What's Behind the Coup

Despite General Abdel Fattah El-Burhan’s false claim that he ceased power to prevent a civil war, the motives behind the military coup in Sudan are transparent. The Sudanese situation is extremely complicated, but Burhan and Hemedti, the coup leaders, have one goal: to preempt handing over presidency of the Sovereign Council to civilians, which is due to take place next month based on the Constitutional Document that governs the transitional period. The power grab couldn’t be more apparent. The generals’ wish list is very short: to avoid accountability for their past crimes in Darfur and elsewhere, and to maintain the financial and political power they gained during the years of Omar El-Bashir’s dictatorship. Both wishes satisfy the coup supporters, Bashir regime remnants and sympathizers whose ambitions of tyranny and theft, and stranglehold on the economy are known to the Sudanese people. 

In the last three decades, the military establishment has built a vast commercial empire of over 200 companies dealing in arms and ammunition, mining, construction, and many other ventures. They enjoy extensive tax exemptions and operate outside the national budget. In effect, the Sudanese military comprises an economically autonomous entity that exists in parallel to other state bodies, with no transparency or accountability. Hemedti has his own ruthless army of Rapid Support Forces who are currently terrorizing protestors in Khartoum and other cities. He refuses to abide by the Juba Peace Agreement, by which his militia is to be absorbed in the national armed forces. He has amassed wealth from control of gold mining in western Sudan and other enterprises, and maintains his own political relations with other countries. Prime Minister Hamdok has rightly described this ungoverned position of the military in Sudan as unacceptable. The Transitional Government, despite some missteps and shortcomings, had begun a process to correct this complex untenable situation. The generals couldn’t let this happen. 

On this fifth day of the coup, a new government has yet to be announced. There is great uncertainty. But from the continuing strong resistance to the coup, one thing is clear: a civilian government is coming; sooner or later, with more or less bloodshed. What the coup enforcers had hoped to achieve is to keep their leadership in the remainder of the transitional period, and then ensure that a government of their making comes to power via elections in 2023. Burhan’s selective suspension of the Constitutional Document is revealing. The suspended Article 16.5 concerns the formation of independent national commissions, including the critical commissions for Constitution Drafting; Elections; Anti-Corruption and Public Funds Recovery; and Transitional Justice. In other words, the intention is to upend all efforts to hold the generals and other Bashir operatives accountable in the next two years, and to gain control over the crafting of election laws and implementation logistics, giving themselves a good chance of getting a favorable outcome in 2023. This bears chilling resemblance to the Republicans’ playbook in the US. 

حرية سلام و عدالة

Freedom, Peace, Justice

Coup & Resistance

On October 25th, after having toppled the thirty-year brutal dictatorship of Omar El-Bashir in 2019, Sudan returned to Square 1. A military coup headed by General Abdul Fattah El-Burhan, head of the Transitional Sovereign Council, ceased power. Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, head of the Transitional Government, and most members of his Cabinet were arrested. This has effectively ended the fragile power sharing arrangement of the last two years, and derailed the transition to full civilian rule. As Sudanese observers note, Burhan’s move simply crystallizes a postponed, unavoidable confrontation.

The coup is perpetrated by military generals (Burhan and Hemedti), the two Darfur armed rebel movement leaders who signed the Juba Peace Agreement last year (Minnawi and Ibrahim), and a faceless band of Bashir regime remnants and sympathizers, with suspected support from Egypt and UAE. Members of the banned Islamist Congress Party that ruled Sudan for three decades until the fall of Bashir have never stopped plotting to undermine the Transitional Government’s work to rehabilitate the economy and seek justice for victims of war and other crimes committed during his reign. Last month, this trio of army generals, disgraced rebel leaders, and Bashir operatives led a modest counter protest in support of the military, and created a narrative that the Sudanese are split over whether civilians or soldiers should govern. The massive nationwide demonstrations on October 21st in support of full civilian rule discredit this narrative.  

Following the coup, demonstrations immediately broke out in Khartoum and other cities. Yesterday, PM Hamdok and his wife were released but remain under house arrest. Most Cabinet members are still detained at an undisclosed location, and more arrests of political leaders and journalists are taking place. The Sudanese street remains adamantly against the coup, flooded with the young revolutionaries, working day and night to block roads with barricades and burning tires. The Sudanese Professionals Association has called for complete civil disobedience, and waves of strikes have begun – doctors, lawyers, teachers and bankers, among others, are on strike. Sudanese ambassadors continue to publicly denounced the coup from different capitals around the world, and rallies are organized in Washington DC, London, and other major cities. 

In tragic but classic exercise of brute force, protesters are being shot dead on the streets of Khartoum. Hemedti’s Rapid Support Force and other militias are combing neighborhoods, terrorizing and killing members of the resistance committees. Burhan and Hemedti’s bloody record of atrocities in Darfur is well known. They showed how far they can go in the Ramadan massacre of June 3, 2019. No doubt they will cause as much bloodshed as necessary to hold on to power. They have the guns. Revolutionaries have their goal of “freedom, peace, and justice,” and the determined peaceful resistance that brought down mighty Bashir two years ago. Resistance is far from futile!