Transformations in the Sudan War

Since last month, Sudan has witnessed rapid, dramatic developments that foreshadow shifts in the course of the war, which has entered its eighth month.  After the gains achieved by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Darfur by controlling army garrisons in 3 of its important cities: Nyala, Zalingei, and El Genaina, and its plan to launch an attack on the city of El Fasher, signs have emerged that the army has decided to change its strategy from defense to attack, not only on the military front, but also on the diplomatic front.

On the military level, the matter seems clear in the heavy deployment of army forces in a number of neighborhoods in the national capital, especially in the city of Omdurman, and the removal of the RSF from some of their positions, as well as besieging them in other locations.  This coincided with operations aimed at cutting off the artery and supply lines of the RSF in the capital after the partial bombing that targeted one of the lifting supports of the Shambat Bridge linking Omdurman in the West Nile and Khartoum Bahri in the east.

Regardless of the widespread controversy that followed this bombing, and the exchange of accusations about who carried it out, the beneficiary party was the army because the result was cutting off a main supply route for the RSF and isolating them between the two banks of the Nile.  This coincided with the army expanding its operations amid indications that imposing its control over Omdurman was expected in the near future, noting that numbers of citizens who had left their homes in some of its neighborhoods had begun to return to them, after the Rapid Support Forces evacuated them, and after their means of livelihood became limited in the places to which they were displaced.

The army’s escalation of its operations in the capital was also accompanied by a diplomatic “offensive” manifested by two visits that aroused widespread attention by Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan to Kenya and Ethiopia this week.  It is no secret that Sudan’s relationship with the two countries witnessed tension due to the war, due to what Khartoum considers as siding with the RSF.  This tension appeared publicly last July when the Sudanese government responded angrily to statements by Kenyan President William Ruto, in which he said that the situation in Sudan requires a new leadership capable of freeing it from the disaster it faces, and doubted his eligibility to participate in efforts to stop the crisis due to what it considered support for the RSF and the presence of interests that it said linked it to the leadership of these forces.

At the same time, the Sudanese government attacked Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiye Ahmed, after his statements about a “leadership vacuum” in Sudan, and his call for imposing an air embargo and disarming them from heavy artillery, which appeared to be an explicit position targeting the Sudanese army and an attempt to strip it of its most powerful weapons in the ongoing war.  The Sudanese government not only attacked the positions of Ruto and Abiye Ahmed, but also rejected the initiative presented at the time by the Quartet Mechanism formed by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development in East Africa (IGAD) to discuss the Sudanese crisis, and threatened to withdraw from the Authority.

In light of this background, Lieutenant General Al-Burhan’s visit to Kenya this week, at the invitation of its president, was interesting, especially since he followed it with a visit to Ethiopia. At both points, they agreed on the urgent need to find a solution to the war in Sudan, and an urgent meeting was held for IGAD leaders to discuss ways to accelerate the Jeddah negotiations to stop the war, as well as facilitating humanitarian assistance, and working to establish a framework for a comprehensive Sudanese dialogue with the participation of all parties to address the political crisis in the country. The importance of these two visits is unmistakable at this time, and by that I mean that they came after the developments in Darfur, and the army changed its strategy from defense to attack in the capital, and extensive operations are expected in this context.  The developments in Darfur in particular were a major turning point in this war with all its tragedies, as the atrocities committed there and documented by several local and international parties will have repercussions, because they brought to mind what had previously occurred in the region of massacres and ethnic genocide, which required international intervention at the time.  Therefore, we have witnessed strong and statements over the past few days issued by the European Union, America, and international organizations condemning the atrocities committed in Darfur, and holding the RSF responsible for them, which is a remarkable development in the international community’s position towards the war in Sudan.

It is worth noting  that Lieutenant General Al-Burhan was accompanied in his visits to Kenya and Ethiopia by Minni Arko Minawi, the Governor of the Darfur region and Head of the Sudan Liberation Movement, which means that the events in the region were present in the discussions and in the briefing that was provided to the two countries about the current developments and the accusations directed against the RSF.  Minawi’s presence in the two rounds may also be an indication of a change in the positions of the Darfur armed movements that had declared that they were neutral in the war, but found themselves in a position that could no longer tolerate neutrality at a time when their people were being subjected to massacres, ethnic cleansing and genocide.

It is clear that the Sudanese government is now working on, in coincidence with the escalation of its military operations in the capital, to turn the tables on the RSF diplomatically by moving on towards the IGAD front, in order to neutralize them instead of hostility.  Al-Burhan’s visits to Kenya and Ethiopia are not isolated from his previous visits to South Sudan and Eritrea and his meeting with their presidents on the sidelines of the Saudi-African summit in Riyadh, last Friday.

The other thing is that these movements also addressed the issue of a comprehensive Sudanese dialogue to address the political crisis in the country, which is the crisis that led to the outbreak of the war, and any effort to end it must go through addressing it as well.

The core phrase mentioned in this context is that the dialogue must be “inclusive of all parties,” meaning that no party is excluded. This puts a hot ball in the court of the political and civil forces and tests whether they are able to retreat from the zero-sum equation and the exclusionary discourse that dragged the country into this destructive war, and contributes to its continuation.