Sudan’s pro-democracy activists have faced oppression, systematic targeting, massacres and coups. From mid-April 2023, they have faced the impacts of a national war between their main oppressors, Generals Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo ‘Hemedti’ of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF), respectively. This long-anticipated rupture in the security forces was precipitated by the failure to reconcile the irreconcilable – the ambitions of the generals, their civilian junior partners and foreign backers – following the coup in 2021. A common denominator across various phases of political upheaval and transition has been the exclusion of Sudan’s civil society.

Repeating pattern of societal exclusion

The die was cast for societal exclusion when Omer al-Bashir, Sudan’s long-time dictator, was removed from power following intense and sustained protests in 2018–19, which involved a much broader swathe of society than Sudan’s revolution-dense history had ever seen. Bashir’s security committee quickly rebranded itself as the Transitional Military Council (TMC), and fashioned a power-sharing deal creating a military–civilian Sovereignty Council, led by Generals Burhan and Hemedti, alongside a hamstrung civilian cabinet. This largely ignored the ‘street’ in negotiations and decision making. Even after their bloody 2021 autogolpe (self-coup), the TMC remained the primary interlocutors in diplomatic and negotiation efforts, with grassroots pro-democracy protesters largely side-lined.

Sudan’s current war is perhaps the generals’ biggest gambit to quell the enduring momentum of revolutionary power. But, in response, and in characteristic fashion, the key pillars of the revolution, the neighbourhood Resistance Committees and the professional associations and unions, have innovated. They have rallied to engage in efforts to end the war as well as provide support and services to ordinary citizens caught in the crossfire.

To avert state collapse, several mediation platforms have emerged, including the joint Saudi-US ceasefire platform in Jeddah, as well as a tug of war between the African Union and regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD). To varying degrees, these, as before, have failed to adequately engage civilian non-elites, including those at the forefront of the on-the-ground response. This comes despite the glaring reality that these groups, chiefly the Resistance Committees, were right all along: appeasing the generals in a power-sharing deal and enabling them to enrich themselves – not holding them to account on transitional justice and human rights abuses – holds all of Sudan hostage. While understanding the challenges involved, the protesters’ demands haven’t changed: they want the SAF to return to the barracks and to undergo reform, and the RSF to be disbanded.

Maximalist mediation

The Resistance Committees’ maximalist approach to political change has frustrated mediators and international stakeholders, who are wedded to more conventional methods whereby representatives of a position or party agree around a table a deal in which one (often the unarmed) side makes a greater compromise.

Current mediation orthodoxies haven’t adapted enough to engage non-violent, grassroots pro-democracy groups, whose meaningful inclusion is a prerequisite of lasting and civic peace. Some efforts have been made to reach out to Resistance Committees and other grassroots pro-democracy groups, yet most current practice tries to shoe-horn them into existing mediation frameworks that have terms and modalities already set up, rendering these groups little more than a legitimising presence.

This is illogical: mediation modalities must shift to recognise and incorporate amorphous street positions as the point of departure, not an afterthought. The many civilian initiatives to stop the war need to be gathered in a platform that would use two tried and tested methodologies: broad-based elite processes, such as the 2019 Declaration for Freedom and Change process that united Sudanese to bring down Bashir; and the Resistance Committees’ inclusive and consensus-driven drafting process for revolutionary charters, which streamlined public positions following the 2021 coup into a co-created minimum agenda. An agenda established in this way would help create trust and consensus on immediate concerns such as the protection of civilians and ensuring humanitarian access, as well as on longer-term political concerns such as constitutional reforms.

The beginnings of this are already in place, as are efforts to align the initiatives. But currently they do not encompass many representatives outside of elite echo chambers. A concerted effort to break from the ills of former processes needs to be prioritised, and the Resistance Committees’ collective positions given due consideration. This would help meet mediation structures half-way, making amorphous groups far more legible to mediators, and reducing the militarisation of mediation that has resulted from orthodox models.

In order to fully break with past mediation failures, Sudanese elites and the international community must imagine new political systems, even those which they do not yet fully understand and cannot control, but which may yet produce the desired sustainable, civilian-led outcomes.