Sudan coup leader bids to co-opt pro-democracy movement
Mohamad Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemeti, has tried to reach out to Sudan’s pro-democracy movement, despite his involvement in October’s coup against the country’s civilian government.
Nearly a year after backing a coup in Sudan, the feared paramilitary leader Mohamad Hamdan Dagalo is trying to sell himself as a useful partner for the pro-democracy groups that have been regularly protesting against the country’s military rule for months, his critics and some analysts say.
In recent weeks, Dagalo – better known as Hemeti – has declared the October 25, 2021 coup a failure due to the ongoing protests and a spiralling economy, and touted his efforts to reduce violence in Sudan’s neglected peripheral regions.
But as the leader of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a group widely blamed for killing more than 120 protesters in the capital of Khartoum in June 2019, many in the pro-democracy movement do not trust Hemeti.
“Hemeti knows that the military coup failed … that’s why he is now claiming to support the people of Sudan. But all he wants is power in the next government,” said Sammer Hamza, a 25-year-old pro-democracy activist.
Hemeti is widely considered a shrewd and calculating figure after turning on his previous sponsor and Sudan’s former President Omar al-Bashir in April 2019. He eventually became the second-in-command to top army General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, his partner in the coup.
Now after months of cracking down on pro-democracy demonstrators, the RSF leader is backing efforts to form a civilian government to secure popular and international legitimacy while strengthening his position via al-Burhan, according to activists and analysts.
Competing for friends
In 2013, the RSF was formed out of the tribal militias that spearheaded mass killings in the western province of Darfur. Al-Bashir feared he might be toppled by his own military or intelligence units, so he incorporated Hemeti and his men into the military in exchange for loyalty and protection.
The move troubled senior officers from Sudan’s Armed Forces (SAF) who saw the RSF as a threat to their legitimacy. Al-Burhan and Hemeti are now in competition to be Sudan’s top security chief.
Since the coup, al-Burhan has leaned on members from al-Bashir’s National Congress Party (NCP) – part of the Islamic movement in Sudan – for political support.
Many figures from this movement despise Hemeti for what they say is a betrayal of his former ally.