In Africa, where military coups that have nothing to do with popular will are frequent, the Sudanese military, which took an unprecedented stand on the side of popular uprising and brought down the dictatorship, is finally kicking out all civilians in four years and fighting a bloody power struggle among themselves.
On the 15th (Sat), General Abdel Fattah Alburhan, the Supreme Commander of the Sudan Military District and Chairman of the Sovereignty Council, and General Mohammed Hamdan Danallo, the head of the Semi-Regular Army Organization Rapid Support Force (RSF), mobilized their troops to fight in the capital city and the western unsafe region Darfur. was
On the first day alone, close to 60 civilians and soldiers were reported to have been killed, and fighting continues on the 16th (Sun). The death toll of 56 could fluctuate greatly due to doctors’ tentative tally.
Sudan was the largest country on the African continent with an area of 2.52 million km2, more than 10 times the size of the Korean Peninsula, before the country’s southern border with the Congo separated into South Sudan in 2011. South Sudan (640,000 km2), the world’s most recently independent country, gained independence after a 30-year armed struggle, but two years later, hundreds of thousands of people died due to power struggles between ethnic groups and military organizations, just like in civil wars or independence struggles.
In April 2019, Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir was toppled from 30 years of iron-fist rule and taken to a notorious political prison camp of his own creation. Eight months ago, a group of experts, including doctors, transformed the people’s protest against the fuel price hike into a demonstration to overthrow Bashir. The Ministry of National Defense and soldiers in front of the presidential palace took a stand-by attitude instead of suppressing protesters who stayed up all night in Khartoum, the capital, and decided to arrest Omar.
Omar, in the rank of brigadier general, easily seized power in a coup d’état in 1989, but in 2003, when anti-government and separatist struggles broke out in western Darfur, he mobilized a militia organization called the Janjawid and entered a ruthless suppression. It is estimated that 300,000 Sudanese were massacred in Darfur. The International Criminal Court (ICC), which can be said to have been created by the UN Security Council, issued an arrest warrant for Omar, who was negotiating with separatist forces in South Sudan, on charges of anti-humanitarianism in 2009.
The Sudanese military, which sent Omar to prison, formed an interim government with civilian forces, including an expert group leading anti-government protests, but in June, there was a coup by the military forces opposing it. Omar Tahdo said less than 100 civilians were killed in the previous protests, but more than 100 were killed in this coup.
In the end, the civilian and military agreed to hold a general election to form a complete civilian government in four years, and in the meantime, the military and civilian forces would form a sovereignty committee to control the executive cabinet. First, the military took over as chairman of the sovereignty committee for two years, and then the civilians decided to expire.
Abdullah Hamdok, a former UN official and economist, led the transitional cabinet as Prime Minister. Sudan was classified as a state sponsor of terrorism in 1998 due to a terrorist attack by US troops that killed 130 people, and international aid was completely cut off. The Hamdok government negotiated with then-President Donald Trump to pay 340 million dollars in compensation for damages and lift the flag of the country as a terrorist state while requesting billions of dollars of economic support from the United States and the international community.
In addition, it made a breakthrough in normalizing relations with Israel, which had diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), in anticipation of financial support from the United States. In response to the request of the ICC to immediately transfer former President Omar to the Hague headquarters, it took time to disclose the principle of referral and transfer, but in many ways, Sudan appeared to be reborn as a normal country.
But the military, the African military, was also the military. In October 2021, when it was decided to give the position of chairman of the sovereignty to the civilians, the military, including General Burhan, staged a coup, disbanding the cabinet, and making the agreement with the civilian forces non-existent. Burhan promised to hold the general elections with the transfer of government to civilians even later, while the military would remain, and invited Prime Minister Hamdok back to launch a transitional cabinet.
Since then, conflicts between the military have come to the surface. Since the first formation of the Sovereignty Council in 2019, doubts have been raised as to whether General Danallo, who leads the rapid support force, a quasi-regular army intermediate between the militia and the regular army, will accept the transfer of civil administration. Danallo’s RSF is said to have more than 100,000 troops, and its human source is said to be in Janjawid, the vanguard of the Darfur massacre of former President Bashir.
General Burhan staged a coup d’état to break the two-year transfer agreement with civilian forces, but acknowledged the autonomy of the civilian cabinet Hamdok government to some extent. In comparison, General Danallo’s ‘recognition of civilian forces’ is much lower.
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.