A few short years after a popular revolution in Sudan, democracy has been crushed and a bloody civil war is now being waged by rival military factions. Alan Sheeran explains the background to the war.
There is a reason the current ongoing civil war in Sudan is being referred to as “the Forgotten War”.
After a full-blown civil war broke out in April 2023, the focus of most Western media was almost exclusively on the evacuation of civilians who had either a citizenship or residency visa of a Western country. Most of them were Sudanese doctors, on whom the NHS and HSE are dependent, who happened to be visiting their families at the time.
As soon as the evacuation of those had been completed, the media coverage dried up, especially after the horrific genocide began in Gaza.
Since the fighting broke out in April 2023, more than 12,000 civilians have been killed, more than 7 million displaced, and more than 70% of hospitals closed. Shortages of food and medicine are commonplace at a time of widespread epidemics, such as cholera.
The fighting is between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The former are commanded by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the latter by General Hemedti.
These two thugs were once united in carrying out a counter revolution coup against the transitional government that followed a negotiated military and civilian power sharing agreement in August 2019.
The Sudanese Revolution started with street protests throughout Sudan in 2018 and continued for months with persistent popular mass protests, strikes and civil disobedience acts that eventually succeeded in putting an end to Dictator Al-Bashir rule on 11 April 2019, after thirty years in power.
Following that success, the revolution’s progress was faced with challenges and repressions by the previous military allies at the time (and the current war rivals). The notorious Khartoum massacre on 3 June 2019 in front of the Army Headquarters was carried out by those military leaders in an attempt to control the political power; however, eventually mass protests continued, paving the way for a power sharing agreement that formed a moderate transitional government. A move, though not fulfilling the revolutionaries aspirations, was an accepted compromise by many.
The same generals staged a coup on 21 October 2021, in violation of the Constitutional Agreement.
Deposed Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok negotiated his way back after a period of house arrest by agreeing to most of the military’s demands on 21 November 2021. The deal was backed by Western governments and the counter-revolutionary quarters of regional powers—Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt and Israel. But that isolated move was widely refused by the revolutionary masses, leading to the ex-Prime Minister’s ultimate resignation on 2 January 2022.
A new political force emerged to resist this stitch up — the neighbourhood-based Resistance Committees. Those revolutionaries mobilised hundreds of thousands onto the streets to challenge the coup, through days of civil disobedience, strikes and major street protests.
Resistance Committees intervened to oversee some services, like the supply of flour to bakeries, distribution of bread and cooking gas. At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic some committee members sent out teams of activists to spread public health messages and distribute face masks and sanitisers.
The leaders of the Sudanese Army and the RSF, who had previously caused immense violations in Darfur, felt threatened by the new emerging well-organised mass movement; and intensified their efforts to put it down. Their conflicting interests in power and control over the country’s wealth ignited the current war.
Behind them stand some regional and international powers, who are interested in grabbing Sudan’s natural resources and land, as well as controlling its strategic Red Sea ports.
The RSF is armed and supported by the United Arab Emirates, while the Sudanese army is supported mainly by Egypt. Rank and file soldiers have been used by the UAE and other Gulf states as mercenaries in the bloody war in Yemen.
There are more than two hundred million acres of cultivable fertile land in Sudan. International corporations are eying it up.
Russia also has imperialist interests in Sudan, often operating by playing with both conflicting factions. Two of the biggest mining companies in the country are Russian controlled.
The EU has also played a negative role in the country. At the time of Al-Bashir’s rule, the EU had indirectly funded the RSF for its border control role in stopping the flow of migrants to Europe.
Efforts are now afoot to bring both counter-revolutionary forces together to end this terrible war. However, real peace will only come to Sudan when the Resistance Committees and grassroots organisations are fully involved in shaping the country’s future, and in empowering the people. Removing the military from any future political role, bringing justice and protecting the county’s resources are key elements in achieving sustainable peace.
Meanwhile, a lot is to be done by the international community in exerting pressure to bring the war to an end, and in securing much needed humanitarian aid.
