Sudan af­ter Revolt Reimagining Society, Surviving Vengeance ELSADIG ELSHEIKH

abstract After more than four months of con­stant dem­on­stra­tions, the Sudanese pop­u­lar up­ris­ing, be­gun on Decem­ ­ber 19, 2018, and led by the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), forced the high- rank­ing gen­er­als of the Sudanese Armed Forces to side with the pro­tes­tors in re­mov­ing the dic­ta­to­rial re­gime of Omar al-Bashir on April 11, 2019. The SPA de­vel­oped new tac­tics for or­ga­niz­ing and mo­bi­liz­ing the masses in the face of crippling­ pub­lic fear to put an end to thirty years of al-Bashir’s dic­ta­tor­ship. However, the peace­ful rev­o­lu­tion has yet to de­clare its fi­nal vic­tory and finds itself fac­ing a ma­jor en­e­my, the Transitional Military Council (TMC), which in­tends to main­tain the sta­tus quo an­te. This es­say asks: can Sudanese civil so­ci­ety chal­lenge the TMC and lead the coun­try out of au­toc­ra­cy, achiev­ing gen­u­ine de­moc­ra­ti­za­tion, or will the TMC cut short such trans­for­ma­tion?

keywords pop­u­lar up­ris­ing, peace­ful rev­o­lu­tion, International Criminal Court, Darfur con­flict, Suda- nese Professionals Association

Sudan’s popu­­lar up­ris­ing, be­gun on De­cem­ber 19, 2018, marked an im­por­tant de­vel­op­ment in the con­tem­po­rary his­tory of so­cial pro­test in the Global South. For the third time since Sudan gained in­de­pen­dence in 1956, a so­cial movement­ in the coun­try or­ga­nized to peace­fully top­ple a mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship. In each case, this oc­curred de­spite the ex­treme bru­tal­ity of the rul­ing re­gime. The most re­cent of these re­gimes, led by Omar Hassan al-Bashir and his Is­lam­ist National Congress Party, for­merly known as the National Is­lamic Front, over­threw the dem­o­crat­i­cally elected gov­ern­ment of Sadiq Al-Mahdi dur­ing a June 30, 1989, coup d’état. The two ear­lier pop­u­lar up­ris­ings that de­posed dic­ta­tors and ush­ered in ci­vil­ian, dem­o­ cratic rule oc­curred in Oc­to­ber 1964 and April 1985. At the time of writ­ing, Sudan remains­ at a dan­ger­ous po­lit­i­cal stalemate;­ it remains­ un­cer­tain who will lead the coun­try out of kleptocracy and to­ward a sys­ tem based on ac­count­abil­ity and the rule of law. This is a con­fron­ta­tion be­tween

CRITICAL TIMES | 2:3 | DE­CEM­BER 2019 DOI 10.1215/26410478-7862560 | © 2019 Elsadig Elsheikh This is an open ac­cess ar­ti­cle dis­trib­uted un­der the terms of a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 466

Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/critical-times/article-pdf/2/3/466/731568/466elsheikh.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 two vi­sions and two forces. On the one hand, there are the pop­u­lar civic groups who led the up­ris­ing and who are represented by the Declaration of Freedom and Change, also known as the Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC), which includes the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA). The SPA led the mas­sive dem­on­ stra­tions for four con­sec­u­tive months from the coun­try’s pe­riph­er­ies and into the cap­i­tal, Khartoum, and the FFC led the sit-in at the headquar­ ­ters of the Sudanese Armed Forces in Khartoum, which forced the lead­er­ship of the Army to over­throw al-Bashir’s re­gime. On the other hand, there is the Transitional Military Council (TMC), which seized power and ousted al-Bashir on April 11, 2019, un­der the pres­ sure of dem­on­stra­tions. In what fol­lows, I sug­ est that in an age of hy­per-in­di­vid­u­al­ism, se­cu­ri­ti­za­tion, and neo­lib­er­al­ism, civil re­volts against dic­ta­tor­ships re­quire so­phis­ti­cated (ru­ral and ur­ban) grass­roots so­cial movements­ that ground them­selves in lo­cal strug­ les for trans­for­ma­tive change, while also looking be­yond na­tional bound­aries. These move­ments are ca­pa­ble of em­brac­ing the di­verse and com­mon hu­man as­pi­ra­tions to free­dom and so­cial, ra­cial, and eth­nic jus­tice. Only such movements­ have the ca­pac­ity and imag­i­na­tion to lead a rev­o­lu­tion fought by cit­i­zens for struc­tural change and through peace­ful means. In an era of neo­lib­eral glob­al­iza­tion and of glob­al­ized so­cial and po­lit­i­cal re­sis­ tances to it, such a new path for so­cial move­ments in Sudan can only be forged when prominent ac­tors in the so­cio­po­lit­i­cal arena (po­lit­i­cal parties, wom­en’s groups, stu­dent ac­tiv­ists and young peo­ple more gen­er­al­ly, mar­gin­al­ized ur­ban and ru­ral groups, and or­ga­nized and un­or­ga­nized la­bor­ers) man­age to em­brace Sudan’s mul­ti­ple Af­ro-Ar­ab­ iden­ti­ties and to value the col­lec­tive sys­tems of knowl­ edge forged by Sudanese civil so­ci­e­ty, draw­ing on the par­tic­i­pa­tion of the masses and in­tel­lec­tu­als, and on col­lec­tive cul­tur­al, lit­er­ary, and cre­a­tive ex­pe­ri­ences. The de facto rul­ing body, the TMC, has claimed the right to run the coun­try for a two-year period­ be­fore handing over power to an elected civil­ ­ian gov­ern­ment. Meanwhile the op­po­si­tion, led by the FFC, con­tin­ues to chal­lenge the TMC’s po­si­ tion on the grounds that the mil­i­tary coun­cil is not a gov­ern­ment cho­sen by the peo­ple, and that it includes sev­eral gen­er­als who had been part of, and served, the de­posed re­gime un­til April 11. Moreover, the FFC ar­gues that the mil­i­tary coun­cil is im­ped­ing the dis­man­tling of se­cu­rity ap­pa­ra­tus struc­tures and the uprooting of the deep state put in place by the deposed­ re­gime. Thus, according to the FFC, the mil­i­tary coun­cil should hand over power to a ci­vil­ian-led tran­si­tional gov­ern­ment to run the coun­try for a four-year term and im­ple­ment a com­pre­hen­sive dem­o­ cratic pro­gram free of the rem­nants of the de­posed re­gime.1 To ac­count for this com­plex and pe­cu­liar po­lit­i­cal cross­roads in Sudan, I first trace the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the new type of col­lec­tive ac­tion, re­source mo­bi­li­za­tion, and “street pol­i­tics” that has both ar­tic­u­lated so­cial dis­con­tent and brought it to

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Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/critical-times/article-pdf/2/3/466/731568/466elsheikh.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 the main­stream as a means by which to con­front and chal­lenge a bru­tal dic­ta­to­ rial re­gime. I then show how the SPA’s suc­cess in or­ga­niz­ing and mo­bi­liz­ing the Sudanese peo­ple, par­tic­u­larly women and youths, dur­ing the De­cem­ber up­ris­ing was piv­otal to the peace­ful re­moval of the head of Sudan’s no­to­ri­ous re­gime af­er nearly three de­cades in pow­er. Finally, I seek to re­vive the de­bate about the fu­ture of the po­lit­i­cal co­ex­is­tence of Sudan’s var­i­ous po­lit­i­cal parties, rebel fac­tions, and strands of pub­lic opin­ion given the coun­try’s his­tory and leg­acy of mil­i­tary coups, civil wars, and vi­o­lence. More spe­cif­i­cal­ly, I re­flect on the pos­si­bil­i­ties opened and foreclosed by the 2009 International Criminal Court (ICC) in­dict­ment of Omar al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against hu­man­ity com­mit­ted in Darfur.2

“The Old Is Dying and the New Cannot Be Born” The mil­i­tary has ruled for more than fif­y-two of the six­ty-three years since Sudan gained in­de­pen­dence. The National Congress Party (NCP) governed for thirty of these fif­y-two years, dur­ing which the po­lit­i­cal de­bate in Sudan cen­tered on the state’s be­hav­ior (its abil­ity to pro­tect civil­ ­ians dur­ing in­ter­nal armed con­flicts) as op­posed to the state’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty (to move away from the use of vi­o­lence in solv­ing po­lit­i­cal chal­lenges). This nar­row and lim­ited de­bate shaped the po­lit­i­cal dis­course in Sudan. It ex­cluded pos­si­bil­i­ties for po­lit­i­cal ac­tion by par­a­lyz­ing the ur­gent work that might have con­sol­i­dated po­lit­i­cal and in­tel­lec­tual dem­o­cratic oppo­ si­ tion­ to author­ i­ tar­ i­ an­ ism.­ Renowned Senegalese his­to­ri­an, an­thro­pol­o­gist, and phys­i­cist Cheikh Anta Diop sugested that the con­di­tions for the suc­cess or fail­ure of any rev­o­lu­tion in his­to­ry, in­clud­ing those that have oc­curred in both an­cient and mod­ern times, have depended on a com­bi­na­tion of five fac­tors: (1) the eco­nomic func­tions of the state and its re­la­tion­ships with com­mu­ni­ties; (2) the char­ac­ter­is­tics of pro­duc­tion; (3) the fun­da­men­tal con­tra­dic­tion in so­ci­e­ties, as de­fined by modes of pro­duc­ tion; (4) the admin­ ­is­tra­tion of land; and (5) the role of com­merce and ur­ban life in these so­ci­e­ties.3 In the same vein, Amilcar Cabral, the leader of the movement­ for na­tional in­de­pen­dence in Guinea-Bissau, ar­gued that we must “al­ways bear in mind that peo­ple are not fight­ing for ideas, [or] for the things in any­one’s head. They are fight­ing to win ma­te­rial ben­e­fits, to live bet­ter and in peace, to see their lives go for­ward, to guar­an­tee the fu­ture of their chil­dren.”4 If Diop’s and Cabral’s ar­gu­ments are cor­rect, then the ques­tion that emerges is: can the third Sudanese rev­o­lu­tion re­al­ize the peo­ple’s as­pi­ra­tions, coun­ter­ing the “holy trinity” of neo­lib­ er­al­ism, ex­treme in­jus­tice, and un­dem­o­cratic in­sti­tu­tions? Why have the vic­to­ries of pop­u­lar re­volts in Sudan al­ways been short-lived, giv­ing way to mil­i­tary rule? To an­swer these ques­tions, one must un­der­stand the dom­i­nant forces in Sudan dur­ ing the last three de­cades and as­sess the ex­tent to which they will im­pact the fu­ture of de­moc­racy in the coun­try.

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Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/critical-times/article-pdf/2/3/466/731568/466elsheikh.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 During these de­cades, two sets of so­cio­po­lit­i­cal forces—Is­lam­ists within Sudan and neo­lib­er­als out­side the coun­try—dom­i­nated the po­lit­i­cal land­scape. Together these forces par­a­lyzed the older so­cial movements­ that led the April 1985 pop­u­lar up­ris­ing and helped the rul­ing party to hold onto power de­spite pop­u­lar dis­con­tent. Within Sudan, Is­lam­ists worked to re­shape and racialize the na­tion, treating cit­i­zens as hos­tage-sub­jects in a highly se­cu­ri­tized and so­cially con­trolled state governed by a par­tic­u­lar re­li­gious doc­trine and a co­er­cive ideology. At the same time, neo­lib­eral pol­i­cies pro­moted a “free-mar­ket” eco­nomic logic and aus­ ter­ity pol­i­tics. These sets of forces, in­ter­nal and ex­ter­nal, Is­lam­ist and neo­lib­er­al, worked to demor­ ­al­ize Sudanese peo­ple and to pre­vent them from en­gag­ing in so­cial ac­tion. It was in the face of these im­ped­i­ments that Sudan witnessed the emer­gence of a new type of so­cial movement­ (led by the SPA and the FFC), forced to cre­ate new tools with which to strug­ le for so­cial, po­lit­i­cal, eco­nom­ic, and cul­ tural rights. The strug­ les that these move­ments en­gaged in reached their peak on De­cem­ber 19, 2018, and they led to the ousting of the head of the re­gime on April 11, 2019. Since the early 1950s and through­out Sudan’s post­co­lo­nial po­lit­i­cal his­to­ry, Sudanese so­cial move­ments have pro­duced in­no­va­tive mod­els of re­sis­tance to guide their mo­bi­li­za­tions for civil and dem­o­cratic al­ter­na­tives to to­tal­i­tar­ian re­gimes. They have done so through de­lib­er­ate and pa­tient or­ga­niz­ing, and by mo­bi­liz­ing the masses to over­throw three dic­ta­to­rial re­gimes, as was the case in the pop­u­lar up­ris­ings of Oc­to­ber 1964 and April 1985 as well as in the most re­cent up­ris­ ing. In De­cem­ber 2018 Sudanese so­cial move­ments suc­cess­fully pop­u­lar­ized the slo­gan “Freedom, Peace, Justice, and Revolution are the peo­ple’s choice” to draw at­ten­tion to the fu­tile pol­i­cies of the Is­lam­ist NCP and denounce­ its fail­ures at the lev­els of gov­er­nance, de­vel­op­ment, and the rule of law. It is worth not­ing that the SPA and the FFC are ur­gently en­gaged in con­cret­iz­ing the slo­gan and have taken sev­eral steps to forge a path for­ward. They first in­vited all ­po­lit­i­cal parties and civil so­ci­ety to par­tic­i­pate in a new so­cial con­tract, the Declaration of Freedom and Change, which was signed on Jan­u­ary 1, 2019.5 The newly formed FFC com­prised po­lit­i­cal parties and civil so­ci­ety or­ga­ni­za­tions op­pos­ing the dic­ta­to­rial re­gime, and it agreed to a spe­cific tran­si­tional re­cov­ery pro­gram to be led by a civil­ ­ian gov­ern­ ment af­er the over­throw of the dic­ta­tor­ship.6

New Horizons The new so­cial movement­ cre­ated in the wake of the De­cem­ber re­volt, led by the SPA,7 was vi­sion­ary be­cause it un­der­stood the in­ev­i­ta­bil­ity of ­cialso change and fo­cused on press­ing so­cio­po­lit­i­cal and eco­nomic griev­ances. The move­ment recruited into its ranks vic­tims of the re­gime, in­clud­ing young peo­ple, wom­en, ru­ral peo­ple, and the ur­ban in­tel­li­gent­sia. In this way, it man­aged to cre­ate a well-

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Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/critical-times/article-pdf/2/3/466/731568/466elsheikh.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 or­ga­nized, un­der­ground, care­fully designed, in­clu­sive, and ac­count­able grass­roots crit­i­cal mass. The SPA, which com­prised many pro­fes­sional as­so­ci­a­tions banned by the re­gime, in­clud­ing as­so­ci­a­tions of young doc­tors, farm­ers, law­yers, teach­ ers, work­ers, and other civil ser­vants, en­gaged in novel styles of pro­test. They used places of worship­ and learn­ing, neigh­bor­hoods, and ru­ral com­mu­nity cen­ters, and they wielded dif­ er­ent tools and tech­nol­o­gies for pro­test, in­clud­ing cul­tural and art forms to reach many seg­ments of so­ci­e­ty, both within and be­yond Sudan. In this way, they have been able­ to spread their mes­sage, expos­ ­ing the re­gime’s crimes and weaknesses. For ex­am­ple, their fo­cus on cor­rup­tion within the rul­ing party en­abled them to cri­tique both the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the state and re­li­gion, on the one hand, and aus­ter­ity pol­i­tics, on the oth­er. The protests first erupted in Ad-Dmazin, the capital city of the Blue Nile state, and in Al-Fashir, the capital city of North Darfur state. However, it was the Decem- ber 19, 2018, demonstration in the city of Atbara in northeast Sudan that gave the protests their capacity to object to aus­ter­ity mea­sures de­clared by the cen­tral gov­ ern­ment.8 The news of Atbara’s re­volt im­me­di­ately spread on all­ so­cial me­dia plat­ forms and was ac­com­pa­nied by mes­sages from the SPA to other cit­ies and ru­ral ar­eas, en­cour­ag­ing them to fol­low suit. The SPA’s mes­sages thus reflected and uplifed the daily strug­ le of the Sudanese peo­ple against the re­gime in ev­ery cor­ ner of the coun­try. The SPA’s strat­egy aimed at break­ing the pa­ral­y­sis sustained by so­cial fear. The SPA was aware that such fear pre­vents the masses from imag­in­ing other re­al­i­ties, which come to seem im­pos­si­ble. As Atbara’s re­volt con­tin­ued and twen­ty-six other cit­ies joined the call, the SPA capi­­tal­ized on these events and fur­ ther in­ten­si­fied pro­tests. As a re­sult, the SPA, which had been an un­known or­ga­ ni­za­tion, gained strength in confronting the se­cu­rity ap­pa­ra­tuses of the re­gime. The SPA’s vic­tory over fear in Atbara freed the imag­i­na­tions of those liv­ing in other cit­ies, par­tic­u­larly in Sudan’s pe­riph­er­ies, of­ er­ing a new hope for other pos­si­bil­i­ ties on the ho­ri­zon. This new era of hope also be­gan to res­o­nate in many neigh­bor­ hoods in Khartoum, where ha­rass­ment, hu­mil­i­a­tion, and vi­o­lence have long been en­dured by many, par­tic­u­larly young wom­en. At that con­junc­ture of lib­er­a­tion from fear and ris­ing hope, so­cial con­tes­ta­tion achieved its first goal of over­com­ing so­cial pa­ral­y­sis, and af­er four months of sustained peace­ful dem­on­stra­tions, the bru­tal and for­merly un­shak­able re­gime of al-Bashir fell apart. The FFC’s abil­ity to or­ga­nize and mo­bi­lize has allowed it to cre­ate the ma­te­rial con­di­tions to build popu­ ­lar power through re­sis­tance, and to reappropriate pub­lic space (in­clud­ing the headquar­ ­ters of the armed forces) for ex­er­cis­ing that pow­er. This in turn has allowed the FFC to chal­lenge the le­git­i­macy of the TMC and to in­sist on the re­moval of the remaining sym­bols of the pro­ject of po­lit­i­cal Is­lam from Sudan’s fu­ture. In this con­text, the FFC was ­able to tem­po­rar­ily ex­er­cise a form of popu­ ­lar power that made it dif­er­ent from pre­vi­ous popu­ ­lar up­ris­ings, by

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Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/critical-times/article-pdf/2/3/466/731568/466elsheikh.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 uti­liz­ing the “street” rather than su­per­fi­cial elec­toral dem­o­cratic av­e­nues. By stag­ ing an un­bro­ken sit-in at the head­quar­ters of the armed forces with large num­bers of pro­test­ers, the FFC suc­cess­fully mo­bi­lized the masses to sup­port their dem­o­ cratic plat­form. This plat­form calls for a ci­vil­ian-led tran­si­tional gov­ern­ment to re­struc­ture the state’s in­sti­tu­tions, up­root the deep state of the de­posed re­gime, write the new con­sti­tu­tion, and prepare­ the coun­try for a free and fair dem­o­cratic sys­tem in a four-year time frame. However, the FFC is aware that, for such a plan to work, its forces need to forge a po­lit­i­cal, so­cial, and eco­nomic al­ter­na­tive to the dev­as­tat­ed, for­merly rul­ ing model of po­lit­i­cal Is­lam. This al­ter­na­tive will need to honor the as­pi­ra­tions that mo­ti­vated the Sudanese peo­ple’s re­volt. It will re­quire the FFC’s per­sis­tence and the per­sis­tence of its civil­ ­ian-led tran­si­tional gov­ern­ment, whose aims in­clude: (1) an im­me­di­ate na­tional eco­nomic re­cov­ery plan be­yond aus­ter­ity mea­sures; (2) a restructuring of state in­sti­tu­tions and a re­vival of civil so­ci­ety based on the rule of law; (3) at­ten­tion to the de­mands of a just tran­si­tion; (4) the strength­en­ing of the cul­ture of peace within the so­cial fab­ric of so­ci­e­ty; and (5) the tran­scen­dence of the state itself, its trans­for­ma­tion to achieve the goals and ob­jec­tives laid out in the FFC’s guid­ing prin­ci­ples.9 The pro­cess of forg­ing this new path will, how­ev­er, also nec­es­sar­ily re­quire some­thing other than guid­ing fu­ture ob­jec­tives. It will re­quire a reck­on­ing with leg­a­cies of past atrocities, in­clud­ing al-Bashir’s own war crimes. The ICC has car­ ried out one ver­sion of this work of reck­on­ing by pur­su­ing the crim­i­nal pun­ish­ ment of al-Bashir. Meanwhile, the on­go­ing rev­o­lu­tion against al-Bashir and the po­lit­i­cal re­gime he rep­re­sents, a re­gime that is still alive in the TMC, might com­pel us to think of other ways of reck­on­ing with past atrocities, in­clud­ing the civil wars and leg­a­cies of vi­o­lence that have scarred Sudanese his­to­ry. The on­go­ing rev­o­lu­ tion, with the as­pi­ra­tion to peace forming a bond in Sudanese so­ci­e­ty, might open up other ways of imag­in­ing jus­tice for al-Bashir’s vic­tims and sur­vi­vors, as well as for Sudanese sur­vi­vors of other atrocities, in­clud­ing unprosecutable ones.

Moving be­yond the International Criminal Court The ICC issued its first-ever ar­rest war­rant in March 2009, against al-Bashir, who stood ac­cused of war crimes and crimes against hu­man­i­ty. According to the ICC, al- Bashir “is suspected of be­ing crim­i­nally re­spon­si­ble, as an in­di­rect co-per­pe­tra­tor, for in­ten­tion­ally directing at­tacks against an im­por­tant part of the civil­ ­ian popu­ ­ la­tion of Darfur, Sudan, mur­der­ing, ex­ter­mi­nat­ing, rap­ing, tor­tur­ing, and forc­ibly trans­fer­ring large num­bers of ci­vil­ians, and pil­lag­ing their prop­er­ty.”10 Since the ar­rest war­rant, de­bates about re­trib­u­tive jus­tice and the ques­tion of “the re­spon­si­ bil­ity to pro­tect” in Sudan have divided­ hu­man rights and so­cial jus­tice ac­tiv­ists.11 The dis­agreement­ is over whether to de­liver al-Bashir to the ICC or to try him in

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Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/critical-times/article-pdf/2/3/466/731568/466elsheikh.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 Sudan. This ques­tion is re­lated to an­oth­er: whether the Sudanese will pur­sue the path of “sur­vi­vors’ jus­tice” or “vic­tors’ jus­tice.”12 What is more im­por­tant to pur­ sue: re­trib­u­tive jus­tice or peace and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion? Can we have one with­out the oth­er? Can we have ei­ther with­out un­der­stand­ing the his­tor­i­cal con­text of the con­ flict in Darfur? One view is shared by most rebel groups—who fought al-Bashir in Darfur, South Kordofan, and the Blue Nile re­gions—and their po­lit­i­cal allies within and be­yond Sudan, who ar­gue that al-Bashir should be tried at the ICC. There is an­other view held by many pan-Af­ri­can­ist Sudanese and non-Sudanese in­tel­lec­tu­als who also op­posed al-Bashir’s rule. This view holds that nei­ther the ICC’s 2009 in­dict­ ment nor try­ing al-Bashir in the Hague will suf­ ce to put an end to the griev­ances re­lated to war crimes com­mit­ted by his re­gime. They add that the ICC’s meth­ods are in­ad­e­quate to the task of contending with Sudan’s post-con­flict complexities. Many peo­ple around the world, in­clud­ing many Af­ri­can cit­i­zens, have applauded the ICC’s de­ci­sion and its guid­ing frame­work of re­trib­u­tive jus­tice (or jus­tice be­fore peace). Others, such as the Af­ri­can Union and the Group of 77—an in­flu­en­tial bloc of countries in the United Nations, com­pris­ing na­tions in the Global South—hes­i­tate to join the cho­rus of af­ r­ma­tion, char­ac­ter­iz­ing the court’s de­ci­ sion as a fail­ure to pro­tect in­no­cent ci­vil­ians in Darfur. Those who sup­port the ICC’s in­dict­ment, fo­cus­ing on the pur­suit of re­trib­u­tive jus­tice and the ap­pli­ca­tion of the doc­trine of the “re­spon­si­bil­ity to pro­tect,” would do well to ex­am­ine the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion in Darfur and to con­sider the in­dict­ment’s power to “save” peo­ple’s lives. The ICC’s in­dict­ment lacks fun­da­men­tal grounds for cred­i­bil­ity and ac­count­abil­i­ty. The cred­i­bil­ity of the ICC is fur­ther called into ques­tion by the fact that al-Bashir con­tin­ued to travel freely through in­ter­na­tional air­space to neigh­bor­ing countries, and the Sudanese re­gime con­tin­ued to re­ceive un­con­di­tional sup­port from ma­jor re­gional and in­ter­na­tional ac­tors af­er 2009. Despite the crim­i­nal in­dict­ment, for rea­sons re­lated to geo­pol­i­tics and Sudan’s nat­u­ral re­sources, al-Bashir’s de facto ac­cep­tance by the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity con­tin­ued. Critics of the ICC and its for­mer chief prose­­cu­tor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, per­ceive the in­dict­ment as po­lit­i­cally mo­ti­vat­ed and have expressed re­sent­ment to­ward what has been dubbed a dou­ble stan­dard for countries in the Global South. Others have sugested that the ICC should address­ other con­flicts (in­clud­ing the Israeli oc­cu­pa­tion of Palestine since 1967 and crimes com­mit­ted there­af­er, and the United States’ in­va­sion and oc­cu­pa­tion of Iraq, among other in­stances) given the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­ni­ty’s stated com­mit­ment to the “re­spon­si­bil­ity to ­pro tect.” Moreover, a num­ber of prominent ob­serv­ers have questioned the cred­i­bil­ity of the ICC’s for­mer chief pros­e­cu­tor, who pur­sued the charges against al-Bashir, and his in­ves­ti­ga­tion meth­od­ol­o­gy. In 2009 the Af­ri­can Union, the Ar­ab­ League, the Organization of the Is­lamic Cooperation, and the Group of 77 all ­condemned

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Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/critical-times/article-pdf/2/3/466/731568/466elsheikh.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 the tim­ing of the in­dict­ment and char­ac­ter­ized it as coun­ter­pro­duc­tive when it came to the peace ef­orts in Darfur. Moreover, two mem­bers of the Security Council of the United Nations, China and Russia, expressed se­ri­ous con­cern over the indict­ ment.­ 13 Prominent Af­ri­can scholar Mahmood Mamdani has ar­gued that end­ing con­ flicts in Africa does not nec­es­sar­ily call for the me­chan­i­cal ap­pli­ca­tion of pros­e­ cu­tion. He points out that sev­eral ma­jor Af­ri­can con­flicts reached set­tle­ment and po­lit­i­cal re­form with­out pros­e­cu­tions, in­clud­ing con­flicts in South Africa, Mozam- bique, and South Sudan.14 In his words, “if peace and jus­tice are to be com­ple­men­ tary rather than conflicting ob­jec­tives, we must dis­tin­guish vic­tors’ jus­tice from sur­vi­vors’ jus­tice. . . . ​In a sit­u­a­tion where there is no win­ner and thus no pos­si­ bil­ity of vic­tors’ jus­tice, sur­vi­vors’ jus­tice may in­deed be the only form of jus­tice pos­si­ble.”15 Mamdani’s call for sur­vi­vors’ jus­tice means that the key ques­tion is not whether to put al-Bashir on trial at the ICC or be­fore the Sudanese au­thor­i­ties. The ho­ri­ zon of an­other fu­ture for the peo­ple of Darfur, Kordofan, the Blue Nile, and other re­gions—one in which dif­er­ent eth­nic groups can live to­geth­er—com­pels us to ask af­er the pur­suit of jus­tice out­side the frame­work of crim­i­nal­i­za­tion, whether that frame­work is em­bod­ied in in­ter­na­tional or in Sudanese courts. Sudan’s var­ i­ous re­gions are still yearn­ing for real peace, de­moc­ra­cy, equal op­por­tu­nity for de­vel­op­ment, and po­lit­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tion. While “vic­tors’ jus­tice” meth­ods can­ not avert a return to the vi­cious cy­cle of ven­geance, “sur­vi­vors’ jus­tice” meth­ods are more ade­ ­quate to mov­ing Sudan along a path of po­lit­i­cal co­ex­is­tence and rec­on­cil­ i­a­tion. Thus, rather than pur­su­ing fur­ther crim­i­nal pun­ish­ment, the tran­si­tion­al, ci­vil­ian-led gov­ern­ment should fo­cus on implementing a com­pre­hen­sive pro­gram for re­form in Sudan that would ad­dress the griev­ances of the pe­riph­er­ies. This calls for an un­der­stand­ing of the his­tory of the Darfur con­flict. Many of the pres­ent-day complexities of the con­flict in Darfur are rooted in the his­tory of co­lo­nial Sudan. The con­flict can be traced to the co­lo­nial Brit­ish ad­min­is­tra­tion’s ef­ort dur­ing the 1920s to cre­ate two con­fed­er­a­tions in the Dar- fur re­gion, by racializing the re­gion’s in­hab­i­tants: the pas­to­ral­ist Ar­a­bic-speak­ing “Ar­ab­” groups were pit­ted against the “Zurga” (dark-skinned, non-Ar­ab­) seden­ ­ tary farm­ers. During the re­cent Darfur con­flict of 2003, the re­gime of al-Bashir al­lied itself with the pas­to­ral Ar­ab­ groups, who supported his re­gime, by al­lo­cat­ing farm­lands, po­lit­i­cal pow­er, and weap­ons to them, and ex­clud­ing sed­en­tary Zurga groups, who supported the rebel groups in Darfur. Exacerbating the racialization of the Darfuri peo­ple, mean­while, were the ef­ects of cli­mate change (de­sert­i­fi­ca­ tion), the un­equal dis­tri­bu­tion of land, and the im­pact of the Chadian Civil War, which was car­ried out dur­ing the Cold War as a proxy stand­of be­tween the United States and the Soviet Union and which spilled over into Darfur. Taken to­geth­er,

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Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/critical-times/article-pdf/2/3/466/731568/466elsheikh.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 these fac­tors con­trib­uted to the ero­sion of pub­lic in­fra­struc­ture and rule of law, as well as the ex­clu­sion of the re­gion from any na­tional de­vel­op­ment plans. Historically, so­cio­eco­nomic and po­lit­i­cal re­al­i­ties in the Darfur re­gion—and in Sudan as a whole—have been racialized by de­lib­er­ate and sys­tem­atic pol­i­cies of co­lo­nial Britain, in par­tic­u­lar pol­i­cies re­lated to land own­er­ship and land re­forms in the post-in­de­pen­dence era. These racialized pol­i­cies, which the Sudanese elite con­tin­ued af­ er in­de­pen­dence, have cre­ated great so­cial strat­i­fi­ca­tion in Sudanese so­ci­e­ty. The Zurga and other eth­nic minor­ ­i­ties in Sudan have been highly mar­ gin­al­ized and oppressed; their only op­tion has been to fight con­stantly against the sta­tus quo in or­der to gain equal ac­cess to po­lit­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tion, so­cio­eco­nomic rights, wealth shar­ing, and in­clu­sion. Since co­lo­nial Britain lef the coun­try in 1956, coloniality has never ceased to gov­ern Sudan, and the power of the cen­tral gov­ern­ment has con­tin­ued the co­lo­ nial pol­i­cies that led to so­cial strat­i­fi­ca­tion, eth­nic di­vi­sion, dis­crim­i­na­tion, and the marginality of the Sudanese in the periph­ ­er­ies. For ex­am­ple, in 1983, when the National Is­lamic Front al­lied itself with the dic­ta­to­rial re­gime of Gaafar Nimeiry (1969–85), it aban­doned the Addis Ababa Peace Accords of 1972—which had been signed with the Southern rebel move­ment of Anyanya I—and de­clared Sudan an Is­lamic repub­ ­lic, implementing the “Is­lamic Law of Sharia” of Sep­tem­ber 1983 as the su­preme law of the land. That dec­la­ra­tion led to a blood­ier civil war, waged to en­sure that the cen­tral gov­ern­ment would re­tain he­gemony­ in the south (now the Republic of South Sudan) and power over its popu­ ­la­tion. Devastatingly, the fol­low­ing twen­ty- two years of the civil war led to over 2 mil­lion deaths, the dis­placement­ of more than 4 mil­lion peo­ple, se­vere so­cial re­gres­sion, eco­nomic set­backs, and mas­sive phys­i­ cal de­struc­tion. The cen­tral gov­ern­ment pro­ject failed yet again when the Sudanese peo­ple over­threw the dic­ta­torship­ by a popu­ ­lar up­ris­ing in April 1985.16 During the years of par­lia­men­tary de­moc­racy be­tween 1985 and 1989, ci­vil­ ian-led gov­ern­ments were not ­able to forge last­ing peace due to mis­trust and the un­changed na­ture of the cen­tral gov­ern­ment. As a re­sult, con­di­tions were ripe for the es­ca­la­tion of an­tag­o­nis­tic re­la­tion­ships and con­stant clashes among the re­gion’s di­verse eth­nic and sub-eth­nic groups. Ultimately, this led to the erup­tion of the first civil war in Darfur, which took place be­tween 1987 and 1989. Long be­fore al-Bashir’s rise to pow­er, this civil war was fought along the eth­nic lines de­lin­eated dur­ing the co­lo­nial pe­riod and reinforced dur­ing de­cades of mar­gin­al­i­za­tion. The coup d’état of June 30, 1989, sought to reenergize the civil war by mak­ing re­li­gion the ul­ti­mate dimen­ ­sion of the con­flict. The re­sult was a de­struc­tive civil war waged by the cen­tral gov­ern­ment against the peo­ple of South Sudan. The war aimed at as­sim­i­lat­ing the in­dig­e­nous pop­u­la­tion of South Sudan into the cen­tral gov­ern­ment’s ef­ort to Is­lam­ize and Ar­ab­­ize South Sudan. This war was part of a

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Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/critical-times/article-pdf/2/3/466/731568/466elsheikh.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 larger pro­ject re­ferred to by the re­gime of al-Bashir as the “civ­i­liz­ing pro­ject” of the Sudanese so­ci­e­ty. Here the irony is ob­vi­ous: the rul­ing par­ty’s brand of po­lit­i­cal Is­lam de­scribed its own na­tional pro­ject as a “civ­i­liz­ing” one, as if fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of the “civ­i­liz­ing mis­sion” of for­mer co­lo­nial rul­ers.17 The in­hab­i­tants of the Darfur re­gion are Af­ro-Ar­ab­, they speak Ar­a­bic, and they adhere­ to Is­lam. Most of their lead­ers (both Ar­ab­ and Zurga) de­cided to turn a blind eye to the racialized war waged by the rul­ing Is­lam­ist gov­ern­ment and fight along­side the cen­tral gov­ern­ment to Is­lam­ize and Ar­ab­­ize South Sudan. This war ended with the de­feat of the cen­tral gov­ern­ment af­er sev­en­teen years of un­prec­e­ dented hu­man, en­vi­ron­men­tal, and phys­i­cal de­struc­tion of the pe­riph­er­ies, in­clud­ ing both the South and Darfur, and their in­hab­i­tants.18 The Darfur con­flict was born out of this long his­tory of strug­ les over na­tional iden­ti­ty, power re­la­tions, governing sys­tems, and in­ter­ven­tions in Sudanese af­airs by in­ter­na­tional and re­gional pow­ers. Hence, for many Western ob­serv­ers (in­clud­ ing Ocampo af­er he issued the ICC in­dict­ment) to sug­ est that there is no co­lo­ nial foot­print in the an­tag­o­nis­tic re­la­tion­ship be­tween cen­ter and pe­riph­ery (or be­tween elite and mar­gin­al­ized pop­u­la­tions) is dis­in­gen­u­ous at best.19 Likewise, when these ob­serv­ers im­ply that the rebel groups and the Sudanese gov­ern­ment are merely ideo­log­i­cal op­po­nents, they ig­nore the po­lit­i­cal re­al­ity of Sudan. For ex­am­ple, Ibrahim Khalil—the leader of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), who was killed in 2011 by the Sudanese Army—was one of the most ac­tive lead­ ers of the Is­lam­ist move­ment in Sudan un­til 1999, when it split into two fac­tions af­er a power strug­ le over which di­rec­tion and re­gional al­li­ances Sudan should pur­sue.20 One fac­tion, led by Hassan al-Turabi, the founder and ideo­logue of the move­ment, was po­lit­i­cally defeated. He later formed the Popular Congress Party. Ibrahim Khalil and JEM were closely al­lied with al-Turabi’s fac­tion and op­er­ated as part of its clan­des­tine wing in late 1990s. The other fac­tion merged with the armed forces and was led by al-Bashir and the NCP.21 The ques­tion that reemerges here is thus whether the in­dict­ment has pro- tected and/or brought peace and se­cu­rity to the peo­ple of Darfur, to the re­gion, and/or to the Republic of Sudan. Ten years af­er the in­dict­ment, the an­swer is cat­ e­gor­i­cal­ly: it has not. The for­mer chief prose­ ­cu­tor of the ICC, Ocampo, may have even be­come an ob­sta­cle to peace ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween the gov­ern­ment of Sudan and the ma­jor rebel move­ment. The in­dict­ment has con­trib­uted to a sit­u­a­tion in which Darfur and Sudan enjoy nei­ther peace nor se­cu­ri­ty. Recent his­tory has taught us that nei­ther hu­man­i­tar­ian nor mil­i­tary in­ter­ven­ tion can “save” in­no­cent civil­ ­ians. Consider the cases of Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, South Sudan, and the Central Af­ri­can Republic. Consequently, we need to em­ploy a rad­i­cal frame­work that dif­ers from the “re­spon­si­bil­ity to pro­

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Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/critical-times/article-pdf/2/3/466/731568/466elsheikh.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 tect” and from “boots on the ground”22 in­ter­ven­tion­ist ap­proaches in or­der to put an end to the atrocities in Darfur and else­where.23 The ICC’s in­dict­ment is not a use­ful mech­a­nism for re­solv­ing con­flicts in Sudan or for averting un­just so­cio­eco­nomic and po­lit­i­cal out­comes in the pro­cess. The in­dict­ment has been per­ceived as ev­i­dence of a dou­ble stan­dard that is se­lec­ tively ap­plied. As such, it has only led to even greater po­lit­i­cal in­sta­bil­ity and, at times, to even more vi­o­lence. Sudan’s most press­ing need is for sur­vi­vors’ jus­tice, which alone will let it pursue­ the path of a po­lit­i­cal so­lu­tion and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, guaran­tee­ing rule of law, fun­da­men­tal hu­man rights, de­moc­ra­cy, and eq­ui­ta­ble and sus­tain­able nat­u­ral re­source shar­ing be­tween the cen­ter and the pe­riph­er­ ies. Furthermore, to achieve the De­cem­ber popu­ ­lar up­ris­ing’s dream of build­ing a dem­o­cratic in­clu­sive so­ci­ety be­yond the thun­der­ous de­mands for ven­geance, vi­o­ lence, and au­thor­i­tar­i­an­ism, it will be nec­es­sary to re­struc­ture the state’s in­sti­tu­ tions. There is thus an ur­gent need to re­struc­ture the cen­tral gov­ern­ment to en­able de­moc­ra­ti­za­tion and rule of law, and to fa­cil­i­tate real socio-po­lit­i­cal trans­for­ma­ tion for Sudan. Additionally, this model must en­dorse so­cial and eco­nomic pol­i­cies op­posed to aus­ter­i­ty, ­steadin pro­mot­ing de­vel­op­ment with self-re­li­ant eco­nomic pol­i­cies in keeping­ with the dream of de­col­o­ni­za­tion, and mov­ing for­ward to build a so­ci­ety of the new Sudan. Such an al­ter­na­tive should re­ject empty na­tion­al­is­ tic pro­pa­ganda and em­brace in­dig­e­nous mech­a­nisms for re­solv­ing con­flicts, sus­ tain­ing de­vel­op­ment, and cre­at­ing equal cit­i­zen­ship sta­tus. In or­der for a plu­ral­is­ tic so­ci­ety to func­tion well, plu­ral­ism must not only operate as a po­lit­i­cal sys­tem with pol­i­cies en­cour­ag­ing tol­er­a­tion and co­ex­is­tence among dif­ er­ent ethnicities; it must also operate as a so­cial prin­ci­ple of real eq­ui­ty, so­cial jus­tice, and di­rect de­moc­ra­cy. For the last six­ty-three years, the au­thor­i­tar­ian model of a cen­tral­ized gov­ ern­ment has been proven to be a com­plete failure,­ one that entailed unthinkable de­struc­tion. An al­ter­na­tive to such a model ex­ists in the vi­sion of a decentralized gov­ern­ment that em­braces plu­ral­ism in gov­er­nance and ac­cepts the ac­tual wealth of iden­ti­ties, cul­tures, and di­verse lan­guages in Sudan. Only the achieve­ment of this vi­sion can help Sudanese peo­ple to over­come pains of the past. These po­lit­i­cal ac­tions might be what the peo­ple of Sudan need most as they at­tempt to steer clear of con­tinu­ing po­lit­i­cal atrocities and lib­er­ate them­selves from the rem­nants of a ruth­less dic­ta­tor­ship.

ELSADIG ELSHEIKH is the di­rec­tor of the Global Justice Program at the Othering and Belonging Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. His re­search fo­cuses on the so­cio­po­lit­i­cal dy­nam­ics of neo­lib­eral glob­al­iza­tion as re­lated to cit­i­zen­ship, cor­po­rate pow­er, forced mi­gra­tion, the state and de­vel­op­ment, and struc­tural racialization.

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Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/critical-times/article-pdf/2/3/466/731568/466elsheikh.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 Notes 1. SPA: Joint Statement: Formation of Transitional Civil Government, April 18, 2019, www​ .sudaneseprofessionals​.org​/en​/joint​-statement​-formulation​-of​-transitional​-civil​ -government​/. 2. Alleged Crimes (non-exhaustive list), www​.icc​-cpi​.int​/darfur​/albashir​/pages​/alleged​ -crimes.aspx.​ 3. Moore and Diop, “Conversations.” 4. Idahosa, “Going to the People.” 5. SPA, Declaration of Freedom and Change, www​.sudaneseprofessionals​.org​/en​/declaration​ -of​-freedom​-and​-change​/. 6. SPA, Declaration of Freedom and Change, www​.sudaneseprofessionals​.org​/en​/declaration​ -of​-freedom​-and​-change​/. 7. See www​.sudaneseprofessionals​.org​/en​/. 8. Atbara is a historic city in northeastern Sudan. Its history is inextricable from its anticolonial strugles against the Anglo-Turko Condominium of the nineteenth century. During the 1970s, Atbara emerged as the headquarters of the Sudanese railway industry, which employed most of the city’s labor force of about 112,000 inhabitants. As a result, Atbara became the center of the railway union and its various associations. Atbara has also been a stronghold of the Sudanese Communist Party since the 1970s. 9. See the SPA’s statement on the meeting between the armed forces and the liaising delegation representing the forces signatory to the DFC, April 15, 2019, at www​ .sudaneseprofessionals​.org​/en​/statement​-on​-the​-meeting​-between​-the​-armed​-forces​-and​ -the​-liaising​-delegation​-representing​-the​-forces​-signatory​-to​-the​-dfc​/. 10. International Criminal Court, Al Bashir Case. 11. For detailed arguments on the “right” of the international community to intervene in the internal afairs of a sovereign state in the event that the government or state in question is not able to protect its own citizens from avoidable harms such as mass murder and rape, indiscriminate atrocities, and starvation, see the Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (2001), at responsibilitytoprotect​.org​/ICISS%20 Report​.pdf. 12. Mamdani, Saviors and Survivors. 13. Tisdall, “Darfur War Crimes.” 14. Mamdani, “How the ICC’s ‘Responsibility to Protect.’” 15. Mamdani, Saviors and Survivors. 16. Elsheikh, Darfur. 17. Ibrahim, Crisis of Political Islam. 18. Elsheikh, Darfur. 19. Mamdani, Saviors and Survivors. 20. El-Tom, Darfur. 21. Plaut, “Who Are?” 22. United to End Genocide (formerly “Save Darfur Coalition”), at endgenocide​.org​/who​-we​ -are/history​ /.​ 23. Elsheikh, Darfur.

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Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/critical-times/article-pdf/2/3/466/731568/466elsheikh.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 Works Cited Cabral, Amilcar. “The Weapon of Theory: A Speech at the Tricontinental Conference in Ha­vana/Cuba, 1966.” Amilcar Cabral Archive in Marx­ists In­ter­net Archive. www​­.marxists​ ­.org​­/subject​­/africa​­/cabral​­/1966​­/weapon​­-theory​­.htm. Diop, Cheikh Anta. Civilization or Barbarism: An Authentic Anthropology. Chicago: Hill, 1974. Diop, Cheikh Anta. Precolonial Black Africa: A Comparative Study of the Political and Social Systems of Europe and Black Africa, from Antiquity to the Formation of Modern States. Atlanta: A. Cappella Books, 1987. Diop, Cheikh Anta. Towards the Af­ri­can Renaissance: Essays in Af­ri­can Culture and Development, 1946–1960. New York: Red Sea, 2000. Elsheikh, Elsadig. Darfur: Domesticating Coloniality—The Failure of the Nation-State Model in Post- colonial Sudan. Saarbrücken: VDM, 2008. El-Tom, Abdullahi Osman. Darfur, JEM, and the Khalil Ibrahim Story. Trenton, NJ: Red Sea, 2011. Ibrahim, Haider. The Crisis of Political Is­lam: The National Is­lamic Front in Sudan—A Case (in Ar­a­ bic). Cairo, 1991. Idahosa, P.L. Ehioze. “Going to the People: Amilcar Cabral’s Materialist Theory and Practice of Culture and Ethnicity.” Lusotopie 9 (2002): 29–58. www​­.persee​­.fr​­/doc​­/luso_1257–0273​ _2002_num_9_2_1506. International Criminal Court. Al Bashir Case: The Prosecutor v. Omar Hassan Ahmad Al Bashir. ICC- 02/05–01/09. www​­.icc​­-cpi​­.int​­/darfur​­/albashir​­?ln=en. Mamdani, Mahmood. “How the ICC’s ‘Responsibility to Protect’ Is Being Turned into an Asser- tion of Neocolonial Domination.” Pambazuka News, Sep­tem­ber 17, 2008. www​­.pambazuka​ ­.org​­/governance​­/darfur​­-icc​­-and​­-new​­-humanitarian​­-order. Mamdani, Mahmood. Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror. New York: Three Rivers, 2010. Mamdani, Mahmood, and Ernest Wamba-dia-Wamba, eds. Af­ri­can Studies in Social Movements and Democracy. Dakar: CODESRIA Book Series, 1995. Moore, Carlos, and Cheikh Anta Diop. “Conversations with Cheikh Anta Diop.” Présence Afric- aine, n.s., nos. 149/150 (1989): 374–420. Plaut, Martin. “Who Are Sudan’s Darfur Rebels?” BBC, May 5, 2006. news​­.bbc​­.co​­.uk​­/2​­/hi​­/africa​ ­/3702242​­.stm. Tisdall, Si­mon. “Darfur War Crimes Indictment Threatens to Split International Community.” Guardian, Feb­ru­ary 16, 2015. www​­.theguardian​­.com​­/world​­/2009​­/feb​­/16​­/sudan​­-war​­-crimes​ ­-split​­-international​­-community.

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