The struggle in Sudan for control of the regime is causing unimaginable suffering and death. Bill Bonnar surveys its history and the potential for freedom and change.
Sudan today represents the greatest humanitarian disaster on the planet. A quarter of the population have become internal refugees, countless hundreds of thousands of people have died, and famine is stalking the land. Yet it barely registers on the news media. To put this into context, far more coverage has been given to the death of the former One Direction pop star than to this tragedy.
There is one key factor that informs any kind of political discussion on Sudan: geography. Sudan is a vast country. Before the South split away in 2011 it was the largest country in Africa, the size of western Europe. Even today it is as big as Britain, Spain and Italy combined. At its centre is Khartoum. The Khartoum Metropolitan Area is a mega city combining Khartoum, Khartoum North, Ombdurman and other towns. Its population of 15 million represents a third of the country. This is important because when talking about the government in Khartoum, that is literally what it is: the government in Khartoum. Travel a hundred miles in any direction from the capital and government and state authority melts away into an endless expanse of territories, provinces and regions where central government control is mostly by agreement and arrangement.

Sudan became an independent country in 1956 through a mass movement which freed both Egypt and Sudan from British rule. Almost immediately the country became embroiled in two major internal conflicts which would come to dominate Sudanese politics to the present. First, the conflict between the Arab Muslim north and the predominantly Christian African south led, after a long war, to the south breaking away and forming its own state. The second conflict is between the conservative forces of Islamic fundamentalism and the progressive and secular forces often led by the Sudanese Communist Party. In this conflict a key role has been played by the army which, in a country with weak state institutions, has always been prominent. Military elements support both sides.
This latter conflict came to a head in 1969 in a military coup led by General Niemeri which consolidated the power of the conservative Islamic forces. In 1971 the Nimeiri regime was briefly overthrown by a left-wing military coup involving the Communist Party. This proved short-lived when Niemri returned, supported by foreign Arab troops, to re-establish the previous regime. What followed was a period of intense repression with the execution of almost the entire leadership of the Communist Party. However, by the end of the 1970s a combination of severe economic problems, famine, and the outbreak of war with rebel forces in the south forced the regime to retreat, and a more broad-based government emerged under President Sadiq al Mahdi.
This lasted until 1989 when another military coup brought the current regime to power under General Omar Al Bashir. In 2019, following mass protests in Khartoum, General Bashir was removed from power and a new transitional government was appointed that contained military elements of the old regime and representatives of civil society. The declared aim was the transition to full civil government, but this proved to be a trap. The real aim was to keep the regime in power. In 2021 the military staged another coup, fuelling mass protests, particularly from the Movement for Freedom and Change which included the still-banned Communist Party.
In recent years, the Sudanese army has primarily been located in and around the capital in order to defend the regime, while its military activities elsewhere have often been outsourced to Arab militia groups that serve as shock troops for the regime. It is these forces which carried out the genocide in Darfur. Now organised as the Rapid Support Force (RSF) they were summoned into Khartoum to bolster the regime. A big mistake. Failing to quell the mass protests, the regime turned on itself, with the RSF battling with the regular army in its bid for power and control. This internecine conflict quickly spread beyond the capital into the provinces, resulting in the current devastating war.
It should at all times be remembered that this struggle within the regime is about who is best placed to maintain it in power. In the meantime, the struggle continues to overthrow the regime. Bordering nine countries, the war is destabilising the whole of North East Africa. Hundreds of thousands of people are fleeing across borders. Some of these countries, including Eritrea and Somalia, have their own intense conflicts, and rebel groups are moving back and forwards between countries. Vast amounts of weaponry are flooding into the country from other Arab states, Russia, United States and western Europe, all hedging their bets as to who will come to the fore in the war. None are supporting the movement for democratic change. Sudan’s value, apart from vast untapped resources, is its strategic position between Arab north Africa and sub-Saharan Africa to the south.
Below the surface in Khartoum the fight to overthrow the regime goes on. With fighting in the capital lessening as the war sweeps across the country, progressive civil forces are re-emerging and effectively taking control of whole districts. The movement for Freedom and Change is on the rise, comprising community organisations, trade unions and progressive political parties. Their struggle goes on for an end to the regime and its replacement with a democratic, civilian government and the creation of a progressive, secular Sudan. It is a struggle which will finally harness the enormous potential resources of this vast country for the benefit of its people.
Bill Bonnar is a member of the Scottish Left Review editorial committee.