By: The Editor-in-Chief
Sudan, a country in the Horn of Africa, was ruled by Omar al-Bashir, a former military officer, for 30 years. During his reign, he used violence to control the country. In April 2019, a mass uprising led to his downfall. Many hoped that Sudan would finally become a freer society with a responsive administration.
Unfortunately, the regime that Bashir built outlasted his reign. Within two years of his fall, the military was back in power. A power struggle between the top two generals has pushed Sudan to the brink of a civil war. Dozens of civilians have already been killed in fighting that broke out on Saturday in Khartoum and other parts of the country between the military and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a notorious paramilitary group.
The two generals, Lt.Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Lt.Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, ousted a civilian transition government and took over the reins of the country. They agreed to transfer power back to the civilians, but differences emerged on who should control the post-transition military. Gen. Burhan supports the integration of the RSF into the regular military and transition to civilian government to take place in two years, while Gen. Dagalo wants to delay it by 10 years. Discord grew into mistrust and mistrust led to fighting.
The fighting could drag the country, which has a history of internal strife, into an all-out civil war. Sudan’s generals are known for their scant regard for the welfare of their people. The country is struggling with an economic crisis, with rocketing inflation and a burning hunger problem. The last thing Sudan wants now is a civil war.
If the priority of the generals is to address Sudan’s basic problems, they should pay attention to the call for a truce and dialogue, and commit themselves to a timeline-sensitive democratic transition. Decades of military rule in Sudan have resulted in a lot of atrocities. Generals Burhan and Dagalo should not tread the same course.
