Lawfare Daily: Understanding the War in Sudan

[Intro]

Holly Berkley Fletcher: The duality of this war really masks a greater complexity in Sudan of a multiplicity of rebel groups, insurgencies, different ethnic interests, and in the civilian space too, it's, it's a, it's a real cacophony.

Daniel Byman: It's the Lawfare Podcast. I'm Daniel Byman, the foreign policy editor of Lawfare, and I'm here with Holly Berkley Fletcher, who was a senior Africa analyst with the CIA for 20 years.

Holly Berkley Fletcher: The two belligerents do not want to stop fighting. They see this as a zero sum game, and as long as they have the weapons and the material to keep fighting, I think they will probably keep fighting. The military has been just not even open to talks.

Daniel Byman: Today, we're talking about the conflict in Sudan.

[Main podcast]

Holly, I'm delighted to have you here to talk not only about your recent Lawfare piece on Sudan, but also about the conflict more generally. As you know, it's something that is one of the world's, or if not the world's bloodiest conflict, but it's also one that has received virtually no attention.

Can we start with a very basic question? I think if we were having this podcast several years ago, there might even be an occasion for hope, where we can look at Sudan and say, despite its very troubled history, the last few years have gone well. Can you start us at that point? Tell us why it seemed to be hopeful—if, if I'm right—and then explain why things have gotten so bad so quickly.

Holly Berkley Fletcher: Absolutely. Well, the hope stemmed from the overthrow of the longtime dictator, Omar al-Bashir in 2019, which occurred due to popular protests against the regime, but also most importantly, due to the military and paramilitary’s support for overthrowing Bashir. So I don't think Bashir would be gone if it was just popular protests. The military decided to get rid of him.

And so after that, fairly quickly after that, there was a coalescence of military and this paramilitary and civilian forces into a transitional government, power sharing government, that was supposed to have—there was a roadmap for an eventual turning over the government to a civilian government.

And that lasted for about two years. There was a civilian prime minister and actually a very decent fellow, Abdalla Hamdok, a dual Canadian-Sudanese citizen who had worked at the World Bank. And he tried to sort of marshal the civilian forces and work with the military and the paramilitary. But it was always a very uncomfortable relationship both between civilians and the military and between the paramilitary and the military.

So in 2021, the military sort of—the pretext was that the civilians were feckless and they weren't sort of getting themselves together, which is true. But most importantly, I think the military and hardliners in the military, on various issues the rubber was kind of meeting the road and they decided to take over the government completely.

And then from there you had a uncomfortable dual governance between the military and the paramilitary, which was also always uncomfortable. And eventually that fell apart. And so then the actual military fighting started in April of 2023.

So it was briefly hopeful and Sudan does have some, had some you know, good things going for it. There, there was before all this, you know, there was an educated class. There was some good civil society despite the years of dictatorship. And it did seem like, you know, the military and even the paramilitary was somewhat committed to this process for a while, but I think that was always masking the deep underlying divisions and mistrust.

Daniel Byman: Can you talk to me a bit about the divisions? Is it just power, right, where the division was, I want to rule and I don't want you to rule, or is there some ideology or broader difference that actually separates the different factions?

Holly Berkley Fletcher: Yeah, so the, the conflict—what's happening now is between two military forces: the regular military and a paramilitary that Bashir set up as many dictators do. They like to have their alternative force as a protective mechanism and to do kind of their dirty work.

So then when he was gone, it became a—and, and just for context, Sudan, most of Sudan's history has been under military rule. There've been like two brief periods of civilian rule, but other than that, there's no precedent. So when you're talking about governance in Sudan, the historical precedent is that it will be under a military rule, despite the somewhat progress post 2019.

So these two forces were always eyeing like who's going to win out? And the issue, the sort of crux of the issue that eventually exploded was military integration and reform to try to have only one military, which is a good idea in, you know, in a stable country.

So there's that, but then there's deeper fissures in Sudan. Sudan has always been a you know, slapped, as many colonial states slapped together state. It's very geographically large and there's always been a division between the sort of Khartoum, riverine Arab center and then the different peripheral groups. There's been multiple insurgencies over Sudan's history, including, you know, the one that eventually resulted in South Sudan.

So there's already been one major secession of Sudan. And I think this war—the duality of this war really masks a greater complexity in Sudan of a multiplicity of rebel groups, insurgencies, different ethnic interests, and in the civilian space too, it's, it's a, it's a real cacophony. And so this duality kind of masks all of that. And the Sudanese state could definitely and probably is already fragmenting further.

Daniel Byman: So, can you give listeners a sense of the scale of the conflict? Just, you know, how much suffering is going on and, you know, where it's focused within the country and outside?

Holly Berkley Fletcher: Yeah, so we don't really have a good sense of deaths, but it's—I think the official number is near 20,000 deaths at this time, but it's definitely greater than that. There's, there's an access problem given that the fighting broke out in the capital, which is where most of the development and infrastructure was and the capital is a shelled out, still battleground. So that is really prevented a lot of access. It's very dangerous, certainly the capital is.

The east is where the military sort of decamped. Port Sudan on the Red Sea is this sort of de facto capital of the military right now. And the eastern part of the country is somewhat is, you know, relatively stable and quiet.

But then there's, Khartoum is still contested. The military has achieved some very—in the last several days, some key victories, and it looks to be maybe on the on the move and retaking the capital. And then south of the capital, you know, there's sort of a fuzzy dividing line that's been heavily contested.

And then west of that in Darfur, that's the paramilitary, the RSFs, that's their sort of home base. And they have parts of Darfur, you know, fairly well locked down, but there's, there's still military presence there, and then they're, the military's cooperating with various rebel groups in Darfur as well. So Darfur is still contested and some of the worst violence has been in Al Fashir, one of the major cities in Darfur, which is also unfortunately where there's a large displacement camp as well.

And that's where there has been claims, the U.S. has declared genocide there because the RSF is and this is obviously not the first time this happened—there was a genocide declared 20 years ago. The RSF is more systematically targeting certain ethnic communities, and so therefore that intentionality piece is why it's been declared a genocide. But the military has also targeted civilians and committed human rights abuses as well.

So there's massive human suffering. Aid access has been difficult and therefore it's estimated about half the country is facing famine-like conditions. Some aid access has improved in the last six months or so, but it's, that's still an issue.

And then the displacement—I think the estimates about 10 million displaced either internally or to neighboring countries. There's been a lot of gone into Chad. There's large refugee camps in Chad over the border. Chad has its own problems and risks of instability. Many have gone into Egypt, which of course Egypt has also been taxed with refugees from Gaza.

And then many have gone into South Sudan, which is on the—I mean, it's almost a failed, you could call that a failed state as well. So that is actually exacerbated instability in South Sudan as well. And then some have gone into Western Ethiopia.

Daniel Byman: Can I flip this question around? So you, you nicely laid out how the conflict is sending refugees to different parts of the region beyond Sudan. How are regional states—and here we can go to extra regional states like the United Arab Emirates—how are they shaping the conflict?

Holly Berkley Fletcher: Yeah. So UAE is definitely the one that has had the most impact, certainly militarily and financially, because UAE has long been an ally—really, there's a lot of personal ties as well as financial ties between the head of the paramilitary, Hemedti, and the UAE. So the UAE is, has helped him export and laun-, probably launder his gold; he has many, various companies that are based in the UAE that he owns, most of it's related to gold export.

But then also the UAE has militarily aided the RSF to a great degree. That's probably the, the major point of impact. If you were, if U.S. policy, for instance, were going to try to influence the conflict, trying to get UAE to stop this inner involvement would, would be a good place. The problem is—well, UAE denies all involvement, which is just it's laughable, but also, of course, UAE is a U. S. ally. So that's a little bit uncomfortable.

Egypt has been somewhat involved in the conflict. They have long ties to the military that go far back. And they were probably more involved early on, but they have become a little bit more neutral in practice and a little bit less involved in practice because of just financial issues, constraints. They, the UAE gave them a massive loan last year, which kind of put them in in a thrall to the UAE. So they're still definitely involved and have and are pro-military. But I wouldn't—they're definitely a more constructive partner than the UAE.

Saudi has been fairly constructive and trying to get negotiations going. The AU—the various members of the, various neighbor states have you know, some, some sway or some ties either way, but they haven't been very effective in moving this. Some of the big regional powers like Kenya and Ethiopia, the military won't deal with because they see them as pro-UAE and even pro-RSF. So that's been kind of a non-starter.

Turkey is the latest regional international player that has proposed negotiations and probably stands. That's a, that's a hopeful path because Turkey is, is seen as a more—the military seems amenable to dealing with Turkey and Turkey also has some sway with UAE. So that's, that's a possibility.

And then the U.S. has just been doing a lot of shuttle diplomacy, trying to corral all the various players, trying to prevent forum shopping, which is always a problem in these contexts where the different players try to work with, you know, uncoordinated negotiation efforts. So the U.S. has been very involved. I just don't—that's kind of the point of my piece is I, I think there's not that much the U.S. can do.

Daniel Byman: Let me take you to a point you've written about in other work which is the role of civilians in Sudan. And you mentioned in your initial remarks that the overthrow of Bashir government came from a mix. There was civilian agitation and demonstrations, and there was also support from the military. Can you talk about the civilians here, not just as, of course, the victims of this tremendous bloodletting, but also as political players?

Holly Berkley Fletcher: Yeah. So the great potential that the civilians showed in the beginning has also been—it's both a strength and a weakness in that the initial protests against Bashir were very much grassroots. They were organized in large part by these resistance committees, which are neighborhood organizations that coordinated within their neighborhood. And then there was sort of a broader, you know, community of these organizations that coordinated with each other using social media and so on and so forth.

And so that both was a strength because it helped mobilize the grassroots and got the ordinary people involved. It elevated women—women were really important in the 2019 protests. But then in the long run, it has been a weakness as well because there's not leadership, it's not highly coordinated, it's sort of this just blob of different actors.

And so from 2019 to 21, that was the kind of big effort was to try to get this coalesced into something workable. And the complication, too, was then you then you start to add in more established political parties, which have the organization, but they don't have the legitimacy with the people. So there was sort of these two tracks of civilians.

And then you add on top of that the fact that a lot of these rebel groups and armed groups are technically considered civilians as well. And so it just became this just, you know, huge salad of, of interests and groups of different constituencies and sizes and sophistication and getting them coalesced and coordinated became really an impossible task.

It was one the international community tried to support, and it was always this tension of, you know, allowing for consensus and sort of organic growth and let's not come in and sort of pick who the leaders are. Let's not privilege this, this sort of elite political class, etc. And then trying to get them actually organized in some capacity, and that just never really worked.

And so now with the fighting of course, they've been scattered all over the region. And now the civilian space, the resistance committees have remained, I think, quite heroic in the fighting, the ones that still exist on the ground, trying to get aid to people, trying to help neighbors, you know, but they just don't have any political power or clout.

So the civilians have continued to try to organize since the conflict began, but now another area of tension in addition to the ones that already preexisted is just how to negotiate the conflict and, and they're sort of splitting according to the two sides, you know. The main civilian block since the fighting, Tagadum, has ties to the UAE and is, probably leans heavily towards RSF.

And then there's other civilians who that's a, that's a no go for them. There are armed groups, of course, that are firmly in the military camp. So the civilians have unfortunately divided along the same lines of the conflict now.

Daniel Byman: So when we talk about the different civilian groups and their, I'll say decentralization, the RSF and its tensions and the Sudanese armed forces, what we've seen in other parts of Africa is splinters within splinters.

So, you have, you know, people in Washington like me can say, oh, there are two groups or there are three groups and they're fighting each other. But people on the ground are really dealing with factions within factions that are shifting sides that are fighting each other. And when one is defeated, it doesn't seem to matter much because there are, you know, parts of that that simply shift over to, you know, continued fighting.

Is that fair to say that it's either happening in Sudan or likely, or is that a mischaracterization of the conflict?

Holly Berkley Fletcher: No, that's happening. I mean, that's always happened in Sudan. And it's, it's happening in this conflict as well. I think the, the binary of the conflict has sort of been an organizing principle for a lot of these sort of rebel groups.

There's a few cases like in, near the border with South Sudan in that region, where the rebel groups in that region have not, have sort of not taken a side or they've taken a side reluctantly. They're mainly sort of trying to take care of their own position. They don't really, they haven't really fully chosen a side, but most of the rebel groups have chosen one side or the other.

But of course there are tensions in each of the camps as well. And the, in the military camp. There's Burhan, the head of the military, is by no means a dictator. He's, he's definitely at the top of a lot of different interests on that side. And one of the big dividers is between sort of the institutionalist, securocrat types, and then the old Islamists from the previous regime who are, who are trying to reassert themselves in this environment.

And one example of how this could further fragment and create problems later on is that the military has actually armed new militias, Islamic militias, to fight alongside them in certain, in certain cases. Well, I don't know that they're—they have their own agenda and are pursuing their own agenda. So that's something that you could see problems later on.

And then on the RSF side, that organization is much more of a family run outfit so, and it's very ethnic based. So it's, you know, it's probably more cohesive in principle. On the ground, there's definitely, you know, poor command and  control. But there too, you know, there's various pre existing and new militias may have their own agendas and, you know, there could be further fragmentation there.

So, I mean, basically, Sudan remains ripe for disintegration as a state. Right now it kind of looks like it’s heading into a partition between the two sides, but I don’t even think that’s where it would end if that was the technical end of this conflict.

Daniel Byman: Let's spend our remaining time talking about—I don't want to say solutions because that seems ambitious, but ways to perhaps improve things somewhat. Your Lawfare piece was quite critical of what you consider to be unrealistic recommendations.

Can we start with that. Which is, you know, what are some things on the table, or at least being proposed that you feel really are not kind of plausible solutions to what's going on in Sudan right now?

Holly Berkley Fletcher: Well, of course, everyone—and this is something I see in the, in the discussion about Africa writ large, there's just, there's this kind of tension of like, the U.S. should take a greater role, but let's not be heavy handed and sort of colonial about it like we did in the Cold War. And it's like, I don't, I don't know what the magic solution everybody's sort of going for there.

I think we should be guided by American values. And I think it's perfectly appropriate, for instance, in Sudan that we have not taken a side because they're both terrible options. In the, in the Cold War, we would take a side and that probably increased our leverage and influence, or it definitely did, right. But I don't think morally that was, you know, in the end, a great idea.

So I think we're going to be–we're going to continue to be constrained by our values. We're going to continue to, Russia, for instance, is taking advantage of this situation. They've, they've switched sides at various points, but right now they seem to be on the South side and they have no problem choosing a side, even if it's an evil side—that's not something that they are concerned about.

So the sort of using more American influence—I think, I think the U.S. has tried really hard. I get a little bit peevish because I was working on the inside of the government during this time, reading all these sort of editorials and I'm like, you know, you know, the special envoy is killing himself out there, you know, trying to get some, some traction. Now you could argue that maybe his efforts were a little bit too, you know, uncoordinated. He was kind of throwing spaghetti at the wall just to see what would stick. And you could argue that that created more chaos. So that's a fair criticism.

But I don't think it's that the U.S. was not engaged or, or trying. I just—I'm not sure what, what they think that people think really could, the difference could be made, because the two belligerents do not want to stop fighting. They see this as a zero sum game. And as long as they have the weapons and the material to keep fighting, I think they will probably keep fighting.

The military has been just not even open to talks. They get hung up on all the protocol, the fact that Hemedti would be sort of brought to the table on an equal footing when they consider themselves the official government—that's been like a huge hang up. So, but I just don't, I don't know. I don't know what the angle would be other than coming down very hard on, say, UAE. That might make a difference.

And then on this, the other thing is the civilians are always mentioned, you know, for years now, like, oh, the civilians are the way to go. The civilians are the way to go. But again, we have had lots of programming with the civilians, and you're still trying to thread this needle of like, let's support the organic efforts of the civilians, but then when they prove to be not making any progress and not being a, you know, constructive force in the debate—which is not all their fault; they've not had much of a history of real democratic organization and, and involvement because Sudan's been under military rule.

So I'm not faulting the civilians, but in terms of U.S. making a difference in the situation, you know, like, I don't, I don't know—the civilian, at some point, the Sudanese civilians would have to organize themselves and come up with some internal way of, of, you know, coordinating and affecting the situation.

Daniel Byman: So I want to end with one question, which is perhaps a bit unusual, but I began by saying that the conflict is one that most people don't follow closely and don't have a great deal of knowledge on.

Is there something out there—I'll say ideas, whether in the policy community or the prior discourse—that you feel is just wrong? You know, when you hear that, it kind of gets your hackles up that you listeners should know that, you know, this idea in the context of Sudan really does not apply.

Holly Berkley Fletcher: That's a good question. Nothing comes immediately to mind. Like just the idea that this is like some sort of—you know, I have this, I see all these op-eds like, oh, this is what needs to be done.

And I just think it's, it's complicated, but that's, it's not just, it's, it's complicated and it's not. I mean, the main thing is that, that it's just, there's the two people with the, the, or it's not just two people, but the two entities with the power and the weapons have no incentive as of now to stop fighting and to talk and so that's kind of, you know, that's kind of the bottom line.

And I do—to be fair, there has been some good coverage of in pockets. The New York Times has had some really good pieces on Sudan, for instance, so it's not like there's been no coverage. It's just very interesting to me how just in the popular imagination this conflict has not taken hold maybe because it seems intractable and hopeless.

But yet Gaza for instance has been—you know, even on the level of, you know, college students—has become this sort of cause célèbre. And that's that conflict is also very intractable. Now, the U.S. has a more clear part in that because we are allies, very strong allies with, with Israel. So there's that, and a lot of that activism has been geared at U.S. policy in the Middle East.

But, you know, just from a humanitarian basis—I, I mean, philosophically, my, because I'm grew up and have worked around Africa for my whole life—it's dismaying to me, even when there's not a solution or a clear path. I just think philosophically, there's something to be said about caring for the sake of caring. You know, these are human beings and maybe trying to figure out like, okay, well, what aid groups are getting in and how can we support those aid groups?

Certainly the negotiations should focus very much on aid, on facilitating refugees. Obviously, increasing the number of refugees we take in the United States is a nonstarter under the current administration. But we've always taken too few refugees compared to other countries proportionally and also relative to our ability, both economically and culturally, to absorb refugees.

So I, you know, I wish people would care more about not only this conflict, but what happens in Africa generally, just because, you know, it's just basic humanity, you know.

Daniel Byman: I think that's the right note to end this podcast on. So thank you, Holly Berkley Fletcher, thank you for your insights. Thank you for your publication with Lawfare, and we're delighted to have you on the show.

Holly Berkley Fletcher: Thank you so much.

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