The game of politics is often violent. Throughout history, especially the tumultuous twentieth century, violent politics has manifest itself in coup d’états, insurgencies, terror-campaigns, decades-long guerrilla wars, fully mobilised civil wars, and conventional two-state wars. The parties implicated in these conflicts have ambitions and motivations. Analysing the political motivations of belligerent parties yields deeper insight into any type of conflict, as these motivations form their roots. The case of Sudan’s insurgencies requires such analysis. Sudan’s leading rebels have claimed that they are seeking to remedy the immense inequality and political disenfranchisement of the periphery states at the hands of the central autocratic power in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum. The rebels’ motivations have ideological foundations rooted in democratic values such as equality, religious and political freedom, and universal representation.

This CAI discussion paper attempts to place Sudan’s war in an ideological context by detailing the armed opposition’s democratic aspirations, as well to weigh these aspirations against the reality of the war and the reality of the rebels’ place in the international community.

An Arab Spring naught: The West’s global war against autocracy forgets Sudan

It is perhaps less stated and more often assumed that within the context of war the belligerents on both sides have the will to perish for their objective, whatever that may be. The question at the centre of warfare could very well be: why do they fight? This question is of interest especially to those considering fighting on either side’s behalf, by providing direct or indirect support. The political motivations associated with one side of a conflict are often similar to those external to it. Thus these motivations have historically had massive policy impacts, for rebel interests can, and often do, become regional or proxy-interests of distant powers based on aligned ideologies. The anthology of Cold War proxy-conflicts, which took place on every continent in the twentieth century, illustrates this point deafeningly.

It is precisely this alignment of interests, influenced by ideology, which has inspired foreign support for warring parties in the ongoing conflicts of 2014. China and Russia provide weapons and support to Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, and to the late Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi - all of whom are/were indicted by most of the international community for heinous crimes against their own people, and all of whom do/did not uphold human rights or democratic values within their territory.⁽²⁾ Russia and China are similarly autocratic, aligning their ideologies with those of these countries, and thus support is provided.⁽³⁾ Forming an opposing alliance, the liberal democracies of the United States (US) and the West at large align themselves with at least nominally democratically aimed rebels. The West supported the Libyan rebels in their campaign against Gaddafi, and currently support the Syrian rebels in their struggle against Assad as well (though in a much less visible fashion).⁽⁴⁾

There is a conspicuous omission by this “democratic” alliance: Sudan. Why has the West ignored the plight of the Sudanese armed opposition, which has called for inclusive democratic reforms and which strives for an end to the despotic rule of Bashir’s National Congress Party (NCP)? Currently, a popular policy option amongst observers is to foster a national dialogue and constitution-building ahead of the supposedly planned 2015 elections, but this is in spite of the fact that Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) are currently conducting a “decisive summer” offensive against the beleaguered rebels, and while politicians are being arrested for crying out against the government’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSFs) who are committing atrocities.⁽⁵⁾ The Sudanese rebels could very well be running out of time. Perhaps the West should take a closer look at Sudan’s rebels - their aspirations may be surprisingly familiar.

Professors, lawyers and warlords: Disparate identities with a common cause

The rebellion in Sudan is a patchwork of causes, led by a diverse group of commanders, all with different modes of conducting their struggles, and all with different shades of oppositional politics. In Darfur alone, the rebellion is split into at least three factions - with a range of leading captains. The Darfur rebel groups fighting in 2014 had their beginnings in the late 1990s, at a time when internal forces in Sudan seemed to be gathering for a future storm - clandestine meetings were taking place in the various provincial capitals, as well as in Khartoum, in which whispers of a Darfur rebellion gained more and more traction. A rogue’s gallery of foreign officers and southern rebel emissaries had begun to pledge their support. Army brass in Eritrea and Chad were enticed to funnel weapons and funds to the burgeoning groups, and cohesion between the southern rebellion and Darfur ebbed and flowed.⁽⁶⁾ Then, in 2000, the mysterious kitab al- aswad, or Black Book: An Imbalance of Power and Wealth was authored by early, anonymous rebel leaders and intellectuals, including several professors of political science from the University of Khartoum. Its secret distribution throughout Khartoum had the authorities in a frenzy - the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) hunted for anyone who had a copy, or anyone connected to its authorship.⁽⁷⁾ Out of this environment of simmering anti-Khartoum sentiments and movements (which had been brewing steadily since 1985) sprang three leaders: Minni Minnawi, Abdel Wahid and Dr Khalil Ibrahim. These men formed the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA)(SLA-Minni Minnawi and SLA-Abdel factions), as well as the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), respectively. Each of these commander-figureheads controlled organisations of varying political means.⁽⁸⁾

The SLA’s long-time and original leader was Abdel Wahid, but disagreements over leadership methods led to his eventual downfall. Minni Minnawi, a young SLA member, splintered off of the SLA, seizing on Wahid’s indecisiveness and lack of initiative. Through speed and sheer ruthlessness, Minnawi became one of the most powerful men in Darfur, launching attacks on the other rebel groups, looting, and killing civilians. Also, besides from merely referring to himself as a “revolutionary,” Minnawi did not have a political vision for Sudan. Minnawi was outspokenly anti-intellectual, worrying that “politicians” or “intellectuals” would steal the movement, ignoring the fact that he had used barbarism to steal it for himself.⁽⁹⁾

Abdel Wahid was much more liberal and democratic. Wahid had earned a law degree at the University of Khartoum and was the obvious choice for the SLA chairman position at the outset of the rebellion. He was not as violent as Minnawi (he vehemently opposed looting, domination, or the use of child soldiers), and more importantly, he was extremely inclusive - an attribute hard to find in the narrative of divisive Darfur conflict. While Minnawi filled his cabinet with his own Zaghawa brethren, Wahid fashioned a multi-ethnic, and even multi-racial faction, by distributing positions to Zaghawa, Fur and Arabs. The divide between Abdel Wahid and Minni Minnawi was the first and most potent blow to the rebellion’s effectiveness. Both factions of the SLA still exist in 2014, and still have fighting strength, but also still face many of the same problems that they always have: lack of cohesion, consensus and broader popular and logistical support.⁽¹⁰⁾

Independent of the SLA, the Dr Khalil Ibrahim-led JEM appeared rather suddenly as a military force to reckoned with in 2003, when they launched their first attack. The group had existed for three years prior. JEM had grown out of a previous political movement, the National Islamic Front (NIF). and attempted to work within the political system both with and without NIF for a decentralised, religiously free, politically free, and wealth/power sharing Sudan. Failing in the road-block privy, shark tank of Khartoum politics, the group opted for armed insurrection instead. Unlike the SLA’s failure at organisation, JEM was a tight ship, and had strong ideological foundations, which had been outlined by the group’s forefathers in the Black Book. The group was much more politically based, and advocated for a national plan for a new Sudan, rather than focusing on the local. The JEM, perhaps more importantly, had not been tainted by a gun-slinging figure such as Minni Minnawi. JEM leader Dr Khalil Ibrahim, before ascending the organisation, had held several government posts in North Darfur, Blue Nile and Juba, in southern Sudan. Ibrahim was killed in 2012, but the JEM continues in 2014 under his brother’s leadership.⁽¹¹⁾

Moving south from Darfur, in Blue Nile and South Kordofan the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement - North (SPLM-N) is currently led by Malik Agar. Agar was a right-hand man to the late southern Sudanese renowned rebel leader John Garang. Agar had always disagreed with Garang about southern secession, claiming Bashir needed to be eliminated, and that everyone needed to be equal citizens in a united Sudan. When the 2011 southern secession came, Agar found himself on the northern side of the border in Blue Nile, where he was elected as governor and subsequently sacked by Bashir. Agar had fallen out with the NCP because of their lack of commitment to settling the issue of the ‘three areas’ (the border areas of Blue Nile, South Kordofan and Abuyei). He has since launched an insurgency as the SPLM-N.

Agar was elected as chairman of the east-west-south rebel coalition known as the Sudanese Revolutionary Front (SRF) in 2012, and has stated that the rebel-umbrella group fights for “a democratic system that is based on citizenship and amicable power-sharing.” More directly, the explicit goal of the SRF is to replace Bashir with a democracy.⁽¹²⁾ The SRF, which includes all of Sudan’s principal rebellions (including those in Darfur), could be the key to a Sudanese revolution.

A rebel for president? The SRF’s democratic stripes

While the SRF is made up of several factions with different geographic ties, the groups universally hold representational aims. The Darfur rebel groups and the SPLM-­N have even been demanding political representation to the point that it has actually undermined their other efforts at the war’s negotiating table. Reviewing the leadership and their organisational manifestos shows a common thread throughout the entire rebellion: democratisation through revolution. And, while the SLA has historically been interested in resistance over ideology (while JEM being the opposite), all groups hold democratic strains of thought in their manifestos.

The “SLA Manifesto,” made public in 2003, calls for a secular, decentralised state, and equal sharing of power and wealth. It is heavily inspired by John Garang’s “New Sudan” ideas. A large emphasis, as per Wahid’s views, is on inclusivity, specifically mentioning “Arab tribes” who the SLA beckoned to join them in the fight against Khartoum. Minni Minnawi produced his own version of the Manifesto, but it relied largely on the original.⁽¹³⁾

The JEM’s Black Book is the most well-known public indictment of the unequal, unjust situation in Sudan and serves as the group’s manifesto. Its success is due to its controversial contents, which were at the time somewhat obvious knowledge, yet taboo politically. Moreover, the Black Book outlines the inequality in extreme detail, providing statistics and data illustrating political representation, proportions of power, population data of the states, government spending by province - all greatly inflammatory to anyone living in the peripheries. Not only was the manifesto about inequality, it showed the inequality.⁽¹⁴⁾ It is also a very democratic document, outlining restructuring of the entire nation, a rotating presidency (in which the presidency “rotates” through the inhabitants of the different provinces), and a Sudan “based on political pluralism, the rule of law, independence of the judiciary and the principle of separation of powers.”⁽¹⁵⁾

Finally, the SPLM-N’s manifesto is also ideologically democratic, and in sync with the visions of the SLA and JEM.

These pursuits of a political voice, illustrated by the rebels’ public political identities, show the necessity of democratisation, and the rebels’ willingness to participate. Following this, if political inclusion and tolerance are to be taken up by Khartoum, then the war is effectively over between Sudan and its people. Each side would be democratically active and would not have recourse to continue or renew fighting should they follow through with the promises of democracy. This is currently impossible politically, hence the rebellion. However, this highlights a key connection, that of democracy to peace. If Khartoum were able to reverse from its illiberal course and experience a democratic, inclusionary awakening, then war would not be want to continue, as the Sudanese electorate would have to be taken into consideration. State representation for the peripheries would then be possible without them having to fight a war for it. The rebels’ suggestion for a rotating presidency, to be filled by each region at a time, is particularly logical in this regard. However, in a climate of terror, and without a chance to express their political identity, the rebels will continue to perceive Khartoum as any human would perceive such tyranny: unpredictable, dangerous, and above all, unreasonable.

Many issues, which are neither collectively nor singularly solvable at the moment stand in the way of a “democratic revolution:” the Khartoum regime itself, the NCP’s inability to coherently address any political problem at the moment, the perennial revolutionary problem of when and where to use violence (or if to stop violence altogether) and lastly the very limits of politics - the stark reality of deep central power holding perpetual sway in Khartoum. External support is needed for the rebels - if not diplomatic, then military - in facing their many problems. A rebel-led democratic revolution does not seem feasible should the international community continue to dispassionately watch from afar.

The Sudanese question remains unanswered

“[Sudan] is in fact one of the last multi-national empires on the planet” - Gerard Prunier, Sudan scholar ⁽¹⁶⁾

While attempts have been made by the West to alleviate the burning conflicts in Sudan (such as peacekeeping mission support in Darfur), they have not answered the Sudanese question of democracy. It seems Bashir’s regime should be an enemy to the West, just as Gaddafi was, and Assad is. The Sudanese rebels are more ideologically aligned with the West than the other rebellions. In fact, the revolutionary nature of the Sudanese armed opposition is more democratic, more politically open, and not identical in any way to the religious extremist myriad of loose-cannon groups associated with Libya’s and Syria’s rebellions. The revolutionary personality of Sudan’s rebels, in stark contrast to the central autocracy of Khartoum, is key in differentiating, and possibly even justifying, the Sudanese rebellion. Despite all of the differences in rebel factions, and their organisational pitfalls, the majority of Sudanese armed opposition is consistent with the Western democratic alliance in true form.

This alignment is especially evident when comparing the Sudanese rebellion to the other rebellions of 2014. An Islamist link to the Sudanese rebellion is weak, and the evidence of Jihadis is totally absent from the fight altogether. Additionally, and surprisingly, none of the groups are Marxist, or generally left-leaning at all. Both of these differences - the lack of religious and Marxist revolutionary ideology - pushes the Sudanese rebellion into a sphere untouched by almost every fight currently taking place around the globe. Religious extremism is playing a significant role in the conflicts in Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, Chechnya, Egypt, Iraq, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen. Marxist extremism is at the root of, or at least part of the conflicts in Colombia, India, Myanmar, Nepal, and Turkey/Kurdistan.⁽¹⁷⁾ The scenario of democratic revolutionaries aimed at equalising their countrymen in the fight against a tyrannical rule is indeed a rare fight to fight in 2014. Is Sudan special?

One looks to precedent. Violent political movements aimed at achieving greater equality in the developing world have already played out. Indeed, within Africa, they were fought as the decolonisation wars of the 1950s and 1960s. But, as the periphery states are virtually colonised by the Nile Valley elites in Sudan, perhaps there is a similarity here that is more than superficial, and an inevitable fate worth paying attention to. Fundamental inequality is at the heart of the Sudanese conflict - the nation is statistically one of the most unequal on the planet.⁽¹⁸⁾ The centre-periphery dynamic is utterly irreconcilable economically, and their political relationship has hinged on this fact for all of Sudan’s existence. But unlike the victorious wars of decolonisation, Sudan remains in chains. The Sudanese rebels’ fight, in this regard, is unique in 2014, as most of the wars of this nature were already conducted and concluded 50 years ago, usually with total victory over the oppressor. Yet Sudan remains in this struggle.

A large problem with the Sudanese rebellion’s unique situation lies in the realm of foreign policy. As a colonial-style war for greater economic and political representation - or even a political identity - this fight is totally owned by the rebels. This is their fight, and they are alone in it (aside from marginal Chadian and Eritrean support), much in the same sense that the US did not fund African wars for independence (they were often allied with the oppressors) unless a communist villain was waiting on the other end of the gun. There is no communist villain this time, and there is no Westerner-killing Muammar Gaddafi, nor an Israel-battling Bashar al-Assad. Sudan’s government represents zero threat to the United States, even if its Sharia autocracy is an anathema to everything the West stands for. The US State Department’s label of Sudan as a “state-sponsor of terror” is farcical, as the NISS-Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) alliance, forged when US President George Bush was looking for “good Muslims” after 9/11, proves.⁽¹⁹⁾ In a perverse sense, Sudan’s government is even an ally to the US, when considering their role in the “Global War on Terror”.⁽²⁰⁾ Until the West can shirk its habit of short-sighted, revenge-based foreign policy, the oppressed rebels and the people of Sudan will continue to be killed and maimed.

Written by Cameron Evers ⁽¹⁾

NOTES:

(1) Cameron Evers is a Research Associate with CAI with a research and analysis focus on African conflict and politics in several sub-regions, particularly East Africa. Contact Cameron through Consultancy Africa Intelligence's Conflict & Terrorism unit ( conflict.terrorism@consultancyafrica.com). Edited by Nicky Berg. Research manager: Leigh Hamilton.
(2) ‘Arms sales to Sudan, 2004-2006’, Human Rights First, www.humanrightsfirst.org; Suleiman, O., 2010. The Darfur conflict – Geography or institutions? Routledge African Studies; ‘Sudan’, Freedom House, http://www.freedomhouse.org.
(3) ‘Map of freedom’, Freedom House, 2014, www.freedomhouse.org.
(4) Hosenball, M., ‘Congress secretly approves US weapons flow to ‘moderate’ Syrian rebels’, Reuters, 27 January 2014, www.reuters.com.
(5) ‘The “decisive summer” offensive’, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 20 May 2014, http://unocha.org; ‘Sudan arrests ex-PM for state abuse claims’, Al Jazeera, 18 May 2014, www.aljazeera.com.
(6) De Waal, A., 2008. War in Darfur and the search for peace. Harvard University Press: Cambridge.
(7) Prunier, G., 2005. Darfur: The ambiguous genocide. Cornell University Press: Ithaca.
(8) De Waal, A., 2008. War in Darfur and the search for peace. Harvard University Press: Cambridge.
(9) Ibid.
(10) Ibid.
(11) Ibid.
(12) ‘Malik Agar’, Sudan Tribune, www.sudantribune.com; ‘SRF rebels propose roadmap for peace in Sudan’, Sudan Tribune, 26 April 2014, www.sudantribune.com.
(17) De Waal, A., 2008. War in Darfur and the search for peace. Harvard University Press: Cambridge.
(18) Anonymous, 2004 (original Arabic version 2000). The black book: Imbalance of power and wealth in Sudan. Translator: Anonymous. Justice and Equality Movement: Khartoum.
(19) Ibid.
(20) Prunier, G., 2005. Darfur: The ambiguous genocide. Cornell University Press: Ithaca.
(21) ‘Crisis map’, International Crisis Group, http://crisisgroup.be.
(22) De Waal, A., 2008. War in Darfur and the Search for Peace. Harvard University Press: Cambridge.
(23) Prunier, G., 2005. Darfur: The ambiguous genocide. Cornell University Press: Ithaca.
(24) Goldenberg, S., ‘Sudan becomes ally on US ‘War on Terror’, The Guardian, 29 April 2005, www.theguardian.com.