From Kabila to Hemedti: From Armed Power to the Struggle for the State Part 2 — When the Gun Beco

04:50 AM October, 20 2026

Sudanese Online
Dr.El-Tahir El-Faki-UK
My Library
Short URL



From Kabila to Hemedti: From Armed Power to the Struggle for the State

Part 2 — When the Gun Becomes a Political Project

Dr. El-Tahir El-Faki

The most difficult moment for an armed movement is not winning territory. It is deciding what to do with that territory once it has been captured.

This is where the comparison between Laurent-Désiré Kabila and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, becomes particularly relevant. Their historical circumstances are very different, and neither should be reduced to a simple replica of the other. Yet both illustrate a recurring African political dilemma: an armed leader who begins by challenging the existing state eventually faces the much harder task of replacing, restructuring or controlling that state.

Kabila reached Kinshasa in 1997 at the head of the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (AFDL), overthrowing Mobutu Sese Seko after decades of authoritarian rule. His military victory created an enormous political expectation. The rebellion had to become a government. The commander had to become a president. The coalition of armed groups and foreign supporters that had made victory possible now had to be transformed into a national political order.

That transformation proved difficult.

Kabila quickly discovered that controlling the capital was not the same as controlling the Congo. The country was vast, institutions were weak, the army was fragmented, and his former allies had their own interests. His relationship with Rwanda and Uganda deteriorated rapidly, contributing to the Second Congo War in 1998. Kabila’s struggle therefore changed character: he was no longer simply a rebel leader fighting the old regime. He had become the head of a state fighting to preserve its sovereignty.

This distinction is crucial when looking at Hemedti.

Hemedti has travelled a different road. He did not overthrow an established president by marching on Khartoum. Rather, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) evolved from a state-sponsored paramilitary force into one of Sudan’s most powerful military and economic actors. By the end of the Bashir era, Hemedti had accumulated military strength, wealth and political influence. After Bashir’s fall in 2019, he became deputy chairman of the Sovereignty Council alongside General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. The rivalry between the SAF and RSF eventually escalated into full-scale war in April 2023.

The central question then changed.

Hemedti was no longer simply seeking influence inside the Sudanese state. He and the RSF were fighting over the nature and ownership of the state itself.

This is where the Kabila experience offers an important warning.

An armed movement can establish authority over territory, but territorial control does not automatically produce legitimacy. It must provide security, administration, justice, economic management and political representation. Above all, it must convince populations beyond its original constituency that it represents a national project rather than an armed faction.

The RSF’s creation of a parallel political structure demonstrates how far the conflict has moved in this direction. In 2025, the RSF and its allies announced an alternative government, with Hemedti appointed chairman of its presidential council. By 2026, the parallel structure had gone further, including plans for a new army whose proposed core would include the RSF, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North and allied armed movements.

This represents a major political transformation.

The issue is no longer simply whether Hemedti can defeat the SAF militarily. It is whether an armed coalition can turn territorial and military power into a credible national state.

That is precisely where the Kabila comparison becomes instructive.

Kabila eventually understood that the survival of his political project depended upon becoming more than the leader of an alliance of armed factions. He needed a national army, a central administration and international recognition. Yet the Congo’s experience also demonstrated the dangers of relying heavily on military power, regional alliances and personalised authority. The distinction between the state and the ruler remained fragile.

Sudan faces a comparable structural problem.

The RSF has demonstrated considerable military resilience and has established substantial territorial control in Darfur and parts of Kordofan. At the same time, the SAF-backed government has re-established itself in Khartoum and controls much of eastern and northern Sudan. The country has consequently moved toward a dangerous reality of competing centres of authority rather than a straightforward military contest with a clear winner.

This creates Hemedti’s central dilemma.

Can an armed movement that grew outside the traditional institutions of the Sudanese state become the foundation of a new Sudanese state without permanently fragmenting the country؟

There are two possible trajectories.

The first is the Kabila trajectory: military victory is followed by an attempt to reconstruct a central state. Former allies become political competitors; military structures are gradually incorporated into national institutions; and the leader attempts to transform revolutionary legitimacy into state legitimacy.

The second is much more dangerous: the armed movement becomes a state within the state, develops its own administration, financial system, military institutions and external relationships, and eventually treats the territory it controls as a permanent political domain.

Sudan’s present trajectory contains elements of the second possibility. The formation of parallel institutions and the discussion of a separate national army indicate that the RSF conflict has moved beyond a conventional struggle between two military commanders.

But history also imposes a limitation.

No armed movement can indefinitely substitute military power for political legitimacy. Guns can conquer a capital; they cannot by themselves build a nation. They can impose taxation; they cannot create economic confidence. They can control territory; they cannot automatically create national identity.

This was one of the fundamental challenges confronting Kabila after Mobutu. And it is potentially the defining challenge facing Hemedti.

The comparison therefore should not be understood as saying that Hemedti is another Kabila. The two men emerged from different historical circumstances, commanded different types of movements and confronted different states. Kabila’s rebellion ultimately captured the national capital and became the recognised government of the Congo. Hemedti, at present, leads a powerful armed movement controlling substantial parts of Sudan while a rival government remains in control of Khartoum and much of the east.

The comparison is instead a warning about what comes after armed power.

Kabila demonstrated that overthrowing a regime can be easier than constructing a state. Hemedti now faces an even more complicated question: whether the military and territorial power accumulated by the RSF can be converted into a national political project—or whether it will deepen Sudan’s fragmentation.

The future of Sudan may therefore depend less on who wins the next battlefield than on whether either side can answer the question that has defeated so many armed movements before them:

How does a rebel army or a paramilitary’s force become a state without destroying the state it claims to be؟

Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone

Arabic Forum