On Thursday, Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan was sworn in as head of a new transitional council he appointed to lead the country following the military takeover late last month, shrugging off domestic and international pressure to reverse the coup. The new 14-member Sovereign Council, for which one member is yet to be confirmed, includes civilians representing Sudan’s regions but none from the Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC) political coalition that had sharing power with the military in a democratic transition since 2019.
Burhan’s deputy will remain Mohamed Hamdan Dagato, commander of the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), with both men keeping roles they held before the coup. The move is likely to harden opposition among civilian groups who have pledged to resist the takeover through a campaign of civil disobedience, strikes and mass rallies, the next of which is planned for Saturday.
As significant, however, may be what Burhan’s actions mean for U.S. diplomacy in the region. In contrast to his predecessor, President Joe Biden has made the Horn of Africa a priority, appointing a special envoy, Jeffrey Feltman, to develop and implement a strategy to bring peace to the troubled region. The United States had also supported Sudan’s nascent democracy with financial aid, loan guarantees, and assistance to institution building and security-sector reform. Yet the coup caught Washington seemingly by surprise, occurring just hours after Feltman met with Burhan in Khartoum and stressed Washington’s strong commitment to the existing agreements between the civilian and military leaderships.
