Just over 15 years ago, on 9 July 2011, South Sudan declared its independence. Today, the spectre of partition looms over Sudan once again. Its western and south-western regions, controlled by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), are pressing ever more forcefully towards separation. Fragmentation would have grave consequences.
The contest over sovereignty, legitimacy, and the right to represent the Sudanese people is a defining feature of the civil war that began in April 2023. The map of territorial control changes daily, but the RSF now claims virtually all of Darfur (apart from limited areas along the border with Chad) and, together with its ally, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), holds extensive parts of North and South Kordofan.
The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) control east, north, and central Sudan, but the army's or central government's sovereignty over Sudanese territory is incomplete. Across vast areas, it has no authority. The civil war has thus evolved into a struggle between two governments: one in Khartoum, the other in Nyala, in the west. Sudan has now entered a state of administrative division that can no longer be denied, deepening fears that the country may once again fracture into two states. Some now openly advocate partition as the solution to the crisis.
Harnessing history
The RSF, both militarily and politically, has sought to capitalise on the long history of marginalisation endured by regions under their control. There is a bitter irony here, given that the RSF was originally created to suppress the armed movements that rebelled against former President Omar al-Bashir in response to precisely such marginalisation. The demand to reclaim political and economic rights has become a central element of RSF wartime discourse. The group uses this to encourage mobilisation.
Two developments have lent greater depth to this language of grievance. The first was the alliance between the RSF and the SPLM faction led by Abdelaziz al-Hilu, an armed movement that has spent two decades fighting to redress the marginalisation of communities in the Nuba Mountains. The alliance gave the RSF access to a language of political demands, co-opting credibility from elsewhere, even though the RSF was itself a creation of the former regime and had never made the grievances of the periphery its cause; instead, it had been an instrument of suppression.
The second development was the establishment of a governing authority in RSF-controlled territory, known as the Tasis government. It has institutions, administrative structures, and ministries that parallel those of the central government. The Tasis government therefore constitutes a form of administrative separation and could be the first institutional building block of eventual secession.
Al Majalla spoke to leaders in the Tasis government and to supporters of the RSF and SPLM, asking if they favoured Sudan’s partition. All supported Sudan’s unity, but conditioned that on ditching the old governance model, with a dominant centre dictating to underdeveloped, poverty-stricken peripheral regions. They criticised the idea that a narrow elite drawn from particular regions should be able to pass power and wealth among themselves. “The politics of the horse and rider must come to an end,” one said. If ruling elites were unwilling to change, people in Darfur and the Nuba Mountains would prefer to govern themselves, according to those Al Majalla spoke to.
