When Sudan’s civil conflict erupted in April between the military and the Fast Assist Forces (RSF), the paramilitary group’s chief, Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, went into hiding.
Many speculated he had been critically wounded or was even lifeless till he appeared in a photo-op with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni on Wednesday.
The subsequent day, Hemedti visited Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, ostensibly to debate methods to finish Sudan’s battle. He additionally handed via Ghana and Djibouti.
UPDATE- President Museveni, has met with Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the previous Deputy Chair of the Transitional Sovereignty Council of Sudan, at his nation residence in Rwakitura. They mentioned, amongst different issues, methods to place an finish to the continued battle in Sudan. #UBCNEWS pic.twitter.com/HxFzdIN0t5
— UBC UGANDA (@ubctvuganda) December 27, 2023
Analysts consider Hemedti’s actual motive was securing regional help to seize all of Sudan from the military.
Final month, the RSF captured Gezira state – a breadbasket for Sudan – giving the group the clear higher hand towards the military.
However quite than leverage navy success in negotiations to finish the battle, Hemedti seems to have ambitions to rule all of Sudan, based on analysts, Sudanese journalists and diplomats.
“Hemedti desperately wants folks to really feel that the RSF is a governing power. I believe because of this Hemedti went to fulfill heads of state,” mentioned Kholood Khair, a Sudan skilled and founding director of the suppose tank Confluence Advisory.
“Hemedti will attempt as a lot as doable to vogue himself into this concept of being a frontrunner,” Khair instructed Al Jazeera.
Purple herring
On December 9, the Intergovernmental Authority on Growth (IGAD), an eight-nation East African bloc, released a press release saying Hemedti and armed forces chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan would meet nose to nose in two weeks.
However Hemedti went to Uganda the day earlier than he was supposed to fulfill al-Burhan for ceasefire talks in Djibouti. IGAD postponed the talks for “technical causes”.
On Monday, Hemedti met with Sudan’s former prime minister and the chief of a newly formed civilian bloc, the Coordination of Civil Democratic Forces (Taqaddum), Abdallah Hamdok, in Ethiopia.
Taqaddum has introduced it additionally invited al-Burhan to fulfill at one other date, however there was no details about whether or not that invitation has been accepted.
Khair believes Hemedti and al-Burhan are each partaking in – and derailing – mediation efforts to purchase time for his or her navy operations.
“That is all a purple herring … to realize some worldwide kudos whereas on the identical time attempting to realize some floor [in the war],” she instructed Al Jazeera.
In October, the RSF captured a number of military garrisons throughout the sprawling western area of Darfur, simply because the US-backed mediation talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, had been about to renew after a prolonged hiatus.
Jonas Horner, an impartial skilled on Sudan, instructed Al Jazeera the RSF’s growth because it takes extra states to the north and east isn’t sustainable.
He famous that the paramilitary has recruited closely from its tribal base in Darfur in change for permitting the fighters to loot cities they seize. However the pillaging of houses, hospitals, United Nations warehouses and markets has led to fashionable resentment and hatred of the group, he mentioned.
“[The RSF’s] atrocities and their hardcore cruelty … might be their single largest impediment and makes the prospect of them governing the nation far tougher,” Horner mentioned.
“I believe so many Sudanese … are by no means going to be snug with the RSF governing them,” he added.
Making an attempt to control
Regardless of committing a myriad of human rights abuses, the RSF is attempting to deliver regulation and order to areas below its management, Sudanese journalist Mohamad el-Fatih Yousif mentioned from Darfur.
He instructed Al Jazeera that the paramilitary has created a division referred to as Civil and Political Administration, whose paid workers are chargeable for repairing fundamental companies like hospitals, electrical energy grids and water stations in South Darfur’s capital, Nyala.
“There’s relative security proper now in Nyala,” el-Fatih Yousif mentioned. “All of the RSF fighters that had been looting Nyala left. All of them went to Gezira state.”
The RSF has additionally established an area police power in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, most of which it controls. Police forces have additionally been instructed to keep up order all through Darfur.
Many activists and analysts are mocking the group’s ostensible try to fight criminality and blame the RSF for many of the theft, violence and lawlessness within the nation.
It is a farce.
Will the RSF’s police power arrest RSF forces for the killing, looting, property destruction, occupation of homes, sexual violence, and different crimes during which they have been implicated in Khartoum and different areas? https://t.co/0iM6rcOFQF
— Lauren Blanchard (@LaurenBinDC) December 13, 2023
“It is a farce,” tweeted Lauren Blanchard, an skilled on Sudan and a specialist in African affairs on the Congressional Analysis Service.
“Will the RSF’s police power arrest RSF forces for the killing, looting, property destruction, occupation of homes, sexual violence, and different crimes during which they’ve been implicated in Khartoum and different areas?”
A accomplice in crime?
Whereas nearly no one in northern and japanese Sudan will settle for residing below Hemedti, European international locations will cooperate with the RSF if it captures the complete nation, based on one Western diplomat who spoke to Al Jazeera on the situation of anonymity.
He mentioned that within the curiosity of stemming migration from Africa to Europe, the European Union is already signing partnerships with strongman leaders resembling Tunisian President Kais Mentioned and an japanese Libyan militia related to renegade navy commander Khalifa Haftar.
The EU additionally beforehand labored with the RSF on migration as a part of the Khartoum Course of, a 2014 migration pact between the EU and international locations within the Horn of Africa to fight the trafficking and smuggling of human beings.
The EU suspended cooperation with Sudan after the RSF spearheaded an assault on a sit-in on June 3, 2019, based on open-source investigations carried out by human rights teams. No less than 120 folks had been killed in what survivors and rights teams referred to as a bloodbath.
“Europe denied that they ever supported the RSF instantly, however they did. And I believe that they are going to achieve this sooner or later if that’s what is critical,” the diplomat instructed Al Jazeera.
“And if it seems that the RSF is about to take over all of Sudan, then I believe the EU will make the calculation that they should publicly condemn what the RSF is doing.
“However I don’t suppose [the EU] will cease the RSF or help any nation to cease the RSF from taking on the nation.”