Was Sudan’s Transition to Democracy Doomed from the Start?

 The signs of the fragility of Sudan’s transition to democracy have been there for some time, even after President Omar al-Bashir was removed from office in 2019.  The military, which overthrew him following massive street demonstrations, reluctantly agreed to form a transitional government with civilian involvement, but military leaders were initially noncommittal about how long the transition would last and how the new government would be structured.  Many observers didn’t believe this “shotgun marriage” would last, and they were right.

Early this week, Sudan’s military arrested Prime Minister Addallah Hamdok and other civilian leaders in a coup that likely ends any residual faith that Sudan’s military would willingly allow full civilian rule. Progress toward political reform in Sudan already was moving at a snail’s pace before the coup. Gen. Abdel Fattah Abdelrahman Burhan, who was in the inner circle of the former dictator, dissolved the Sudan government and declared martial law. 

 Burhan had participated in the removal of Bashir in April 2019 and led the Transitional Military Council. Under a power-sharing agreement with elements of the civilian opposition, he established the Sovereign Council. Until he overthrew this government he helped to create, he was President of Sudan and Head of the Sovereign Council. Now, he has arrogated to himself complete control over the Sudanese government.

 

This successful coup came just weeks after a failed takeover attempt allegedly by loyalists to Bashir, and there were plenty of warning signs before then that tensions between Sudan’s civilian and military leaders were fraying the tenuous bond the military and civilian elements of the transition government had agreed upon.  Prime Minister Hamdok blamed the attempted coup on “remnants from the previous regime" who he said were "intent on aborting the civilian democratic transition.”

 

Ambassador Rama Yade, Senior Director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center, has said the military used the poor performance of Sudan’s economy in recent weeks, in which inflation, for instance, topped 400 percent, to justify the removal of the civilian elements of the transitional government. The military seized the moment to “accuse the government of ignoring the people’s needs,” she said.

Added Cameron Hudson, a nonresident senior fellow at the Africa Center and former chief of staff to the US special envoy to Sudan, “A full-fledged recovery…was never going to be achieved without the military relinquishing its control over the major revenue-generating parts of the economy” – from port operations to gold mining to livestock exports.

There have been at times optimism that Sudan would head in the right direction, that being toward democracy, rule of law and political and religious tolerance.  Unfortunately, such signs were almost always diminished by evidence to the contrary.  The strict sharia law in

Sudanese society strongly opposed conversions from Islam to Christianity and set some elements of the U.S. government to implacably oppose normalization with the Sudanese government with Bashir still in charge.  The case of Mariam Yahya Ibrahim in 2014 became a major issue.  She was detained at Khartoum airport after an appeals court overturned a death sentence imposed for having converted from Islam to marry her Christian American husband.  She was released from custody on Thursday, on condition she remained in Sudan.  She was held in prison along with her infant son and initially was denied visitors except for the Muslim clerics who came every day to read the Koran to pressure her to convert to Islam.  A harsh Koranic citing was invoked by fundamentalist Muslims: “Whoever renounces his religion, kill him.”

I was involved in the Congressional action to protest the arrest and imprisonment of Mariam Ibrahim, and Members of Congress used diplomacy to encourage her release, which she eventually received.  However, this matter left a sour taste in the mouth of those who couldn’t trust that things had really changed in Sudan.

            The House Subcommittee on Africa held numerous hearings on Sudan, as well as visits by then-Chairman Chris Smith and myself.  On one of those visits, we spoke directly with Bashir, who was one of the more arrogant people either of us had ever met.  He showed no indication of making any significant change in the way things were done in Sudan.  We also met with Salah Gosh, the intelligence chief who had acted as Osama bin Laden’s sponsor in Sudan, who also was unrepentant.  This led to internal and external opposition to his subsequent visit to Washington to speak with our intelligence community.  The visit happened anyway as the U.S. intelligence community sought actionable information with which to fight the Global War on Terrorism, but who would believe Saleh Gosh supported such a war when the decision to expel Bin Laden was made under pressure?  Following Bashir’s removal in 2019, Gosh had a U.S. visa ban imposed.

One of the last trips I took to Africa with Congressional colleagues was to Sudan in 2017.  At the time, there still was scant optimism that due to citizen action, the government might agree to reforms, having already made some halting steps to move from its terrorist, Islamic extremist past.  Of course, there was great skepticism due to the long history of slavery and the harboring of terrorists such as Bin Laden, as well as remaining extremists in government and the continued presence of Bashir, whose removal two years later lent hope to some quarters in the international community.  Our trip report stated that despite Sudan’s history, there might be even the slim the possibility of progress.  There was grudging acceptance of this view in Congress and the Administration at the time, as well as limited faith in promises made by a Sudanese delegation during a subsequent U.S. visit to make changes called for by the international community.

The decision to remand Bashir to the International Criminal Court also gave some glimmer of expectation that things might change, but the former dictator probably was seen as no longer necessary – a figure that could be replaced by another military leader since he had no remaining stalwart support among Islamic clerics nor any standing in the international community.  He was a wanted war criminal whose presence served no useful purpose.  Somehow, though, having approved the transfer of ex-president Bashir to the International Criminal Court, the Sudanese government lost track of two former intelligence advisors – Salah Gosh and Mohamed Atta – who have both disappeared, along with their secrets.  Israel and Egypt, as well as U.S. intelligence, are certainly interested in access to the archives of the National Intelligence and Security Service, which under Bashir backed a range of Islamist groups.  The disappearance of the two security advisors provides the excuse that the men stole valuable evidence that the new regime cannot now be expected to deliver or which can be used as a bargaining chip to forestall harsh sanctions.

The United States and others in the international community have looked at Sudan and seen its possibly positive future.  It was believed to be a potential success story, despite its cruel mistreatment of African citizens considered by northerners who considered themselves Arab.  Sudan is one of the last countries in the world where slavery openly flourished.  I have met people who had been enslaved in these modern times.  One young man recounted for our subcommittee the torture his “master” inflicted upon him – hanging him upside down and rubbing peppers into his eyes, effectively blinding him.  It was only through the kindness of journalist and philanthropist Ellen Ratner that he was cable to regain even some of his sight and live a life where he could be educated and be safe from those who would treat him like chattel.

Can the democratic transition in Sudan be put securely back on track?  That depends on whether the international community will support Sudanese civil society in protesting the coup and pushing for the transition to return. The United States government issued a statement saying it was “deeply alarmed” by the seizure of power.  "We reject the actions by the military and call for the immediate release of the prime minister and others who have been placed under house arrest," said White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said: "I condemn the ongoing military coup in Sudan. Prime Minister Hamdok & all other officials must be released immediately.”

From the African Union to the European Union to the Arab League, responses echoed the previous statements to various degrees.  However, beyond condemning the military’s action and calling for the release of the civilian officials, what expectation is there that the international community will take strong action to effectively overturn this coup? Does anyone truly believe the Sudanese military can be trusted to follow through on promises to return power to the people through a civilian government?  What history is there in Sudan to support such a belief?

After all the good wishes and forbearance by the United States and others in the international community, there is little to no reason to believe there is any way the Sudanese military will ever intentionally give up power.  So, what can be done by those who held onto hope for so long in the face of evidence to the contrary?  Continuing to cling to such hope now would appear foolish, so what will international actors be willing to do to go beyond hopes and wishes to finally and completely serve the interests of the Sudanese people? 

If the Sudanese civil society continues to press for a democratic transition only to face a harsh response from the military regime now in place, the intentions of the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, the African Union and the Arab League will be put to a test they must not fail.  We already are seeing a return to a series of coups in Africa; if this one stands, we can expect more to take place, and decades of democratic progress on the continent may just disappear.