Sudan security sector reform complicates political process

The spokesperson for the political process in Sudan, Khalid Omer Yousif, announced at dawn on Saturday, April 1, that the date for the official signing of the final political agreement has been postponed from early April to a time to be determined later.

Yousif said in a statement that it was not possible to sign the final political agreement due to “the lack of consensus on some outstanding issues,” without giving further details.

The decision was taken after an important meeting of the civil forces participating in the political process regarding the timeframe of the agreement, which ended at dawn on Saturday, in light of the possibility of delaying the signing due to differences over the integration of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) into the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).

Yousif revealed that a meeting will held between the civil and military forces that signed the framework agreement at the Presidential Palace under the auspices of the tripartite mechanism (United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan, African Union, and Intergovernmental Authority on Development) to set a new date for signing the final agreement.

He also stressed the involvement of all parties in discussions, which he described as serious, in order to overcome the recent obstacles and reach full civil authority.

Security reform causes complication

The signatories to the framework agreement held a workshop on security sector reform (SSR) from March 25-28 as part of a group of workshops whose recommendations will be included in the final political declaration.

Signs of the crisis emerged after the army and the SAF and RSF disagreed over the timetable for merging the forces of the second into the first.

The RSF is an infamous militia founded by former President Omar al-Bashir, consisting in essence of former Darfur rebel forces, to suppress rebellions in Darfur.

The RSF is facing accusations of human rights violations amounting to war crimes, whether because of what it committed in Darfur or its dispersal of the Khartoum sit-in in June 2019.

Sudanese military expert Khaled Nour al-Huda said in a statement to Jusoor Post that while the SAF set three years for the completion of the merger, the RSF believes that the process needs ten years.

“The army commander, Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, is afraid of a crisis within the SAF because of his relationship with the commander of the RSF, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo Hemedati, who, in the eyes of the army's senior generals, has caused him to neglect the military establishment,” Nour al-Huda said.

“As for Hemedti, he wants to prolong the independence of his forces as much as possible to gain more empowerment, especially with the increasing financial influence he has gained, and to transform the RSF into a major economic power,” he added.

Commentators believe that the recent differences between Al-Burhan and Hemedti have international geopolitical dimensions due to the transfer of the US-Russian conflict after the Ukrainian war to African lands.

“We have recently seen the United States and France siding with Al-Burhan, in contrast with Russia's support, represented by the Wagner Group security company, for Hemedti, in the ongoing conflict in Central Africa. The first supports the rebels and the second the government,” Nour al-Huda said.