Editor’s note: Justin Lynch is a researcher and analyst at Washington, DC. He is co -author of the book “Sudan unfinished democracy. “The opinions expressed are yours. More opinion In CNN.
CNN
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Four years ago, almost until the day, the people of Sudan celebrated a revolution after overthrowing the lifelong dictator, Omar al-Bashir. Now the Eastern Africa country faces the possibility of a complete collapse similar to the chaos we see today in Yemen or Libya.
On Saturday, the rival military features, fighting each other in the capital of Jartum. The two parties fought for the control of airports, bases and military compounds of the nations. Violence quickly spilled in the streets and throughout the country.
Some 45 million Sudanese troops are hostage and cannot venture out of their homes for fear of being killed in crossfire. At least 180 people They have perished in the fight, including three humanitarian workers of the World Food Program.
The conflict faces two bitter rivals and their powerful armed forces with each other. On the one hand are the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), directed by General Abdel Fattah al-Curhan. On the other side are the rapid support forces (RSF), a paramilitary group directed by Mohamed Hamdan Day Alo, known as Hemeti.
There is no good side in this conflict. Both have been accused or a long litany of human rights violations.
How did they spend sudden of expelling the despotic government and creating an incipient democracy a few years ago to staggered the edge of state collapse?
On April 11, 2019, the dictator of Sudan, Bashir, was overthrown. The cause of the elimination of Bashir was months of protests led by the Sudan unions, which stimulated a military coup of the SAF and the RSF. Both Burhan and Hemeti joined strength to eliminate their former boss.
It was a moment of promise because there was hope for democracy. I remember walking through the “seated”, a giant carnival of freedom in the middle of Jardum that the protesters had blocked to demand change. It was electric.
But social movements such as the Association of Sudanese professionals (SPA), the union behind the protest, often struggle to translate the impulse of their manifestations to real political power.
The reason for this is, in part, structural. Social movements such as the spa are based on base activism. A dictator can judge one or two leaders of an organization but not an entire country.
However, once a dictator is overthrown, the thesis of social movements often struggles to build the necessary leadership hierarchy during the political negotiations that take place. Like many other movements, Sudan’s protesters could not translate mobilization into political power.
Civil leaders entered into a negotiation with the military on the future of the country shortly after Bashir fell in April 2019. The two parties were not matched. Due to leadership challenges, prodemocratic forces fought to negotiate with disciplined military.
Any impulse that democracy defenders had a duration of negotiations was eliminated in June 2019 when RSF soldiers violently dispersed the sitting. More than 100 people were killed.
After the June massacre and the leadership challenges, a transition constitution was signed in August 2019 that gave SAF and RSF most of the power in Sudan. Burhan was the head of state, and Hemeti was placed in a high political position. The elections were promised in 2022, but few believed it would happen.
The transition period was in August 2019, and interviewed Abdalla Hamdok, the civil prime minister, several times for a book that I co -written about the Sudan Revolution. The way in which the Constitution was written that Hamdok had limited power as prime minister. Burhan was the head of state and wanted to preserve the powers of the SAF.
Hamdok often told me that the revolutions come in cycles. The elimination of Bashir in 2019 was a culminating point of revolution, and he is the work of many possible reforms before the low tide of contracting would sweep it.
Hamdok discovered that the 30 -year legacy of dictatorship meerate that the political and economic models of Sudan were in ruins. But Burhan and Hemeti blocked the great reforms that Hamdok wanted to do.
Outside Jardtum’s violence he grew up. Sudan parts such as Darfur saw a new round of conflict between ethnic groups orchestrated by RSF troops. More than 430,000 people were displaced due to the conflict in Sudan, mainly in Darfur.
The soldiers did not hide the atrocities they committed against civilians. I remember having had a tea with a soldier aligned with the RSF in his home in Darfur, since he explained why he had recently participated in the burning of a village of another ethnic group.
The soldier reasoned that a member of his tribe had killed the bones in an altercation, so that the RSF forces aligned are come when setting a village that had bones in the home of 30,000 people. At least 163 people died.
The tensions between the SAF and RSF grew. Burhan saw Hemeti and his forces as RSF as usurpers that of Darfur, which were not disciplined. Hemeti, on the other hand, believed it was time for Darfur to lead Saudan.
Hamdok was at the cusp to start changing the economy when Burhan and SAF intervention. As we wrote in the book “The unfinished democracy of Sudan”, the potential success of a civil government was too much for Burhan. In October 2021, Hamdok was eliminated in a military coup.
After the October 2021 coup, the United States and the United Nations pushed a worse version of the transition constitution in Sudan. They argued that it was the best way to bring democracy.
The idea was to restart the transition period, but I and many others argue that it was myopic and we would not work. Returning to a government led by Burhan clearly was not going to mark the beginning of democracy. If the plan ended in a coup the first time, why would the second time work?
Some activists stopped associating with the United States and came to see the UN mission as an obstacle to democracy due to policies. I felt sorry when I talked to the best American and foreign diplomats, who also understood international policy in Sudan. They saw the defects, but they felt helpless to disagree and were forced to carry out decisions taken many levels above the subject.
What preceded the outbreak of confrontations of this weekend was a controversial part of international policy that tried to unify the SAF and the RSF. The idea was to make a single army, but Neith Hemeti or Burhan used to give up the power they had accumulated.
The plan to unify the military had worked in similar contexts. It was a repetition of the 2013 and 2016 unification processes that took place in South Sudan with equally bloody results. Instead, the dim relationship between Burhan and Hemeti Hirvated due to pressure.
It may be easy to see the recent history of “revolutions” in countries such as Myanmar, Tunisia, Egypt and Sudan and conclude that possible against the backlash. I do not agree. I learned from Sudanese activists that the political fortune of a nation is an active battle.
We can one day wait for Sudan to see that the dreams of democracy come true. But at this time, the Sudanese people only hope to survive the day.
Sudan’s lesson is that a revolution is just the beginning of change, not the end.
