalla Hamdok as Prime Minister, swearing him in on August 21,  2019. In that arrangement, he was made a lame duck. At the crescendo of his ordeals, Mr. Hamdok was ousted in October 2021, as his government was dissolved in a military coup. He was reinstated in November after weeks under house arrest. This was then seen as the biggest concession made by the military since its October 25, 2021 coup. It created a leeway for the country’s transition to democracy to be mired in crisis.

The deal that the military reached with Mr. Hamdok that would reinstate him as the head of a new technocratic Cabinet ahead of eventual elections was soon to be truncated as pro-democracy movement leaders accused Hamdok of allowing himself to serve as a fig leaf for continued military rule. Mr. Hamdok, after signing a new power-sharing agreement with the coup leader, Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, could not stop the protesters who continued mass protests on the political deadlock, calling for a return to full civilian rule. He failed to gain control of the fractious country. In response, Hamdok stepped down from office on January 2, 2022.

With Hamdok out, the turf was now open for a brutal contest between two power mongers in military uniform who began to show their hidden plans that drove a wedge between them, leading Sudan down the precipice. On 15 April, 2023, fighting first broke out between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The authority of SAF, under al-Burhan was despised by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known also as “Hemedti,” who leads the RSF. The standoff was after a protracted disagreement on the suggestions about absorbing the RSF into the SAF. Tension has been brewing for months between SAF and RSF that plotted together to topple al-Bashir’s government. Khartoum, the capital, was the first theatre of a war that was about to engulf the rest of the country. Within a year, RSF — a militia group that morphed into a national officially recognised paramilitary body — became a force capable of protecting the president from his closest rivals. Hemedti was also a thorn in the flesh of SAF and al-Burhan. It was not altogether surprising as RSF had an antecedent. It was an offshoot of Janjaweed, the ethnic Arab militia from which it was formed . It was notorious for the alleged genocide against non-Arab ethnic groups in Darfur. It gained confidence and prominence as former President al-Bashir tried to coup-proof his regime by elevating the Janjaweed into the RSF. They were now getting prepared to unleash another round of mayhem Darfur.

With Hemedti breaking away from the government run by SAF, the die was cast. The guns took over and violence became the norm, leading to more than 15,550 reported fatalities in Sudan since the war began on April 15, 2023. Armed Conflict Location & Events Data (ACLED), a think tank that collects real-time data on all reported political violence and protest events around the world, including locations, dates, actors, fatalities, and types, has a grim report on Sudan. According to ACLED, a humanitarian agency, it has recorded 5,550 events of political violence, in addition to the fatalities, with the most political violence recorded in Khartoum state, where over 3,660 events and over 7,050 fatalities were reported. The civilian population has been relentlessly ɓattered as ACLED gave reports of over 1,400 violent events targeting civilians since the war began. Apart from the killings of hundreds in Sudan’s el-Fasher, more than 900 had been reported as wounded in the capital of North Darfur province in fighting between the SAF and RSF.

The case in Darfur has become pathetic since last year as 32 per cent of all reported civilian fatalities in the country was being recorded in Darfur, while targeted violence in Darfur was twice as likely to be deadly for civilians than targeted violence in other states in Sudan. Whoever thinks internal politics are inconsequential needs to think again. Power tussles between the two personalities has been costing Sudan so much in terms of men, materials and moments wasted. It is doubtful if both contesters for superiority and power ever considered those they are currently using as canon fodder. 

A major misfortune left behind for the Sudanese people was the decision to elevate the Janjaweed into the RSF. Its leader, Mohamed Hamdan, with the benefit of hindsight, can now be said to have conspired with Army Chief, al-Burhan, to oust Bashir in the hope of leading the government ultimately. This is clear as they have eventually shattered the remnants of any hopes of an orderly, democratic transition and instead sowed the seeds of a new war. What has now become a full scale civil war initially started as a power struggle between the SAF and the RSF.  Several militia and rebel groups, along with their foreign backers, have been drawn into the conflict, giving it an international dimension. Now, it is unlikely that either of those two personalities that started the war will be capable of restoring peace, control and orderliness over the entire territory of Sudan even now that the war has been dragging on. Those other actors who have found means of money making in this predicament are now competing to establish themselves as local security providers.

The pecuniary benefits to those who have been positioned to take advantage of the vulnerable will likely contribute to prolonging the war. Seeking internal solutions may therefore be a bit problematic, especially for the war-weary populace. The real help will have to come from outside. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), brings the world together to tackle humanitarian emergencies and save the lives of people caught in crises. Earlier in 2024, OCHA reported that more than 8.8 million people fled their homes since mid-April 2023. It pointed out that access to food remains the priority need of IDPs, followed by healthcare, water, and sanitation services, particularly across the Darfur and Kordofan regions. According to OCHA, rising levels of hunger and severe acute malnutrition are anticipated to result in increasing levels of hunger-related mortality in the coming months. Considering the brutal attacks by the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group, a concern grows that Darfur is facing another genocide. Its exploits are aimed at taking the last major population centre in Darfur that it does not control.

It is disappointing that Sudan has been abandoned even by Africa. The African Union, after some feeble talks about raising some $80 billion to save Sudan, have gone quiet. Only recently, last April, some donors pledged more than 2 billion euros ($2.13 billion) for war-torn Sudan at a conference in Paris. This is like a drop of water in a bucket. The responses from most other international organisations and countries have remained cold. Recognising that an instability in Sudan, is pointer to an African and a global instability, as observed by the research and advocacy, Crisis Group. Crisis in Sudan, a strategic country that connects the Sahel, North Africa, the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea, clearly has implications well beyond its borders, the Crisis Group noted. Indifference towards Sudan now will cost Africa dearly in the long run as Somalia might be a child play in comparison. The global maritime industry might suffer some serious setbacks on the Red Sea corridor in the long run and countries of the West might be tempted to increase their military presence in that axis. Sudan’s war seems to have been forgotten by the wider world. Unlike the war in Gaza or that of Ukraine making news headlines daily,  Sudan’s war has been largely ignored while the country is fast deteriorating. It needs urgent intervention and salvage efforts. Time is going fast against Sudan. Someone somewhere needs to rise to its rescue. Delay is dangerous.

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