After months of tensions and hostile statements from both sides, the rivalry between the Sudanese army, led by Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the chairman of the Sudanese Sovereign Council serving as president, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group led by his former deputy on the Sovereign Council, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (alias Hemedti), erupted into open armed clashes on 15 April this year.
At the heart of the current crisis, notes the Arab Centre for Policy Studies in Qatar, is the ongoing struggle between the two aforementioned political-military formations for power and control over the country’s economic resources. None of the leaders of these groups intends to relinquish the power and influence they have acquired, which allows them to exploit Sudan’s rich natural resources, from gold deposits to arable land and access to ports on the Red Sea, for their own personal benefit.
It should be borne in mind here that following the October 2021 coup that dissolved the transitional civil-military government of Abdalla Hamdok, Hemedti became the country’s de facto vice-president without any control over his activities. As a result, he concentrated a great deal of power in his hands, gaining access to the country’s budget and a mandate to represent Sudan on the world stage through alliances and trade deals.
The immediate trigger for the outbreak of hostilities was a sharply escalated disagreement over the terms and timing of the integration of the RSF into the Sudanese Armed Forces under the Framework Agreement signed by the parties on 5 December 2022. Al-Burhan believes that the integration of the armed forces should take place within two years, while Hemedti insists on a 10-year period. However, it cannot be ruled out that this step was also the result of the unbridled political ambitions of a newly minted African oligarch with Bonapartist tendencies, as the development of internal political processes in African countries has recently become increasingly evident.
With relations sharply strained, both sides began to frantically search for allies. In this regard, Arab political circles have suggested that there is no way Hemedti could have attempted a coup against al-Burhan without getting the green light from Abu Dhabi, where his financial assets are kept. According to a Middle East publication, Hemedti’s fortune is estimated at $7 billion, half of which is held in a UAE bank. He earned this money from the “gold trade” under Omar Bashir for his services in the fight against rebels in 2003 in West Darfur, gaining control over a number of gold mines in the state. In addition, 11 of his enterprises are located in the UAE, which smelts gold ore from Sudanese mines that is illegally sourced there.
At the same time, these circles draw attention to the fact that three days before he spoke out against al-Burhan, UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan arrived on an unannounced visit to Cairo, where he was met at the airport by Egyptian President al-Sisi. It is not known what the two figures discussed, but what is clear is that Mohamed bin Zayed had ample leverage, given Egypt’s sharply deteriorating economic situation, to pressure his Egyptian vis-à-vis to persuade him to withdraw military support for al-Burhan in Sudan.
Abu Dhabi, however, has denied that it is providing military support to Hemedti. Meanwhile, according to The New York Times, the UAE, under the guise of providing humanitarian aid to refugees from Sudan, is also supplying arms, drones and other military equipment to Chad’s Amjaras airfield, which is then transferred to Sudan.
At the same time, these circles draw attention to the fact that three days before he spoke out against al-Burhan, UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan arrived on an unannounced visit to Cairo, where he was met at the airport by Egyptian President al-Sisi. It is not known what the two figures discussed, but what is clear is that Mohamed bin Zayed had ample leverage, given Egypt’s sharply deteriorating economic situation, to pressure his Egyptian vis-à-vis to persuade him to withdraw military support for al-Burhan in Sudan.
Abu Dhabi, however, has denied that it is providing military support to Hemedti. Meanwhile, according to The New York Times, the UAE, under the guise of providing humanitarian aid to refugees from Sudan, is also supplying arms, drones and other military equipment to Chad’s Amjaras airfield, which is then transferred to Sudan.
Abu Dhabi’s bet on Hemedti creates problems not only for Cairo, but also for Riyadh, which has equally serious, if not greater, economic interests in Sudan. But, as The Middle East Eye notes, Crown Prince Mohammed ben Salmane, given the sad experience of joint military action between the UAE and KSA in Yemen, when their troops were unable not only to dislodge the Houthis from Sanaa, but also to prevent the firing of rockets at airports and other targets throughout the kingdom, is not interested in the current conflict in Sudan escalating into a full-scale civil war, which will lead to the disruption of Riyadh’s economic projects in the Red Sea region and, first of all, in this country.
To this should be added the latent rivalry that has recently unfolded between the leaders of these two states for leadership in the Arab world. The fact is that the financial “boom” observed today in Abu Dhabi has created in local circles a kind of euphoria of permissiveness in doing business with African and other partners without taking into account the interests of other states, which causes discontent in Riyadh.
Egypt’s position on the Sudanese conflict is determined by the fact that Cairo sees it as a direct threat to its national security, as its further escalation could lead to an aggravation of the situation on its already turbulent southern borders, in particular opening routes for arms smuggling and illicit trade.
Cairo has supported al-Burhan since 2019, when he took power by overthrowing the al-Bashir regime and thus halting the country’s democratic transition process, which could in turn prompt Egyptians to protest against al-Sisi’s military regime. In addition, Egypt sees Sudan as a strategic ally in addressing the issue of equitable distribution of the Blue Nile waters in relation to Ethiopia’s construction of the Grand Renaissance hydroelectric plant.
With the outbreak of hostilities in Sudan, The Economist claims, the Egyptian Air Force launched several strikes against RSF targets in Khartoum, but then, heavily financially dependent on Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait and the IMF, Cairo was forced to adopt a more restrained stance, favouring tacit cooperation with al-Burhan to, in the words of one observer, “try to prevent a dangerous precedent of a shift from military autocracy to civilian democracy”.
As for the US, here it failed utterly. Just weeks before this conflict began, as The New York Times notes, U.S. diplomats and some U.N. officials were saying that Sudan was on the verge of a “breakthrough agreement” to move the country from a military dictatorship to a “full-fledged democracy”.
The point is, the newspaper continues, that Washington planned to use the example of Sudan to demonstrate the effectiveness of the Biden administration’s foreign policy course, which is based on “promoting democracy around the world”, which allegedly leads to weakening the positions of corrupt leaders and allows countries to resist the influence of China, Russia and other states.
But the development of events took such an unexpected turn that, as the American newspaper emphasises, “US efforts to promote democracy in Sudan led to a military conflict” and thus US diplomats who were negotiating with the Sudanese had to hurriedly close their embassy in Khartoum and because of the threat to their personal safety after one of the cars of the diplomatic mission was fired upon, this time fleeing from the capital not by plane, as it happened in Afghanistan, but by helicopters at night.
Critics of the Biden administration emphasise that US diplomats “made a serious blunder by indulging these two generals from the very beginning of their rise to power, agreeing to their irrational demands and treating them as legitimate politicians, which only created the illusion of their legitimacy and fuelled their lust for power”. At the same time, previous President Donald Trump contributed much to the failure of American policy in the country, when he declared, after the overthrow of Omar al-Bashir, “Today, the great people of Sudan are in power, and a new democracy is taking root”.
Jacqueline Burns, former advisor to the US Special Representative for Sudan and South Sudan, now an expert at the RAND Corporation, believes that the current crisis in Sudan is also the fault of the US. In her opinion, when Omar al-Bashir’s regime was toppled in 2019, Washington did not provide the necessary support to political parties and civil society organisations that initiated anti-government protests, giving priority to establishing cooperation with military leaders.
And until recently, the US continued to focus on appeasing the two rival generals, giving credence to their public statements that they would hand over power to a civilian government in the short term, something that has never happened in the history of modern Sudan in 40 years of military rule. At the same time, according to many experts, the U.S. completely ignores the fact that its intentions to “democratise Sudan” are met with either indifference or, more often, hostility on the part of the Gulf countries with authoritarian methods of governance. Egypt, for example, which maintains close ties with Sudanese military circles, is not at all “interested in promoting the democratic process” on its southern border, fearing that this could lead to the activation of the local opposition.
Washington sees one of its main goals in this region as preventing the establishment of a Russian naval base on Sudanese territory, which has been discussed since the days of Omar Bashir.
The armed conflict that broke out seven months ago threatens to escalate into a protracted, full-scale civil war in most parts of the country. As of today, in Khartoum and its twin cities of Bahri and Omdurman, the RSF controls the Al-Jaili refinery, Khartoum airport, the presidential palace, the state broadcaster in Omdurman and large parts of the capital’s residential neighbourhoods.
As a result of the offensive in Darfur over the past two months, they have been able to dislodge regular army forces from the region and take control of four of the five states in the region-South Darfur, West Darfur, Central Darfur and East Darfur.
The seizure of those territories was accompanied by massive atrocities against local African tribes. In late October of this year, for example, some 1,000 Massalit Africans, mostly teenagers, women and the elderly, were killed by RSF fighters and local Arab militias in the village of Ardamata, near the West Darfur State capital of El Geneina, after the Sudanese army had retreated from the town. Even earlier, on 15 June, the Governor of that State, Khamis Abdallah Abakar, a member of that ethnic group, was abducted and killed in that town. This was after he had given an interview to the Saudi television channel Al Hadas in which he accused the RSF and local Arab militias associated with them of genocide of the Massalit tribe.
With Khartoum at the epicentre of the fighting, General Burhan relocated his headquarters and most of the Government offices on the Red Sea coast to Port Sudan in August this year, where foreign embassies have also been relocated. In the capital, the Sudanese Armed Forces are fighting the SIS from well-fortified military bases, including the Wadi Seidna airbase.
Nine of the 18 states in the north and east of the country are now under central administration. These are the most economically developed areas, with mining and various agricultural products, including exports to the Gulf.
The intensity and scale of recent hostilities indicate that Africa’s third-largest country is rapidly descending into a state of chaos bordering on state collapse. According to the latest figures, at least 10,400 people have been killed in the fighting, mostly in Khartoum and the Darfur region. Five million people – about a tenth of Sudan’s population – have been internally displaced, while another 1.2 million have fled to neighbouring countries Chad, South Sudan and Egypt. Half of the remaining population is in need of humanitarian assistance.
According to the British publication Middle East Eye, according to diplomatic sources connected with the talks held in Judeh between the two warring parties mediated by Saudi Arabia and the United States, neither side is going to compromise and is determined to wage war until the end of the war.
Moreover, it seems that if neither side is able to inflict a decisive defeat on its rival, they are ready to set up their own governments in the territories under their control according to the Libyan scenario, where the East and West of the country are governed by administrations independent of each other.
Having relocated most government offices to Port Sudan, the country’s main seaport with the only international airport currently in operation, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan has already begun to reorganise them as he sees fit.
As chairman of the Sovereign Council, he approved the transitional government’s decision to dismiss the Ministers of Interior, Justice, Industry and Religious Affairs in order to optimise governance and address pressing issues. In separate decrees, he also dismissed the Governors of Al-Jazeera, Kassala, West Kordofan and Northern Darfur States. Somewhat earlier, he issued a decree relieving five civilian members of the Sovereign Council of their duties.
For his part, the Commander of RSF, General Hemedti, has warned that the establishment of a new Government in Port Sudan would force him to form his Government in Khartoum or another city under the control of his armed forces. In this regard, it has been suggested that El Geneina, the administrative centre of Western Darfur State, which is the main route linking the Sudan to Chad and from where the SIS receives military aid, might be the most suitable location. To give “legitimacy” to his government, experts believe Hemedti may even include representatives of various civil organisations.
Despite the RSF’s recent successes in taking control of four of Darfur’s five states, some experts believe that Hemedti’s chances of winning remain slim. Unlike General al-Burhan, he does not belong to the traditional Khartoum elite, which has dominated the political and economic life of Sudan since its independence in 1956, regardless of the form of government, whether civilian or military. Therefore, in terms of his position in Sudan’s military and political circles, as the British Guardian writes, he remains an “outsider”.
Al-Burhan, by contrast, has positioned himself as a legitimate head of state, having spoken at the most recent UN General Assembly and Arab League meeting about recognising the RSF as a terrorist organisation. While in New York, he held meetings with the presidents of Egypt, Uganda, Ethiopia and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
It should be noted that the Russia-Africa summit held in St. Petersburg at the end of July this year was attended instead of General Al-Burhan, as previously promised by the Sudanese side, due to the hostilities in the country, by his deputy on the Sovereign Council of Sudan, Malik Agar, who during his visit to Moscow in June requested assistance in ending the armed conflict. In a conversation with him, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov assured his interlocutor that Moscow was using all the contacts available to it to resolve the problem.
The Sudanese army’s ability to inflict a decisive defeat on the Rapid Reaction Force has not yet been realised. Even if it manages to regain control of Khartoum, its further advance to liberate Darfur will face a huge logistical problem – the distance from Khartoum to the state capital of Western Darfur is 1,400 kilometres (like from Kiev to Berlin).
Therefore, according to Khaled Omar Yousef, one of the leaders of the main opposition bloc of Sudanese political parties “Forces for Freedom and Change”, with whom the British Daily Mail concurs, the most likely outcome of the current military-political conflict in Sudan may be the split of the country according to the “Libyan scenario”. Especially, as the Qatari website The New Arab notes, Libyan General Khalifa Haftar, the de facto leader of eastern Libya, and RSF leader Hemedti, who provided military support for his 2019 march on Tripoli, are old acquaintances and represent “two sides of the same coin.”
Viktor GONCHAROV, african expert, candidate of sciences in economics, especially for online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.