Civil War in Sudan

On the failures of state-building and the daunting challenges ahead for a beleaguered country and its peoples

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I: The worse side is currently winning Sudan’s civil war

After eight months of fighting, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) — a paramilitary group that grew out of the Janjaweed’s genocidal rampage in Darfur — started the year with a clear advantage over the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). In particular, the overrun of Wad Madani in December set in motion a new phase in the conflict. The city’s fall reminded everyone in areas still under SAF control of their vulnerability to the RSF’s violence and pillaging. In part to deflect criticism directed at its leadership, the SAF tacitly green-lit a civilianization of the conflict via the creation of “ethnic and communal militias” throughout the country.

Areas and cities under control of the RSF (green and blue, respectively) and the SAF (pink and red) as of January 11, 2024. Source: Wikipedia

The RSF’s momentum over the last month was vividly illustrated by Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo’s visits to Uganda, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya, South Africa, Rwanda. All of the visits were carefully scripted to cast him as the legitimate ruler of Sudan. Overall, the apparent regional isolation of SAF’s Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the lack of serious foreign engagement with Sudan’s various civilian leader do not bode well for a swift conclusion to the conflict.

Greater civilianization will significantly worsen the next phase of the conflict. Civil wars typically create the context for settling localized historical feuds that may not be related to the larger conflict. Given its performance so far (which includes indiscriminate violence against civilians), SAF will certainly not be able to control the “popular resistance” militias it is helping create throughout the country. It follows that the militias will likely also be used to settle parochial inter-communal disputes. The end result will be a more violent (internationalized) war economy, with the merchants of violence so created joining a regional marketplace of guns for hire by all manner of nefarious actors — including the very RSF they are being created to fight.

The human toll of the conflict so far is staggering. At least 15,000 people have been killed. More than 10m people have been displaced. 25m (out of 46m total population) are in need of aid. Yet despite these unconscionable figures, two factors will continue to militate against a peace deal.

1. First, as I argue below, the last 25 years have seen a systematic dismantling of the social and economic bases of stability in Sudan. There is a lot more to the conflict that just power-hungry warlords jostling for supremacy. Among his many failures, former President Omar al-Bashir presided over a re-tribalization of Sudanese society at the expense of cross-ethnic socio-political civil organizations and institutions. Presently, the violence entrepreneurs are the best organized people at the national level. Local resistance committees may challenge this reality, but they have limited capacity to link up and shape national-level outcomes. Further civilianization of the conflict will only worsen current levels of subnational fractionalization.

2. Second, the internationalization of the conflict means that both the SAF and RSF have little incentive to internalize the costs of their destructive war. In particular, foreign states’ interests in Sudan and their respective regional supremacy contests have little to do with the plight of the average Sudanese (this especially applies to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates). All have narrow geopolitical goals or their respective elites’ personal interests that are at variance with genuine peacemaking. Notice that none of the alleged foreign actors has shown any interest in Sudan’s (civilian) leadership beyond al-Burhan and Hemedti.

So far, the conduct of foreign governments in either camp (and IGAD) betray an implicit consensus to “give war a chance” and wait for an autonomous recovery — with either the RSF or SAF emerging victorious.

However, there are two fundamental problems with this approach. First, Sudanese want democratic civilian rule — a fact that would deny the eventual winner (if it ever got to that) broad-based legitimacy and invite all manner of (armed) challenges to state authority. Second, a military victory and attempts at hegemonic control by either side would come at an enormous cost and likely not stick. Given RSF’s conduct so far and Sudan’s political history, it is hard to imagine a Hemedti-led government that is not an incredibly violent military state. Military rule under SAF would also necessarily have to be repressive and would almost certainly ignite a big forever secessionist war in Darfur.

Considering all the factors at play and the balance of power between the RSF and SAF, a negotiated settlement that facilitates power-sharing between RSF/SAF and a civilian administration is still the best interim outcome for Sudan. The ugly reality is that, in part because of their respective external entanglements, neither the RSF nor SAF will unilaterally down their weapons and cede power.

Unfortunately, a negotiated settlement is presently unfathomable. The RSF is an incorrigibly repugnant outfit that should be disbanded at the earliest opportunity. The SAF is also deeply tainted and ought not be allowed to continue denying Sudanese their right to democratic self-government. Instead, it should be thoroughly restructured and put under civilian control. Meanwhile, civilian political organizations remain fragmented and subject to manipulation by both SAF and RSF (in addition to lacking powerful foreign backers that can persuade the SAF and RSF to a compromise and to share power).

II: On how Sudan’s long peripheral wars finally visited Khartoum and the riverain core

How did Sudan get here? There are multiple lenses through which one can understand the current war. For example, the war encapsulates the precariousness of regime transitions in military dictatorships; what happens when economic crises limit incumbent elites’ ability to midwife institutional change on their own terms; the risks associated with coup-proofing through a counter-balancing of armed forces; and how internationalization impacts both the duration and conduct of civil wars.

All these factors fit within an overarching structural dynamic that is the subject of the rest of this post: the war is the culmination of two centuries of failed state-building going back to the conquest of the Funj Sultanate by Ottoma Egypt in 1821. Therefore, to understand Sudan’s civil war and potential paths to sustainable peace one must first appreciate the drivers of repeated failures by the riverain core in the Nile Valley to impose its hegemony over the state’s peripheries — be that in Darfur, the Nuba Mountains, the North, the East, or South Sudan.

Two important factors drove the core’s failed quest for state-wide hegemony: (i) The contours of Sudan’s identity politics (centered around Arabisation/Islamization); and (ii) the state’s guiding developmentalist ideology (which heavily emphasized irrigated agriculture along the Nile). Both factors limited who was willing or could be incorporated into full status as Sudanese citizens through Arabization/Islamization and economic integration. The unsettled questions of identity-based and economic exclusion in turn set the stage for myriad peripheral wars that eventually visited the riverain core at scale in 2023.

• Identity politics as a barrier to Sudanese nation/state-building

Sudan’s identity politics is a lot more nuanced than the stylized narratives of Arab vs African or Muslim vs non-Muslim cleavages. Throughout its modern history, fluidity and assimilation (rather than ossified ethnic boundaries) have defined the processes of creating racial-cum-religious identities. Consequently, these socially-constructed categories often signify political and economic differences in addition to being markers of ethnic, racial, or religious identity.

This complex social history of identity formation notwithstanding, successive governments’ pursuit of Arabization/Islamization as the favored mechanism of nation-building explains a great deal of postcolonial Sudan’s instability.

Notice that the desire to homogenize populations is not unique to the Sudanese state. It’s what states do to secure their hegemony over society and avoid costs associated with not having a standardized administrative system. Sudan’s biggest challenge is that it found itself stuck with a very costly mechanism of homogenization. Khartoum wasn’t interested merely in a shared language (Arabic) and an inclusive supra-ethnic national identity that was accessible to everyone at minimal cost (like, say, happened in Tanzania). Convinced of their religious and cultural superiority, riverain elites sought to impose Arab identity and Islam on the peripheries.

This was a bad idea in a vast and diverse country with a relatively weak state. It did not help that Sudan’s population geography meant that big population centers — especially in Darfur, Nuba Mountains, and South Sudan — were located far from the riverain core along the Nile valley. To put it mildly, the realities of spatial and socio-cultural distance gave the state’s homogenization attempts a distinctly colonial flavor.

Sudan’s population density. Notice the spatial separation of the riverain core in the Nile valley from other population centers. Source: Reliefweb.

Starting with South Sudan’s Anya Anya rebellion in the eve of independence, Khartoum’s postcolonial Arabization/Islamization efforts were met with stiff resistance in the peripheries. Under these conditions, successive governments opted for a model of containment and structural exclusion of regions that did not easily fit into the Arab/Muslim identity in the hopes that the center would eventually prevail in the future. While predominantly non-Muslim South Sudan is the most infamous example of this phenomenon, Muslim non-Arab regions were not spared either:

In Sudan’s predominantly Muslim eastern and western peripheries, meanwhile, local leaders and intellectuals increasingly resented the central government’s monopoly on wealth, power, and resources, as well as the patronizing way that riverine Northern Arabs seemed to treat non-Arabs.¹

This history makes Sudan a lesson in how elite’s identity-fueled ideologies can get in the way of effective state-building. Going back to colonial times, the state consolidated its strength in the riverain core while relying on containment strategies in the often-restive peripheries:

The vast majority of initiatives took place in the core states around Khartoum and the Nile where the interests of Sudanese elites were most direct: Blue Nile, the Nile valley, Gezira, the “useful” parts of Kordofan and Kassala and (occasionally) Northern Province. Areas further removed from the political-economic heartland, such as Darfur, the central belt, Southern Sudan and the (North)East, continued to be neglected and administered through a disengaged form of indirect rule.²

• Dams and dreams of becoming the Middle East’s breadbasket

Sudan’s development policies reinforced the problem of nation/state-building described above. For decades, irrigated agriculture in the riverain core was the mainstay of the economy. Hoping to become the Middle East’s breadbasket, successive governments poured billions into building dams, irrigation schemes, and assistance to farmers. The state’s disproportionate investment in the riverain core meant that it lacked the bureaucratic knowledge, time, or interest in addressing other region’s development needs — especially communities that were pastoralist and/or relied on rain-fed agriculture in the peripheries.

Before the advent of oil and gold as major exports, Sudan’s development experts comprised not a national bureaucracy interested in exploiting both human capital and natural resources throughout the country, but a narrow hydraulic bureaucracy.

The state’s “breadbasket” development strategy encountered several logistical, administrative, and soil-related setbacks. On the political front, a coup in 1969 interrupted the first planning phase. Gaafar Nimeiry’s socialist-lite administration (1969-1985), arguably the least attached to the idea of an Arab/Muslim Sudan yet, doubled down on the breadbasket strategy with some results. It is partially to his credit that Sudan avoided the worst famines that afflicted the wider Horn in the 1970s and 1980s. Yet the ultimate goal of a Sudanese Green Revolution remained elusive, in no small part because:

Khartoum had not learnt the lessons of Asia’s Green Revolutions: a land redistribution favouring smallholders instead of politically connected (big) producers; a focus on food crops instead of just export production; using new technologies carefully; preventing unsustainable water use; government credit, research and infrastructural support; and strategic trade policies to shield Sudan from the international economy’s whims.³

Economic failures in the 1970s and 1980s would have profound effects on Sudanese politics. Stagnation occasioned the departure of large numbers of professional Sudanese to the Middle East and elsewhere. This hollowed out Nimeiry’s urban bases of support and strengthened Islamists who bristled at his lack to commitment to the Arabization/Islamization agenda (partially responsible for pausing South Sudan’s rebellion in 1972).⁴ Eventually, Nimeiry caved to Islamist pressure and began attending to their demands after 1977. The imposition of Sharia Law in 1983 triggered the Second South Sudan war that ended with its independence in 2011. Nimeiry was deposed in 1985 and in 1989 the (initially secretive) “National Salvation” duopoly of Hassan Al-Turabi’ National Islamic Front and Omar al-Bashir seized power.

The Nimeiry era bequeathed Sudan two important legacies. First, his administrative reforms weakened (albeit without killing) Sudan’s de facto “Native Administration” system that empowered local elites allied to important families; and eroded the bases of localized social control (including in the riverain core). Second, capitulation to Islamists came at a time when the old “Native Administration” order could no longer counterbalance power-holders in Khartoum. Al-Turabi and al-Bashir acquired almost unchallenged dominance in Khartoum. This partially explains the National Salvation duopoly’s endurance and excesses (in both domestic and foreign policy) throughout the 1990s.

Importantly, the National Salvation continued the legacy of favoring the riverain core with development policy, in addition to placating Islamist demands on Arabization/Islamization. Consequently, the two leading items on the state budget were dam/irrigation projects and security — both of which eclipsed investments in education and healthcare (hence Sudan’s atrocious HDI stats).

In the late 1990s Al-Turabi fell out with al-Bashir and was pushed out of power. The demise of Al-Turabi’s Islamist vision of Sudan (especially after publication of the Black Book) created an opening for personalist rule under al-Bashir and the intensification of tribalized politics. Al-Bashir’s triumph was reinforced by well-financed patronage networks and the SAF’s increasing economic strength. For example, the Military Industry Corporation (created in 1993) turned Sudan into Africa’s third biggest arms exporter.

III: Fast-forward to the present

Al-Bashir’s personalist triumph stuck in part because his break-up with Al-Turabi happened on the eve of significant oil discovery (with 75% of deposits in South Sudan). Exports ballooned from US $831m in 1999 to $13.1b in 2008, with the oil cash turbocharging the riverain core’s hydraulic dreams and military spending. The new oil sector necessitated substantial troop deployments in South Sudan and the East to protect oil wells and pipelines from sabotage.

Around the same time the conflict in Darfur intensified. In response, and cognizant of his already stretched military, al-Bashir armed Arab “janjaweed” militias against the mostly non-Arab (and predominantly Muslim) insurgents. This decision catapulted one Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo onto the grand stage of Sudanese history. Over time the genocidal rampage in Darfur and other domestic counter-insurgency efforts proved to be the training grounds for what would become the RSF. Soon al-Bashir was “exporting” the RSF’s services in wars in Libya (on the side of Khalifah Haftar) and Yemen (on the side of the UAE and Saudi Arabia).

Gold production in Sudan shot up over the last decade to make it Africa’s third largest gold producer. Source: CEIC

South Sudan’s impending independence in 2011 (after the 2005 CPA) further strengthened the future RSF. Politically, the RSF became al-Bashir’s “protector” against a possible coup by SAF officers, especially as he set about letting South Sudan go and consolidating his personalist hold on power. The discovery of large gold deposits, a sizable share of which were in Darfur, bolstered the RSF’s economic importance. To guarantee personal control over the state’s most important source of forex, al-Bashir conveniently let Hemedti control a good share of the gold export market — a fact that made him personally wealthy and enabled him to build and arm the RSF. Outside of Sudan, the gold trade and the RSF’s tour in Yemeni brought Hemedti close to the UAE, Sudan’s largest trade partner and one of his alleged backers in the current conflict.

Sudan export profile in 2021. Source: OEC

The RSF’s rise was intimately linked to elite politics in the riverain core. In effect, it was al-Bashir’s trump card against his would-be challengers in a fast-changing political and economic environment that was bound to create disgruntled losers. After Al-Turabi’s departure, the “New National Salvation” regime was eager to rebrand and focus on economic development by attracting foreign investment. The rebranding was necessitated by Al-Turabi’s foreign policy excesses — including allegedly trying to assassinate Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and hosting Osama bin Laden — and the need to escape Sudan’s pariah status in a post-9/11 world. It also promised to make the top echelons of the riverain core very rich and powerful. These concerns, in addition to international pressure, are what made possible the peace with South Sudan. Needless to say, sections of the SAF and Islamists did not welcome these developments — hence the importance of the RSF as a coup-proofing outfit.

Hemedti would eventually prove himself to be much more than just al-Bashir’s protector. Beginning in 2007 he systematically forced Khartoum into granting him more resources and power. In 2013 the Janjaweed gained formal state recognition as the RSF. In 2017 it was made into a national armed force directly responsible to the president — effectively mirroring the SAF. And when protests broke out in 2019 Hemedti and al-Burhan decided to push al-Bashir out in the hopes of being able to midwife the coming transition on their own terms. Finally, the barely-educated kid from Darfur had made it in the riverain core. Unfortunately for Sudanese, he also brought with him the fruits of decades of peripheral wars.

IV: Conclusion

It is important to understand that Sudan’s current civil war was not a deterministic outcome of the above history. Since al-Bashir’s ouster in 2019, important pivotal actors retained their agency. For example, foreign actors — including the European Union, the United States, Egypt, and Gulf states — could have avoided the cynical legitimization of the RSF-SAF duopoly in service to their own narrow foreign policy objectives. Hemedti and al-Burhan could have committed to the installation of a civilian government, perhaps with a carveout for the military to retain its autonomy. And more could have been done to support civilian political formations without necessarily jeopardizing regional security.

At the same time, the above observation is consistent with the view that the riverain core’s inability to impose its socio-cultural (and political) hegemony over the peripheries is a structural source of instability in Sudan. It also stunted political development in Khartoum. Even though the riverain core managed to avoid all out war for decades, the violence and exclusion of the peripheries boomeranged to produce high levels of elite political instability in the center. Sudan’s militarized state (necessitated by the peripheral wars) came with high levels of coup risk and the dubious record of having Africa’s highest number of coup incidents (31). The country has so far spent just under 58 out of 68 years of independence under military rule.

All this to say that Hemedti and his marauding RSF are symptoms of a structural problem that Sudan’s riverain core must honestly confront. The uncomfortable reality is that some support for the RSF comes from a desire to assert the right to belong of excluded political peripheries. While stopping the fighting ought to be the top priority, lasting peace will only be achievable if pivotal actors in the riverain core abandon their commitment to Sudan’s original sin of conceptualizing nation-building and developmentalist policies in very narrow terms. John Garang’s call for a New Sudan built on inclusive nation-building remains as relevant as ever.

1. Heather J. Sharkey (2008) “Arab Identity and Ideology in Sudan: The Politics of Language, Ethnicity, and Race,” African Affairs, Volume 107, Issue 426, pp. 25

2. Harry Verhoeven (2015) Water, Civilisation and Power in Sudan: The Political Economy of Military-Islamist State Building, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, pp. 61

3. Ibid., pp. 76

4. Ibrahim Elnur (2009) Contested Sudan: The political economy of war and reconstruction, London, UK: Routledge (especially Chapters 3 and 4).