60 The Economist October 30th 2021
Middle East & Africa
SudanThe generals strike back
T
he scriptwas all too familiar. First,
Sudan awoke to find that Abdalla Ham
dok, the prime minister appointed by prot
est leaders two years ago, had been arrest
ed by the army. Then the internet was
switched off. Bridges into the capital,
Khartoum, were closed, as was its airport.
“What is happening now in Sudan is a mil
itary coup,” said Nasredeen Abdulbari, the
justice minister. Soon protesters were on
the streets, burning tyres and chanting slo
gans, such as “retreat is impossible.”
The scenes recall the heady days of Su
dan’s revolution in 2019, when peaceful
mass protests toppled Omar alBashir, a
ruthless Islamist despot who had ruled Su
dan for three decades. Then alas, the army
seized power in a coup. To quiet further
mass protests, the generals made a power
sharing pact with the protest leaders. Lieu
tenantGeneral AbdelFattah alBurhan be
came Sudan’s de facto president and chair
man of the sovereign council, a military
and civilian body charged with overseeing
Mr Hamdok’s mostly civilian cabinet. Mr
Burhan was originally supposed to hand
over to a civilian this year ahead of elections that were due to take place in 2022.
Instead he has mounted a second coup,
which may spell the end of yet another
brief Sudanese attempt at democracy.
History has repeated itself often since
independence in 1956. Previous democrat
ic revolutions in 1964 and 1985 were also
snuffed out by military takeovers. For
months it had been obvious that divisions
within the interim government were likely
to spill over into violence or lay the ground
for a coup. In an interview with The Econo-
mistin July, the vicechairman of the sover
eign council, Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo
(known as Hemedti), warned of a takeover
by people tied to the old regime. This was
almost certainly disingenuous. It was al
ways more likely that Mr Dagalo would joinforces with Mr Burhan to oust the civilians.
Mr Dagalo does not have much form as a
democrat. He is a desert warlord who
heads a notorious paramilitary unit called
the Rapid Support Forces (rsf), which grew
out of the Janjaweed, an Arab militia re
sponsible for genocide in the country’s
Darfur region.
The opening salvo was fired last month,
when the army said it had foiled a coup at
tempted by Islamists loyal to Mr Bashir.
Many suspect that it was in fact a ploy by
the generals themselves to tighten their
grip on the government. Mr Dagalo blamed
civilian leaders, for their bickering and
mismanagement of public services. On Oc
tober 11th Mr Burhan called for the cabinet
to be dissolved and warned against efforts
to exclude the army from the transition.
Days later protesters were bused in by the
army to stage a rally calling for a military
takeover. Many Sudanese suspect this was
to make the coming coup seem popular.
Mr Burhan and Mr Dagalo have been
preparing in other ways, too. An agree
ment signed last year with rebels from Dar
fur and southern Sudan brought more men
with guns into the powersharing govern
ment, apparently as their allies. The two
have also been amassing economic power.
Firms that once belonged to Mr Bashir’s
family have been swept up by the armed
forces. Profits from militaryowned com
panies, which were once channelled to the
ruling party, now flow directly to the ar
my’s own coffers. Mr Dagalo’s rsfhas been
expanding its business interests, too. FewA DDIS ABABA
A second coup in two years upends a democratic transition→Alsointhissection
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