The Great Game of the Fruity in Sudan

Gallopin African council.

Four of the leftist officers in the Su dan who ousted Premier Gaa far al‐Nimeiry
Monday and in turn were overthrown yester day were executed by a firing squad in
Khartoum today, the official Sudanese radio report ed.

The officers were identified as Maj. Hashem al‐Ata, who led the military attack
Monday and became deputy leader of the short‐lived leftist regime; Col. Abdel
Moneim Ahmed, commander of the Third Ar mored
power-sharing agreement in which the generals play a dominant role.[1]
The revolutionary period marks an inflection point in Sudan’s relationship with with
these Gulf countries. Despite long-standing economic ties, the regime of Omar al-
Bashir — an offspring of the Muslim Brotherhood —maintained, from its early years,
a close alliance with Iran.[2] Al-Bashir’s government also enjoyed privileged relations
with the two regional backers of the Muslim Brotherhood: Qatar, which mediated the
Darfur peace talks, and Turkey. In the 2010s, Khartoum, strapped for cash after the
loss of most of its oil reserves in South Sudan’s secession, began a rapprochement
with Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Within a few months of the start of the 2015 Saudi-
led offensive on Yemen, Sudan committed an estimated 10,000 troops to support the
coalition[3] – the bulk of the infantry deployed – in exchange for the payment of
soldiers’ salaries, direct deposits to the Sudanese state’s coffer, and subsidies on
basic commodities. By 2018, UAE officials estimated that they had injected about $7
billion in Sudan’s economy.[4]
This newfound patronage came with strings attached: Saudi Arabia and the UAE
expected Khartoum to come on their side in their rivalries with Qatar and Iran. In
2016, Bashir eventually cut ties with Tehran. He reportedly promised the Emirates to
sideline Islamists from his government.
But it’s unclear whether Bashir was ever strong enough to follow through on his
promise. At a time when erstwhile allies were plotting to remove him, Bashir’s shift
away from Sudan’s traditional allies exacerbated divisions within his fractious ruling
circle and further weakened his standing within the ruling National Congress Party, a
key pillar of his regime, alongside the military, the security services, and the
paramilitary militia known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).[5]
This domestic pressure likely accounted for Bashir’s decision in June 2017 to stay
neutral in the Qatar crisis, angering the UAE and Saudi Arabia.[6] Riyadh, in
retaliation, stopped paying the salaries of Sudanese soldiers.[7] Egypt, a close ally of
Saudi Arabia and the UAE, kept up the hopes of bringing Bashir into the alliance,
encouraging him to remove Islamist officers.[8] But he continued to play one side
against the other. In March 2018, he received UAE subsidies and a $2 billion loan
from Qatar.[9] This balancing game convinced Saudi Arabia and the UAE that Bashir
was unreliable and should be replaced.[10]
In December 2018, the UAE reportedly halted fuel shipments to Sudan. Faced with
an acute shortage of foreign exchange, a deep deficit and crushing debt, Bashir cut
subsidies on bread, triggering the first demonstrations of what would become the
Sudanese revolution.

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The opportunity of the 2018-2019 uprising
As the uprising unfolded, al-Bashir lost his few remaining allies. None of his foreign
sponsors came to the rescue. On December 24, when Gen. Mohammed Hamdan
Daglo, known as Hemedti, the head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, came
out supporting demonstrators’ demands, it became clear that the loyalty of the
military and security apparatus was shaky. In mid-February, as demonstrations
continued unabated, the head of the security service Salah Gosh and the UAE
reportedly offered al-Bashir an exit plan, which he refused.  The Emiratis began to
reach out to opposition groups; so did Gosh, who visited prominent leaders in prison.
[11]
On 7 April 2019, a day after revolutionary demonstrators began a sit-in in front of the
military’s headquarters, Gen. Jalal al-Dine el-Sheikh, the deputy head of the security
service, headed a delegation of military and intelligence officials to Cairo, where he
sought the support of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE for a coup against al-Bashir.
The three countries then reportedly reached out to Abdelfattah al-Burhan, a military
general who had coordinated the Sudanese military’s operations in the Saudi-led
coalition in Yemen, and Hemedti, who had also deployed there as head of the RSF.
Egypt offered Bashir exile in Saudi Arabia. Again, he refused. A few days later, on 11
April, leaders of the military and security apparatus, including al-Burhan and
Hemedti, overthrew him, installing a Transitional Military Council (TMC) to rule the
country.[12]
This coup gave an opportunity for the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt to finally bring
Sudan into their axis. They threw their weight behind the TMC, and in particular
Hemedti, who had already acquired considerable financial resources in the last year
of al-Bashir’s rule thanks to the deployment of the RSF in Yemen and his exports of
Sudan’s gold to Dubai.[13]Within ten days, the UAE and Saudi Arabia had promised
$3 billion of direct aid to the new regime. While revolutionaries continued their sit-in,
demanding radical political change, Egypt lobbied the African Union to discourage a
suspension of Sudan’s membership.[14]
Throughout April and May, negotiations between the TMC and the Forces of
Freedom and Change (the revolutionary umbrella organization of opposition parties,
civil society groups, and rebel groups) failed to reach an agreement on power
sharing. Saudi Arabia and the UAE, alongside other regional actors such as Chad,
South Sudan, Egypt, Ethiopia and Eritrea all encouraged the TMC to hold onto
power. The UAE secretly delivered weapons to Hemedti in late April. [15]The Emirati
Foreign Minister Anwar Gargash tweeted “Totally legitimate for Arab states to
support an orderly & stable transition in Sudan. One that carefully calibrates popular
aspirations with institutional stability.”[16] In the words of a former NCP minister,
“some centers [were] working to build up a new Sisi”.[17] Buoyed by diplomatic
cover, military aid, as well as fresh cash, fuel and wheat injections, the TMC
remained intransigent and played for time in negotiations, refusing the FFC’s central
demand that a new sovereignty council meant to collectively serve as the head of
state be dominated by a majority of civilian appointees.
By late April – early May, revolutionaries at the Khartoum sit-in were becoming more
defiant in response to the TMC’s stalling tactics.[18] “Madaniya” – civilian rule –
emerged as their central slogan. Some who had welcomed the role of the military
and Hemedti in ousting al-Bashir and who had been open to the idea of a mixed
sovereignty council were now demanding an exclusively civilian council.[19] Visible

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dollars in fuel subsidies.

Abbas, Waheed. UAE pumps in Dh28b for Sudan’s development, fiscal stability. Khaleej Times,
14 March 2018.

https://www.khaleejtimes.com/uae-pumps-in-dh28b-for-sudans-development-fiscal-stability

[5] Interview with a minister under Bashir, Khartoum, April 2019.

[6] He further alienated his new patrons by sacking his head of cabinet Taha Osman al-Hussein
— who had emerged as the central figure of Sudan’s foreign policy — after it emerged that al-
Hussein had taken Saudi citizenship. Al-Hussein left the country went on to become an adviser
to Riyadh.

[7] Interview with an observer of Sudanese politics, Berlin, June 2018.

See also Crisis Group 2019.

[9] Abbas, Waheed. UAE pumps in Dh28b for Sudan’s development, fiscal stability. Khaleej
Times, 14 March 2018.

https://www.khaleejtimes.com/uae-pumps-in-dh28b-for-sudans-development-fiscal-stability

[10] Interview with a Western diplomat in Khartoum, April 2019.

[11] Interview with a representative of the Sudan Revolutionary Front, April 2020; with a
Sudanese activist, May 2020.

[12] On the run-up to the coup against Bashir, see Magdy S., As Sudan uprising grew, Arab
states worked to shape its fate, The Associated Press, 8 May 2019.

Abdelaziz K., Georgy M. Dahan M., Abandoned by the UAE, Sudan’s Bashir was destined to
fall, Reuters, 3 July 2019.

[13] Kent, R. Exposing the RSF’s Secret Financial Network, Global Witness, 9 December 2019.

Walsh, D., Amid U.S. Silence, Gulf Nations Back the Military in Sudan’s Revolution, The New
York Times, 26 April 2019.

[14] These efforts paid off at first, but Egypt failed to prevent the AU’s Peace and Security
Council from suspending Sudan after the 3 June massacre. De Waal 2019.

[15] Interview with a diplomat working for a Western mission in Khartoum, April 2019. On Chad,
see also De Waal 2019.

[16] https://twitter.com/AnwarGargash/status/1123470302317621248

[17] Interview with a Minister under Bashir, Khartoum, April 2019.

[18] Interviews with organizers and activists at the Khartoum sit-in, 1-3 May 2019.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Bearak M., Fahim K. (2019), From Sudan’s protesters, a warning to Saudi Arabia and the
UAE: Don’t meddle, The Washington Post, 29 April 2019.

[21] These included Mariam al-Mahdi, of the Umma Party, leaders of the Sudan Congress Party,
but also rebels of the Sudan Revolutionary Front, including Yasir Arman, of the Agar branch of
the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement – North, the Justice and Equality Movement, and Minni

3
Minnawi, the head of a branch of the Sudan Liberation Movement, a Darfur rebel group. Hosting
Darfur rebel groups allowed the UAE to weaken Qatar, which had previously sponsored peace
negotiations on Darfur.

Interview with an official from the SPLM-N / al-Hilu branch, Khartoum, April 2019.

Interview with a leader of JEM, Khartoum, May 2019. Interview with a SAF officer, Khartoum,
April 2019. See also Sudan Tribune, Sudan’s opposition, UAE officials discussed peace and
issues of mutual concern: Arman, 18 June 2019.

[22] Yasir Arman of the SPLM-N / Agar branch on 18 June defended on Facebook the role of the
UAE and Saudi Arabia in the Sudanese transition. Khaled Omer of the Sudan Congress Party
attacked Qatar and Al Jazeera. Umma Party leader and former Prime Ministeer Sadig al-Mahdi
praised the role of the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the Rapid Support Forces in the transition.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=3266495953367912&id=100000226191522

Al-Quds al-Arabi,  ‫ “الحرية والتغيير” والمجلس العسكري بال تفويض شعبي ونقبل انتخابات‬:”‫الصادق المهدي لـ”القدس العربي‬
29 , ‫ مبكرة بعد استيفاء شروطها… ونفضل التريث باالنضمام إلى المحاور‬May 2019.

[23] Phone interview with a Sudanese activist, May 2019.

[24] Interview with a senior adviser of a Sudan call group, March 2020.

[25] Under Secretary of State David Hale took the unusual step to not only call the Saudi Deputy
Defense Minister Khalid Bin Salman and UAE Foreign Minister Anwar Gargash, but also to make
his messages to them public. “Under Secretary Hale’s Call With Saudi Deputy Defense Minister
Kha-lid bin Salman”, Readout from U.S. State Department Office of the Spokesperson, 4 June
2019; “Under Secretary Hale’s Call With Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash of
the United Arab Emirates”, Readout from U.S. State Department Office of the Spokesperson, 6
June 2019.

[26] Walsh, D. (2019). In Sudan, a Power-Sharing Deal Propelled by a Secret Meeting and Public
Rage, The New York Times, 5 July 2019. Crisis Group 2019:11, De Waal 2019b

[27] Sudan Tribune, Saudi Arabia and UAE call for dialogue in Sudan, 6 June 2019.

[28] Phone interview with a Sudanese activist, June 2019.

[29] Walsh, D. (2019). Sudan Power-Sharing Deal Reached by Military and Civilian Leaders, The
New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/04/world/africa/sudan-power-sharing-
deal.html

[30] Walsh, D. (2019). Sudan Power-Sharing Deal Reached by Military and Civilian Leaders, The
New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/04/world/africa/sudan-power-sharing-
deal.html

[31] De Waal, A. (2019a), Sudan: A Political Marketplace Framework Analysis. World Peace
Foundation Conflict Research Programme Occasional Paper n°19, August
2019. https://sites.tufts.edu/reinventingpeace/files/2019/07/Sudan-A-political-market-place-
analysis-final-20190731.pdf

[32] Interview with a Sudanese cabinet adviser, May 2020.

[33] Interview with a former SAF officer, May 2020.

[34] PAX Sudan Alert, Actor Map, 5 June 2019.

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Sudan Tribune, Sudan reforms military command structure, 30 October 2019.

Sudan Tribune, Sudan relieves over 60 security service officials, 25 November 2019.

Sudan Tribune, The armed forces and militia protect transition in Sudan: al-Burhan, 23
December 2019.

[35] Interview with a Western diplomat, April 2020.

[36] De Waal reports that Hemedti handed out money to striking policemen, tribal chiefs,
teachers, electricity workers, and officers of the Sudanese Armed Forces’ High Command
(2019a:21).

[37] Sudan People’s Liberation Movement – North (Agar branch), 6 , ‫ موقفنا من لقاء عنتبي‬February
2020.

[38] The document states that the sovereignty council had “sponsorship” or “custody” over the
peace process (“‫)”رعاية العملية السالم مع الحركات المسلحة‬, but lists as the cabinet’s second competency a
“work to stop wars and conflicts and build peace” (“‫)”العمل على إيقاف الحروب و النراعات و بناء السالم‬. For
the text of the constitutional declaration, see http://constitutionnet.org/sites/default/files/2019-
10/Sudan%20Constitutional%20Declaration_Arabic_Final.pdf

[39] Among the armed groups negotiating with the government, some, such as the Justice and
Equality Movement or the Sudan Liberation Army – Minni Minnawi, have been under Emirati
patronage since their involvement as mercenaries alongside Khalifa Haftar, an Emirati client, in
Libya. The Agar branch of the Sudan’s People Liberation Movement – North, as mentioned,
operated a rapprochement with the UAE in April 2019, alongside other groups of Sudan Call. The
UAE is working to bring the Sudan Liberation Army – Abdelwahed al-Nur and the Abdelaziz al-
Hilu branch of the the Sudan’s People Liberation Movement – North, the two groups that actually
control territory within Sudan, into a deal. Al-Hilu travelled to the UAE in December 2019.

Phone interview with a Sudanese activist, December 2019.

Radio Tamazuj, Sudanese rebel al-Hilu concludes visit to the UAE, 31 December 2019.

https://radiotamazuj.org/en/news/article/sudanese-rebel-leader-al-hilu-concludes-visit-to-uae

United Nations, Final Report of the Panel of Experts on Sudan, S/2020/36, 14 January 2020.

[40] US diplomats have been eschewing meetings with the military branches of government.

[41] Prime Minister Hamdok also denied having been informed of the meeting, although Shafi’a
Khiddir, one of his informal advisers, said that the Prime Minister had received a 48h notice.
Interview with a DC-based analyst of US foreign policy, February 2020.

The Associated Press, Netanyahu Meeting With Sudan’s Leader Was Set Up by UAE, Sudanese
Official Say, 4 February 2020.

[42] On that occasion, the UAE also sought to impose a new leader for the security service: Gen.
Abdelghaffar al-Sharif, one of the most influential spy chiefs under al-Bashir, who has since lived
in exile in the UAE. Al-Burhan, Hemedti and the FFC refused. Interview with a Sudanese
observer, April 2020.

[43] Hemedti interview to Sudan 24, 24 May 2020 : https://youtu.be/glpMPQI670w?t=2287