Sudan: How Did It Come to This, and How Do We Reverse This Descent into Hell? (I)

Panorama of Khartoum, Sudan, CC BY-SA 2.0

This special issue of the War Diaries deals with the tragic crisis in Sudan. Its author Peter de Clercq, a seasoned UN diplomat who retired at the Assistant Secretary General level provides an insightful analysis. See the podcast here War and Peace with Peter de Clercq – Underground Strategy | Acast

From Peace to War

I attended the independence celebrations in Juba, South Sudan on 9 July 2011 and will never forget the fateful albeit by now surreal words of then President (and now ICC indicted) Omar Al Bashir; “surely, if we can make peace between Sudan and South Sudan, we can help our brothers in Somalia to find their way to peace”. Having served 6 years in Somalia since that day full of hope and unlimited expectations in Juba, I still cannot believe how reality could take such a horrific and obscene turn.

Those of us who were fortunate enough to live in Khartoum in the past, even in times when Darfur and other regions were on fire, will remember that it used to be one of the safest cities on the African Continent. No one, women or men alike, would have thought twice to take a stroll along the Nile in the middle of the night as the temperature sored during the day to well above 40 degrees Celsius.

Those unfortunate enough to still be in Khartoum today will be confronted with an apocalyptic reality where dead bodies are lying on the street, complete neigbourhoods have been obliterated by bombs, rockets or mortars, military and civilian car wrecks and unexploded ammunitions are scattered everywhere, whilst homes, businesses, including banks are being plundered by those who claim to be “liberating” the country from the other side, each deploying the exact same “rules of engagement”.

When I visited Sudan in February, only one sole maverick commentator in the humanitarian community was mentioning the likelihood of a “Libyan scenario”, but literally no one was foreseeing, let alone planning for, the catastrophe that would follow less than two months later. How could this be? How could we not see this coming with the intense political process in motion where countless stakeholders were involved? How could things unravel this quickly?

I will in this article try to provide a very short historical analysis of the dynamics that led to this “descent into hell”, the implosion of the peace process, and the betrayal of the principles of the Sudan revolution that, for a short time, provided a euphoric vision of a new Sudan at peace with itself and the world around it.

How Did We Get Here? Bashir’s Bloody Legacy

Sudan has a long and violent recent history, particularly (but not exclusively) concerning its western Darfur Region and its now southern neighbor (South Sudan). However, the claim of Omar Al Bashir after the independence of South Sudan that all Sudanese were now united under one culture and one religion in what he termed a country “where everyone would be accommodated”¹ could not have been further from the truth; Sudan continued to be a diverse mosaic of peoples, tribes, languages and cultures, with a rich albeit somewhat common history. 

Many of the tribes prevalent in Sudan found themselves on both sides of the border after the decolonization era, with nomadic and pastoral lifestyles co-existing alongside more sedentary farming communities. The internal ethnic, tribal and regional tensions within and between communities were however very much instrumentalized and “weaponized” by Bashir and his military-political-economic-religious, state-captured regime in a masterful divide-and-rule tactic that kept him in power for 26 years before he was deposed in the 2019 revolution. 

The National Congress Party, which was Bashir’s mouthpiece and political control tool based on the National Islamic Front preceding it, was a Salafist movement closely related to the Muslim Brotherhood.  At the same time, simply because he could not afford the risk of having to face an organized and unified military that might challenge his authority one day, Bashir encouraged the role of local and regional armed tribal militias to retain control in the periphery of the country. 

Bashir remained cautious also where it came to the balance of power in Khartoum and allowed the buildup of a paramilitary force in the capital and other major urban centres, which already existed in Darfur (the so-called Rapid Support Forces). As by now is well known, these forces have their origins in the so-called Janjaweed militias that Bashir unleashed on Darfur from 2003 onwards to terrorize local farming communities and in the process suppress political and armed resistance in the West of the country. 

Whereas the RSF grew into a (largely) uniformed paramilitary force during Bashir’s “rule”, their command structure remained distinct from the regular military hierarchy. This was important to ensure that the RSF would constitute a force more loyal to him personally, rather than to the regular military establishment. In addition, Bashir could not afford to rely on the regular intelligence apparatus as a control mechanism, which at times showed a tendency of undermining and potentially challenging him.² However, contrary to the regular military and intelligence institutions in Sudan, RSF forces are predominantly Darfurians and proved therefore more effective in suppressing popular opposition in Khartoum where they were held largely responsible for the 2019 massacres during the early days of the revolution.

Sudan’s “state capture”, which might show some similarities with processes we have seen in South Africa and elsewhere, is unique in that it empowers and enriches an elite that binds the security apparatus (formal and paramilitary), religious interests (which are organized around the oscillating presence of the Muslim Brotherhood) and political leadership. Through control of the state institutions, this establishment maintains itself and keeps ambitions and influence of civil society towards change and accountability at bay. 

The Failure of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and the Future of Sudan

We often forget the past, and even more often we forget to learn from the past. Before there was South Sudan, there was a Comprehensive Peace Agreement for Sudan in 2005, which aimed at “making unity attractive” between the North and the South. I will not go into what happened in South Sudan after the untimely and accidental death of the generally revered leader of the Sudan Popular Liberation Movement (SPLM), Dr. John Garang, but contrary to what some in the international community may think, Sudan would have likely still been one nation today and history may have looked very differently, for Sudan and South Sudan alike, had he lived.

The CPA was an opportunity for all Sudanese, from Juba to Khartoum, from Wau to El Fasher and from Yei up to Wadi Halfa, to come together around the commonalities of their identity, history, and fate, despite their diversity. After the demise of the charismatic and nationally binding figure of Dr. John, that dream vanished, although few in Khartoum will forget the million citizens that turned up on the streets when Garang visited Sudan’s capital for the first time after the cease-fire. Shouts in the street were: “No North without South, no South Without North”!³

The CPA, although a highly consultative process in which I was fortunate enough to have participated modestly, failed to coin peace as the restoration of trust between a caring and responsible state and its population for both North and South. It was still largely driven by the international community and failed to identify, mobilise and harness civil society and popular will on both sides as the driving force for change. 

Equally importantly, Bashir and other NCP cadres, both prior to and after the CPA, had made it clear that Sudan’s leadership had no interest in making a U-turn on the course of systematic and deliberate neglect towards non-Arab populations in what was then the largest country on the African continent. In the absence of a charismatic national Sudanese leader who could make a convincing argument for a shift in national identity and recognition of diversity, no other option than the separation between North and South remained.⁴

The Juba Peace Agreement: Too Many and Too Few Around the Table

In Sudan, after the 2019 revolution which itself was entirely driven by entities representing organized civil society, there was an equal failure to translate this clear voice of the people for responsible and accountable leadership into political action. Prime Minister Hamdok chose to pursue an exclusive economic recovery agenda, which was laudable and not entirely unsuccessful, but ignored the need for security sector reform, which necessitated a courageous and hard look at disentangling the comprehensive (military-economic-political-religious) state capture that had taken place during decades of NCP rule under the leadership of Omar Al Bashir. Hamdok – and Sudan – ultimately paid the price for this choice, and he moreover failed to instrumentalise the enormous political and popular support that was available by the mostly young masses out on the street who had demonstrated their willingness to stand up to, and if necessary, die in the fight for removal or reform of the political-economic-military establishment. 

In 2020, a peace agreement was brokered under the leadership of the United Nations, the African Union, and the Inter-Governmental Authority for Development in East Africa (IGAD), which became known as the Juba Peace Agreement (JPA). This brought around the table a great variety of armed and non-armed opposition groups, in an effort to eventually restore civilian rule in Sudan. A choice was made to include all armed resistance groups who were willing to participate,⁵ whilst those civilian groups that had initiated the popular successful revolution against the Bashir regime had failed to maintain their strong coherence which had led to the installation of PM Hamdok. 

Even before the JPA was on its way to full implementation in November 2021, the security establishment (potentially encouraged by some of the other armed elements around the table)⁶ ran out of patience and moved the Prime Minister aside. This time, civil society no longer had the willpower and unity to make itself heard and seen. Sudan entered a depressing period that some described to me in Khartoum as a “post-revolutionary hangover”. 

Due to the coup conducted by the de facto leader of the country (General Burhan) and the deputy leader of the transitional military council, General Hemedti, the implementation of the peace agreement was shelved, but ultimately resumed in its original format by international and regional actors. This happened despite various warnings by regional and international observers that the JPA was fatally flawed due to it being controlled by the military component of the transitional government (Mil-TG) even before the coup. Moreover, some of the armed groups and conservative religious leaders had instrumentalized the weakening of the civilian components to the agreement by creating/encouraging alternative or parallel structures or steering closer to the military establishment.

There is some irony in this peace process having its seat in South Sudan (and the South Sudanese Government being a major patron to the process) given the internal situation in that country, exemplified by its own lack of stability, unity, security, human rights observance, and governance. 

1. Sudan Tribune of January 1, 2013: “Bashir’s Independence State fall short of expectations”’ speech held in Blue Nile State ↩︎
2. Wikileaks revealed that the then head of the National Intelligence and Security Service, Salah Gosh, actively contemplated removing Bashir following his indictment by the ICC ↩︎
3. Agence France Presse Reporting 9 July 2005 during Garang’s visit to the Sudanese Capital ↩︎
4. The SPLM North moreover failed to contest the elections in Sudan which could have challenged Bashir’s leadership. ↩︎
5. One of the major opposition movements, the SPLM North instead insisted on its own, separate, peace track, however, whilst the Sudan Liberation Movement under Abdel Wahid Nur refused outright to sign with the military present in the transitional government. ↩︎
6. Rift Valley Institute: Rapid Response Update No. 1 December 2021 ↩︎