Sudan in Flames: Killing the Phoenix

Two days on from the attack on Khartoum by Darfuri rebels, the Sudanese capital is still reeling. Outside the school in which I teach, the same one that infamously hit the news headlines six months ago for the Mohammed the teddy bear story, gun battles between the Sudanese and rebel forces raged this morning. Some say mortar fire was also heard. Nonetheless, the city-wide curfew has now been lifted but remains in place in the twin city of Omdurman where the Justice and Equality Movement initially launched their attack.

It is not clear what JEM forces remain in Omdurman. Only yesterday morning they were claiming to have taken that part of Khartoum and were consolidating their position. This is looking to be unlikely now, but it is known that during the attack they managed to probe into the heart of Khartoum across the Nile bridges, many of which they held for a short time.

Following the attack, some of the rebel forces managed to disperse throughout the main parts of the city, mingling with the general population amongst whom they would easily go unnoticed.

Right now, the streets of Khartoum are filled with special forces soldiers, the regular police, the secret police riding motorbikes with AK47's strapped to their backs, paratroopers and government backed death squad militias. Heavy artillery is on many corners. Forces patrol the streets and road blocks around the area of the airport are particularly frequent. Khartoum airport is bizarrely smack bang in the middle of the city.

Significant numbers of arrests are taking place city-wide of anyone that even looks vaguely Darfuri.

It is easy to get complacent at this time. Life is generally starting to get back to normal and the presence of heavily armed soldiers on the streets, as worrying as it is, does make one feel that things are under control. This is likely to be far from the truth.

JEM have made claims that they have already taken and knocked out the Sudanese airforce's main supply base 10 miles north of the city and there are unconfirmed reports of heavy rebel troop movements to the north of the city and advancing on Khartoum.

What is significant in all of this is that the regular Sudanese army were not very much involved in putting down the rebel attack in Omdurman, nor are they leading the defence of the city now. The main players have been and continue to be crack special forces units and the secret police. The army, as the Sudanese authorities have readily admitted, may well have had a part to play in orchestrating the attack of two days ago and it seems that some of these government forces joined with the rebels during the offensive. There is now a purge of middle ranking officers of the Sudanese army underway.

A large part of the regular army is drawn from the Darfur region and their are clear tribal and family links between these forces and those in Darfur that are regularly attacked by the Sudanese government. Hence the government's reliance on a proxy war undertaken by various militias such as the Janjaweed; an arab millita with no vested interest other than ideology and payment. Tribal links are significant here. Tribal allegiances are much stronger than national or political or religious allegiances.

The symbolic significance of the rebel assault on Omdurman will not have gone unnoticed by the government. The last time that anyone managed to attack Khartoum was when the Mahdi army drove Kitchener from the city around a hundred years ago. They too came from the West and took Omdurman, before going on to slaughter the British forces and levelling the city of Khartoum on the other side of the Nile. To this day, Omdurman has been largely populated by the descendants of the Mahdi's army and thus they have strong tribal and ethnic allegiances with the JEM forces; some of whom it is believed, are being looked after by the civilian population of Omdurman.

Two days on and there is clearly a profound feeling of unrest in the city. The word on the street is that this is not over and that more is to come. Many are expecting a full scale civil war. JEM have made it clear that they intend to attack again and keep on attacking until they smash the Sudanese government. This might be posturing, but given the fractured and chaotic state of politics and military strategy here, absolutely anything can happen now.

What is undeniably a reality however is that the ordinary people on the streets that simply want to get on with their lives are living in fear. There is no way out of this city and thus everyone must simply sit and wait for what many believe is the inevitable.

Of course there is nothing inevitable about violence but telling that to men of violence; on either side of the divide is like banging your head against the butt end of an AK47...something that can easily be arranged for you in this city of guns and ideologies.

So keep praying, keep sending your best wishes and your hopes of peace this way. This country needs it.

Many blessings and much metta,

Steve