Sudan's RSF may have squandered its chance to dominate as Janjaweed roots resurface

Charges of genocidal killings, rape and looting tarnish the RSF's image as a respectable force

Gen Mohamed Dagalo, commander of Sudan's Rapid Support Forces. AFP

Sudan's Gen Mohamed Dagalo once angrily walked out of a live television talk show when the host reminded him of his links to the Janjaweed, the notorious forerunner of his paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, now battling the army on the streets of Khartoum.

The cattle herder-turned-Darfur militia leader-turned-general has over the years used a mix of guile, cunning and opportunism to conceal his murky past and carefully construct an image of a pro-democracy advocate leading a people's army against power-hungry army generals and Islamic militants.

But nearly three months into its ruinous war with the army, the RSF has shown that its old Janjaweed habits die hard, with witnesses, activists and analysts blaming the paramilitary for genocidal killings in Darfur, well-documented sexual assaults against women there and in Khartoum as well as widespread looting.

Smoke from a fire at a lumber warehouse in southern Khartoum during fighting last month. AFP

The abuses, which have drawn strong international condemnation, have largely wiped out any hope for the RSF and its commander to realise their dream of gaining a position of dominant military and political power in Sudan, according to the analysts and activists.

At the beginning of the conflict, the RSF's unspoken goal was to defeat the army and rule Sudan, prominent Sudanese analyst Osman Al Mirghany told The National. That, he added, is now difficult, maybe even impossible, in view of the allegations of war crimes the RSF faces.

"There is no point any more for the RSF to continue to fight except to make battlefield gains that can strengthen its position when negotiations for a settlement begin," Mr Al Mirghany said.

Even in Darfur, the birthplace of the Janjaweed and Gen Dagalo himself, the RSF has no popular support except among like-minded, cattle-herding Arab tribes whose rivalry with the region's farming African tribes is mostly over water and pastures.

Women on a street in Omdurman, the capital's twin city in war-torn Sudan. AFP

"He cannot control Darfur and secede as some believe he will because the international response will be harsh, including freezing RSF's assets abroad, where most of its money is kept.

"His best-case scenario now is to reach a settlement with the army that will allow the RSF to keep the wealth it has amassed from the large economic empire it has built over the years."

Gen Dagalo appears to have realised the harm the actions of his fighters have caused to the RSF image he has invested much time and effort to build.

In a damage-control exercise, he has pledged to bring offenders to justice before special wartime tribunals, created a commission to investigate the killings in Darfur and called on his fighters to discipline themselves.

But it might well be too late for the general to continue to market himself to the war-weary Sudanese as the nation's saviour, fighting the army to spare them another military dictatorship.

Gen Dagalo's political fortunes have significantly risen since the 2019 ousting of dictator Omar Al Bashir. With thousands of his fighters stationed throughout Khartoum, he became the deputy of army chief Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, who chaired the ruling Sovereign Council. The backing of regional powers soon followed and Gen Dagalo, with some success, tirelessly sought international legitimacy.

People fleeing war-torn Khartoum on the way to Wad Madani, south of Sudan's capital. AFP

In 2021, Gen Dagalo joined Gen Al Burhan in staging a military coup that derailed Sudan's democratic transition, toppling a civilian-led government that was making progress, albeit small and slow, in overhauling the country's chronically woeful economy and preparing for free elections.

The coup, moreover, plunged the nation into political and economic crisis.

More recently, he distanced himself from the coup and Gen Al Burhan – now his sworn enemy – and publicly accused the army generals of clinging to power. That, the analysts said, wooed some elements of the largest pro-democracy movement – Forces for Freedom and Change – who saw in Gen Dagalo a man they can more easily deal with than army generals filled with an inherent entitlement to continue to rule alone as they have done for most of the 67 years since independence.

"After four years of intense public relations and the hiring of image consultants, what the Rapid Support Forces now has is a media arm deep in denial and an obvious disconnect between commanders and troops," said Sulaima Ishaq, a women's rights activist and a veteran of the 2018-2019 revolt against Al Bashir.

"They accuse the army of enlisting the help of Al Bashir's old militiamen when the RSF itself has its fair share of remnants of the old regime within its ranks,' she told The National from the southern city of Kosti, where she and her family fled to escape the fighting in Omdurman, part of the greater Khartoum area.

Ms Ishaq and her associates may have single-handedly buried the RSF's drive to gain respectability and establish its credentials as the most dominant power in Sudan.

She chairs the group Combating Violence Against Women, a semi-state agency with a track record of meticulously keeping tally and helping victims of sexual assaults.

In a report dated July 1, CVAW cited 24 sexual assault cases in Khartoum, 25 in the Darfur town of Nyala and 21 in Al Geneina, also in Darfur, since the army-RSF war broke out in mid-April.

A Sudanese woman from Darfur at Eid Al Adha prayers in the Sudanese state of Al Qadarif in eastern Sudan. Reuters

Most of the reports filed on the Khartoum cases, according to the CVAW, blamed the RSF, but victims in Darfur held only the paramilitary responsible. Calling the sexual attacks war crimes, it said the agency was also gravely concerned about the "growing targeting of women and girls, which represents a qualitative escalation in conflict-related sexual violence".

On Tuesday, the agency said in a separate report that it was concerned about the growing number of incidents involving RSF fighters abducting women and girls, particularly in Khartoum.

Sexual assaults, including rape, were widely used by the Janjaweed as a weapon during the Darfur conflict of the 2000s, when the militia fought on the government's side against ethnic African rebels seeking to end discrimination by the ruling establishment in the Arabised and Muslim north of Sudan.

The militia is accused of committing large-scale abuses against civilians during that conflict. Al Bashir, together with the Janjaweed commander at the time, were indicted by the International Criminal Court more than a decade ago for crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes.

More recently, the RSF is believed to have played the largest role in the violent break-up in June 2019 of a pro-democracy sit-in protest outside the army's headquarters in Khartoum. At least 100 protesters were killed, some of their bodies were thrown into the Nile.

A Sudanese boy from Darfur during Eid Al Adha prayers in the Sudanese state of Al Qadarif, eastern Sudan. Reuters

There were also numerous cases of sexual assaults, including rape, of female protesters.

Last month, a repeat of the Janjaweed's crimes in Darfur in the 2000s played out when RSF fighters staged a genocidal attack against members of the African Masalit tribe in Al Geneina. Backed by Arab militias, they torched homes, businesses and randomly killed hundreds, including women and children fleeing to Chad.

The attack in Al Geneina sparked an international uproar. In response, Gen Dagalo, who has not been seen in public for more than two months, said in an audio recording posted online that he regretted the violence there, although he made no apology.

"We did not need the RSF abuses in Darfur and Khartoum to convince us that there is absolutely no logic to the RSF talk about democratic rule," said Rasha Awad, a prominent Sudanese analyst, who is also the editor-in-chief of the online newspaper Al Taghyier.

"The structure of the RSF is essentially tribal. Its economic interests and regional links can never yield a democratic system that it can embrace or be part of," she said.