fbpx
Monday, December 23, 2024
22.1 C
Abuja

From Sudan, the perils of bad manners

In many ways, a perennial power tussle between factions of the usurping military leaders has become the centerpiece of Sudan’s political life in recent times.

In a tragic sense, Sudan is somehow lucky. Its leading political figures, who also happen to be combatant generals, have not hidden their differences beneath a façade of mutual deceit. They have instead allowed their differences to blossom into an open bloody confrontation. The two top generals who also happen to be the top political citizens of a nation with many hidden wounds have spared no effort in coming into the open to display their differences and clashing ambitions. These differences also happen to reflect the many hidden complications in Sudan’s national life: religious differences, economic interests, political ambition, a politicized military, big power transferred aggression and the aggressive strategic goals of big powers.

When an animosity between two rotten warlords blossoms into a shooting war, it opens the path to either a national meltdown or some kind of settlement. It is either the stronger force subdues the weaker and dictates the terms of a peaceful settlement or an equilibrium of forces is achieved in which case peace through negotiation becomes the only path open to all. In the next couple of weeks, Sudan may have to migrate from the present rage of clashing warlords to a full civil war, yet another in a series since after independence in 1956.

In a little over a week, Khartoum, the capital, has been transformed from a scraggy sprawling city in the sun into the battlefield of an undeclared civil war. A contest for power supremacy between two corrupt ambitious generals has reopened the window for familiar military adventurism. The bloody rivalry between the two topmost senior military and political leaders has exploded into a real combat situation between factions of the Sudanese military and security forces. War planes, tanks and other weapons of war are being used freely as troops shoot into civilian population centres in Khartoum and beyond.

The raging confrontation is between the forces of General Abdul Fattah al-Burhan, Commander of the Sudanese Army, against those of General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commander of the Rapid Support Force (RSF), a paramilitary security force. Both are semi-autonomous forces competing for pre-eminence in the post al- Bashir era. Both men happen to be the topmost political figures, Head and Deputy respectively, in an interim semi-military government presiding over the country after a series of shifting power arrangements after the toppling of Omar al Bashir in a 2019 coup led by both men. Both men also staged a coup that wrested power from the revolutionary civilian coalition of civil society groups whose protests facilitated the ousting of al-Bashir’s three decades of Islamist authoritarianism.

The raging bloody confrontation has degenerated into a blood bath. Casualties have mounted and order has collapsed. Close to 300 deaths have been reported with over 3,500 injured. Most of the victims are innocent civilians and international workers according to independent journalists and observers. The diplomatic community has been badly hit with United Nations offices and diplomats’ residences openly ransacked and looted. Disturbing cases of open harassment of female diplomats have been reported. Attempts by the international community to broker a cessation of hostilities has led to two failed ceasefires that collapsed within minutes of being announced.

The African Union (AU) has, as usual, been generous with condemnations of the violence with a basket of resolutions and threats, calling on both sides to come to the negotiating table. The United Nations has in turn joined in ritual condemnations of the fighting and its tragic fallouts. Meanwhile, the hostilities are assuming the character and dimensions of a full blown civil war.

The origins and drivers of the resurgent violence in Sudan go beyond a mere interpersonal power tussle between the two very corrupt and ambitious political and military overlords. It goes down to the strategic issues and factors that have always defined the country’s existence and recurrent crises. The primary conflict is that between a growing popular democratic wave and the long standing conservative Islamist power establishment that was the basis of the three decades long Omar al-Bashir hegemony. The pro- democracy forces that led the 2018 street protests and revolution that helped topple Omar Al Bashir’s 30 year autocracy remain alive. They had started with agitations and street protests for greater accountability and a better standard of living. Pitted against this nascent populist democratic wave is the conservative Islamist power core of the Sudanese state. The current power structure led by both Generals Hamdani and Dagalo are thinly disguised factions of the al-Bashir regime.

It would be recalled that the popular uprising softened the al Bashir autocracy for toppling by the military. In turn, the two dueling generals staged a coup that upstaged the popular revolution, refusing to cede power to the leadership of the popular movement.

 

In many ways, a perennial power tussle between factions of the usurping military leaders has become the centerpiece of Sudan’s political life in recent times. It has consistently sidestepped the transition to popular democracy which remains the major issue in the post al-Bashir era. The compromise that legitimized the now crumbling semi-military administration remains an attempt to forge a tenuous balance of ambitions between these two dominant forces on the one hand and the popular civil society coalition on the other.

Predictably, therefore, the appearance of uneasy political stability that would lead to the planned democratic elections later in two years was more an appearance than a reality. It has now burst into the bloody confrontation on display in and around Khartoum. It is unlikely that the two dueling generals and their followers will be willing to sheath their swords for as long as they still have forces and formations under their respective command and control. Already, deal to subsume the paramilitary Response Force under the larger umbrella of the Sudanese Armed Forces has fallen apart.

Strategically, Sudan’s peculiarities may escalate the present confrontation. The interplay of internal political interests may be overwhelmed by international conspiracies and interests occasioned by a convergence of Sudan’s strategic location and internal composition. The United States has always seen Sudan as something of a precarious and suspicious rogue nation that needs to be constantly kept under watch because of its deep Islamic leanings and sporadic terrorist affinities. Sudan was for a long time a hiding place for jihadist terrorist and fundamentalist organizations associated with a long tradition of anti-Western activism. These range from Yasser Arafat’s temporary refuge in Sudan in the days of the Black September organization. Similarly, Al Qaeda found refuge in Sudan in its formative years leading President Bill Clinton to send cruise missiles to bomb suspected terrorist havens in Sudan in the run up to the emergence of Osama Bin Laden.

As a result, the two opposing tendencies in the global Islamic world have sought and found allies within the Sudanese political leadership. At different times, Iran and Saudi Arabia as well as their client states and allies in the Middle East have courted different regimes in Sudan. Even now, major interests in the Middle East are tending to support either of the two warring generals. Egypt and Libya have assumed opposing alliances in the ongoing confrontation.

At the present time, the Russians have emerged to further complicate an already complex scenario. They have seen an opportunity in the establishment of a naval base in Sudan as an opportunity to counter long standing US and Western influence in Sudan. Similarly, the Saudi’s remain interested in exploiting the political fluidity in the Sudan to advance their interests. Others like Egypt, Libya and the UAE have of late weighed in in a running jostle for regional influence and preeminence. Sudan’s neighbours like Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Sudan and even smaller African authoritarian regimes all have an interest in the contest for supremacy among Sudan’s ambitious and politicized military leaders.

As it turns out, contrary to the prevalent notion that Sudan is merely a vast arid semi desert country, the country actually contains 10 percent of the arable and fertile land mass of Africa. In addition, it has an abundance of natural resources. Its oil reserves are the main attraction for an increasing Chinese presence in the country. It also has abundant gold and uranium resources in which both its immediate neighbours and major international players are deeply interested. Therefore, there is a convergence of international interest in the current instability in Sudan which may make the confrontation degenerate into a full blown civil war with deeply interested external players intent on finding lasting foothold.

For the international community especially both the United Nations and the African Union, a quick resolution to the sudden violent eruption in Sudan is now imperative before the parties ossify into combatant footholds with friends abroad. Sudan should be more than a casual engagement. The international community will have to untangle the web of complex interests that are at play in the Sudanese crisis. The Sudan crisis calls for the highest display of diplomatic dexterity to sufficiently assuage the interests and reassure the combatants. A ceasefire leading to dialogue is the only way out. A quick resolution is imperative if the escalating humanitarian tragedy is not to worsen. Most importantly, the challenge in Sudan is first and foremost that of restoring the original sanctity of the civil society coalition that pressured al Bashir out of power. This should be quickly followed by the restoration of civil authority through a democratic election and return to civil rule. Continuing to sweep the prodemocracy current under the carpet of warlords can only prolong the crisis and plunge Sudan into yet another avoidable civil war. Sudan is boiling from an urgent desire for genuine democracy, not the superficial contest of the huge ego of ambitious war mongers and power oligarchs.

For Nigeria, the evolving tragedy in Sudan has far-fetched repercussions. The United States initiative with its special military mission in AFRICOM will be in peril if Sudan crumbles in an all-out civil war. Sudan holds a delicate geographical place in the international effort to contain the spread of jihadist terror in the Sahel.

Happily, the Nigerian political landscape has evolved beyond the point where politicized generals have privatized commands that can be used to hold the nation to ransom. It is perhaps a happier place to be in the hands of rough political entrepreneurs than be caught in a cross fire between armed warlords funded by the state.

By Chidi Amuta

Dr. Amuta, an academic, literary critic, columnist, essayist, writer and public policy consultant, wrote in from Lagos

Hot this week

AIICO Insurance Opens 2025 IT Graduate Trainee Programme

AIICO Insurance plc is the leading player in the...

Dangote Group Starts Recruitment of New Employees For 2025

Dangote Group is one of Nigeria’s most diversified business...

Application Opens For IBEDC 2025 Recruitment

Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) Plc – Headquartered in...

Application Opens For Heirs Life – Tony Elumelu Foundation Recruitment 2025

Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) is African private-sector-led philanthropy in...

Dangote Praises Tinubu for Crude-for-Naira Swap Deal’s Impact

President of Dangote Industries Limited, Aliko Dangote has commended...

Latest

AIICO Insurance Opens 2025 IT Graduate Trainee Programme

AIICO Insurance plc is the leading player in the...

Dangote Group Starts Recruitment of New Employees For 2025

Dangote Group is one of Nigeria’s most diversified business...

Application Opens For IBEDC 2025 Recruitment

Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) Plc – Headquartered in...

Application Opens For Heirs Life – Tony Elumelu Foundation Recruitment 2025

Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) is African private-sector-led philanthropy in...

Dangote Praises Tinubu for Crude-for-Naira Swap Deal’s Impact

President of Dangote Industries Limited, Aliko Dangote has commended...

German Defense Minister, Pistorius Warns of Hybrid Threat From Russia

Berlin (dpa) - German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said on Sunday that...

Player Schick hits four as Leverkusen win, 10-man Mainz shine again

Berlin (dpa) - Patrik Schick scored four goals and Florian Wirtz was...

Germans use healthcare services more often than the EU average

Berlin (dpa) - Germans utilise health services more frequently...
spot_img

Related Articles

Popular Section

spot_imgspot_img

MORE FROM CHATNEWSTV

Op-Ed: Nigeria’s Hostages in Law By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

In 1991, Nigeria was in the full throes of the interminable transition to civil rule programme of General Ibrahim Babangida. The effort by the...

Op-Ed: Tinubu’s Taxing Times By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu A mere four years after emerging from a civil war, in 1974, Nigeria was at the beginning of an oil boom. Then,...

Ghana’s Mahama: Navigating Economic Challenges And Democratic Legacy By Collins Nweke

This week the good people of Ghana will continue adjusting to last weekend news of the return of John, not The Baptist, but Dramani...

Op-Ed: In The Matter of Dele Farotimi Before The Star Chamber By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

Paul Anyebe was a judge of the High Court of Benue State in north-central Nigeria who had a young son with sticky fingers and...

Tax Reform Debate: Is Dogara Positioning Himself for Tinubu’s Vice Presidency in 2027?

By Adnan Mukhtar The complex relationship between President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima appears to be fraying, revealing underlying tensions within Nigeria’s...

Op-Ed: Tinubu’s VAT Reforms Will Break Nigeria’s Economy By Adewunmi Emoruwa

In 2019, a 50% VAT hike slowed Nigeria’s economy, pushed millions into poverty, and failed to deliver meaningful revenue growth. Today, new VAT reforms...

Unlocking Tanzania’s Entrepreneurial Potential for a Dynamic Future

By Christine Grau, European Union Ambassador to Tanzania and the East African Community Imagine Tanzania in 15 years: a nation with one of the fastest-growing...

Mallam Umaru Altine: First Mayor of Enugu Municipal Council, 1952-1958, By Femi Kehinde

Benjamin Cardozo, an American jurist and philosopher, has said, “history, in illuminating the past, illuminates the present and in illuminating the present, illuminates the...

Right Of Reply: When Will The Judges Who Cheated On Their Age Be Made To Account? By Johnson Agwu

On 20 October 2024, I was gloomy. It was four years since the #EndSARS protests by Nigerian Youths against police brutality and the bloody...