Global Courant 2023-04-16 22:07:03
General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan is the military commander who has been the de facto leader of Sudan for many years.
Violence broke out in Sudan on Saturday between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), jeopardizing efforts made so far to lead the country to civilian rule.
As violence escalates into a second day of fighting, with nearly 600 injured and the country on lockdown, experts say the Sudanese army appears to be outnumbered for now.
General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan is the military commander leading the army against the RSF. But who is the man who has been the de facto leader of Sudan for years?
Darfur days
Although al-Burhan only came to prominence in 2019, he had taken an active role in the country’s military long before that, deploying to Darfur in the early 2000s during the conflict there, rising to regional commander in 2008 . .
While former President Omar al-Bashir and other top Sudanese officials have been charged by the International Criminal Court with genocide and crimes against humanity for what happened in Darfur, al-Burhan is not. Nor Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, head of the RSF, his former ally and current rival.
Over the years, al-Burhan has distanced himself from the atrocities committed there, where the army, backed by the RSF, crushed an insurgency in a conflict that left some 300,000 people dead and another 2.7 million were displaced.
Uprisings, coups and a derailed civil transition
By 2019, al-Burhan had traveled to Jordan and Egypt for further military training and had become Chief of Staff of the Sudanese Army – a position to which he was promoted in February 2018.
When in April 2019, the uprising that toppled al-Bashir and his nearly 30-year rule came to an end, al-Burhan was inspector general of the army and Sudan’s third most senior general.
Amid popular protests against the Bashir-era defense minister who headed the Transitional Military Council (TMC) after his ouster, al-Burhan was appointed head of the TMC.
A few months later, international pressure led to the creation of the Sovereign Council (SC), a civil-military partnership to lead the country towards elections this year, in place of the TMC.
As head of the SC, al-Burhan became the de facto head of state and worked with the civilian pro-democracy forces in the country.
However, in 2021, al-Burhan and his second-in-command Hemedti led a coup, seizing power and derailing Sudan’s short-lived path to democracy.
As de facto head of state, al-Burhan has forged closer ties with the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, states that had encouraged the general and Hemedi, the head of the RSF, to support al-Bashir’s removal.
The Gulf states, in particular, provided significant amounts of aid to Sudan when Sudanese troops were deployed in the Saudi-led coalition to fight Iran-linked Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Al-Burhan also has close relations with Egypt, with the two armies organizing joint military exercises and al-Burhan himself has trained with many Egyptian generals at the military college.
Relations between the military and the RSF have been deteriorating for some time as sides have battled for power, and the latest crop of violence appears to be an expression of that friction.
Under a framework reached last December between the army, RSF and Sudan’s civilian pro-democracy forces, the army had agreed to return to its barracks and the RSF to merge into its ranks, the two forces brought together under army command .
As the time approached for the signing of another agreement to begin implementation of these agreements, alliances seemed to shift and public discourse became tense.
The recent outbreak of violence has dashed many hopes of restoring civilian rule in Sudan.
