Sudan and the nightmare of perennial conflict

Solly Rakgomo | Monday May 1, 2023 06:00

Sudan is a clear example of those African states that have experienced all kinds of conflict for many decades. Since independence, the country has never been politically stable.

The violent conflict that has erupted in the past few days that has pitted the two institutions of state security against each other is a stark reminder of the fragility and vulnerability of Sudan to violent conflict. The history of violent conflict in Sudan goes back to 1955 when an armed rebellion was launched by a South Sudanese army captain Joseph Lagu in protest against the ill-treatment of South Sudanese black people by the predominantly Arab Northern Sudanese political elite.

The Anyanya Rebellion, as it was called, morphed into a full scale civil war that lasted until 1972 when the two parties signed the Addis Ababa Agreement that granted the South Sudanese people semi autonomous status.

Sudan also suffered five military coups and several coup attempts between 1958 and 1989. However, it was during the era of Colonel Gafar Nimeri that Sudan backslided into another bloody conflict that lasted for 22 years. Colonel Nimeri, who came to power via a military coup, revoked the South Sudan semi autonomous status after the discovery of oil in South Sudan.

This was after some fierce resistance by the South Sudanese people against Nimeri’s attempt to redraw the borders with South Sudan in order to control the newly discovered oil fields in the South. Upon revoking the semi autonomous status of the South, Nimeri declared the whole of Sudan an Islamic Republic with the Sharia as its constitution.

This turn of events led to some prominent South Sudanese people lead by Colonel John Garang to form the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), which waged a war of independence from the North in 1983-84 that lasted for 22 years and killing more than two million people. The civil war took another turn in 1991 when the SPLM broke into two factions led by John Garang and Riek Matchar.

The two factions, besides fighting the Sudanese government, were also up in arms against each other killing hundreds of thousands of people. In fact, the bloody rivalry between the two factions had an ethnic dimension as Garang was supported by his ethnic groups the Dinka while Matchar was backed by his ethnic Nuer population.

Although South Sudan has successfully seceded from the North the country, is also embroiled in a bitter power struggle between President Salva Kiir and his rival, Matchar. Besides the civil war between the North and the Southern regions, another bloody conflict erupted in Darfur between 2003 and 2005. For many years, the people of Darfur have been socio-economically and politically marginalised by the successive leaders in Khartoum.

Political events took a nasty turn in 2003 when armed rebels in Darfur staged an armed rebellion against the government which in turn responded in a brutal fashion by unleashing a reign of terror on Darfurians, which resulted in a genocide that claimed more than 350,000 people. The Sudanese leader at the time, Omar al Bashir, used the Janjaweed militia and the terror they perpetrated against the people, even attracted the attention of the International Criminal Court (ICC) where al Bashir has been indicted. Darfur remains one of the most volatile regions in Sudan where there are more than 100 active armed rebels operating there. The region remains one of those that are facing a very serious humanitarian crisis. After the fall of strong man al Bashir in 2019 who has been in power for close to 30 years, there has been a serious power struggle between the military council and the civilian authority that were tasked with transitioning the country to a multiparty democracy. This internal wrangling led to a military coup in 2021 by the leader of the Military Transitional Council led by General Al Burhan. Today the country is engulfed in a deadly conflict that has already claimed more than 300 lives of civilians. Strangely, the two belligerents in this bloody conflict is the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by General Hamdam Dagalo. Interestingly, the RSF can trace its origins to the notorious Janjaweed militias, which in the 2000s helped Sudan’s army crush a rebellion in the western region of Darfur. It was in 2013 when al Bashir officially established the group and in 2017 he passed a law that established the RSF as an autonomous entity with its own bases, budget and full structures. Al Bashir used the group as a coup proofing entity who worked alongside the National Intelligence Services. The group has always been very notorious in human rights violations as it has always acted with impunity against any form of dissenting voices calling for freedoms. The continuing violence stems from a contentious issue of how the group can be integrated into the mainstream Sudanese army. The disagreements by al Burhan and Dagalo over integration of the RSF into the army have sparked a bloody conflict that is a continuation of many decades of violent conflict in Sudan. The conflict has the potential to cause a serious humanitarian crisis not only in Sudan but also within the region, which comprises of fragile states such as Ethiopia, South Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia. The international community must rise to the occasion and try to bring political sanity to the two warring factions before the country completely collapses.