Backing Sudan’s civilians is the only option left
In this photo released by the Sudanese Army on Tuesday, May 30, 2023, General Abdel-Fattah Burhan visits his soldiers on the Khartoum battlefield. (Sudanese Army via AP)
It took mere days of war in Sudan to show that standard diplomatic efforts to contain the violence would fail. And fail they have, miserably so. Since fighting broke out between army and paramilitary forces in April, negotiations have come and gone, humanitarian conditions have surged past emergency thresholds, and the abhorrent generals seem more hellbent on killing anyone who gets in their way with each passing week.
Current efforts are faltering and will likely collapse soon. IGAD, the East African security and economic bloc of which Sudan is a member, recently proposed a ceasefire and peace initiative that would see armed peacekeepers deployed to Khartoum. A Sudanese army general responded with the threat “I swear to god, not one of them would make it back.” Representatives from both sides are now in Jeddah to try to re-start talks, but the prevailing attitude on the frontlines is this one of extreme violence.
Millions of ordinary Sudanese citizens —the beautiful, diverse lifeblood of the country— face grim choices that compound by the hour. Life in Sudan was already difficult before this war due to the regime’s incompetence, but it is now becoming impossible. Where food can be found, prices have skyrocketed. Access to medical care is so degraded that entire swaths of the population have no healthcare access at all. And all estimated counts of the dead and wounded likely represent a fraction of reality.
A darkness beyond civil war and humanitarian catastrophe
The past few weeks have proven this crisis is exceedingly more dangerous than the “backsliding” and “risk of full-blown civil war and humanitarian crisis” narratives that abound in intergovernmental bodies and minimal media coverage. The fighting between General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan’s Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagolo’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has unlocked a darkness that tears at the very fabric of humanity itself.
Images of bloodied piles of dead soldiers and the destruction of basic services in Khartoum continue surfacing on social media, and the country’s once populous capital is being abandoned en masse by her citizenry.
In the long-oppressed Darfur region, genocidal massacres of the Masalit people group by the RSF and their local allies abound, with other ethnic minorities across the oppressed periphery staring down the barrel of extermination. Tribal leaders in West Darfur say over 10,000 of their people have already been killed in the region. Satellite imagery shows entire neighborhoods and villages have been burned to the ground. The authoritative Sudan Conflict Observatory has found evidence of the “targeted destruction of at least 26 communities” by the RSF up to July 10, the cutoff date of their last reporting period more than two weeks ago.
Meanwhile, in the defiant southern borderlands, the highly-restrained rebel force in the Nuba Mountains are done watching the SAF-RSF war encroach on their borders. Seeing and hearing the blaring sirens of genocide in Darfur, Nuba rebels have ended their fragile ceasefire and launched early offensive operations, hoping against hope to keep the fate of Darfur from reaching their own ethnic minority population.
Violence has reached Blue Nile in the southeast. El Obied in the center…the list goes on. But Darfur continues to be the harbinger of what is to come. On July 23, one of our Sudanese partners sent us chilling video of an Arab militiaman using a knife to behead a Masalit civilian. We don’t know the name of the individual or exact location of this barbaric crime, just that he was murdered recently in West Darfur. What we do know is countless stories of gruesome killings like this lurk beneath the surface of an already hellish war.
There is another war being waged in Sudan. It is a war against the very lifeblood of the country. Neither side is innocent, far from it, but the RSF especially are out to finish the genocide in Darfur they began years ago as the Janjaweed. All lines of civil war, humanitarian crisis, ethnic cleansing and even genocide are in the rearview mirror. The real question that looms before Sudan’s besieged citizenry is if human life can even be sustained in large parts of the country in the years ahead.
The depraved generals and their unruly chains of command have given their answer in the shoveled soil of mass graves: no, there cannot be. Letting them have the final word would be an atrocity in and of itself.
What can be done?
Nearly a decade ago, I visited a Nuba refugee camp in South Sudan to interview survivors of a now previous war and, alongside one of our Sudanese partners, lay the groundwork for our thriving childhood education program. One survivor I spoke with —a man who narrowly escaped what sounded like a SAF chemical weapons attack— turned the tables and asked me: why does the world only negotiate with the devil? Do they not know we are here and ready to help?
These are fair questions that bear heavy salience today. Negotiating with war criminals in hopes they’ll silence the guns may be the status quo of international diplomacy toward Sudan, but it has never worked in the past and it won’t work today. So what can be done if the traditional approach is going to keep failing?
Back in May, during failed talks in Jeddah, both the SAF and RSF delegations signed a short-term ceasefire and humanitarian agreement. The world focused on both sides immediately breaching the agreement. Few noticed that the SAF and RSF delegations signed the agreement only for themselves. Neither side claimed to represent the Sudanese government at the negotiating table.
In fact, no one has represented the Sudanese government since the war began. This is further evidence that Sudan is on the road to becoming a failed state, a terrifying proposition with devastating global consequences. But it’s also a window of opportunity to flip the table.
There’s only one player in Sudan that has any authority to claim it speaks for the Sudanese government: the people. Both the SAF and RSF have willingly signed away their authority, authority they should have never had in the first place. The most helpful thing the world’s diplomats can do now is to circumvent the army and Rapid Support Forces and start working directly with civilian leaders.
There are many ways to do this. For starters, American policymakers need to get their act together and fully step into the global coordinating role the U.S. often plays in crisis situations. Working in tandem with allies and other countries, international diplomats can help coalesce and support civilian leaders and activist networks in Sudan to jump-start an interim government led entirely by civilians. This is not a novel concept. As Sudan expert Alex de Waal recently noted:
That’s more than a symbolic act. They could take charge of the financial institutions of the state and bring material leverage to the table. Similar things have happened elsewhere. In Libya, for example, the central bank remained independent of the warring militias, receiving dollars from the sale of oil and paying salaries across the country. Sudan’s independent banking institutions would need technical, diplomatic and financial support from the U.S. and other donors. This would be a test of Washington’s seriousness in halting state collapse and supporting democracy.
Making such a move would also open up a wide range of possibilities beyond the traditional toolkit of sanctions, humanitarian aid, and conflict monitoring, all of which are still important.
If outside powers are going to continue pushing the SAF and RSF toward negotiations, civilians would now outrank both factions at the international level and have their long-needed voice seated permanently at the head of the table with the backing of world leaders, and the generals downgraded to the junior position. An interim government could seize control of Sudan’s financial institutions, work with international partners to get outside human rights monitors on the ground, and coordinate evacuations of high-risk areas. With urgency, civilian leaders could shutter the corrupt and inept Sudan Humanitarian Aid Commission and work directly with international agencies such as the World Food Programme and USAID to get more services and relief into parts of the country faster through resistance committees, local activists, and other unofficial channels.
These are just a few of the many, many possibilities a civilian government operating both inside and outside Sudan could pursue. The sense of powerlessness in the international community is a choice. The status quo does not have to remain the status quo.
This move is no silver bullet. No such solution exists. There’s always the risk that a major international effort could damage the legitimacy of Sudan’s civilian resistance. But that risk pales in comparison to the death and destruction that lies ahead. This path should only be taken with civilian leaders at the helm, after their vision for a path forward is clear and has buy-in from the horizontal activist networks on the street. They held the line against the army and RSF when the world failed. They’ve earned the world’s trust. It’s high time to give it to them.
Violence would undoubtedly continue; however, if the United States, Sudan’s neighbors, other African countries operating underneath the African Union, and the Europeans threw the real weight they have behind an interim civilian government and sustained the effort, countless lives could be saved. It would take some creativity, but such collective action could be used to degrade the ability of the SAF and RSF to wage war over time. At the very least, the Sudanese people would have some of the tangible international support they deserve. They would know they are not alone. That’s not nothing.
Sudan is changing in the fires of war and the fires of civil revolution. The latter must prevail. This moment calls for the diplomatic approach to change, too. Some will question if this path is wise. Maybe they are right too, but new thinking and bold action is needed either way. The status quo in international diplomacy is unsustainable. It is propping up the very generals who are burning the country to the ground.
It’s past time to hang the war criminals out to dry and lock arms with the people who actually care about the fate of Sudan: her resilient people. Smart people inside and outside Sudan can argue about how to best do that, but anything less is insanity.
We Need Your Help
In our 12 years of working alongside Sudanese heroes, we’ve never seen anything like this. Extreme violence is spreading across Sudan. Entire cities and villages are being destroyed. Program costs are skyrocketing.
Our Sudanese partners are struggling. They need 100 of us to start giving at least $50/month to help people escape the genocide in Darfur, continue their critical education and healthcare work in the Nuba Mountains, and reach more people in need. ⚡️This is a big matching campaign!⚡️ Every new monthly gift will be matched by a generous private donor for 3 months.
The Renewal is our passionate family of monthly givers supporting Sudanese teachers and healthcare professionals. When we match their grit with a monthly financial commitment, we become an unstoppable force for good.
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OTHER WAYS TO HELP
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Our Sudanese partners have a long road ahead and need all the help they can get.
Let’s each play our small part in giving them the best chance for real, lasting change. I hope you will join me in starting your monthly gift today.
Onward,
Mark C. Hackett
Executive Director
