Category World News

Social media posts have warned for more than a month that President Donald Trump would declare martial law on April 20, which typically means suspending civil law while the military takes control of civilian functions such as courts.

But many of the posts appeared to conflate martial law with the potential invocation of the Insurrection Act of 1807, which was mentioned in a recent executive order.

“I just learned about this executive order (section 6-b) which says Trump will invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 on April 20th which will (amount) to declaring martial law”, a Reddit user posted on March 19. “That’s the end of the USA”.

The narrative spread beyond Reddit to Facebook posts and videos shared on TikTok, X and Threads.

Trump’s January 20 executive order declared a national emergency at the US southern border and required the defence and homeland security secretaries to submit a report on border conditions within 90 days. The report should include “any recommendations regarding additional actions that may be necessary to obtain complete operational control of the southern border, including whether to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807”, the executive order said.

April 20 is the 90-day deadline.

Invoking the Insurrection Act would allow Trump to direct federal military personnel to enforce federal law at the US southern border. But legal experts told PolitiFact it would not amount to martial law. They said they do not see a clear path for Trump to lawfully implement martial law in the way it’s commonly understood. Trump, on his part, has not publicly discussed martial law.

In a statement to PolitiFact, the Defense Department said the agency is working with the Homeland Security Department to develop the requested report on the southern border conditions.

PolitiFact contacted the Homeland Security Department and the White House and received no response.

What would the Insurrection Act invocation allow?

Invoking the&nbsp, Insurrection Act&nbsp, temporarily suspends&nbsp, another US law&nbsp, that forbids federal troops from conducting civilian law enforcement.

A president can invoke the law after determining that “unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion” against the federal government make it “impracticable to enforce” US law “by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings”. In those cases, the Insurrection Act would allow the president to direct federal troops “as he considers necessary to enforce those laws or to suppress the rebellion”.

The Insurrection Act is broadly written and does not define terms such as “insurrection” or “rebellion”. In 1827, the US Supreme Court ruled that the authority to decide whether a situation represents an acceptable reason to invoke the Insurrection Act “belongs exclusively to the President”.

Chris Edelson, an American University assistant professor of government, said the law provides a “limited authority for the president to use the military to respond to genuine emergencies – a breakdown in regular operational law when things are really falling apart”.

The act was invoked when southern governors&nbsp, refused to integrate schools&nbsp, and&nbsp, during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, after four white police officers were acquitted in the roadside beating of a Black man, Rodney King.

Experts expressed doubt that the situation at the US southern border constitutes a breakdown or obstruction of federal law that would necessitate the use of the Insurrection Act the way the law was intended.

Tung Yin, a Lewis and Clark Law School professor, said it’s hard to see how immigrants coming into the country illegally were obstructing state or federal laws.

Obstruction is “more like an invading army or maybe such severe riots that the government has lost control”, he said.

Martial law, on the other hand, &nbsp, typically refers&nbsp, to imposing military law on civilians.

Edelson said the Insurrection Act “does not allow the president to completely replace regular authorities with military authority”.

Chris Mirasola, University of Houston Law Center assistant professor, said military law is more stringent and has fewer protections for people than civilian law. US constitutional protections would not disappear if the Insurrection Act were invoked, Mirasola said.

Yin said that when a president uses the Insurrection Act to call on the military to enforce civilian law, “that might seem like ‘ martial law ‘ to a layperson. But it’s not a military government, which might be what people generally think of”.

Can Trump impose martial law at the southern border?

In a 1946 ruling, the US Supreme Court wrote that the term martial law “carries no precise meaning” and said it wasn’t defined in the Constitution or an act of Congress.

Edelson said because of this, “At the federal level, it’s not clear that presidents can declare martial law at all”.

Mirasola said some other countries ‘ constitutions include provisions that outline when a president can declare martial law, but the US Constitution lacks such detail.

Still, martial law has been declared before. The US imposed&nbsp, martial law&nbsp, in Hawaii&nbsp, for three years after the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. President Abraham Lincoln also&nbsp, declared martial law in certain parts of the US during the Civil War. President Andrew Johnson&nbsp, restored&nbsp, civilian law.

At that time, the Supreme Court “more or less found that martial law could only be declared in an active war zone”, Mirasola said, citing an 1866 Supreme Court ruling that held that martial law cannot be imposed unless civilian courts aren’t open and functioning.

For that reason, Mirasola said he could see no legal or constitutional basis for Trump to declare martial law to control the southern border, which “is not an area of active hostilities, notwithstanding how the administration continues to talk about the actions of cartels”.

“The circumstances within which presidents have invoked martial law and that the Supreme Court has understood martial law are incredibly narrow”, he said. “It would require an active hostility on US territory that prevents civilian legal proceedings from occurring”.

Experts said Trump’s suggestions about using military powers could be one reason for the martial law speculation: In October, Trump&nbsp, said “radical left lunatics” in the US “should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military”.

In June 2020, during nationwide protests following the death of George Floyd, Trump said if governors didn’t deploy the National Guard to sufficiently “dominate the streets”, he would order the US military to “quickly solve the problem for them”.

Then there is his willingness to challenge constitutional precedent.

He is trying to&nbsp, end birthright citizenship&nbsp, by executive order, the move was blocked by multiple federal judges, including one who described the order as “blatantly unconstitutional”.

In mid-March, Trump said the US is being invaded by a Venezuelan gang and invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, an obscure law that was used&nbsp, to detain or deport foreign nationals from enemy nations without due process during wartime. The Supreme Court lifted a lower court’s&nbsp, order that temporarily halted&nbsp, deportations of Venezuelan migrants under the law. It&nbsp, did not rule&nbsp, whether Trump’s use of the law was constitutional.

Edelson mentioned the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol, and the fact that Trump pardoned about 1, 500 people charged with crimes that day.

Social media posts have warned for more than a month that President Donald Trump would declare martial law on April 20, which typically means suspending civil law while the military takes control of civilian functions such as courts.

But many of the posts appeared to conflate martial law with the potential invocation of the Insurrection Act of 1807, which was mentioned in a recent executive order.

“I just learned about this executive order (section 6-b) which says Trump will invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 on April 20th which will (amount) to declaring martial law”, a Reddit user posted on March 19. “That’s the end of the USA”.

The narrative spread beyond Reddit to Facebook posts and videos shared on TikTok, X and Threads.

Trump’s January 20 executive order declared a national emergency at the US southern border and required the defence and homeland security secretaries to submit a report on border conditions within 90 days. The report should include “any recommendations regarding additional actions that may be necessary to obtain complete operational control of the southern border, including whether to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807”, the executive order said.

April 20 is the 90-day deadline.

Invoking the Insurrection Act would allow Trump to direct federal military personnel to enforce federal law at the US southern border. But legal experts told PolitiFact it would not amount to martial law. They said they do not see a clear path for Trump to lawfully implement martial law in the way it’s commonly understood. Trump, on his part, has not publicly discussed martial law.

In a statement to PolitiFact, the Defense Department said the agency is working with the Homeland Security Department to develop the requested report on the southern border conditions.

PolitiFact contacted the Homeland Security Department and the White House and received no response.

What would the Insurrection Act invocation allow?

Invoking the&nbsp, Insurrection Act&nbsp, temporarily suspends&nbsp, another US law&nbsp, that forbids federal troops from conducting civilian law enforcement.

A president can invoke the law after determining that “unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion” against the federal government make it “impracticable to enforce” US law “by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings”. In those cases, the Insurrection Act would allow the president to direct federal troops “as he considers necessary to enforce those laws or to suppress the rebellion”.

The Insurrection Act is broadly written and does not define terms such as “insurrection” or “rebellion”. In 1827, the US Supreme Court ruled that the authority to decide whether a situation represents an acceptable reason to invoke the Insurrection Act “belongs exclusively to the President”.

Chris Edelson, an American University assistant professor of government, said the law provides a “limited authority for the president to use the military to respond to genuine emergencies – a breakdown in regular operational law when things are really falling apart”.

The act was invoked when southern governors&nbsp, refused to integrate schools&nbsp, and&nbsp, during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, after four white police officers were acquitted in the roadside beating of a Black man, Rodney King.

Experts expressed doubt that the situation at the US southern border constitutes a breakdown or obstruction of federal law that would necessitate the use of the Insurrection Act the way the law was intended.

Tung Yin, a Lewis and Clark Law School professor, said it’s hard to see how immigrants coming into the country illegally were obstructing state or federal laws.

Obstruction is “more like an invading army or maybe such severe riots that the government has lost control”, he said.

Martial law, on the other hand, &nbsp, typically refers&nbsp, to imposing military law on civilians.

Edelson said the Insurrection Act “does not allow the president to completely replace regular authorities with military authority”.

Chris Mirasola, University of Houston Law Center assistant professor, said military law is more stringent and has fewer protections for people than civilian law. US constitutional protections would not disappear if the Insurrection Act were invoked, Mirasola said.

Yin said that when a president uses the Insurrection Act to call on the military to enforce civilian law, “that might seem like ‘ martial law ‘ to a layperson. But it’s not a military government, which might be what people generally think of”.

Can Trump impose martial law at the southern border?

In a 1946 ruling, the US Supreme Court wrote that the term martial law “carries no precise meaning” and said it wasn’t defined in the Constitution or an act of Congress.

Edelson said because of this, “At the federal level, it’s not clear that presidents can declare martial law at all”.

Mirasola said some other countries ‘ constitutions include provisions that outline when a president can declare martial law, but the US Constitution lacks such detail.

Still, martial law has been declared before. The US imposed&nbsp, martial law&nbsp, in Hawaii&nbsp, for three years after the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. President Abraham Lincoln also&nbsp, declared martial law in certain parts of the US during the Civil War. President Andrew Johnson&nbsp, restored&nbsp, civilian law.

At that time, the Supreme Court “more or less found that martial law could only be declared in an active war zone”, Mirasola said, citing an 1866 Supreme Court ruling that held that martial law cannot be imposed unless civilian courts aren’t open and functioning.

For that reason, Mirasola said he could see no legal or constitutional basis for Trump to declare martial law to control the southern border, which “is not an area of active hostilities, notwithstanding how the administration continues to talk about the actions of cartels”.

“The circumstances within which presidents have invoked martial law and that the Supreme Court has understood martial law are incredibly narrow”, he said. “It would require an active hostility on US territory that prevents civilian legal proceedings from occurring”.

Experts said Trump’s suggestions about using military powers could be one reason for the martial law speculation: In October, Trump&nbsp, said “radical left lunatics” in the US “should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military”.

In June 2020, during nationwide protests following the death of George Floyd, Trump said if governors didn’t deploy the National Guard to sufficiently “dominate the streets”, he would order the US military to “quickly solve the problem for them”.

Then there is his willingness to challenge constitutional precedent.

He is trying to&nbsp, end birthright citizenship&nbsp, by executive order, the move was blocked by multiple federal judges, including one who described the order as “blatantly unconstitutional”.

In mid-March, Trump said the US is being invaded by a Venezuelan gang and invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, an obscure law that was used&nbsp, to detain or deport foreign nationals from enemy nations without due process during wartime. The Supreme Court lifted a lower court’s&nbsp, order that temporarily halted&nbsp, deportations of Venezuelan migrants under the law. It&nbsp, did not rule&nbsp, whether Trump’s use of the law was constitutional.

Edelson mentioned the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol, and the fact that Trump pardoned about 1, 500 people charged with crimes that day.

When Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) took over most of the country’s capital Khartoum in the early days of the war, the youth-led civil society initiative Hadhreen kept its food kitchens – a vital lifeline for those in need – open.

It was risky. Countless examples of RSF violence against civilians and looting have been recorded since Sudan’s war started in April 2023.

Hadhreen didn’t escape that violence. A spokesperson described to Al Jazeera an episode in August 2024 when the RSF looted supplies from a kitchen and arrested the supervisor.

The supervisor’s fate was unknown until after the RSF was driven out of Khartoum by the Sudanese army on March 27.

“We discovered that the detained supervisor – whose only ‘offence’ was providing meals to helpless citizens through the kitchen – was martyred in the detention centres of the Rapid Support Forces,” Hadhreen told Al Jazeera.

The army’s recapture of Khartoum last month appeared for some to be a turning point in the devastating two-year war that has torn Sudan apart since it erupted on April 15, 2023.

But it is not just the RSF that has attacked civil society activists on the ground.

Earlier this year, a number of workers in Emergency Response Rooms (ERR), grassroots networks that have led the humanitarian response since the war erupted, told Al Jazeera some of their colleagues had been killed by the army or army-aligned groups in Khartoum North.

At the time, Al Jazeera sought comment from army spokesperson Nabil Abdullah but received no response.

So, civil society actors inside and outside Sudan are watching sceptically, unsure of their role in a post-war Sudan, or if they will be sidelined as they have been for two years.

With social and political polarisation making neutrality impossible and conditions on the ground worsening for activists, many of them told Al Jazeera civil society is being strangled in Sudan.

Sudan’s youth activists

The recent history of Sudanese youth-led resistance committees started in 2010 when they actively worked on political awareness, voter registration and nation-building.

They took centre stage during the 2018/2019 revolution that overthrew Omar al-Bashir and truly came to the fore in October 2021 when two generals, the army’s Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the RSF’s Mohamed Hamdan ‘Hemedti’ Dagalo, orchestrated a coup against the civilian transitional government.

The resistance committees organised protests, highlighted abuses by the state security apparatus and coordinated resistance and advocacy efforts with both local governments and international actors.

When war erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and RSF in Khartoum on April 15, 2023, these committees became the ERRs, taking on the core response to civilians’ needs, filling the vacuum left by the state.

It was “a deliberate decision to focus on addressing the basic survival and humanitarian needs of people” that led to forming these ERRs, Nada Wanni, an independent Sudanese researcher and consultant, told Al Jazeera.

As of October 2024, a United Nations Dispatch communication said there were at least 700 ERRs in Sudan, providing food, health services, childcare, or whatever their communities needed.

But while the number of ERRs was rising, “the operational space for civil society has significantly shrunk,” the Hadhreen spokesperson told Al Jazeera, adding that: “The SAF and the RSF have imposed significant obstacles on our operations.”

On the ground, the danger to activists trying to support people is real and immediate.

“These actors and groups are not able to engage in political discourse or political action,” Wanni says.

“Should they do that, they’ll immediately be labelled as affiliated to one side of the war or the other. They’ll be targeted, harassed or arrested and unable to do their humanitarian work.”

Activists have to “negotiate” with one or both sides so they can carry out their humanitarian work – “negotiation” that is usually deemed as collaboration by one side or the other.

The Hadhreen spokesperson says the organisation’s volunteers have been “interrogated, detained, and faced severe threats … kidnappings, looting and killings”.

The impossibility of neutrality

In October 2023, a civilian political bloc came into being – Taqaddum, headed by former Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and comprising political parties and civic society, as well as armed factions.

At first, it was seen as “neutral” and the best alternative to the two warring armies, but that unravelled as Taqaddum found itself accused of being pro-RSF and that the political parties within it were not inclusive of all of civil society.

Then, in February of this year, a political tremor shook Sudan as the RSF said that it was going to form a parallel government, claiming there would be civilian-led governance in areas it controls in Sudan.

It took part of Taqaddum with it, the breakaway group naming itself Taasis (Foundation). Its members having taken positions in the parallel government, which was officially declared on Tuesday.

The rest of Taqaddum has formed Somoud (Resilience), its members rejecting the establishment of a parallel government.

Analysts have told Al Jazeera that this split could work to the benefit of Sumoud since it could distance itself from the RSF and better connect with Sudanese civilians.

As the political class outside Sudan seems to have taken sides, civil society activists on the ground who wish to remain neutral face a heavy personal cost.

While civilian and political activist Mohamed Elhadi believes that a fundamental step towards a better future is a genuine civilian response that rejects both warring factions, he worries that that is not possible in the current atmosphere.

“Both sides have weaponised war rhetoric… The government labelled antiwar voices as [RSF] supporters, while RSF supporters argue that advocating for peace aligns with maintaining Sudan’s inherited colonial-era state and its historical privileges.

“The … polarisation … [has] made it easy to discredit any independent civil efforts advocating for peace, with calls to end the conflict often dismissed as being aligned with foreign interests,” Elhadi adds.

“In Sudan, you cannot say anything, neither about the government nor about the [RSF]; you can never speak your mind,” says 28-year-old Abdurahman, who volunteers to teach English to displaced Sudanese people in Cairo.

“If you talk about what you are seeing over there, you will be arrested, or maybe they kill you and nobody will know about it,” Abdurahman sighs as he remembers neighbours, friends, and even his brother-in-law, taken by the RSF.

This war, says Elhadi, is seen by civil society actors “as a deliberate attempt by anti-civilian forces to obstruct Sudan’s democratic transition”, one that, even as the capital is liberated, looks further and further away.

The future

Despite their vital role in organising on the ground, Sudanese civil society groups have found themselves sidelined in negotiations on Sudan’s future, hemmed into a more “humanitarian” role rather than being at the table when peace and post-war political processes are discussed.

Besides, whenever conversations do take place, logistical hindrances and military restrictions to free movement result in those present predominantly being people who fled the country and who may not be able to accurately communicate the pressing needs of those still in Sudan, which are constantly evolving.

However, analysts argue that any negotiations on Sudan must include civil society because it has the capacity for grassroots organising that a political class, which has been largely outside Sudan for two years, will not have.

But civil society is not a homogeneous entity that can step up to a negotiating table, and as such it too bears some responsibility for making sure it is heard, development and civil society consultant Abdel-Rahman El Mahdi argues.

He believes that civil society lost public trust over the past 20 years as fragmentation and a lack of resources lessened the “potential for civil society to play a meaningful role in … future transitional processes”.

Part of the problem may lie, however, with international actors who have been approaching the Sudan file in search of “quick results” and easy interlocutors, El Mahdi continues.

As such, he argues, “international actors need to shift their focus from short-term interventions to a long-term strategy for supporting civil society in Sudan.”

When Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) took over most of the country’s capital Khartoum in the early days of the war, the youth-led civil society initiative Hadhreen kept its food kitchens – a vital lifeline for those in need – open.

It was risky. Countless examples of RSF violence against civilians and looting have been recorded since Sudan’s war started in April 2023.

Hadhreen didn’t escape that violence. A spokesperson described to Al Jazeera an episode in August 2024 when the RSF looted supplies from a kitchen and arrested the supervisor.

The supervisor’s fate was unknown until after the RSF was driven out of Khartoum by the Sudanese army on March 27.

“We discovered that the detained supervisor – whose only ‘offence’ was providing meals to helpless citizens through the kitchen – was martyred in the detention centres of the Rapid Support Forces,” Hadhreen told Al Jazeera.

The army’s recapture of Khartoum last month appeared for some to be a turning point in the devastating two-year war that has torn Sudan apart since it erupted on April 15, 2023.

But it is not just the RSF that has attacked civil society activists on the ground.

Earlier this year, a number of workers in Emergency Response Rooms (ERR), grassroots networks that have led the humanitarian response since the war erupted, told Al Jazeera some of their colleagues had been killed by the army or army-aligned groups in Khartoum North.

At the time, Al Jazeera sought comment from army spokesperson Nabil Abdullah but received no response.

So, civil society actors inside and outside Sudan are watching sceptically, unsure of their role in a post-war Sudan, or if they will be sidelined as they have been for two years.

With social and political polarisation making neutrality impossible and conditions on the ground worsening for activists, many of them told Al Jazeera civil society is being strangled in Sudan.

Sudan’s youth activists

The recent history of Sudanese youth-led resistance committees started in 2010 when they actively worked on political awareness, voter registration and nation-building.

They took centre stage during the 2018/2019 revolution that overthrew Omar al-Bashir and truly came to the fore in October 2021 when two generals, the army’s Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the RSF’s Mohamed Hamdan ‘Hemedti’ Dagalo, orchestrated a coup against the civilian transitional government.

The resistance committees organised protests, highlighted abuses by the state security apparatus and coordinated resistance and advocacy efforts with both local governments and international actors.

When war erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and RSF in Khartoum on April 15, 2023, these committees became the ERRs, taking on the core response to civilians’ needs, filling the vacuum left by the state.

It was “a deliberate decision to focus on addressing the basic survival and humanitarian needs of people” that led to forming these ERRs, Nada Wanni, an independent Sudanese researcher and consultant, told Al Jazeera.

As of October 2024, a United Nations Dispatch communication said there were at least 700 ERRs in Sudan, providing food, health services, childcare, or whatever their communities needed.

But while the number of ERRs was rising, “the operational space for civil society has significantly shrunk,” the Hadhreen spokesperson told Al Jazeera, adding that: “The SAF and the RSF have imposed significant obstacles on our operations.”

On the ground, the danger to activists trying to support people is real and immediate.

“These actors and groups are not able to engage in political discourse or political action,” Wanni says.

“Should they do that, they’ll immediately be labelled as affiliated to one side of the war or the other. They’ll be targeted, harassed or arrested and unable to do their humanitarian work.”

Activists have to “negotiate” with one or both sides so they can carry out their humanitarian work – “negotiation” that is usually deemed as collaboration by one side or the other.

The Hadhreen spokesperson says the organisation’s volunteers have been “interrogated, detained, and faced severe threats … kidnappings, looting and killings”.

The impossibility of neutrality

In October 2023, a civilian political bloc came into being – Taqaddum, headed by former Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and comprising political parties and civic society, as well as armed factions.

At first, it was seen as “neutral” and the best alternative to the two warring armies, but that unravelled as Taqaddum found itself accused of being pro-RSF and that the political parties within it were not inclusive of all of civil society.

Then, in February of this year, a political tremor shook Sudan as the RSF said that it was going to form a parallel government, claiming there would be civilian-led governance in areas it controls in Sudan.

It took part of Taqaddum with it, the breakaway group naming itself Taasis (Foundation). Its members having taken positions in the parallel government, which was officially declared on Tuesday.

The rest of Taqaddum has formed Somoud (Resilience), its members rejecting the establishment of a parallel government.

Analysts have told Al Jazeera that this split could work to the benefit of Sumoud since it could distance itself from the RSF and better connect with Sudanese civilians.

As the political class outside Sudan seems to have taken sides, civil society activists on the ground who wish to remain neutral face a heavy personal cost.

While civilian and political activist Mohamed Elhadi believes that a fundamental step towards a better future is a genuine civilian response that rejects both warring factions, he worries that that is not possible in the current atmosphere.

“Both sides have weaponised war rhetoric… The government labelled antiwar voices as [RSF] supporters, while RSF supporters argue that advocating for peace aligns with maintaining Sudan’s inherited colonial-era state and its historical privileges.

“The … polarisation … [has] made it easy to discredit any independent civil efforts advocating for peace, with calls to end the conflict often dismissed as being aligned with foreign interests,” Elhadi adds.

“In Sudan, you cannot say anything, neither about the government nor about the [RSF]; you can never speak your mind,” says 28-year-old Abdurahman, who volunteers to teach English to displaced Sudanese people in Cairo.

“If you talk about what you are seeing over there, you will be arrested, or maybe they kill you and nobody will know about it,” Abdurahman sighs as he remembers neighbours, friends, and even his brother-in-law, taken by the RSF.

This war, says Elhadi, is seen by civil society actors “as a deliberate attempt by anti-civilian forces to obstruct Sudan’s democratic transition”, one that, even as the capital is liberated, looks further and further away.

The future

Despite their vital role in organising on the ground, Sudanese civil society groups have found themselves sidelined in negotiations on Sudan’s future, hemmed into a more “humanitarian” role rather than being at the table when peace and post-war political processes are discussed.

Besides, whenever conversations do take place, logistical hindrances and military restrictions to free movement result in those present predominantly being people who fled the country and who may not be able to accurately communicate the pressing needs of those still in Sudan, which are constantly evolving.

However, analysts argue that any negotiations on Sudan must include civil society because it has the capacity for grassroots organising that a political class, which has been largely outside Sudan for two years, will not have.

But civil society is not a homogeneous entity that can step up to a negotiating table, and as such it too bears some responsibility for making sure it is heard, development and civil society consultant Abdel-Rahman El Mahdi argues.

He believes that civil society lost public trust over the past 20 years as fragmentation and a lack of resources lessened the “potential for civil society to play a meaningful role in … future transitional processes”.

Part of the problem may lie, however, with international actors who have been approaching the Sudan file in search of “quick results” and easy interlocutors, El Mahdi continues.

As such, he argues, “international actors need to shift their focus from short-term interventions to a long-term strategy for supporting civil society in Sudan.”