Fragile Sudan seeks to stabilise foreign relations

Sudan’s foreign policy under Omar al-Bashir was unpredictable, opportunistic and ultimately unproductive. During 30 years of rule, Sudan harboured wanted criminals from Carlos the Jackal to Osama bin Laden.

Khartoum defied international opinion through its genocidal war in Darfur, only to cave to international pressure by allowing the secession of South Sudan.

“Bashir was not a man of principle,” says Nabil Adib, a prominent human rights lawyer. “He was trying to get something from everyone and in the end they all hated his guts.”

Now that Bashir has been ousted, say foreign policy experts, the task is to re-establish relations with foreign capitals from Riyadh to Washington, without allowing outside actors undue influence over its internal affairs. For a nation flat broke and in desperate need of help, that is no simple task.

For years Sudan was an international pariah. Such was Khartoum’s isolation from the west that, two decades after Bin Laden was expelled, Sudan remained on the US list of state sponsors of terrorism. Even today, because of the lingering effects of sanctions, emails sent to Sudan regularly bounce back and international money transfers are rejected by banks.

Repairing relations with the west is, in some ways, the simplest task. Cameron Hudson, a Sudan expert with the Atlantic Council, says it is in the interest of the US to see a stable and democratic Sudan in the Horn of Africa.

Neighbouring Ethiopia, long a US ally, is undergoing an unpredictable transition of its own under Abiy Ahmed, prime minister, who unsettled observers at the end of 2020 by launching a military assault on the northern province of Tigray. Some 50,000 refugees fled Tigray across the border into Sudan. Sudan is surrounded by fragile neighbours, including Libya, Central African Republic and South Sudan. Somalia is perennially unstable.

“On the 10th anniversary of the Arab spring, here is a country that has managed change with relatively little bloodshed,” says Mr Hudson of Sudan’s peaceful revolution. “There is a real national security interest in making sure Sudan isn’t pulled into cross currents that are swirling around the Horn of Africa.”

The transitional government has made a start by convincing Washington to remove it from its list of state sponsors of terrorism in December. In return, Khartoum paid $335m to compensate families of victims of 1998 bombings by al-Qaeda of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, having already paid an unspecified amount in compensation for the 2000 al-Qaeda attack on the USS Cole in Aden.

As part of the deal, after a secret meeting between General Abdel Fattah Burhan, chairman of the sovereign council, and Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, in Uganda last year, Sudan agreed to recognise Jerusalem. That concession has been criticised by some Sudanese, but in return Khartoum was awarded $700m in US aid and Washington’s backing for the clearance of $60bn in debt arrears.

The long process of debt relief has begun with an IMF staff-monitored programme designed to restore macroeconomic stability. IMF conditions, including the removal of fuel subsidies, an end to money printing and a transparent foreign exchange policy, will be painful. But if the IMF is satisfied with progress, the path to debt relief will be open.

At a meeting last June in Berlin, 50 countries and international organisations pledged $1.8bn to Sudan. That fell short of the $8bn Abdalla Hamdok, prime minister, had requested, but it signalled the west’s interest in keeping Sudan’s democratic transition on track.

While Mr Hamdok is comfortable in European capitals, the military members of the sovereign council have closer ties with the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Lt Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo’s Rapid Support Forces have previously consolidated ties with both by supplying mercenaries to fight in Yemen.

After years of western sanctions and the loss of three-quarters of its oil to South Sudan, trade with the Middle East dominates. Sudan sends live animals and animal feed across the Red Sea even as it struggles to feed its own people.

The UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are Sudan’s first, third and fourth trading partners respectively, between them making up 65 per cent of its total trade, according to World Bank data. With China, that rises to four-fifths.

Such dependence on authoritarian states makes Sudanese democrats nervous. “We need to guard against whoever is trying to bring us back to despotism,” says Mr Adib. “We should insist on our democratic system.”

Mr Hudson of the Atlantic Council agrees. “Sudan has a lot of relationships that were established under Bashir, who was a master at riding the tiger,” he says, adding that the former dictator courted Iran and Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar, Turkey and Egypt. “He was adept at managing big powers against each other for his own economic and political agenda, but all those countries now feel they have an ownership stake in Sudan.”

Amjed Farid, assistant chief of staff to the prime minister, says: “We want a balanced foreign policy in which we do not side with one country or another. We do not need to engage in problems that do not belong to our people.”

The other big pending problem is the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which has the potential to affect the flow of the Nile through Sudan and Egypt.

In the past, Khartoum has appeared closer to Ethiopia’s position that the dam will help regulate the floodwaters to its advantage. More recently it has voiced concerns about Addis Ababa’s determination to fill the dam without first reaching an agreement with Khartoum and Cairo.

Mr Farid insists that, here as elsewhere, the guiding principle must be Sudan’s national interest. “Sudan is a wealthy country that was ruled by thieves for 30 years,” he says. “It was a cake that many actors thought they could have part of.”

Now, he says, the priority must be to conduct foreign policy not for the benefit of special interests, but in the interests of Sudanese people.