All those who have studied or experienced the situation in Sudan know that this afflicted country has been at war with itself since the early years of independence, with a few years of breathtaking truce, and then soon war breaks out elsewhere.
In 1955, Sudan was still in the autonomous phase in preparation for the declaration of independence, a protest war erupted from South Sudan that lasted more than sixteen years and ceased after the Addis Ababa Agreement (1972) that granted South Sudan autonomy within the framework of a unified Sudan.
But soon the war was renewed in 1983 due to internal southern disputes that the authority exploited to strike the political parties in the south against each other.
All those who have studied or experienced the situation in Sudan know that this afflicted country has been at war with itself since the early years of independence, with a few years of breathtaking truce, and then soon war breaks out elsewhere.
In 1955, Sudan was still in the autonomous phase in preparation for the declaration of independence, a protest war erupted from South Sudan that lasted more than sixteen years and ceased after the Addis Ababa Agreement (1972) that granted South Sudan autonomy within the framework of a unified Sudan. But soon the war was renewed in 1983 due to internal southern disputes that the authority exploited to strike the political parties in the south against each other.
The second war lasted from 1983 until 2005, ending with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that created a partnership between the National Congress and the SPLM led by the late John Garang.
But two years before the signing of the peace agreement, the war had erupted in Darfur in 2003 and continued to escalate until the signing of the Sudan peace agreement in Juba in October 2020, but despite that, the killing and intimidation did not stop in the various regions of Darfur due to the entry of a new element, the Rapid Support Force and the militias that support the Arab tribes.
There are common factors in the conflicts and wars that have occurred in Sudan, and that continue to occur, as well as and causes ad reasons specific to each conflict.
The first is the absence of a national project since independence, which brings together the people of Sudan, adopt their aspirations and provides them with security, peace and development. Then there is the absence of any vision for balanced and sustainable development that improves the use of natural resources and their employment for the benefit of all the people of Sudan in different geographical areas, in rural and urban areas, so that conflict over resources decreases, which is the most important element of conflicts and wars. However, there is also the inability to interact positively with the cultural, linguistic and religious diversity of the Sudan and its good management to become a source of wealth rather than a cause of conflicts and wars.
The rulers who came to power, with their different orientations and the nature of the state they established, failed to create a system of governance that satisfies all the population groups in the country and provides them with the right to administer their territories and participate fairly in the administration of the state as a whole.
All these causes have been present in all the conflicts, turmoil and wars that took place in Sudan, in addition to other causes specific to each conflict.
The war that began on the fifteenth of April is not far from the causes and roots of the conflicts in the country, which we mentioned earlier, as these reasons are present in reality to some degree, and on the other hand, they are used to market the idea of war and as a discourse of mobilization and recruitment of individuals belonging to the social, economic and cultural margins.
One of the main causes of the current war, which is added to the general reasons, is the struggle for power and the attempt to monopolize it on both sides of the war. They united against civilian forces seeking democratic transition, and remained in a strong alliance until they carried out the military coup against the transitional period on October 25, 2021, and then differences quickly emerged between the army commander, General Burhan, and General Hemedti, the commander of the Rapid Support.
Burhan’s ambitions to stay in power do not need much evidence, as he tried to carry out a coup in which he was solely in power with the massacre of the dispersal of the sit-in in May 2019, and retreated under decisive popular rejection. Then he began to maneuver with the end of the military’s presidency of the Sovereignty Council, and fabricated more than one problem, then resorted to a military coup against the documents and institutions of the transitional period, but failed to find a popular support and a political incubator for the coup, as he failed to form a government. He tried to play the card of normalizing relations with Israel to ensure pressure from the Zionist lobby on the US administration to open channels to deal with it, and his last card was to rely on the support of Islamic groups associated with the old regime, which have an interest in bypassing the framework agreement and rearranging the balance of power in their favor, and finding a foothold in the post-war arrangements. This group prepared a number of fighters from its supporters and pushed them to the camps of the armed forces.
For his part, General Hemedti’s ambitions have taken an upward turn, from a military commander of a tribal militia, to the commander of a regular forces formed by law, to a participant in the process of regime change, and to ascend to the position of vice president, all in a few years. Certainly, the man’s ambitions led him to dream of the position of first man, as he tried power and watched the performance of military officials, including Burhan, and it seemed to him that he was not inferior to them, and perhaps even thought that he would perform better.
General Hemedti worked to accelerate the construction of the Rapid Support Forces quantitatively and qualitatively, raise the level of their training and armament, create independent foreign relations with regional and international axes, and walked the same path as Burhan to also play the normalization card with Israel, and established independent relations with Russia and the Wagner Group, and then adopted the slogans of democratic transition and the civil state.
Signs of mistrust between the two men grew, especially with Hemedti’s fear that Burhan would use supporters of the old regime who were particularly hostile to him because of his coup against Bashir, and each side seemed to prepare in its forces and prepare for the day of clash, which was not delayed.
This conflict confused the regional and international powers that were supporting the military component, represented by the Saudi/Egypt/UAE axis, and the international powers represented by Russia and Israel, as they had to choose one of the sides. Egypt and Saudi Arabia have a long history in dealing with the situation in Sudan, and they have experience and knowledge of the political conflict in Sudan, while the UAE is new to this file, Egypt stood with Burhan, while the UAE continued to support Hemedti, Saudi Arabia stood in the middle, and Hemedti rushed to strengthen special relations with Russia and increase cooperation with the Wagner Group, while Israel did not issue any signals clarifying its position.
The two parties were preparing for war, perhaps they did not choose the timing, but the boiling point was high and the tension reached its highest limit, and for this it was understood that the launch of one shot from one of the parties would lead to a total war, which is exactly what happened, but the surprise that no one expected is the progress of the Rapid Support Forces and their landing large areas of the capital and some cities of the other states, while the army forces continued to take shelter in some of their bases and camps, despite this, the bet on the Jeddah negotiating platform still exists. But it seems that it lacks accurate knowledge of the moment the two sides reached exhaustion and the balance of weakness so that they can negotiate seriously to reach a wired solution to the conflict.
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