Sudan: The Military Had Aways Been the Problem

Photo: today.ng

Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok's civilian government had militarily been  dissolved and himself arrested. The Sudanese Military continues to do what it had done best for decades: toppling the civilian governments and always claiming to rescue the country from tumbling over into chaos and other national security concerns that, if not addressed using the power of the gun, would set the country on the path to disorder, failure and possible disintegration. This hypocrisy is outdated; but it has managed to confuse many people who, in dire situations and as a last resort, call on the same army they abhor to take over. Such was the case before the military took advantage of the situation in Khartoum recently. 

But the Sudanese masses are now privy to the army's every malicious move. The military was believed to be behind many subterranean coup attempts against the government, the latest of which has so far become successful. The success of the coup put an end to the 11-member joint Civilian-Military power sharing government, the Sovereignty Council, led by Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok. The action takes the regularity of military coups in Sudan to another level. When Bashir was ousted in 2018, available studies show that Sudan had had about 15 military coup attempts, five of which were successful. Now the list goes on. 

The Civilian-Military leadership led by Prime Minister Hamdok, to many observers of the Sudanese politics, was an unholy alliance that was not meant to last for long due to historical animosities between the Sudanese military and the civilian governments. The animosity had led many to believe what had really happened was that the military carried out a subtle counter-revolution against the civilian protesters in 2018. The civilians, fed up with military government's malpractices since their 30 years of misrule in which they successfully glided the country into a break up while continuing to starve them, rose up in the name of the shortage of bread. President Bashir had no option but to order the ruthless paramilitary, the Rapid Support Force, which he had used against the people of Darfur and Kordufan mercilessly, to solve the threatening street protests across the country. But the problem failed to go away. The civilians were resolute in their demands and actions irrespective of several deaths they suffered in the process. The army,  fearing that it was being outdone by the civilians whose future government might send most of them to the dock, turned around and joined the civilians, delivering what could be described as a coup-de-grace against President Bashir, their commander in Chief. They claimed, to the cheers of the protesters, to not wanting to shoot at their parents and siblings on the streets. They then worked their way up to being partakers in the government. The only group they sacrificed and arrested was President Bashir and his immediate circle. 

The choreography of power grabbing by the military had gone on one too many in Sudan despite the institution having emerged as the only body that had worried the Sudanese people, set back the building of national identity and cohesiveness, destroyed lives and livelihood and property, and above all, caused a deep social gap among the various Sudanese nationalities and the country as  a whole. In overthrowing Hamdok's civilian government, the military had read the mood from around the world which seems to cuddle the civilian government in the Sudan. As the world begins to open up to Sudan, normalising relations and fostering closer engagement, the military establishment has sensed a threat. They know, as could not be accurately dismissed or considered, that Prime Minister Hamdok might be used internationally to crack down on those wanted for crimes against humanity in the Sudan's long, violent and costly wars. No doubt if The Hague Tribunal focuses deeply on Sudan, most Military Generals of the Sudan Armed Forces would have serious genocidal questions to answer in Darfur and in Kordufan. Their success now in bringing down this civilian-led government is a way of fighting back. They know that as the case against President Bashir, who has already been arrested and facing numerous charges, has come to include the crime of overthrowing the civilian government in 1989, that Hamdok and his civil partners, backed by the international community (both state and non-state actors), might go after them. Stopping them before they act became of necessity. 

Truly, the Sudanese people have much to condemn the military for: they know that had the National Salvation Front, later the National Congress Party, not forced their way to power in 1989, Sudan would have achieved peace with the rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, and there would have been no drawn out war of attrition, which cost many families their sons and daughters in their primes. They know that the actions of the military neither prevented the division of the country nor are they solving economic crises facing the country on daily basis. It suffices to say that without the historical negative Sudanese military interferences in politics, the division of the country into Sudan and South Sudan would not have happened ten years ago. The hope had always been that had the various civilian governments that had been stifled by the military given the chances they needed, the country would have found a solid uniting foundation and solutions to the multiple problems that impacted it. But the complex Sudanese theocratic politics never allowed anything like that to take hold. Various Sudanese military sciolists have had a history of bypassing what united the Sudanese peoples and had always done the exact opposite.

With the battle now pitting the defenseless protesters against the army with tanks and fleets of pickup vehicles, which are manned by cut-throat national security operatives with people-disappearing capabilities, one thing is clear from the Sudanese people who have nowhere to go: there will be no backing down no matter how much force is being used against them. They know that the kind of the country they want had already been defined by those in the now South Sudan who left when their call for  a meaningful Sudanisation fell on deaf ears, especially on the ears of the Sudanese military. That call was very correct then as it is now, and it has become the yardstick for measuring one's Sudaneseness. It doesn't matter then who gets the power using what means in Khartoum. If the call for power-sharing in any government, wealth sharing in national development and achievement of rights for oneself is not heeded, no amount of military interference  will be tolerated. The Sudanese have come of age, and are here to qualify the epigram that the, 'Sudan will never be the same again.'