Sudan: Global Proxy War?

In early 2024, there were reports that Ukrainian Special Forces have been operational in Sudan. Ukrainian commandos were deployed to the capital Kartum, reported The Economist, to fight against RSF forces who were supported from Russian mercenaries, indicating that there is a global proxy war that is unfolding in the country. This development follows a meeting between President Volodymyr Zelensky with General Abdel Fatah Al-Burhan, head of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in Shannon airport, in Ireland, in September 2023, to pledge his support for the war effort in the sprawling North African country.

There are no protagonists in the Sudan civil war, only two antagonists: General Mohamed Degalo, also known as Hemedti, the head of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), fighting against the Al-Burhan’s Sudanese Armed Forces. The RSF was the government-backed paramilitary force formerly known as the Janjaweed which was, since 2003, involved in perpetrating war crimes against the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups in Darfur, which subsequently required the intervention of the 13-year African Union (AU)-United Nations (UN) Hybrid Joint Operation in Darfur (UNAMID).

The former President Omar Al-Bashir who ruled Sudan, with an iron-fist for more 30 years from 1989 to 2019, rebranded the murderous Janjaweed into the RSF in 2013, to function as a counter-weight against the Sudanese Armed Forces, and to protect him in the event of a coup. This was based on a recognition of the precarious nature of governing Sudan which has had to endure a series of military governments since in gained independence from British colonialism in 1956.

Al-Bashir’s plan to “coup-proof” himself by pitting the RSF against the armed forces, backfired dramatically, when both the SAF and RSF participated in his removal from power, following a Sudanese people’s uprising in 2018 and 2019. The pro-democracy people’s revolution, initially led by a number of civic groups including the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA) and a larger umbrella group known as the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC), created the conditions for the establishment of a power-sharing government, on 20 August 2019. The post-revolution political dispensation led to power-sharing between the civilian and military rulers under the rubric of a unified authority known as the Transitional Sovereignty Council (TSC), which would guide the country towards democratic elections in 2023.

The TSC was headed by a civilian Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, a former UN technocrat, whose previous posting was as the Deputy Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. However, the TSC also included both Al-Burhan and Hemedti in the leadership structure, as the process of drafting a constitution and charting a pathway to democratic rule was being mapped out by the Council and societal actors including the FFC.

A key issue that remained unresolved during this process was how the two military forces, the SAF and the RSF, would be integrated into one unified military with a single command structure.

The experiment in civilian-military co-governance faced a major stumbling block when both Al-Burhan and Hemedti conducted a military coup, on 25 October 2021, to depose Hamdok and take over the reins of power. Subsequent efforts to restore civilian co-governance faltered, whereas Al-Burhan positioned himself as the de-facto head of state, and it is now evident that Hemedti did not necessarily agree with this power-grabbing act. In early 2023, as the talks intensified on integrating the SAF and the RSF, tensions brewed and the relationship deteriorated until the war erupted on 15th April 2023.

The ultimate responsibility for ending the war rests with Al-Burhan and Hemedti, however, the current trajectory of the crisis indicates that there has been a widening of the war through the engagement and exploitation of global and regional allies, in terms of the sourcing of weapons and logistical equipment, notably drone technology. A few months prior to the war, Russia was in the process of concluding a deal with the Sudanese Armed Forces to establish a military base in the country on its Red Sea coastline. Furthermore, the private military company known as the Wagner Group, had been operational for several years in Sudan, primarily collaborating with Hemedti and the RSF to extract gold and other minerals, which is now fueling the RSF’s campaign in the civil war.

The United States and its regional allies, which are focused on securing their interests in the Red Sea, which provides a transit for close to 12% of global trade, are driven by the desire to prevent Russia consolidating its foothold in Sudan and to scuttle the establishment of the Russian military base in Sudan. Egypt, which was a former colonial power in northern Sudan, jointly with Turkey in the early nineteenth century has maintained strong ties to the Arabized northern elite in Sudan and is nominally aligned with Al-Burhan’s SAF. A significant number of the Sudanese elite fled to Cairo following the outbreak of the war. Egypt’s interests are anchored upon its desire to ensure the uninterrupted flow of the Nile River, on which it relies for its socio-economic development. Saudi Arabia in partnership with the US sponsored the initial peace-talks in Jeddah, between SAF and the RSF, with the participation of the AU and the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) – the regional grouping of states in the Horn of Africa.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) which is emerging as a regional power-broker in the Middle East, as well as across the Horn of Africa and the Sahel region of the continent, has been providing financial and military resources to the RSF, through long-standing partnership with Hemedti who has amassed a significant amount of wealth through gold smuggling hubs that have been nicknamed “Dagalo’s Markets” – after the head of the RSF – that extract and fleece Sudan’s resources to destinations including the Emirates. In addition, the UAE has established a “humanitarian” presence in eastern Chad on the border near Sudan, in the form of a military hospital, however, actors on the ground have allegedly reported that the base is also providing military assistance to the RSF.

The Sudanese conflict has morphed into a global proxy war, and it is not clear if the two antagonists, Al-Burhan and Hemedti, will be able to disengage and discuss the pathways to a ceasefire without the tacit support of their global and regional patrons and henchmen.

Sudanese citizens in the diaspora in Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, South Sudan and Uganda, some of who were leaders in creating and sustaining the resistance committee’s that emerged during the 2018 pro-democracy people’s revolution, are actively mobilizing to map out entry points to push for a ceasefire and identify a roadmap back to the restoration of constitutional and civilian governance in the country. However, this is proving to be an uphill task for as long as the two antagonists, Al-Burhan and Hemedti, are dead-set on pursuing a military victory on the battlefield, a task that has now become even more complicated given the global proxy war that is unfolding in Sudan.