Sudan under Sanctions

Bashir’s three decades in government have been largely concurrent with a regime of sanctions imposed on Sudan by the West. As a result, Sudan’s uprisings are taking place under an effective economic blockade.

A 1989 military coup in Sudan brought to power a group of army officers aligned with the Islamist National Congress Party (NCP), an organisation that had grown out of the Sudanese chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood. Omar Bashir was installed as president of the new government, which sought to recreate Sudan according to its vision of a modern Islamic society. It also engaged in violent suppression of dissent to maintain power.

The end of the Cold War in this period led to an overwhelming international hegemony by the United States. Sudan’s new Islamist government, however, bucked this trend and sought to pursue an independent foreign policy. In the 1990s, it supported Iraq in the First Gulf War and Palestine in its struggle against Israel. Sudan even hosted Osama bin Laden from 1991 to 1996, before he acquired international notoriety. For this, it was designated a state-sponsor of terrorism by the US and was subject to economic sanctions.

Sanctions as a tool of foreign policy are hotly contested in the academic literature on the basis that they rarely achieve their stated goals and frequently harm civilians. For three decades, these measures froze Sudan out of the international system and the country suffered a pariah status. In 1998, the US bombed a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory claiming it produced terrorist equipment. This was not true, but it handicapped the country’s ability to produce its own medicines leading to thousands of estimated deaths. 

In 2012, Israel carried out a targeted bombing raid in Khartoum which attracted little international attention or condemnation. In 2017, Donald Trump made Sudanese nationals one of the targets of his ‘Muslim ban.’ The economic effect of sanctions on living standards has been equally severe.

International isolation succeeded in breaking the back of the NCP’s ideological project, leading to an internal party split in the late 1990s. Its religious ideologues were sidelined while its military leadership retained power, hoping that Sudan might one day be readmitted into the Western diplomatic and economic system. However, the US’s response to the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre made this a distant prospect.

In January 2017, the US nominally lifted sanctions on Sudan. After several decades, the country’s economy had completely adapted to the economic siege and there was little immediate change for the average citizen. Sudan remained on the US list of state sponsors of terrorism, which deterred international financial institutions from operating in the country for fear of legal prosecution. This, in turn, denied Sudan access to the payment systems used to conduct international payments and financial transfers, freezing the country out of international trade.

Sudan and the World

Consequently, Sudan fell under a regime of ‘sanction by default.’ The original motivations for Western sanctions long-since receding, there remained little appetite to restore Sudan’s access to the world economy. Its ideological fervour long-dissipated, Sudan’s government has proven willing to strike any deal that would secure access to short-term credit and liquidity. It recently become a privileged partner in the EU’s anti-migrant policies that seek to police the flow of migrants travelling north from Africa to Europe through the country.

Of course, Sudan’s desperation for external credit does not only benefit Europe and the US. Turkey has been able to purchase strategic port facilities on Sudan’s Red Sea coast, and has taken over local Ottoman-era archaeological sites in the process. Egypt and Ethiopia seek to buy Sudan off in regional negotiations over the distribution of the Nile Waters. Saudi Arabia has even bought Sudan’s participation in its massacre in Yemen to which Sudan sends a delegation of troops to fight on the Saudi side.

One of the ironies of Sudan under Bashir was that his government proved a consistently good student of Washington Consensus economics. From 1989 onwards, Bashir and the NCP faithfully implemented the budgetary austerity that is the universal policy prescription of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In recent years, this has been with the intention of Sudan securing readmission into international financial systems to which the US and the IMF are gatekeepers.

In December 2017, the IMF published an expert report on Sudan, which took particular issue with the government’s wheat and fuel subsidies that sought to make bread and transport more affordable for the country’s population. The IMF rejected this objective stating that “there is a large body of international experience showing that subsidies are an inefficient policy instrument to protect lower income groups.” The report proceeded to make questionable arguments about the efficacy of fuel subsidies — before giving up entirely on the question of wheat subsidies, simply saying that there was “anecdotal evidence” that they did not work.

The Sudanese government duly cut both subsidies. With fewer government imports of fuel and wheat, shortages of both spread throughout the country with growing queues outside bakeries and petrol stations. The price of bread become the rallying call of major demonstrations in December 2017. Those demonstrations were renewed a year later, providing the basis of the latest wave of protests which widened their demands from the cost of living to a call for the downfall of the government.

A Popular Revolution

Sudan has experience of bringing down its military rulers through popular protest, having done so in 1964 and 1985, long before the Arab Springs of the 2010s. In these revolutions, as in the current one, women played a leading role. The recent protests have seen an alliance of Sudanese living on the breadline with members of the country’s social elite residing in Khartoum, uniting a range of political perspectives. Professional associations have been crucial in articulating the demands of the popular movement. Their historic role in previous uprisings gives them a moral authority in the current dispensation.

But, after months of sustained protest, it was Bashir’s own military that toppled him. This confronted protestors with the ambiguity of their slogan “fall, fall, that is all!”. Bashir had fallen — and that was all. Despite eye-catching stories about the fall of a regime, the dictator was succeeded by his vice-president, Ahmed Ibn Auf, another army officer. 

Protestors remained mobilised, rejecting the appointment of ‘another Bashir’. Ibn Auf resigned after just one day on April 12th. He was replaced by Abdel Fattah Burham, a third army officer, who offered more far-reaching reforms. The military continue to hold power, and some officers are no doubt gambling on an accelerated version of Egypt’s experience after the 2011 protest movement. 

This would see the removal of the regime’s figurehead, prompting protestors and the international media to return home (the latter having paid little attention to Sudan in the preceding years), only for the old guard to return with a vengeance. But this script is at risk of being torn up — today, in Khartoum, thousands of people are participating in mass demonstrations demanding civilian rule. This comes after protestors forced the removal of three further regime-aligned figures from the ruling Transitional Military Council.

The Sudanese have achieved the heroic task of removing two presidents in as many days, but they now face the delicate process of securing a political transition and determining which bodies and individuals can speak for the popular movement.

Possible Futures

Sudan is at a cross-roads between different possible futures, as palace intrigue within the military and strategic debate among the street movement occur in parallel. The military have so far refrained from violent suppression of the demonstrations and have protected protestors from the secret services. They have, however, imposed a curfew in an attempt to end the occupation of Khartoum’s streets.

Sudan’s revolution will have succeeded if it brings to an end the violent repression of dissidents, journalists and civilians that had characterised to government of Omar Bashir. But grander ambitions — like restoring Sudan’s political and economic sovereignty — may prove an even greater challenge.

Bashir’s ostracism by the West has meant that Sudanese protestors have seen Western nations as potential allies in their struggle. Responsibility for economic hardship is attributed to corruption and mismanagement by the NCP, rather than historic sanctions. But in all likelihood Bashir’s downfall will only lead to economic improvements if Western nations agree to cede some of their financial leverage over Sudan. Will international rehabilitation come at a price, which might be exacted in the field of trade deals, foreign policy or regional migration strategies?

A future Sudanese government will be caught between the twin dangers of subjugation to US policy in the region, or continuing under a state of economic siege. But whichever path lies ahead, ending political repression is a necessary condition for building a movement that might offer a future that differs from economic siege or automatic alignment with the West.