Sudan: Are We Creating a False Equivalence?

General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan is in New York this week to address the United Nations General Assembly.

That matters.

Not because appearing at the UN automatically confers legitimacy. The United Nations does not itself recognise governments. But because of the way the international system continues to engage with Sudan.

The UN has repeatedly met Burhan in his capacity as President of Sudan’s Transitional Sovereignty Council. Its Secretary-General has described him in those terms and engaged directly with the Sudanese authorities through him.

Reuters is now describing him as Sudan’s head of state and head of the Sudanese Armed Forces.

So perhaps we need to ask a more fundamental question:

If the international community recognises the Sudanese state and engages with its established state authorities, why does so much international language continue to place the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces on the same institutional footing?

The distinction matters.

The Sudanese Armed Forces are Sudan’s national armed forces.

The Rapid Support Forces are a paramilitary organisation.

That does not mean that every action of the SAF is legitimate or beyond scrutiny. It is not.

Allegations of violations by the SAF must be investigated, and where responsibility is established, accountability should follow.

But accountability for conduct is not the same thing as institutional status.

Nor should condemning violations by one side require us to erase the distinction between a state’s national armed forces and a paramilitary force fighting against the state.

This distinction becomes particularly important when international policy is being designed.

If both are simply described as “the warring parties”, it becomes easier to construct policies that treat them as interchangeable.

But they are not interchangeable.

Their origins are different.

Their institutional status is different.

Their relationship with the Sudanese state is different.

And the implications for international policy are different.

This is not an argument for giving the SAF a free pass.

It is an argument for precision.

The international community should be capable of holding the SAF accountable for violations while simultaneously recognising the distinction between Sudan’s national armed forces and the RSF.

It should be capable of demanding humanitarian access from both sides without pretending that both organisations occupy the same constitutional or institutional position.

And it should be capable of imposing targeted consequences on those responsible for atrocities without adopting measures that inadvertently weaken the institutions of the Sudanese state as though they were simply another armed faction.

The distinction also matters beyond the battlefield.

Sudan will eventually have to rebuild a functioning state.

That requires institutions.

It requires an army.

It requires civilian government.

It requires accountable security structures.

And it requires a political settlement that Sudanese people themselves can shape.

If international policy continually treats the state and a paramilitary organisation as equivalent, we risk losing sight of what we are ultimately trying to preserve and rebuild.

A state is not the same thing as an armed group.

And accountability should never require us to pretend that it is.

Burhan’s presence at the United Nations provides an opportunity to ask a wider question.

If the international community continues to engage the Sudanese state through its recognised authorities, shouldn’t its policies and language reflect that distinction more clearly?

Sudan needs accountability.

It needs pressure on those sustaining the war.

It needs protection for its people.

But it also needs a functioning state capable of surviving the war and rebuilding after it.

Those objectives are not contradictory.

They should be part of the same strategy.