The Events in Sudan are NOT Isolated

Since the 2019 revolution that deposed the long-time ruler of Sudan Omar Al Bashir, the country has been through a series of political uncertainties. These uncertainties have been a large creation of the military past of Sudan. After the revolution, a logical and much-desired option was the formation of a civilian government to steer the country forward and lead it to a democratic path. Instead what followed was the scramble for power amongst the hegemonic military structures that the ousted autocrat, Bashir created.

At the height of his rule, Bashir sought to quash rebellion in the oil-rich Darfur by formulating and dispatching the lethal Janjaweed to the area. The militia responsible for the death of close to 400,000 civilians would later morph into the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) at the centre of the ongoing war with the country’s national army. In the common fashion of dictators, Bashir employed the divide and ruled tactic which kept pit the powerful military officials against themselves while at the same time being answerable and loyal to him. This only helped him contain any form of internal resistance within the military establishments but did not save the country from the consequences of such a long-time bitter rivalry. With him now gone, the now powerful Generals Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the army chief, and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti) of the RSF now both lay claim to the country at the cost of lives and regional stability.

According to the UN, more than 604 people including civilians have been killed ruing the ongoing fighting between the RSF and the Sudanese Army. According to the World Health Organisation, the number of wounded exceeded 5100 as of 9th May. The number of displaced people has risen and stands at close to 1 million, with many of those seeking refuge in neighbouring countries grappling with internal strife; South Sudan, Chad, and Ethiopia. With no signs of compromise on each side albeit efforts from Saudi Arabia and the United States-initiated negotiations, the conflict is likely to intensify and the carnage will be enormous. All this was avoidable. The military dictatorship of Bahsir just did not let it.

In her book, “Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West,” Benazir Bhutto noted that “Military dictatorship is born from the power of the gun, and so it undermines the concept of the rule of law and gives birth to a culture of might, a culture of weapons, violence and intolerance.” What is exhibited in Sudan today is a continuous culture of violence, a culture of impunity, a culture of Lordism where everyone that has guns, oil fields, camels and other wealth is automatically exempt from the amplification of the law. In such an environment, bickering and the struggle for further influence among the lords only becomes a matter of ‘when’ and not ‘if.’ The happenings in Sudan are not isolated to that specific country—the rest of Africa with a history of long-time rulers has either faced the same or is likely to follow suit. For forty-two years, Muammar Gaddafi ruled Libya with an iron hand compromising state institutions and concentrating power into his hands and his family. Just like Bashir, Gaddafi leveraged ethnic divisions in Libya to create military loyalists who would crash any form of dissent. He created military lords loyal to him, not the country or the constitution. When he was deposed in an uprising in 2011, he collapsed with the fragmented state that he had forced together. What followed was the struggle for power among the powerful military which saw the re-emergence of war Lord Khalifa Haftar, and Muhammad al-Zawahi among others. With a crumbled state, the unarmed citizenry becomes the prey of the powerful militias as they tussle for power.

Libya, Sudan, Iraq, and other states whose rulers preferred long rule over state stability and continuity ought to provide a clear example of how states fail. The countries with such a modus operandi of governance where power is concentrated in an individual are inevitably on a ticking time bomb and what is happening in Sudan will inevitably occur to them. Examples of Uganda’s military ruler Yoweri Museveni have been given to liken his style of rule to that of Bashir, Sadam Hussein and Gaddafi. Just like Bahsir, Uganda’s National army is said to owe their allegiance to Museveni. This is exemplified by the involvement of the army in quashing his political opponents and the partisan actions of key military officials. In the same spirit of the RSF in Sudan, the Ugandan ruler set up the Special Forces Command a parallel military outfit to further strengthen his grip on power. The SFC is more sophisticated and charged with guarding the First Family and key installations in the country. There is increasing fear that the prioritization of the military over civilian institutions will lead to a battle for influence among the military elite and at the same time leave the civilian institutions vulnerable to gun-wielding men when Museveni inevitably ceases to hold power.

Uganda, Sudan and Libya are not isolated; Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, and Congo are all potential candidates for the mayhem that follows the collapse of a longtime ruler who concentrates powers in his own hands and the military at the expense of state institutions.

Charlie Chapman stated it aptly: ‘Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people.’ Bashir may have sought to free himself but he has put the people of Sudan in an enslavement that will take long to free. It may even take longer for Uganda, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea

The events in Sudan are not isolated, they are in the playbook of dictatorships and other countries will follow suit.

Alex Martin Musiime