A Major Crisis is Unfolding in Sudan (Full Transcript)

Lightly edited transcript of the Global Dispatches about the outbreak of civil war in Sudan featuring and interview of Hala al Karib

On Saturday, April 15th, fighting broke out in Khartoum and elsewhere in Sudan. At time of recording, hundreds of people have been killed. All commercial air travel has been suspended and international aid operations have come to a halt in the massive city of Khartoum. Millions of people are sheltering in place with dwindling supplies of food and water. And that includes my guest today, Hala al Karib, a Sudanese activist, research practitioner and director of the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa. 

When I last spoke with Hala al Karib in late February, she more or less predicted the crisis we are seeing today, which is the result of a failure of a transition to democracy in Sudan. 

Very briefly: You may recall that back in 2018, Sudanese civilians rose up in mass protest against the nearly 30 year rule of dictator Omar al-Bashir. The military stepped in and removed Bashir and entered into a power sharing agreement with the civilian civil society leaders. This was supposed to lead to full civilian control. But in October 2021, two military leaders joined forces to oust the civilian leadership. These two leaders ran the country very badly and under heavy international and domestic pressure entered into yet another agreement to transition back to civilian rule. 

But these two military men are now fighting each other for control of Sudan. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan is the leader of the Sudanese Armed Forces, the SAF. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti, leads the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. These two men have a long history together. They both cut their teeth fighting against an insurgency in Darfur in the early 2000s. Darfur is in the western periphery of Sudan, and the counter insurgency in which these two men participated amounted to a genocide. The RSF out of the Janjaweed militia responsible for the worst atrocities in Darfur and became a very capable fighting force hired out by Saudi Arabia to support their goals in Yemen and by the United Arab Emirates to advance their interests in Libya. The RSF has also partnered with Russia's Wagner Group around mineral extraction in Sudan. Meanwhile, Burhan's Sudanese armed forces receives considerable support from Egypt. 

[00:03:46] Now these two powerful militaries are fighting each other on the streets of Khartoum, in Darfur and elsewhere for control of the state. Needless to say, this has all the potential to be an absolutely devastating crisis. Hala al-Kharin kicks off our conversation by explaining that despite the predictable failure of the democratic transition in Sudan, people were still caught off guard by the actual outbreak of fighting. We then go on to discuss some of the broader conflict dynamics and what can be done to pull Sudan back from the brink of an all out civil war. Now, here is my conversation with Hala al-Kharib live from Khartoum. And we spoke just 2 hours after an ostensible short humanitarian ceasefire was supposed to go into effect.