From empowerment to the power of militias .. Who inherits the legacy of salvation in Sudan?

In his book on the history of Sudan after independence, the British historian Peter Woodward did not find a better title than “the troubled state” to be a comprehensive description of the tumultuous history of Sudan after independence from British colonialism in the mid-twentieth century, for that quiet country is the owner of the green and quiet villages that extend around the Nile, and the decree Always in the minds of its neighbors that it is a country of tranquility, traditional intimacy, agriculture and mysticism, its modern history has witnessed successive rounds of political struggles, revolutions and coups, equivalent to what happened with almost all of its neighbors combined.

The December 2018 uprising was one of the episodes of this rich political history. The demonstrations that initially erupted in the form of spontaneous protests against the deteriorating economic conditions, the high cost of living, the spread of government corruption and the continuation of the war in the regions, increased in intensity and spread over time, until it became a massive popular revolution. It included most of the Sudanese states to topple the regime of the Salvation Government, which had dominated power for three decades, specifically since the military coup led by former President Omar al-Bashir in June 1989.

But as soon as the revolutionaries returned to their homes victorious, reassured that they had settled a new historical round in their favor, a new round of political conflict appeared in Sudan on the horizon, with military leaders and militia leaders leading the new scene after the overthrow of the Salvation Government, headed by the military commander, Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. And his deputy, Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo (Hemeti), commander of the Rapid Support Militia, which some consider the most powerful man in Sudan at the present time, and speculation abounds about his political ambition as he begins to present himself as a possible alternative to the defeated Rescue Authority, and an ally of the regional powers in the region, especially in parallel with the failure of the government Civilian transition in Sudan in providing any solutions to the grinding economic crisis afflicting the country.

After months of a massive mass movement and a historic general strike (1) that included all the Sudanese states, people no longer talk about the hope that the revolution raised as much as they whisper about the militia that occupies the capital, its leader who plans to rule Sudan, and the danger to the ruling civil-military partnership in favor of ruling A militia militia may destroy all the legacy of the institutional state in the country, which the December revolution was launched to save and deepen, not eradicate.

The title of the troubled state did not come out of the blue due to the nature of the rich history in Sudan. Sudanese society since national independence “has witnessed severe politicization all the time. Its unions, unions, schools and religious institutions, and even the military establishment were no exception to this.” Sudan has moved during that period between several different forms of government and power, usually divided into three periods of democratic civilian rule, three periods of coups and military rule, other than failed coup attempts and transitions between one political system and another. https://www.youtube.com/embed/MS1SDbgo-Os?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=ar&autohide=2&wmode=transparent

In a study entitled “Military Coup as a Political Process,” Professor of Political Science at the University of Khartoum, Hussein Hajj Ali Ahmed, argues that military coups in Sudan are different from their counterparts in neighboring Arab countries. When officers turn over, they seek to achieve what their civilian counterparts have failed, or On the contrary, when politicians fail to manage democratic civilian rule, their opponents turn to their military allies to carry out a military coup and push their political projects forward, which means that the Sudanese military coups throughout its history were not pure coups that took place in order to nationalize politics and monopolize power in favor of the army, but it was a continuation. For the political process, but by other means.

The coup of Lieutenant General Ibrahim Abboud in Sudan in 1958 was the first military coup in sub-Saharan Africa, and this was considered a violation of the British traditions on which the Sudanese army was raised, as this coup affected the composition of the fragile political structure of Sudan forever, as the military coups in the country continued in 1969. And in 1989, not to mention the failed coup attempts. The first military rule lasted for six years, while the second ruled the country for sixteen years, while the rule of the last military regime lasted for 3 decades, but while all those coup regimes began with a military character and formation, they soon turned into a military alliance Civilians with the integration of civilian allies into the power system after the coup’s success. (2)

Throughout this turbulent history, there were two main features of the nature of the relationship between the army and the authority in Sudan, the first mentioned by Hussein al-Hajj Ahmed that the coups were part of the ongoing political process in Sudan, not a coup against the political process itself, but the most important point was made by the Sudanese researcher, Khaled Othman Al-Fil (3) Stressing that throughout this long history of Sudanese civil-military relations, “the army, as an institution, did not have any interests in the economic sectors. The army is considered an organization with high discipline, but it is not politicized, “adding that”Although Nimeiri, the leader of the second military coup, established the Military Economic Corporation in 1982 to serve Sudanese army officers, provide consumables and satisfy retired officers to keep them out of politics, the army did not possess any commercial and economic interests.

In clear terms, the Sudanese army, despite the repeated stages of its direct rule of the Sudanese state, was not an active element in the equation of the Sudanese political economy, that is, in the economy as an arena of conflict over the sharing of wealth and resources, as much as its existence as a sovereign institution led by professional military leaders who intervene in politics or take over State and security motives or slogans, such as preserving the country’s unity, eliminating militias and insecurity, or even expanding the government, which began to change radically with the third military coup in 1989, or what is known in Sudanese history as the National Salvation Revolution.

As mentioned above, the third military coup in 1989 represented a qualitative shift in the structure of the state and society in Sudan, as the political forces that stood behind the recent coup – the Sudanese Islamic Movement Alliance, with its civilian and military sides – carried a radical project to change Sudan, a project that was mainly about creating A broad change in the existing official bureaucratic, security, military, and intelligence institutions.

Under the slogans of empowerment and the civilized project, the leaders of the shadow and the public in the military coup, Sheikh Hassan al-Turabi and Colonel Omar al-Bashir, carried out a massive purge campaign on the Khomeini-style inside all the civil and military apparatus of the state, and then reshaped the state’s sovereign apparatus by placing the cadres of the Islamic movement inside those agencies, to unite The movement and the state are in one sovereign organizational body. On the other hand, describe every political presence of other political currents within the state apparatus, or even any neutral bureaucratic presence that does not belong to the National Salvation Government, which was tantamount to undermining the concept of the institutional state from its roots. (4)

In this regard, Sudanese academic and economist Atta Al-Bathani argues that the empowerment project was in the most important aspect of economic empowerment, which means that the state (the movement / army) would strategically and systematically intend to intervene in the various economic sectors with the aim of controlling it, as part of the empowerment strategy that In the end, it means controlling all sources of power and influence in society. However, what Professor Al-Bathani asserts is that the economic empowerment of the Salvation Government was not in the form of a broad nationalization movement for the private sector. Rather, what happened was almost the opposite.

According to economists David Harvey (5) and Thomas Piketty (6), the eighties (during the rise of the Salvation Government) witnessed major global ideological changes in the fields of economy and development, as the concept of development and progress was associated with economic liberalization policies, lifting the government’s hand away from the economy and the market, reducing government spending and privatization. The researcher Khaled Al-Feel (7) explains that the Salvation Government’s response to these global changes was characterized by flexibility, as “The Salvation Government, under the leadership of Minister of Finance Abdel-Rahim Hamdi, liquidated and sold a large number of public sector institutions, and 273 institutions were identified in the first phase of the privatization stages. This resulted in the displacement of 8,934 workers. But the paradox is that “Most of those companies that have been privatized have been transferred through the exploitation of [relationships and information] to individuals affiliated with the ruling regime, and at the same time about 600 public commercial companies have been established affiliated with federal ministries, the security services and the army, which are not subject to the control of the Auditor General and enjoy freedom of spending outside the official state budget. . These companies represented a cover for the commercial activity of the chief governors and officers in the army and security, and they operated in all economic sectors. ” https://www.youtube.com/embed/XL4j8qPOtYo?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=ar&autohide=2&wmode=transparent

There is general agreement that international institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, are the official sponsors of neoliberal economic liberalization programs in the world, as the economic prescriptions adopted by the two institutions have evolved since the end of the eighties until now, beginning with the Structural Adjustment Programs and passing through In all these programs and policies, the Fund and the World Bank stated that the basic condition for the success of the program is that privatization, selling public institutions, and opening markets take place in the context of what has become known as Article IV Consultation. Full transparency, and the absence of these circumstances creates what economists call inconsistent availability of information or “information asymmetry”, and by that they mean cases or transactions in which one of the parties has information influencing the economic process and the other does not. (7)

Returning to researcher Khaled El-Fil, the lack of consistency of information led to a fundamental change in civil-military relations in Sudan, especially after the split that occurred within the National Conference in 1998 and led to the departure of the civilian component of the Islamic movement from power and the domination of the military component led by Omar al-Bashir, where ” A fundamental change took place in the army’s establishment during the salvation era. For the first time in its history, the army began to penetrate and enter directly into the economic sectors with the absence of transparency and the difficulty of the availability of information and reports about the size of the army’s economic interests and the size of its contribution to the Sudanese GDP. Factories that reach all economic fields, from heavy and light manufacturing, through financial insurance and banking, to food production, as well as real estate contracting and construction companies, to the pharmaceutical industry, and even advertising companies.Despite the lack of accurate studies and data that can be relied upon to study the size of the political economy of the Sudanese army, Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of the Transitional Military Council, gave a very indicative indication of the size of the army’s economy relative to the overall Sudanese economy when he stated (8): “The army and rapid support They run the country’s economy with their own money. “

The Sudanese thinker Abdul Qadir al-Tijani (9) argues that the empowerment project implemented by the Salvation Government, both political and economic, was more than an authoritarian tendency and a desire to monopolize power, but it was equally a bet on modernization, that is, building a state with strong institutions lined up behind its political leadership And building an effective and successful national Sudanese economy based on the principles of the free market. However, the political culture that ruled the Salvation Government’s vision of modernity – Al-Tijani added – was a culture of totalitarianism, which contradicts the values ​​of the liberal state and the capitalist economy that dictate the retreat of the state and the encouragement of civil society, the rule of law and institutions, and it strengthens Transparency and ensuring freedom and fairness of political and economic competition.

The bailout policies and their management of economic liberalization from the top caused the balance of power all to be placed on the side of the state and the military institution only, as the private sector institutions could not establish a degree of independence with the presence of the military institution that imposed a semi-monopolistic climate on the major economic sectors in Sudan, the final product of all this was – As mentioned above – a radical shift in the nature of civil-military relations gradually began with the beginning of the rescue rule, but matters began to take more dangerous directions with the progress of the years, as the entire Sudanese civil society declined and the country fell prey to a complete failure in the markets that led to a severe economic crisis that struck The security and stability of the country for years before the outbreak of the December uprising.

During the last years of Al-Bashir’s rule, and with the unprecedented state and market failure, the state of violence and armed conflict in which the country entered, the star of Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti) and the Rapid Support Militia, which built their strength and influence in the midst of the fierce civil war waged by the Sudanese government on the region, has emerged Darfur. There, in Darfur, Hemedti began to form his economic empire through a direct budget from Omar al-Bashir outside of state control, which gave the Rapid Support Commander unprecedented privileges with the knowledge of the Sudanese state and the hearing and sight of the regime. (10) https://www.youtube.com/embed/RKRdDOLuUQo?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=ar&autohide=2&wmode=transparent

Hemedti later used his forces to serve those who pay the most, as he obtained huge funding from Saudi Arabia and the UAE in exchange for the participation of part of his forces in the Arab coalition in Yemen, and close to him has obtained funds from the two Gulf states from outside the budget. With the passage of time, Hemedti tended towards maximizing his financial resources by controlling the gold production process in the Jabal Amer region and elsewhere, and he took advantage of the green light given to him by Al-Bashir to smuggle the shiny metal and transfer money to his own account and the accounts of his close associates and militia leaders loyal to him. (11)

Hemedti’s political, military and economic rise took the crisis of the Sudanese state to its maximum, and some observers even believe that the Rapid Support Militia and Hemedti are the greatest threat to the stability of the state in Sudan. According to the British researcher Alex de Waal (12), Hemedti’s rapid rise to the forefront of political life in Sudan is evidence of a structural shift in the Sudanese political economy after the failure of economic liberalization and free market policies in favor of the political business market model that De Waal defines as a system. Governance puts the process of exchanging funds, resources, services, and political cooperation an alternative to the rule of law and institutions. Under this model, the state reverted from traditional modernization plans to a system of rule based on patrimonialism and adapted to the turbulent political and economic structure of the states in the region.

This new economic model is in itself evidence of the state’s failure to become the reference and the regulating line for political and legal life in Sudan. One of the important indications of the dominance of the political business market model over political and economic life is that one of the most important sources of the Rapid Support Militia’s power is to play the state’s role in preventing illegal migration to and from Sudan, as the militia obtained hundreds of millions of dollars from Europe in front of Bashir in exchange for Guarding the borders and preventing migration to the old continent. According to investigations, a large percentage of Europe’s funds went directly to private accounts supervised by Hemedti and did not fall under the control of government agencies in Sudan and were not included in the country’s general budget.

Paradoxically, this remarkable decline of the Sudanese state began since the beginning of the empowerment strategy that stormed the concept of the state as a rational, neutral institutional structure with relative independence from the political currents, and equally afflicted the concept of the free market when it managed it in an obsessive manner from above that prevented the establishment of an effective private sector and a strong civil society, This failure undermined the state and caused the rise of the tribal militia and the political business model that caused the public jobs of the state to turn into commodities to be sold and bought in the market just like any commodity. This model is the same as the model of the militia economy, and it is the clearest evidence of their domination of political life in Sudan today. In what is considered to be the greatest danger facing the Sudanese revolution in its aspiration to a better future for the bustling country, which does not seem that it will calm down soon.