Sudan's identity fractures under fire as war grinds into third year

The National

14-04-2025

Sudan's war enters its third year this week, a grim milestone that analysts see as the culmination of the country's feeble nationhood credentials and the chronic lust for power that has been the hallmark of its military since independence nearly 70 years ago. A diverse nation in which ethnic and religious groups have endlessly fought each other, the latest war pits the national army against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. Although both sides claim to be fighting in the name of democracy and freedom, the war is widely seen as a fight between two generals determined to rule unchallenged and prepared to pursue that goal regardless of the cost to Sudan. Already, tens of thousands have been killed in the war since it broke out on April 15, 2023. More than half the population – about 26 million people – are facing acute hunger, with many of them inching closer to famine. Moreover, around 12 million people have been displaced by the war, which experts believe will likely morph into a low-intensity conflict that will continue for years to come. And, just as ominously, the war is taking on increasingly sectarian undertones, the effects of which on Africa's third largest country could be felt for years to come, denying the Sudanese yet again a shot at adopting a socio-political formula to transform diversity and rivalries into national unity. With the tide of war now largely in favour of the army, the conflict will most likely produce another one of Sudan's military strongmen in army chief Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan. His promises of free elections and a civilian-led government are at odds with his track record since he rose to prominence after the removal in 2019 of long-time authoritarian ruler Omar Al Bashir amid a popular uprising. The US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control has imposed sanctions on Mr Al Burhan, accusing him of 'destabilising Sudan and undermining the goal of a democratic transition'. 'This war is not about ideology; it's about who gets to rule the country,' said Sami Saeed, a US-based Sudan expert. 'There is no intention among the officer corps to hand over power to civilians when and if this war ends. They don't believe in elections and are convinced civilians are not qualified to run Sudan. 'A lust for power has been a constant trait among officers of the Sudanese armed forces,' added Mr Saeed, who is vice president of the pro-democracy African Network of Constitutional Lawyers. African and other countries, including the UAE, have called for accountability over breaches of international law by both sides in Sudan's conflict. Since independence in 1956, Sudan has since independence seen a stream of military coups, some successful and many bloody. They were mostly led by ambitious and power-hungry generals convinced only they could put Sudan on the road to unity and prosperity. They toppled elected but ineffective governments and ruled unchallenged before they were removed from power by other generals, often amid popular uprisings. That cycle of military rule and incompetent civilian administrations continued in parallel with bouts of civil strife that drained the nation's vast but marginally tapped resources and deepened its sectarian, religious and geographical fault lines. Atrocities committed during those conflicts – some labelled as ethnic cleansing or genocide – bred hatred and left scars that will take generations to heal. Both Gen Al Burhan and Gen Dagalo stand accused in the current war. 'There is no hope for Sudan as long as the military stands by its conviction that it's the legitimate successor of the British colonialists,' said analyst Mohammed Othman. 'Civilian politicians are ineffective and neither the army nor the Rapid Support Forces have any intention of leaving politics.' The events leading to and following the outbreak of the current war mirror Sudan's vicious cycle of military and civilian rule. After months of publicly discrediting civilian politicians, Gen Al Burhan and RSF commander Gen Mohamed Dagalo jointly toppled a civilian-led government in a coup that derailed Sudan's democratic transition, plunged it into economic chaos and created a dangerous security vacuum. Both claim to have staged the coup to spare Sudan a civil war and to launch what they described at the time as a new and more inclusive democratic transition. That shift never happened and the months that followed the coup saw scores of anti-military protesters killed by security forces on the streets. But it did not take long before differences between the two generals surfaced, with the pair at sharp odds over their role in a future, democratic Sudan and the thorny question of assimilating the RSF into the armed forces. Inevitably, their differences boiled over into the conflict that has been ravaging Sudan. Ironically, Gen Al Burhan, perhaps unwittingly, contributed to building up the RSF as a formidable force, allowing Gen Dagalo to deploy his men across the capital and have the exclusive use of large military bases there. 'Omar Al Bashir empowered the Rapid Support Forces to protect his rule against possible military coups and Al Burhan kept it happy, also as security against a coup that could topple him,' said analyst and newspaper publisher Osman Al Mirghani. The RSF is mostly made up of Arab tribesmen from the Darfur region. Its forerunner is the notorious Janjaweed militia, which stands accused of war crimes during the civil war in Darfur in the 2000s. Its fighters are blamed for the killing of thousands of ethnic Africans in Darfur during the summer of 2023 as well as looting and extrajudicial killings in the capital and central Sudan. Although its fighters have been forced out of the capital, where they had almost full control for nearly two years, and driven out of central Sudan, the RSF continues to hold on to most of Darfur and parts of Kordofan to the south-west, as well as Blue Nile in the south. That leaves the army and its allied volunteers in control of the capital and the eastern, northern and central parts of the country. This division of territory reflects fault lines within the country, with the RSF wielding control over the impoverished west and the army in the Arabised and more prosperous remainder of the country. It is a division that is at the heart of the RSF narrative, which frequently portrays itself to be fighting for the 'muhamasheen' – or 'people of the margins' – a reference to natives of Darfur and Kordofan, two vast states with a history of enmity between cattle-herding Arab tribes and farming communities of ethnic Africans. It is against this backdrop that the RSF this month staged two attacks on a region of northern Sudan that had mostly been untouched by the war. Importantly, it is also home to the nation's political, military and economic elite. Using suicide drones, the paramilitary targeted the power station of a Nile hydroelectric dam in Maroue and later the airport at Dongola, both in the Shamaliyah state, north of the capital. Those growing sectarian and tribal undertones of the war are rooted in time-honoured practices by Sudanese leaders that have enshrined divisions for political or military gain. They also point to the continuing absence of effective state institutions. 'What the British left in Sudan when their occupation ended in 1956 could have been the basis on which we build on,' said Mr Saeed. 'They left dams, vast agricultural projects, a railway and a good university. But we chose to enter ethnic conflicts and now we have no modern institutions. We are left with banners and headlines, but no real institutions.' Mr Al Bashir, who ruled for 29 years, provided a potent example of how Sudanese leaders have sacrificed nation-building in return for political survival. He bankrolled and armed the Janjaweed and later the RSF to fight against ethnic Africans who rose up against his regime in Darfur in the 2000s. More than a decade later, he summoned the RSF from Darfur to the capital to protect his rule against a popular uprising in 2018-19 that eventually toppled him. Mr Al Bashir stoked old tribal rivalries in the mainly Christian and animist south to weaken the Dinka tribe, by far Sudan's largest Nilotic group and primary source of fighters in a civil war against the north that lasted more than two decades. The war ended with a 2005 peace agreement and the secession of South Sudan six years later, a move that deprived Sudan of a third of its territory and most of its oil wealth. He also enlisted the help of loyal Islamists to fight the southern rebels, capitalising on their religious zeal and dream of disenfranchising non-Muslims. Gen Al Burhan has in some ways followed in Al Bashir's footsteps. With an officers corps filled with Islamists once promoted by Mr Al Bashir, he has recruited members of the dictator's reviled militias to fight the RSF and, according to the analysts, took little action to rein them in following charges they administered kangaroo justice to civilians suspected of sympathising or collaborating with the paramilitary. And, like many Sudanese leaders before him, he routinely accuses foreign and regional powers of scheming against Sudan or supporting the RSF. 'Contrary to what our politicians like to have us believe, Sudan's many crises are a product of domestic policies not foreign meddling or conspiracies,' said Mr Al Mirghani. 'This grave mistake distracts us from remedying the roots of our problems.'