اخبار السودان – وطن نيوز
اخر اخبار السودان اليوم – اخبار السودان العاجلة
W6nnews.com ==== وطن === تاريخ النشر – 2026-06-01 18:27:00
Introduction: On June 3, 2019, Sudan did not witness just a sit-in dispersal operation, as some tried to call it later. That morning, Sudan witnessed a major turning point, not only in the course of the revolution that broke out months ago, but in the way the country itself was defined. The scene that was followed by cameras and documented by mobile phones of young men being dragged on the asphalt and others thrown into the waters of the White Nile was not a passing scene that could be overcome by changing a government or issuing new laws. It was a revealing moment in which the Sudanese military and security establishment, with its various branches and arms, showed its true face to those who had not seen it before. Seven years have passed since that crime, and yet the wound remains open. Not because the collective memory is exceptionally stubborn, but because the logic of power that produced the massacre did not disappear, but rather was reincarnated in a devastating war that has been tearing the country apart since April 2023. This article attempts to ask a question that is neither simple nor comfortable: How can the memory of a massacre be a tool for redefining the state and not just an occasion to recall the pain? The immediate historical context: from the sit-in to the decision. The General Command sit-in that began on April 6, 2019 was not just a passing protest gathering. It was the culmination of a popular protest movement that lasted for months and overthrew Omar al-Bashir on April 11 of the same year. In the period between the fall of Al-Bashir and the dispersal of the sit-in, Sudan lived in a state of suspended waiting. The Transitional Military Council that assumed power did not provide any real indication of its desire to hand over rule to civilians, while the forces of the Declaration of Freedom and Change insisted that the revolution would not be completed without a complete transition. Those protesting in front of the General Command embodied this insistence with their physical presence. They were a living political body that resisted by survival, not by weapons. This is exactly what made them a target. A state that understands power as a monopoly of force cannot tolerate the sight of peaceful citizens armed only with dreams controlling the heart of the capital without a single rifle. The space created by the protesters was a direct challenge to the Sudanese governance model based on military rents and the distribution of spoils to loyal elites. Therefore, the decision to disperse the sit-in was not a spur-of-the-moment decision resulting from a security breach or an error of judgment. It was a systematic decision issued by a military-security institution that felt that its legitimacy was being robbed of it every day that the protesters remained. Deconstructing the moment: Who carried it out and for what purpose? When returning to the events of June 3, it becomes clear that the scene was not normal even by the standards of government violence in Sudan. What happened was not the dispersal of a sit-in with tear gas or even live bullets, as happened on previous occasions. What happened was a coordinated operation in which multiple units of the army, the Rapid Support Forces, and intelligence and security agencies participated. Eyewitnesses spoke of the presence of snipers on the roofs of nearby buildings, of military vehicles storming the square from several directions at the same time, and of bodies collected under the cover of darkness and thrown into the Nile. This level of coordination indicates that the decision was taken at the highest level and that the implementation was planned in advance and not a reaction to provocation or transgression by the protesters. The stated purpose was to clean up the Columbia area. But the real purpose was deeper and bloodier: to break the will of the protest movement and send a message that any challenge to the authority of the military establishment would be met with limitless cruelty. The widespread participation of the Rapid Support Forces on this day was pivotal. The Rapid Support, which was formed years ago, had not at that time developed its general image as a force parallel to the army in the way we see it today. His participation in dispersing the sit-in was a declaration of intent. It was used as a tool of repression in the capital before it later turned into a party in a civil war. It is ironic – so to speak – that the two sides that carried out the massacre together, i.e. the army leadership on the one hand and the Rapid Support Forces on the other hand, have become, after only four years, two warring parties seeking to destroy each other. This transformation reveals the nature of the relationship between these different military arms within the Sudanese state, which is a relationship based on momentary interests and alliances of spoils and not on a fixed institutional doctrine. On June 3, they were together against the people, and in April 2023, they turned against each other when interests differed. Between massacre and war: the continuity of the model. It may seem at first glance that the 2023 war has nothing to do with the dispersal of the 2019 sit-in. The first is a comprehensive war between two competing military factions, and the second is a crime of repression committed by the state against its citizens. But a deeper look reveals one organizing thread, which is the model of governance that sees force as the only language for resolving political disputes. The country that broke up the sit-in with bullets is the same country that was unable to prevent its collapse into civil war four years later. Not because it has become weaker, but because it has remained loyal to one logic, which is the logic of the central position and ill-gotten money as a tool for control and exclusion as a way to manage differences. The forces that struggled for power after the October 2021 coup and then after the outbreak of war in 2023 are the same forces that conspired together to kill the protesters in June 2019. Therefore, it is extremely naive to believe that any political solution that does not include holding these people accountable for their crimes will be a real solution. Any settlement that leaves the actors themselves in positions of influence, no matter how much they change names or slogans, will simply reproduce the same cycle. This fact makes the memory of the massacre an extremely important analytical tool in understanding the current war. Instead of viewing the fighting between the army and the Rapid Support as a two-dimensional conflict, it can be viewed as a continuation of the disintegration of the old ruling class. This class that participated in the suppression of the people could not agree on dividing the spoils among themselves, so it exploded in on itself. In the explosion, civilians paid the highest price, as is always the case. Today, while the army leaders talk about restoring the state and combating the militia, and the Rapid Support leaders talk about fighting corruption and remnants, the popular memory remains that these are the ones who killed our sons seven years ago in almost the same place. Transitional justice as a condition for breaking the cycle. If the massacre represents the peak moment in the Sudanese state’s relationship with its citizens, then the absence of accountability represents the main reason for the continuation of the same cycle. After the dispersal of the sit-in, a government investigation committee was formed, of course, its results were never published. The transitional period 2019-2021 came with a political agreement between the military and civilians that stipulated the formation of a committee to investigate crimes against humanity and others. But that committee also faltered due to military interventions and the lack of real political will. Then came the coup of October 25, 2021, turning the page on the entire investigation. After the outbreak of war, the presence of the transitional justice file on the international and local political agenda declined significantly, and was replaced by talk of a ceasefire and humanitarian relief. However, it is fair to say that this arrangement was not the full will of the Sudanese civil forces. Most of the civil political parties – despite their weak organization and the fragmentation of their positions – continued to include transitional justice and accountability in their papers and documents, but the problem was not in the absence of moral demands, but rather in the absence of the ability to impose them as an actual priority on the ground. The two real actors in the war – the army and the Rapid Support – were the ones who pushed the issue of justice to the margins because they were both involved in the June 2019 massacre. As for the civil forces, they did not abandon the principle, but they were unable to transform it into a practical commitment imposed on the armed parties. This inability does not remove her moral right, but it exposes the gap between political discourse and the ability to implement in times of war. The truth that some want to avoid is that any real state building in Sudan is impossible without crossing the bridge of transitional justice. Not because punishment is an end in itself, but because continued impunity entrenches a culture that violence is a legitimate means of attaining and retaining power. When dozens of defenseless young men are killed in broad daylight and the bodies of some of them are thrown into the Nile River, and then the killers – soldiers and military leaders – continue their normal lives after years as if nothing had happened, the entire society learns a grim lesson, which is that the law does not protect anyone and only force keeps you safe. This impunity did not turn into war alone, but it created the environment that made war possible. The military parties that were involved in suppressing the revolutionaries saw violence as a legitimate means for which no one was held accountable. When these parties disagreed on sharing power years later, they had no choice but the language they knew, which was the language of power once again. The December revolution did not turn into a war due to the will of the revolutionaries, but rather because the military elite that managed the transitional phase remained loyal to the same logic of violence that it practiced in June 2019. Whoever killed the possibility of justice first could not prevent the country from sliding into the abyss. Experts who studied the experiences of democratic transition in places such as South Africa, Argentina, and Tunisia stress that transitional justice does not necessarily mean imprisonment for anyone involved in violations. The problem in the Sudanese case is not in choosing one model or another of transitional justice. The problem is that there is an almost complete rejection by the military establishment of any form of accountability, whatever it may be. The army and the Rapid Support, each for its own reasons, reject the idea that those who killed the protesters peacefully on June 3, 2019 could be tried before any party. This rejection is not just political stubbornness, but rather a defense of the legitimacy of the entire model. If the army admitted the crime of dispersing the sit-in, how would it defend its legitimacy in fighting the Rapid Support today? If the Rapid Support acknowledged its role in that crime, how would it continue to market itself as a protector of the marginalized? This impasse makes the anniversary of the massacre an opportunity to re-ask the question in a different way. Instead of seeking immediate trials, which seem impossible in light of the collapse of the state, the absence of the rule of law, and the militarization of public space, we can focus on more practical demands, such as documenting testimonies, protecting evidence, building a digital archive of what happened, and raising community awareness of the extent of the crime. These actions do not require the approval of armed parties and can be carried out by civil society organizations and volunteers with technical support from abroad. It is not possible to talk about a fair trial for the perpetrators of the massacre in light of a devastating war and the almost complete collapse of the state’s judicial and security institutions. The Sudanese judiciary today is unable even to try those accused of simple theft, so how about trying military leaders accused of mass murder? What is required today is not to rush trials that are impossible to achieve, but rather a different strategy, which is to document everything that happened, protect the evidence and testimonies, and build a digital archive that is not subject to tampering. When the war ends – and it must end – this archive will be the raw material for any real justice process. Today, haste is not in the interests of the victims, but strategic delay in the issue of justice is much better than completely neglecting it with demands that are not implementable at the time. Conclusion: On June 3, 2026, when the Sudanese remember the massacre, the most difficult question will be: Have we learned anything? Have we had enough of beating our chests and slapping our cheeks, or have we been able to turn the wound into a window? Seven years have passed, a futile war is destroying everything, and a civil political project has not yet emerged from the circle of good intentions to the ground of actual power. But the memory remains stubborn. It remains an unfalsifiable witness that a state that does not protect its citizens ultimately loses its ability to protect itself. The country that killed its sons in the general leadership in 2019 is the same country that collapsed in on itself in 2023. This is not a coincidence. It is an inevitable result of a logic that is impossible to produce except violence and chaos. The road to a new Sudan may be long and arduous and may pass through darker stages than what we are experiencing today. But what is important is that the memory remains present as a compass. Memory does not build a state, but it prevents the same mistakes from being repeated. In a country like Sudan, where coups, wars, and famines have been repeated in a boring manner, preventing recurrence may be the greatest achievement that can be achieved. What if we stopped thinking of the state as a “sacred entity” or an end in itself and began to look at it as merely a means or method of working to organize our lives and solve our problems? What if we stopped fearing authority and started holding it accountable? The answers to these questions will not come from leaders’ speeches or conference decisions. It will come from the small cumulative act of documenting a refusal to forget. In the end, the wound that does not heal may be more honest than the scar that hides the pain. Perhaps in this exposed pain is the beginning of a new awareness, and perhaps in this awareness is the seed of a different state. haytham.compre@gmail.com The writer
