Conflict
Sudanese political crisis
A political mission built to shepherd a democratic transition, delivering a statement of cautious confidence five months before the generals it was meant to restrain seized power outright.
Sudan's UN Security Council file began with cautious optimism: months after mass protests ended Omar al-Bashir's thirty-year rule, a 2019 Constitutional Declaration set out a roughly three-year transition to civilian democratic government, and in June 2020 the Council established UNITAMS, a special political mission rather than a peacekeeping force, to support that transition and help implement the Juba Peace Agreement's protections for Darfur and the two other regions still recovering from decades of conflict.
Kenya's own engagement with the file, delivered on behalf of the A3 with Gabon and Ghana, captured that transition at its most fragile moment. The statement archived here, delivered in May 2022, describes "hopes and aspirations" from the 2019 declaration as "waning" while still expressing confidence that Sudan's political actors would find a way through the impasse, a diplomatic register that reads very differently in hindsight than it did at the time.
Five months after an earlier version of this same statement was delivered in 2021, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Gen. Mohamed Hamdan "Hemedti" Dagalo seized power outright, dissolving the transitional government UNITAMS had been built to support and detaining the prime minister whose government Kenya's statement had just finished praising for confidence-building steps.
The file's arc after that point was one of steadily narrowing possibility: the same two generals who jointly led the 2021 coup went on to lead rival armed forces against each other when full-scale war broke out in April 2023, and by December of that year the Council voted to terminate UNITAMS altogether rather than renew its mandate again. A mission built to shepherd a transition to democracy was closed instead by the outbreak of the war that transition failed to prevent.
Independent Sources for This Introduction
Canonical
Contemporary Reporting
Chronology
| 2019-08-17 | event | Constitutional Declaration signed after Bashir's overthrow Months after mass protests ended Omar al-Bashir's three-decade rule, Sudan's military and the civilian Forces for Freedom and Change coalition sign a Constitutional Declaration establishing a power-sharing transitional government under Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, meant to lead to elections after a roughly three-year transition. This is the framework whose 'hopes and aspirations' Kenya's own UNITAMS statement would later describe as waning. |
| 2020-06-03 | event | Security Council establishes UNITAMS The Council unanimously adopts resolution 2524, creating the UN Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS), a special political mission rather than a peacekeeping force, to support Sudan's transition to civilian democratic rule, assist implementation of the 2019 Constitutional Declaration, and help build a National Plan for the Protection of Civilians. |
| 2020-10-03 | event | Juba Peace Agreement signed Sudan's transitional government and a coalition of armed and political groups from Darfur, South Kordofan, and the Blue Nile sign the Juba Peace Agreement, intended to end decades of regional conflict and integrate former rebel groups into a reconstituted transitional government. This is the agreement Kenya's own A3 statement would cite for its yet-unfulfilled protection-of-civilians commitments. |
| 2021-07-27 | Statement | UNAMID Closure (Darfur): A3+1 Joint Statement A3+1 joint statement (Kenya, Niger, Tunisia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines), delivered by Amb. Tarek Ladeb, Permanent Representative of Tunisia |
| 2022-05-24 | Statement | UNITAMS: A3 Statement A3 joint statement (Gabon, Ghana, Kenya), delivered by Amb. Martin Kimani, Permanent Representative of Kenya |
| 2021-10-25 | event | Burhan and Hemedti seize power, ending the transitional government Five months after Kenya's A3 statement expressed confidence the Sudanese people would 'find a quick solution' to the political impasse, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Gen. Mohamed Hamdan 'Hemedti' Dagalo lead a coup, dissolving the Sovereignty Council and the civilian cabinet, suspending key provisions of the Constitutional Declaration, and detaining Prime Minister Hamdok. This abruptly changes the government interlocutors UNITAMS had been built to work with. |
| 2021-10-27 | Photograph | Security Council Meeting on Sudan and South Sudan (Council Presidency) |
| 2023-12-01 | event | Security Council votes to terminate UNITAMS Following the April 2023 outbreak of open war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, led by the same two men who led the 2021 coup and now command rival armies, the Council votes to end UNITAMS's mandate outright rather than renew it again, closing the file Kenya's 2022 statement had still addressed in the language of a transition worth salvaging. |