{"id":53994,"date":"2025-09-08T02:31:50","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T23:31:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/?p=53994"},"modified":"2025-09-08T02:31:50","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T23:31:50","slug":"yesterdays-enemies-todays-allies-tasis-between-rsf-pragmatism-and-splm-norths-core-principles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/08\/yesterdays-enemies-todays-allies-tasis-between-rsf-pragmatism-and-splm-norths-core-principles\/","title":{"rendered":"Yesterday\u2019s Enemies, Today\u2019s Allies: \u201cTasis\u201d Between RSF Pragmatism and SPLM-North\u2019s Core Principles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Atar – Mohamed Al-Kamil<\/strong><\/p>\n

In July, the Sudan Founding Alliance (Tasis) established a 15-member Presidential Council headed by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commander of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), with Abdelaziz al-Hilu, leader of the Sudan People\u2019s Liberation Movement\u2013North (SPLM-North, al-Hilu faction), as his deputy. The alliance also named a prime minister tasked with forming an executive government within a month. This development coincided with the creation of the \u201cGovernment of Hope\u201d under the authority of Sudan\u2019s Armed Forces, leaving both the RSF and the army with parallel governments ruling the areas under their respective military control.<\/p>\n

This came after the army recaptured several central Sudanese states, beginning with Sennar, followed by Al-Jazira, and eventually the capital, Khartoum. The outcome was a military map where each side held vast, clearly demarcated territories, while active frontlines remained in Kordofan and North Darfur, now major theaters of war.<\/p>\n

For the RSF, these shifts narrowed its options for nationwide domination. The group now faced a choice: attempt once again to expand eastward from its western strongholds, or consolidate power in Darfur and Kordofan to build a stable authority there. Either path required more money, arms, allies, internal cohesion\u2014and a return to politics.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the RSF began political maneuvers, first by drawing defectors from the civilian Democratic Civil Forces Coordination (Taqaddum) into a formal alliance\u2014forming the nucleus of Tasis. The major breakthrough came in February 2025, when SPLM-North (al-Hilu) signed the alliance charter.<\/p>\n

The SPLM-North, once a fierce adversary of the RSF both ideologically and on the battlefield, became a heavyweight partner. The delay in finalizing the charter was largely due to negotiations with al-Hilu\u2019s movement. The eventual power-sharing deal reflected a balance: al-Hilu was named deputy head of the council, while the alliance\u2019s constitution enshrined principles the SPLM-North had long sought in vain from Sudanese governments\u2014self-determination, supra-constitutional guarantees of secularism, and a long transition period during which the movement retains its arms.<\/p>\n

This alignment followed decades of hostility. The RSF had spearheaded counterinsurgency campaigns against SPLM-North in South Kordofan under the Bashir regime. While the SPLM-North remained at war with Khartoum, the RSF was a creation of the state\u2019s security apparatus and its instrument against rebellions. So what, today, has brought them together?<\/p>\n

The RSF\u2019s motives are clearer. Militarily, SPLM-North\u2019s entry opens a new southern front from South Kordofan, while expanding RSF\u2019s border access to South Sudan\u2014facilitating arms and fuel supplies, and trade flows into its territories. This could even allow the RSF to channel goods to wealthy Gulf markets through Mombasa, bypassing Sudan\u2019s ports, since Darfur is landlocked and economically peripheral. Politically, SPLM-North bolsters the RSF\u2019s narrative of a \u201crevolution of the marginalized,\u201d framing its war as a struggle to rebuild Sudan on fairer terms for its neglected peripheries.<\/p>\n

Initially, SPLM-North hesitated, refusing to side with either the army or the RSF despite both courting it. Limited coordination with the army soon collapsed, and hopes of alignment ended entirely with the Tasis charter.<\/p>\n

The move appeared to contradict SPLM-North\u2019s past positions and ideological steadfastness. Yet sharp political and military shifts have long defined the SPLM\u2019s history, particularly the parent movement, which repeatedly reinvented itself under pressure.<\/p>\n

In 1983, the SPLM\u2019s first manifesto called for a \u201cunited socialist Sudan\u201d and framed its struggle as part of global anti-imperialism. Backed by Mengistu\u2019s Ethiopia, it fought through the Cold War. But the collapse of the USSR and the rise of Bashir\u2019s Islamist regime in Khartoum, which cast the war as jihad, forced the SPLM to pivot toward Western ties and U.S. advocacy groups. The conflict took on the contours of an identity war: Christian African South versus Arab Muslim North. After the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, and especially after John Garang\u2019s death, self-determination took precedence, codified in the 2008 manifesto.<\/p>\n

In South Kordofan, the Nuba people\u2014dispossessed by state land seizures for mechanized farming projects awarded to elites and neighboring Arab tribes\u2014joined the SPLM\u2019s fight from the 1980s. While South Sudan secured independence, the \u201cTwo Areas\u201d (South Kordofan and Blue Nile) were relegated to vague \u201cpopular consultations.\u201d Disputes over the 2011 South Kordofan elections between Ahmed Haroun and Abdelaziz al-Hilu sparked renewed war, soon spreading to Blue Nile.<\/p>\n

Thus SPLM-North emerged after South Sudan\u2019s secession, representing 1.97 million people in the Two Areas (4.1% of Sudan\u2019s population). Rich in farmland and gold but trapped in economic marginalization and dependency on Khartoum, the regions lacked the basis for true autonomy. Geography, as with the RSF, imposed limits: full independence proved unworkable, while full integration was elusive. The movement oscillated between negotiating with Khartoum, joining opposition alliances, or waiting for new opportunities.<\/p>\n

By 2017, internal rifts led to a split between Malik Agar\u2019s and al-Hilu\u2019s factions, the latter refusing to abandon core principles: secularism, self-determination, and the right to bear arms. In 2020, Agar\u2019s wing signed the Juba Peace Agreement with Sudan\u2019s transitional government, gaining governorship of Blue Nile and partial power-sharing. Today, it fights alongside the army. Al-Hilu, meanwhile, remained committed to his demands\u2014until the war with the RSF offered a chance to entrench them.<\/p>\n

In Tasis, al-Hilu has secured unprecedented space: extreme decentralization bordering on independence, and explicit concessions on secularism. Weakening Khartoum suits both partners, deepening Sudan\u2019s fragmentation while expanding SPLM-North\u2019s authority.<\/p>\n

The Tasis alliance, then, is a marriage of convenience forged by war and geography. Its survival depends on military resilience against the army, the ability to articulate a coherent political vision, and effective governance of its disparate territories. Otherwise, it risks becoming just another short-lived alliance in Sudan\u2019s long history of fragile coalitions, perpetuating rather than resolving the country\u2019s crisis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Atar – Mohamed Al-Kamil In July, the Sudan Founding Alliance (Tasis) established a 15-member Presidential Council headed by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commander of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), with Abdelaziz al-Hilu, leader of the Sudan People\u2019s Liberation Movement\u2013North (SPLM-North, al-Hilu faction), as his deputy. The alliance also named a prime minister tasked with forming an …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53991,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53994","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=53994"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53995,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53994\/revisions\/53995"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}