{"id":52206,"date":"2025-07-31T17:27:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T14:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/?p=52206"},"modified":"2025-07-31T17:27:00","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T14:27:00","slug":"the-manufacturing-of-political-illusion-and-ritualisation-of-violence-the-parallel-government-of-the-tasis-alliance-in-sudan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/31\/the-manufacturing-of-political-illusion-and-ritualisation-of-violence-the-parallel-government-of-the-tasis-alliance-in-sudan\/","title":{"rendered":"The Manufacturing of Political Illusion and Ritualisation of Violence : The Parallel Government of the \u2018Tasis\u2019 Alliance in Sudan"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Amgad Fareid Eltayeb<\/strong><\/p>\n

On July 26, 2025, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and its allied factions within the so-called \u201cFounding (Ta\u2019asis) Sudan Alliance\u201d declared the formation of a parallel government under the name \u201cGovernment of Peace.\u201d Led by RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti), with Abdulaziz al-Hilu as his notional deputy and a cast of symbolic figures appointed to various positions, the announcement has been widely dismissed in Sudanese political circles as an artificial construct. But behind this fiction lies a carefully timed and deeply political maneuver with far-reaching consequences for the narrative battle over legitimacy, governance, and international engagement in Sudan\u2019s catastrophic war.
\nA Tactical Invention, Not a Strategic Vision
\nThe first and most immediate question is: Why now? The answer lies in the calendar, not in the battlefield. The announcement was clearly timed to precede the July 30th meeting of the so-called \u201cQuad\u201d\u2014comprising the United States, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the UAE\u2014intended to reassess diplomatic approaches to the Sudanese conflict. By rushing to announce a government structure, despite internal rifts and lack of actual governance capacity, the RSF is attempting to force itself back into international discussions not as a militia to be disarmed, but as a political stakeholder with parallel governing authority.
\nThis is not a new war tactic. Non-state armed actors have historically used state-like symbols to reframe the nature of their struggle. What is novel here is the context: the RSF is not waging an ethno-secessionist war or resisting marginalization. Its state mimicry is not about liberation but about laundering violence. This parallel government is not the culmination of political evolution; it is an extension of military impunity.
\nA Government in Form, Not in Function
\nFar from heralding a shift in governance, the RSF\u2019s pseudo-government serves as a smokescreen for its continued predatory control over parts of Sudan. In areas under its sway\u2014Khartoum, Gezira, and large areas of Darfur\u2014the RSF has not established order, justice, or public services. Instead, it has unleashed a reign of terror characterized by systematic sexual violence, massacres, looting, and infrastructural devastation. The occupation of Khartoum led not only to mass civilian displacement but to the symbolic and literal destruction of Sudan\u2019s national memory\u2014the looting of the National Museum and the obliteration of its millennia-old artifacts.
\nSimilarly, the humanitarian toll in Gezira and Darfur defies description: entire villages like Wad al-Noura and al-Sireha reduced to charred rubble, women gang-raped as instruments of war, and over 15,000 people killed in El Geneina and Ardamta alone during the 2023 massacres of the Masalit people. These are not the actions of a political force ready to govern\u2014they are the signatures of a criminal regime masquerading as a state.
\nThe RSF\u2019s claim to governance, then, is not grounded in practice or legitimacy but in theater. The announcement of a \u201ccabinet,\u201d a \u201clegislative council,\u201d and symbolic governors for regions it does not control reveals a government that exists on paper and in press releases\u2014not in lived reality. Its purpose is not administration but persuasion: to persuade skeptical diplomats, embarrassed patrons, and war-weary Sudanese that the RSF is more than a death machine.
\nGeopolitical Camouflage and the Ethics of Recognition
\nTo understand the deeper logic of the RSF\u2019s move, one must look beyond Sudan\u2019s borders. This parallel government announcement is a strategic instrument designed to provide camouflage for international enablers\u2014especially the UAE. The mounting evidence of Emirati involvement in arming and financing the RSF has placed Abu Dhabi in an increasingly uncomfortable position, as international scrutiny intensifies over its role in sustaining a group designated by the United States as responsible for ethnic cleansing and genocide.
\nBy reframing the RSF as a \u201cgovernment\u201d or a political authority pursuing peace, the UAE and other supporters hope to neutralize criticism and justify their continued engagement under the pretense of supporting a peace process, rather than fueling a war. The RSF\u2019s structural mimicry thus becomes an ethical laundering mechanism\u2014an attempt to reclassify warlordism as governance, and atrocity as state-building.
\nThis strategy echoes the logic of other hybrid conflicts, where international actors exploit the ambiguity between state and non-state entities to advance geopolitical interests without the burden of accountability. But it also raises profound questions about the politics of recognition: If the international community grants even symbolic legitimacy to this formation, it risks collapsing the distinction between legitimacy and violence, between governance and predation.
\nThe Political Architecture of Fiction
\nThe internal structure of the RSF\u2019s government is not merely a fa\u00e7ade; it is a statement of intent. The inclusion of figures like former Sovereign Council member Mohamed al-Ta\u2019ayshi and retired General Fadlallah Barma, both previously associated with civilian and party politics, is not a sign of inclusiveness but of opportunism. Many of these figures have little political capital or popular base today. Their appointments are meant to project pluralism, co-opt disillusioned elites, and fracture the civilian front by absorbing symbols of legitimacy.
\nMore importantly, this \u201carchitecture\u201d attempts to recast the conflict from one between a state and a rogue militia into a symmetrical contest between two rival governments. This reframing is central to the RSF\u2019s long-term objective: to extract political parity and diplomatic recognition by force. If successful, it would transform a genocidal militia into a de facto negotiating partner, not on the basis of any popular mandate, but on the brute fact of territorial control and international complicity.
\nThis is not just dangerous for Sudan. It sets a precedent where violence becomes the currency of negotiation, and where external powers can manufacture political actors by arming them into relevance. The cost is borne not by generals or envoys, but by the women raped in Nyala, the children killed in Wad al-Noura, and the communities starved in Elfasher.
\nThe Quad\u2019s Dilemma: Diplomacy or Complicity?
\nThe July 30 meeting of the Quad comes at a pivotal moment. The RSF\u2019s announcement is a provocation, a test of the international community\u2019s resolve. Will the Quad treat this so-called \u201cGovernment of Peace\u201d as a party to be accommodated, or as a cynical ploy to sanitize atrocity?<\/p>\n

So far, the Quad\u2019s track record has been mixed. While the U.S. has sanctioned RSF leaders and labeled their crimes for what they are, it has failed to confront the external enablers -particularly UAE- with equal clarity. Saudi Arabia remains largely disengaged. Egypt continues to back the Government of Sudan while keeping diplomatic lines open with both sides. And the UAE\u2014the elephant in the room\u2014has not been publicly held accountable for its role in prolonging and intensifying the war.
\nThe success of the Quad meeting will depend not on its procedural outcomes, but on its moral clarity. If it fails to draw a line against the weaponization of governance and the normalization of militia rule, it will only embolden the RSF and other violent actors to pursue political aims through mass atrocity. Conversely, if it recognizes the RSF\u2019s maneuver for what it is\u2014a performative fiction designed to whitewash horror\u2014 and addressed the mounting risks of the continued UAE support to the RSF, the Quad may begin to reassert the primacy of realistic solutions to end the war in Sudan.
\nConclusion: A Shadow State, a Shattered Nation
\nThe RSF\u2019s announcement of a parallel government is not a moment of political breakthrough but a deepening of the country\u2019s fragmentation. It is a simulacrum of governance\u2014a shadow state born from a shattered nation. Its formation is not a signal of progress, but of peril: the peril of recognizing violence as legitimacy, of mistaking form for substance, and of allowing international interests to override ethical imperatives.
\nWhat Sudan needs is not two governments, but one legitimate authority capable of ending the war, restoring civil order, and rebuilding a social contract. Until then, the so-called \u201cGovernment of Peace\u201d remains what it is: a masquerade of power, built atop the graves of the innocent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Amgad Fareid Eltayeb On July 26, 2025, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and its allied factions within the so-called \u201cFounding (Ta\u2019asis) Sudan Alliance\u201d declared the formation of a parallel government under the name \u201cGovernment of Peace.\u201d Led by RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti), with Abdulaziz al-Hilu as his notional deputy and a cast …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1621,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52206"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52207,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52206\/revisions\/52207"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}