On 15 April 2023 civil war broke out in Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and its paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Hundreds of people have been killed, hundreds of thousands have fled the country; chaos reigns even in stable regions due to lack of food, water and services, and the outbreak of looting, robberies, sexual violence, and criminality. The imperialists, particularly Britain, the US and Norway, are responsible for the demise of Sudan. Now they have simply evacuated their diplomatic staff, leaving the Sudanese people to fend for themselves. 120 British troops landed at Wadi Saeedna airfield near Khartoum, to take control during evacuations. Thousands of Sudanese people with ties to Britain were simply abandoned.
Who are the Rapid Support Forces (RSF)?
The RSF was set up by former President Omar al-Bashir in 2013, to counter any coup attempts from the security services. RSF members were incorporated from the Darfuri Janjaweed successor militias, and used by the government to suppress the British-backed rebels in West Sudan (Darfur) in 2003-2005. The Janjaweed massacred thousands of people in Darfur. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, a Janjaweed fighter himself, became the leader of the newly-formed RSF and reported directly to the president against the wishes of the army. From 2017 onwards, having crushed the Darfur rebellion and other rival militias, the RSF took over gold mining in Darfur, and went on to dominate gold mining throughout Sudan.
The EU signed the Khartoum Process in 2014, funding Sudan to stop migrants crossing its borders to Libya and onto Europe. The RSF were the border guards implementing this deal and benefited from EU funding, as well as extracting levies and bribes. In 2015, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the main destination for Sudan’s looted gold, hired both the army and separately the RSF, to provide fighters for its war in Yemen and to guard the Yemeni-Saudi border. The UAE and Egypt also funded the RSF to provide fighters for the Libyan civil war on the side of General Khalifa Haftar whose forces control eastern Libya. All this gave the RSF financial and military independence from the Sudanese security services, posing a latent threat to a rapidly weakening state. In 2019, the RSF gave the Sudan (central) Bank over $1bn to prevent collapse following the protests and coup that removed President Bashir. Throughout this period the imperialists have presented Hemedti, the army and the RSF as legitimate political leaders rather than as the murderers and profiteers that they really are.
One coup after another
For years, Sudan has suffered economic underdevelopment, caused by two decades of US sanctions (1997-2017), crippling, unpayable imperialist debt ($62.4bn in 2021) and rampant inflation, which reached 382% in January 2023. Sudan was designated a ‘state-sponsor of terrorism’ by the US in 1993 after giving al-Qaeda operatives safe haven. From 2003, the imperialists began fomenting civil war in west Sudan (Darfur). In 2011, the imperialist-engineered secession of oil-rich South Sudan occurred, taking away the main source of Sudan’s wealth. Sudan lost 75% of its oil revenue and 80% of foreign currency earnings. Sudan was forced by the IMF to adopt austerity policies and cancel subsidies on fuel and food. Sudan, isolated, was forced to turn east to the Gulf autocracies to prop up its ailing economy. Sudan in return sent troops to Libya and to Yemen.
The resulting economic collapse began affecting middle class layers of society. The government was increasingly unable to buy off sections of the middle classes with patronage, and by 2018 tens of thousands of people, led by professional classes, took to the streets of Sudan in anti-austerity protests, which developed into a country-wide anti-government struggle, calling for the overthrow of Bashir. Hundreds of protesters were tear gassed and massacred by the SAF and RSF. A report by the Legitimate Sudan Doctors Syndicate in June 2019 said 268 people had been killed since December 2018. By April 2019, the army stepped in and overthrew Bashir in a coup to prevent the protests overthrowing the entire Sudanese state.
The army set up a ‘transitional military council’ (TMC) promising a ‘transition’ to civilian rule, a promise they clearly had no intention of fulfilling. A wide coalition of Sudanese groups organised in the Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC) negotiated with the TMC a 39-month transition to be followed by elections. A ‘transitional sovereignty council’ (TSC) with equal civilian-military members was formed in August 2019, after the FFC signed a phoney power-sharing agreement. The TSC was led by the head of the SAF Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. The army kept control over much of the economy and foreign policy, ceding token powers to civilian leaders. All the salaries of the civilian ministers were paid by the EU. Some FFC parties, including the Sudanese Communist Party until it withdrew from the alliance in November 2020, had the temerity to insist that military members of the TSC shouldn’t stand in upcoming elections and that they be held accountable for previous massacres. By October 2021, the SAF and RSF had had enough and removed the civilian leaders of the TSC in another coup.
Under the direction of the imperialist ‘Troika’ (UK, US, Norway), and the ‘Trilateral Mechanism’ (the UN mission in Sudan UNITAMS, the African Union, and the east African Intergovernmental Authority on Development) who insisted on ‘general elections’ at any cost, the FFC continued to negotiate with the military junta and in December 2022, signed another ‘Framework Agreement’ promising another ‘transition’. A ‘final agreement’ was meant to be signed in April 2023, and the RSF ‘integrated’ into the army. Whilst the RSF insisted on a ten-year transition (ie never), the SAF wanted the ‘integration’ over in two years. Both military forces, however, wanted to keep political, military and economic power, and rule from behind the façade of a ‘democratically-elected’ civilian puppet government. The refusal of the RSF to subordinate to the SAF led to the civil war. The western imperialists are keen to control this strategically-located country near the Red Sea, and to secure its resources so as to deny them to Russia or China. They are determined to see Sudan ‘normalise’ relations with Israel. There is no concern whatsoever for the interests of the Sudanese people.
Charles Chinweizu
