Sudan (Washington Insider Magazine) -However, October’s military coup d’etat has knocked that dream on its back like a turtle, taking American leaders by shock and igniting concern that a collapse of democratic transformation in the region might inspire coups elsewhere and result in a loss of U.S. control in the area.
Following the 2019 overthrow of Omar al-Bashir, an interim administration comprised of military figures and civilians had operated together beneath Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok to lead the nation to elections in 2023.
Presently, amidst Hamdok in custody, the military in complete authority, and defense forces firing guns at protesters, the Biden administration has halted $700 million in foreign aid. In addition, the U.S. State Department has ordered the military to free Hamdok and return the civilian government to power.
The U.S. government acknowledged “stresses” separating the camps, stated Jeffrey Feltman, the U.S. Special Envoy for the region. Moreover, anxieties regarding a military takeover had been displayed the past month or so, starting with a flopped coup attempt in September 2021.
Yet, Feltman informed the media, he didn’t “[see] it coming.”
In a discussion soon after the coup, Feltman announced he was in Khartoum to discuss the ordeal and “restore the cooperation” between the civilian and military government. He departed Khartoum in the AM hours the following Monday, “feeling moderately inspired” via the conversations. But, unfortunately, that excitement transformed to distress once he saw the announcement of the coup when his flight landed.
Feltman likened the crisis to a doctor with a sick patient, the patient being the country and the doctor being the military. You don’t give the patient a medicine that could kill them; you find the treatment that works.
The U.S. command had spent hundreds of millions of dollars in aid and financial assistance to Sudan to further its transformation to democracy — funds that are now halted.
Feltman later responded that the United States was “very precise that a military coup of the nonmilitary establishments would ignite a reevaluation of the sorts of commitments [the United States] have.”
Becoming stable after a 30-year dictatorship
Until 2019, Sudan was a military totalitarianist nation directed by Omar al-Bashir, an army leader who led a coup d’etat in 1989 that deposed a democratically elected government.
Over thirty years, al-Bashir’s unmerciful Islamist administration was blamed for violence, corruption, sheltering terrorist organizations, and stealing billions of dollars. Additionally, he supervised the killings of hundreds of thousands of noncombatants in Darfur with the support of government-aligned military groups.
Al-Bashir was finally overthrown in 2019 when pro-democracy rallies earned enough clout that the military agreed to discharge him from his post.
At that point, Sudan’s army allowed sharing authority with the directors of the pro-democracy campaign. The settlement called for a transitional administration to persist through 2022 and appoint Prime Minister Hamdok, a civilian, to oversee a council comprised of both military and civilian leadership. The two sides’ goals were mutual; they stated then — stabilization, an improved economy, placing Sudan on a route to democracy, and holding elections in 2023.
“Sudan possesses a vital space adjoining seven nations. But, that said, if things go well in Sudan, this could have a remarkably strategic influence and result in the whole region,” Hamdok said to the media in late 2019, during which he stated his case for more top U.S. support of Sudan.
Under Hamdok’s control, Sudan was making progress towards those goals.
The U.S. removed Sudan from its U.S. State Sponsor of Terrorism list in December 2020, opening the nation to international finance. Additionally, that removal from the list plowed a path for a comprehensive debt forgiveness agreement with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Sudan further agreed to compensate U.S. victims of the USS Cole incident in October 2000 and attacks at the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Nairobi and also take actions toward stabilizing connections with Israel.
Now, essentially of that progress is up in the air, as the military power threw out the previous arrangement and arrested civilian administrators in the coup in September. Nevertheless, the military maintains they will hold the 2023 elections.
The coup is a significant gut-punch to U.S. strategic matters in northeastern Africa.
Approximately 30 percent of the globe’s shipping vessels move through the Red Sea every year to and from the Suez Canal, which grants the quickest route from the Middle East and Asia to Europe and the eastern United States. Moreover, since Sudan possesses more than 400 miles of shoreline, the country has represented a possible diplomatic agreement with world powers such as China, Russia, and the U.S. — chiefly as its next-door neighbors in the area, such as Ethiopia — have slipped into civil warfare and uncertainty.
If components of the previous oppressive regime of Al-Bashir regain power in the country, Hudson warned, Sudan may become a center for human trafficking and weapon smuggling once again.
