Restore civilian supremacy over army to insulate Sudan from coups

When the Roman poet Juvenal wrote the famous line: “Who will guard the guards themselves?” he was mulling over the moral question of marital fidelity. In our times, the line begs the philosophical question of how power can be held to account.

The Greek philosopher Socrates’ solution is properly training the souls of the guardians of power. But what kind of training can cure the souls of Sudanese military Generals? On October 25, 2021, for the nth time, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan led the Sudanese military in a coup d'état.

In the ensuing power heist, the army overthrew the transitional government, claiming this was necessary to avoid a civil war. It dissolved the Sovereignty Council, declared a state of emergency, put the civilian Prime Minister Abdulla Hamdok under house arrest, detained a majority of cabinet ministers and shut down the internet and social media. The military turned its guns on those protesting against the coup, killing at least 10 civilians and injuring over 140 others.

General Burhan is gambling with Sudan’s destiny. He has derailed democracy, postponing elections slated for next year to July 2023. 

It is déjà vu all-over again. The October 2021 coup is an attempt by the military to steal the revolution. The power grab threatens to roll back the gains made in democracy in the wake of mass protests in April 2019 that led to the removal by the military of President Omar al-Bashir, who seized power in a 1989 coup.

Protesters challenged the legitimacy of the Transitional Military Council that replaced Bashir. The army clammed down on civilians, culminating in the June 3, 2019 Khartoum massacre where more than 100 people were killed. The military capitulated to civilian protests, signed the Draft Constitutional Declaration in August 2019 and agreed to share power with civilians.

A Sovereignty Council was formed to oversee the transition over the next 39 months under the authority of a civilian Prime Minister, Abdalla Hamdok. The Council was to be led by a military figure for 21 months, followed by a civilian leader for 18 months. General Burhan was due to step down as chairman of the Council this month.

Sudan's ailing economy

However, as the handing over date approached, tensions between the military and civilian leaders mounted. Gen Burhan assumed autocratic ambitions, became visibly impatient with the civilian leadership of Hamdok.

The military even sponsored demonstrations in Khartoum against the civilian government. Several failed coups have occurred since 2019. The conflict came to a head in September 2021 when the government thwarted a military coup attempt which it blamed on the “remnants of the former regime”. Over 40 officers were arrested in the wake of the coup attempt.

The military, including Gen Burhan and Gen Mohamed Hamdan, leader of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, has not been at ease with the idea of handing over Bashir to the International Criminal Court (ICC), preferring that he is tried in Sudan. They feared that at The Hague, Bashir might name them as culprits in the alleged atrocities in Darfur.

They also wary of that investigation into the June 2019 massacre in Khartoum would lay the blame on them. The Prime Minister has also been vocal in his criticism of the military meddling in the economy, including the network of companies and commercial empires owned by senior military officials. Besides commanding a huge share of the national budget, the army also owned companies that operate with tax exemptions and accused of involvement in corrupt practices. 

The coup-makers are also exploiting Sudan's ailing economy, especially high inflation and shortages of food, fuel and medicine, justify the coup. 

Pressure should be exacted on two fronts to assert civilian supremacy over the military. 

First is support for popular resistance to military dictatorship. As the analyst Alex de Waal rightly observed, the coup is not necessarily a “done deal”. Sudan has a immense capacity for civic mobilisation. Hamdok and his government have refused to declare support for the coup, calling for popular resistance.

Spearheading the revolution are the Sudanese Professionals' Association (SPA), an umbrella association of 17 different Sudanese trade unions and the Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC) a broad coalition of civilian and rebel groups that steered the 2018–19 Sudanese protests. They have called a “march of millions” to save the revolution.

Geopolitical rivalries

Second, Sudan’s international partners should ratchet up pressure on the military to accept the principle of civilian supremacy and restore the transitional Government. The African Union (AU) has suspended Sudan from all its activities until power is returned to a civilian government. 

Western powers have denounced the coup and continued to recognize Hamdok’s cabinet as the legitimate “constitutional leaders of the transitional government.”

Prior to the coup, America had dispatched its Special Envoy to the Horn, Jeffrey Feldman, to broker a peace-deal between the generals and the civilians. The coup embarrassed and outraged Washington, which had removed Sudan from its state sponsors of terrorism list. The U.S. has suspended a $700m financial assistance package. The World Bank also suspended its financial aid to the country.

However, caution should be taken to insulate Sudan from the spill-over effects of geopolitical rivalries in the Middle-East.

The Arab League, usually in line with the Egyptian government’s position, has called for the constitutional formula to be respected. Sudan’s generals have been trying to copy and paste the script that enabled Abdul Fatah al-Sisi's military takeover in Egypt in 2013. 

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia, who provided crucial financial aid to Gen Burhan in 2019, are silent on the putsch but unlikely to support the generals.

The international community should work closely with the African Union and IGAD to get the army to stop violent crackdown on the democracy movement and to return to the transition framework.

Professor Peter Kagwanja is former Government Adviser and Chief Executive, Africa Policy Institute