As the security threats multiply and international troops are forced out, the military rulers in the Sahel have equivocated about their commitments to restoring civilian rule
, The promise of electoral contests to restore constitutional and nominally civilian rule will be a key issue across much of West and West-Central Africa this year, and particularly in the continuing battle of wills between Sahelian military regimes and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
After his putsch failed, the paramilitary leader has relaunched an ethnic war in Darfur as supply lines tighten, When the war of the generals broke out on 15 April, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo Hemeti , the commander of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), had clear objectives: to thwart the plan to subsume his paramilitary force under the command of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) within two years, and to do so his fighters would capture General Abdel Fattah al Burhan and other senior military officers.
, Opposition leader Succès Masra and his party, Les Transformateurs, have taken on the K-Street lobby shop, Scribe Strategies, led by Republican operative Joseph Szlavik, one of the most popular Africa-focused outfits in Washington.
Most governments are treading carefully, trying to prevent the conflict from spilling over the borders, The feared internationalisation of the fight between the forces of Generals Abdel Fattah al Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo Hemeti is contingent on how long it lasts and its outcome in Khartoum. Reports are swirling about outside military supplies but the scale and content of this support isn t so far proving decisive in the fighting. Most regional governments are monitoring rather than acting. If the war drags on for months, that could change.
The Chad-Sudan frontier and the restive militias which straddle it are looming larger as tensions rise, On 29 January, Sudan s military leader, General Abdel Fattah al Burhan, went to Ndjamena to discuss growing insecurity on the Chad-Sudan border. No surprises there, perhaps, but the next day his number two, Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo Hemeti followed him to the Chadian capital – but with a different agenda.