Analysts explain to the Jazeera the new alliances of the Civil War of the Civil War of Sudan that cause a regional conflict in the neighboring of South South Sudan.
The largest development was a Alliance in February Between the liberation movement of the people of Sudan (SPLM-N) and the forces of paramilitary quick support (RSF), which established a government to rival the current de facto leadership of Sudan.
The RSF has been in war with the Sudan army since April 2023 and seeks to increase its control and influence in Central Sudan and the east to expand its operational theater.
SPLM-N is an armed movement headed by Abdel Aziz al-Hilu, fighting the Sudan Army for decades and controls the strips in the southern states of Kordofan and the blue Nile, both on the border with South Sudan.
Analysts said that the Sudan army responds supporting the South South Sudanese militias to combat the SPLM-N and the RSF along its 2,000 km shared border (1,240 miles).
South Sudan is already treating its own political crisis, which could return to the country in a civil war.
« If things get rid of southern Sudan, this would make it very difficult to separate the war in Sudan from the war in South Sudan, » said Alan Boswell, southern Sudan expert and South Sudan of the International Crisis Group.
Strategic alliance
SPLM-N has been criticized for allying with the RSF, which is accused of committing numerous atrocities by the United Nations and other observers.
Al-Hilu probably chose the alliance because he could no longer be neutral, said Kholood Khair, an expert in Sudan and the founding director of the Think Tank Advisory.
« Abdel Aziz realized that the RSF will soon be his neighbor (next to the southern state of Kordofan) and cannot fight the army and the RSF at the same time, » he told Al Jazeera.
On March 23, the RSF captured the West Kordofan state, which borders southern Kordofan
South Kordofan also shares borders with the northern states of Kordofan and the White Nile. The latter serves as an important strategic point for reaching the Sudan of the power station, including the Breadbasket state of the country known as Gezira, which recently lost the RSF to the army.
Blue Nile State is also a strategic point because it shares an international border with Ethiopia.
Collaboration with SPLM-N gives the RSF a much larger operating theater for smuggling in supplies in South South and Ethiopia, and new attacks against the army and civilians, in central and northern Sudan, said Boswell.
« The army wanted to push RSF to the west of the Nile (to the western region of Darfur) to basically capture all bridges (in Khartum), » he told Al Jazeera.
« But if the RSF can return and return (South Sudan) from southern Kordofan and if it can go through the blue Nile and Ethiopia, this is a significant threat and makes the army containment strategy much more difficult, » he said.
War by proxy
During the Second Civil War of North-South Sudan from 1983 to 2005, before South Sudan became independent, Khartum sought to undermine the liberation movement of the Sudan people (SPLM), the main group struggling for the liberation of the south. To do it, he supported the southern militias.
The war ended a peace agreement that gave the South -Americans the right to vote in an independence referendum, and in 2011, South Sudan became the newest country in the world.
SPLM-N, which came from the SPLM, shares the history of the South-Sudanese elite to fight the Sudanese army.
During the Civil War, Nile Tribes in South Kordofan and Nil Blue fought as part of the SPLM, while the Government « was usually based on proxies to combat their wars, » said Hafez Mohamed, who is originally from the Nuba mountains and runs the Justice Africa human rights group.
In 1987, the Government began to arm nomads and pastoralists called « Arabs » to fight southern sedentary farmers who are « non -Arabs ».
In the coming years, this division and conquest approach would be the army’s modus operandi to fight rebellions across the country, most famous in the early 2000’s, which would later become the RSF.
When President Omar Al-Bashir came to power through a bloodless military coup in 1989, he doubled this strategy, forming the Popular Defense Forces (PDF): an instrument for the Islamic ruler’s national ruler then to mobilize young men.
The « Arabic » pdf forces became notorious to set fire to the whole peoples and to carry out summarized murders.
The scary abuses often aggravated local competition for cultivated land, which have been from decades of aggressive land policies with the support of the state that enriched the national elites and which were uprooted local communities for industrial agriculture.
Guilty by affiliation
After the South Sudan separated, the Nuba felt left in Sudan.
According to the peace agreement that ended the Civil War, Nile Nile and southern Kordofan would be dedicated to « popular consultations » vaguely with the central government to address the fundamental causes of the conflict.
However, the queries never materialized due to Khartum’s political will and Nuba fighters.
The first sought to consolidate the control over what remained from Sudan through force. The latter, as the SPLM-N, continued its rebellion with a limited political and logistics help from South-Sudanian President Salva Kiir, according to a Small Arms Survey Report Since March 2013.
These historical links, Boswell, said, make the head of the Sudan army, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, believe that Kiir quietly supports the RSF and SPLM-N alliance.
« Kiir has always been close to SPLM-N, » he told Al Jazeera. « And from the perspective (of the army), he is responsible (South Sudan) for everything that SPLM-N does. »
Kiir can even be surprised that their old comrades have an association with the RSF. In 2015, the army had sent the RSF to the Mountains of Nuba to fight Al-Hilu’s fighters.
However, the RSF suffered a humiliating defeat largely because it was more accustomed to fighting in the Darfur drop -down desert than the green mountains of the Nuba mountains.
The origins of the RSF date back to Darfur’s first war in 2003, in which the « Arabic » tribal militias were recruited by the army to crush a mainly « non -Arab » rebellion against the helplessness of the state and the lack of representation in the central government.
The « Arab militias » committed innumerable atrocities, such as summaries and systematic violations, gaining the name « Janjaweed », which means « horseback riding » in Sudanese Arabic.
In 2013, Al-Bashir re-issued the Janjaweed to the RSF to help his regime and fight counter-insurgencies across the country, not just Darfur.
Little did I know that the RSF would rebel against the army years later.
Split and governed again?
The army seems to be activating other ancient southern Sudan proxies to counteract the new association.
South Sudan is politically divided between the militia and regular forces loyal to Kiir and a series of militias aligned nominally with Vice President Riek Machar.
Kiir belongs to Dinka’s largest ethnic group, South Sudan, while Machar is Nuer, the second largest tribe.
His rivalry goes back to the pre-independence civil war, which he saw Machar accepts Khartoum government help To fight the SPLM to try to demolish its leader John Garang.
In July 2005, seven months after the war ended, Garang died in a Helicopter crash. Kiir, his deputy, quickly assumed control of the SPLM.
In 2013, two years after South Sudan gained independence, a power struggle between Machar and Kiir descended in a civil war.
Most Nuer’s forces aligned Machar who were cooked on the SPLM (SPLM-IO) opposition to differentiate themselves from the Kiir SPLM.
The violence killed about 400,000 people before a power distribution agreement was signed five years later.
While the violence in the capital of southern southern Juba, after the peace agreement, the atrocities continued in the outskirts due to government practices appoint corrupt governors, co -optate local militias and extract resources, According to Joshua Craze, an independent expert from South Sudan and Sudan.
He added that the current Sudan war has spilled on the suburbs of South Sudan, referring to clashes between some SPLM-IO and RSF commanders this month. The RSF and SPLM-N are present along the border shared with South Kordofan, which runs next to the South Sudan unit and the upper Nile States.
Some of the clashes with the RSF took place with a SPLM-II armed group on the upper Nile. According to reports, more fighting in the state of the Sudan Nile Blue.
« (The Sudan Army) wants to disorganize almost RSF movements along the South Sudan-Sudan border … supporting some SPLM-IO commanders, » said Craze in Al Jazeera.
Jazeera sent written questions to the Sudanese army spokesman, Nabil Abdullah, wondering if the army provided logistical and material support for SPLM-II factions. Had not responded at the time of publication.
Integrated conflict?
On Thursday, Kiir sent his security forces to place Machar under home detention, a movement that now pushes South Sudan closer to the edge of a civil war, according to the UN.
Kiir accuses Machar to support Nuer’s community militias who fought with government forces this month.
But Craze said Machar has no command over these militias and added that they respond to the predatory and oppressive behavior of the government in their regions.
« What we are facing is very disturbing and dangerous. We are facing the total fragmentation of South Sudan, » said Craze in Al Jazeera.
If this is true, many young south-Sudanese men will end up fighting as mercenaries in Sudan, said Boswell, saying that the groups supported by the army and the RSF are already recruiting Sudanese southern and « the recruitment could be collected. »
He warned that if South Sudan returns to the Civil War, the RSF would probably benefit.
« I don’t think a collapse in Juba has an interest (Sudan Army), » he said. « Even if the army believes that Juba helps the RSF, the collapse of South Sudan would give the RSF a much larger operating theater than it already has. »
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