Sudan is no stranger to civil war, but the latest outbreak of violence is a disappointing step back from recent advances in democratic progress. After numerous attempts at a cease-fire failed, the country seems headed for another protracted conflict over numerous deep-seated issues—including human rights violations, marginalization of minority groups, concentration of power and wealth in Khartoum, the expanding political and economic role of the army and paramilitary groups, and pervasive poverty and underdevelopment.
The confrontation between the Sudanese National Army (SNA) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) shows the limits of nonviolent political change in countries tainted by a long history of civil war and politically involved national armies and militias.
Sudan’s Power Struggle
Known for its vast territory, ethnic and religious diversity, and natural riches, Sudan has witnessed a string of civil wars since gaining independence in the 1950s. At the core of this conflict lies a power struggle between Sudan’s political center in Khartoum and its southern and western peripheries. From 1989 to 2019, President Omar al-Bashir, in alliance with radical Islamists, persecuted non-Muslim populations and African tribes living in these remote regions.
A protracted civil war led to the creation of the independent Republic of South Sudan in 2011. In the western region of north Sudan—namely Darfur—successive civil wars between 2003 and 2011 brought about mass atrocities and the depletion of human and material resources.
In 2019, the army leadership ousted al-Bashir and jailed him and his closest aides in response to widespread pro-democracy protests demanding his removal from office. Two generals advanced to the political fore: Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, better known as Hemedti. Hemedti led the Arab paramilitary group Janjaweed, which emerged as a product of the civil war in Darfur—where it massacred an estimated 300,000 people from 2003 to 2005—before evolving into the RSF in 2013.
Both generals led political negotiations with civilian protest representatives, but the transition to democracy was a mere pipedream.
Despite the United Nations’ active mediating role, lengthy discussions on governing were unable to permeate Sudan’s political landscape. All the while, tensions between the government center in Khartoum and the country’s peripheries, as well as between the army and civilian groups on the one hand and the army and paramilitary militias on the other hand, were on the rise. In 2021, civilian prime minister Abdalla Hamdok resigned amid political deadlock, and army leadership and the militias assumed total control of executive powers. A period of political instability and growing hardship for 45 million Sudanese citizens has followed.
Unresolved Conflicts
Much of the current outbreak of violence stems from the failure to integrate various armed groups after al-Bashir’s ouster. The SNA, led by al-Burhan, dominated the Transitional Sovereignty Council, which assumed executive power after ousting al-Bashir. A significant political role was also played by Hemedti’s RSF militia, which was reluctant to integrate its enrolled soldiers and accumulated arms into the national army. Efforts to broker a binding agreement that banned the militias from using arms for political purposes and stipulated their integration in the national army largely failed in recent years, hindering Sudan’s transition.
In addition, power sharing negotiations between the SNA, the RSF, and civilian forces failed to integrate consensus building plans that championed political and economic change. The countless rounds of negotiations and signed agreements that took place between 2019 and 2023 could not bring about a result that satisfied the sentiments behind the 2019 uprising, which demanded democratic governance in the Khartoum center, just distribution of power and wealth, and political and economic inclusion across the country. Sudan’s transition to democracy was significantly encumbered by numerous widespread revolts in its peripheries, where marginalized communities lost faith in the prospects of positive change.
The Way Forward
In this climate of social and political disarray, clashes between the SNA and RSF have progressively intensified. Al-Burhan’s and Hemedti’s previously agreed-upon roadmap to integrate the RSF, military personnel, and arms into the army has been hijacked by Hemedti’s political ambitions to monopolize executive power, triggering an outbreak of hostilities in the past few weeks.
To avert the looming danger of a protracted civil war and state disintegration, both parties must first find their way back to negotiations that prioritize the inclusive integration of all military actors in the national army; otherwise, the current escalation will persist. This is a most needed measure to protect Sudan’s territorial integrity and save its state apparatus from disintegration.
As a second step, the leaders must establish constitutional and legal safeguards to ban the use of arms for political purposes and to protect local communities—in Darfur and elsewhere—that have faced persecution and human rights violations and suffered due to the impunity enjoyed by both state and nonstate actors.
A third step is to restore political negotiations between the army leadership and civilian politicians representing pro-democracy groups. Hamdok’s resignation, which followed deadly protests and stalled negotiations, resulted in widespread popular resignation regarding Sudan’s democratic prospects. Bringing Hamdok and other civilian politicians back to the negotiating table with army leaders—with some guarantees given to civilians by regional and international actors such as the African Union and the United Nations—could help restore citizens’ hopes in Sudan’s democratic transition and peaceful power sharing arrangements between military and civilian groups.
Unresolved tensions between Sudan’s center in Khartoum and the peripheries over political power and the distribution of wealth have also ignited the present conflict. The civil wars in Darfur and other remote regions may have been brought to cease-fire and truce arrangements in recent years, but their root causes—namely the prosecution and marginalization of non-Muslims and African tribes residing remotely—have not been addressed.
Both contenders in the current military confrontation, al-Burhan and Hemedti, have attempted to co-opt movements and leaders representing the rebellious peripheries and to instrumentalize them in the quest for total power. Yet none of them has used executive power to address the legitimate social, economic, and political demands of the people in these regions.
Indeed, poverty and underdevelopment indictors in Sudan have only worsened since 2019, and even more since the civilian participation in the executive branch of government was eliminated following Hamdok’s resignation. Unless the socioeconomic and political grievances of the Sudanese peripheries are addressed in future negotiations, both between military leaders as well as between the army and civilian groups, peace and stability in Sudan will prove illusive.
No longer a case of hopeful democratic transition, Sudan is severely at risk for state failure and disintegration. However, for the first time in decades, Khartoum has become embroiled in the violence, and its residents are paying the price for the long-term warmongering against the country’s peripheries and for the nationwide instability. As a result, the increased internal and external attention might pull Sudan out of its stalemate. Saving Sudan from the horrible fate of state disintegration and restoring the prospects of stability, and later for democracy and development, are possible if regional and international actors work to integrate the militias in the national army and facilitate political talks between military and civilian groups.