In Sudan, Islamists have no interest in peace

Former Tunisian Foreign Minister Mongi Hamdi served as Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General in Mali. Particularly involved in the conflict in Sudan, he looks back on the attempts, so far unsuccessful, to bring about peace.

Five years after the fall of Omar al-Bashir, Sudan remains a prisoner of its past. The country is ravaged by a war that dare not speak its name: an ideological struggle led by the former Islamist networks of the fallen regime, much more than a simple clash between two generals.

Behind General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) lies a political agenda: to restore the Islamist order that dominated the country for three decades. This reality explains why the army systematically rejects all peace initiatives, including the most recent one, supported by the United States, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.

This refusal is not accidental; it is ideological

Omar al-Bashir had built more than a dictatorship: a system based on the fusion of political power and Islamist ideology. His party, the National Congress, controlled the administration, the economy, security and the army. When he was overthrown in 2019, many believed that this system had come to an end.

For Sudan, the real way out of the crisis will not come from the barracks, but from the people.

In reality, the structure of the Islamist state has survived, rooted in institutions and protected by its loyalists within the SAF. It is this continuity that has allowed al-Burhan to consolidate his power after his 2021 coup. To ensure the army’s loyalty, he relied on officers linked to the former regime and the Muslim Brotherhood. In exchange, the latter regained influence and protection.

The current war is therefore less a fight for national unity than a disguised counter-revolution.

The recent peace initiative sponsored by Washington, Riyadh, Cairo and Abu Dhabi proposed a ceasefire, humanitarian access and a political transition. The SAF’s response was categorical: no.

For the Islamist movement that dominates the military hierarchy, accepting such an agreement would mean ceding power to civilians, exposing their networks and renouncing their ideological project. Their rejection is therefore not a military tactic, but a strategy for political survival.

A fight for Sudan’s future

Meanwhile, the country is collapsing: more than ten million displaced people, cities in ruins and widespread famine. Yet the generals continue to talk of ‘victory’ and ‘sovereignty’, even as they further isolate Sudan from its neighbours and the rest of the world.

In the shadows, figures from the old regime are already preparing their return. Ahmed Haroun, wanted by the International Criminal Court, has said he is ready to participate in future elections. Other National Congress Party officials are reorganising themselves around the same rhetoric of ‘stability’ and ‘national unity’.

Behind these words lies nothing more than an attempt to resurrect a repressive system that has already led the country to bankruptcy and isolation.

Ahmed Haroun, then governor of South Kordofan, in April 2012 (AFP photo).

This conflict cannot be reduced to a rivalry between Burhan and Hemedti, the head of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). It pits two visions of Sudan against each other. On the one hand, there is the vision of a military and Islamist state seeking to return to power. On the other hand, the vision of a civil society that still aspires to democracy and justice is the legacy of the 2019 revolution.

As long as the international community continues to treat the generals as legitimate interlocutors, the war will continue. Peace cannot be negotiated with those who reject the very principle of peace.

For Sudan, the real way out of the crisis will not come from the barracks, but from the people.

And for the region, ignoring this reality means accepting that the ghost of Omar al-Bashir’s Islamist regime will continue to haunt the Horn of Africa — to the detriment of any lasting stability.