Sudan faces 'four options' | MEMRI

The massacre of more than 100 civilians in Khartoum on 3 June 2019 by units of the ruling junta in Sudan, the Transitional Military Council (TMC), galvanized some international actions. He led the United States to appoint a new Special Envoy for Sudan after he felt he did not need it. The new envoy, Ambassador Donald Booth, is a career diplomat having served as Obama's special envoy for the same portfolio until 2017. In announcing this appointment, the secretary US State for African Affairs, Tibor P. Nagy, has presented four possible scenarios for Sudan pass – a preferred option and three very bad ones.[1]

The preferred option was, of course, a transition process that would ultimately lead to a civil government acceptable to the Sudanese people. It was a path on which Sudan seemed to move slowly, between the fall of Sudanese President Omar Bashir in April 2019 and the June massacre. This is the only way that seems to offer the possibility of a better life to the 41 million people of Sudan.

Although hope is eternal, this path seems more difficult, as it would imply that the security forces cede power to those who now accuse the TMC of murder, rape and abuse. Nagy reiterated US support for the ongoing efforts of the African Union and Ethiopia to restore the transition at a time when there is almost no trust between the TMC and the civilian opposition. The TMC has affirmed its willingness to install a civil government composed of technocrats to lead the country to elections while keeping real power in his hands.[2] The status quo is a volatile stalemate between the military and the political opposition.

The other, far more dangerous options mentioned by Nagy are the return of the Bashir regime, the decision of the TMC to remain in power or the descent of Sudan into a chaotic situation of Libyan or Somali type.

A return to power of the imprisoned Bashir seems unlikely. But the National Islamist Congress Party (NCP) has deepened its claws in Sudan's state and national security apparatus for nearly 30 years in power. These entities were purged several times to ensure their loyalty (in the end, obviously, it did not work). But it is not impossible to imagine a return to a kind of Bashir-like state, a brutal Kleptocratic regime clothed in the language of political Islam in the guise of a general or an Islamist colonel, a newer version of Bashir. Although the TMC has served dozens of senior officers suspected of disloyalty within the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS), believed to be pro-Bashir officers, it is unlikely that he got them all. In April, the TMC withdrew all officers with the rank of Lieutenant General of the NISS to control this powerful organization. Sudanese Islamists also had friends and supporters in Ankara, Doha, Gaza and even Tehran.

Even outside the military, extremists are not hard to find. Sudanese jihadists have joined the ranks of the Islamic State, Aqmi (al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb) and al-Shabab. They fought and died in Libya, Mali, Syria, Iraq and Somalia.[3] A small cell that nicknamed Al Qaeda in the land of both Niles killed two US Embassy employees in January 2008. Radical clerics, even some who have sworn allegiance to ISIS, are numerous and seem to enter and leave prison.[4] Influential former Infantry leaders, such as Sheikh Masa & ad Al-Sidairah (born 1944), have their supporters.[5] In addition, the ideological infrastructure installed by Communist President Islamist Nimeiry two years before its overthrow in 1985 has proved surprisingly sustainable through various regime changes.

Although the Islamists pose a real threat, the possibility that the TMC remains in power, perhaps under this technocratic fig leaf, seems more likely. Backed by easy credit from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (Bashir was favored by Qatar and Turkey in its last stadium), it could well try to overcome the political turmoil, knowing that the only thing that can be done is to keep up the momentum. Western attention is limited and the list of failed states requiring attention can be long.

If the TMC manages to remain united and prevent the deterioration of the catastrophic economic situation of Sudan, its leaders can deduce that they can survive more or less intact, despite rumors spread that the leaders of the junta in power are more and more divided. Cutting the Internet to stifle massive and peaceful opposition protests is, like many other options of this option, a temporary palliative that the civic opposition will eventually overcome.[6] This is in fact the way in which Sudan has been governed for decades: temporary interim measures that delay reforms and real changes and aim to save a little more time. It is also the default policy of most autocratic regimes in the Middle East.

This is the warning regarding the fourth option – that Sudan can sink into chaos – which presents something new in the Sudanese tradition. The country has been ruled for decades with absolute misery, torn by tyranny in the center and wars on the periphery, but it has never been so close to that in the center of power. There have been bloody coup attempts in Khartoum and a spectacular and unsuccessful raid by rebels from Darfur who reached the Nile bridges to Khartoum in 2008, but nothing like chaos. The country is much more homogeneous than before with the departure of South Sudan in 2011 and the low-intensity brush wars in Darfur, Abyei, South Kordofan and Blue Nile bear witness to the brutal political counter-insurgency led by the regime.

So why is chaos a real possibility? The answer lies in the internal dynamics of the TMC and in the nature of power in Sudan, traditionally monopolized by residents of northern Sudan, usually from the tribal tribes Ja-alin, Shayqiyya and Danagla. The TMC also includes about three components: the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), the NISS and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by his deputy, Lieutenant General Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo (also known as "Hemedti") . SAF and NISS were traditional elite tools and staffed as such.

Of course, RSF has its roots in the brutal counter-insurgency in Darfur and its composition is completely different from that of the army and the intelligence services. There are no "Jallaba" roots in northern Sudan, but it is composed of Arab tribes rearing camels in Darfur, including the Hemedti sub-section, Awlad Mansour, of the Mahariya tribe, which makes part of the largest Northern Rizeigat tribal confederacy. It was these tribes who provided the bulk of the Janjawid, armed and supported by Khartoum, to brutally suppress rebel movements in Darfur. They fought the rebels, attacked civilians and fought each other.

Khartoum has made efforts to formalize and discipline these unruly but useful units. The basic idea was that desperate and unemployed tribesmen enduring decades of war, fighting over grazing rights, land and water, would be good fighters if they were properly routed.[7] RSF was initially controlled by a NISS general, his deputy being Hemedti. But since Bashir did not trust NISS (or SAF), RSF became independent in 2017, giving Hemedti even more power. After all, the Darfur Arabs who barely knew how to read and write could be shock troops to the regime, but they could never exercise power where it really matters in Sudan, in Khartoum, in the Nile Valley. Is not it?

The cupola in power in Sudan therefore presents clear personal, institutional and ethnic fissures. All this seems clearer and clearer than under Bashir. The fact that Bashir (the NCP, SAF, and NISS) relies on a military unit such as the RSF, a marginalized, traditionally marginalized, poor and resentful class, now seems a decisive decision who laid the foundation for his own disappearance. In my own meetings with Janjawid leaders, including Hemedti, they were very aware of how their masters were manipulating them in Khartoum. Not being Islamists, they are not more loyal to the Center than the material benefits or power they could gain. But beyond politics, SAFs and NISSs, as institutions, have their own firearms and ambitions that may not include being ruled by forces they see as their own. lower. Final settlement of accounts within the TMC can only take place in Khartoum.

The aftermath of the June 3 massacre was a key period for determining the correlation of forces within the TMC. Hemedti and RSF have been widely blamed for the massacre. Other generals have been purged for less since April 2019. And what was the result? In reality, the profile of Hemedti is even higher than it was before June 3. On June 18, he appeared live on Sudanese television in front of thousands of members of "popular organizations" in Khartoum: Sufi religious orders, tribal leaders, pro-military professional organizations. (which are smaller than the Sudanese Professionals Association opposition).[8] His speech was brutal, but energetic. He called for a swift transition to an independent government and promised to give local and tribal governments more power to manage their own affairs. Hemedti does not intend to go anywhere.

* Alberto M. Fernandez is President of Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN). The opinions expressed in this document are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official views of the US Government.