| Country: | Sudan |
| Details of Formation: | The origins of the PDF trace back to the armament of tribal militias in the 1980s (which later provided the bulk of PDF recruits) and the party militants and youth movements of the National Islamic Front (NIF), which constituted the ideological core and political use. The Popular Defence policy began with the armament of pro-government tribes to form militias in the mid-1980s. On February 20, 1989 the army’s commander-in-chief General Fathi Ahmed issued an ultimatum calling on the government to give greater support to the army, implying an end to support for the tribal militias. In response, Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi created a committee charged with establishing the legal foundations for existing units and the creation of a national paramilitary force. This led to the so-called Popular Defence Forces bill, which was proposed to the Constituent Assembly but rejected. Soon afterwards, in June 1989, the government was toppled in a coup by little-known, middle-ranking military officers affiliated to the NIF. In November, the National Salvation Regime revisited the previous government’s draft bill and passed the 1989 Popular Defence Forces Act. This formally created the PDF as an institution of the state. (Salmon 2007), which incorporated at least formally Murahaleen. |
| Details of Termination: | In 1991 the commander of the PDF in Bahr al-Ghazal joined the SPLA with their PDF forces, but other PDF sections remained pro-government. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005 stipulated that the PDF should be disbanded. However, the PDF continued to exist and was not disarmed (Salmon 2007). News sources continue to refer to the PDF as an active pro-government militia in 2014. |
| Purpose: | According to Article 5 of the 1989 Popular Defence Forces Act, the official purpose of the PDF is ‘to train citizens on military and civil capabilities, to raise security awareness and military discipline among them, in order to act as a support force to the other regular ones on request’. It has been suggested, including by news sources, that the real purpose of the PDF, at least in the 1990s, was to be an instrument of Islamic political and popular mobilization. While the rural PDF was mainly sent to fight against SPLM/A advances, the Urban PDF’s main task was to protect the regime from uprisings. The regime used the PDF as a tool to militarize local grievances through supporting local militias, which served the government’s policy of divide and rule. Moreover, the PDF was used as a praetorian guard to protect the regime from the coup-prone military. The regime also justified the use of the PDF by referring to its limited military capabilities and thereby relegated responsibility to local areas. In 1990s, the government praised the PDF for being effective in their fight against the SPLA (Salmon 2007). News sources also suggest that the government used PDF members as civilian shields to protect soldiers against the SPLA. |
| Organisation: | Upon foundation, the PDF’s government-relation was codified in the Popular Defence Forces Act of 1989 (Human Rights Watch 2007). Back then, the PDF was closely linked to the National Islamic Front (NIF); however, this party link diminished over time. The protocol of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement formally affiliated the PDF with the Soudanese Armed Forces, but the PDF remained an independent institution directly under the authority of the president. The PDF exhibits a large complexity and informality that makes it difficult to identify clear command and control structures. In general, the PDF is structured around joint civil and military coordinating committees. While the civilian coordinators are responsible for mobilization and selection of volunteers, once mobilized, the military command falls under the authority of the local military commanding officer. The PDF is operationally accountable to an army brigadier (originally this was Brigadier Babiker Abd el-Mahmoud Hassan) and answerable directly to President Bashir. The division between civilian and military coordinator is in practice rather opaque, and tribal PDFs often act autonomously from army command. Tribal leaders are often recognized as PDF coordinators in a parallel hierarchy to the military and tribal PDFs are granted equal treatment and benefits as regular soldiers. In 1997, Ali Karti, the minister for justice, became national PDF coordinator. That same year, President Bashir established a higher authority for mobilization, led by Maj. Gen. Zubayr Muhammad Saleh, who reported directly to Bashir. The PDF are financed through companies which are connected to National Congress Party (NCP) officials, companies run by the National Security agency (al-Sharikat al-Amniya), through charities controlled by the NCP or by private donations from devout individuals (Salmon 2007). News sources from the 1990s report that the PDF received money from Islamic banks in Sudan and abroad and that the PDF was loyal to Sheikh Hassan al-Turabi. Al-Turabi made peace with the SPLM/A in the early 2000s, leading to a split between al-Turabi and the presidency. The PDF remained pro-government and subsequently became more reliant on NCP-channeled funds, including from ministries (Salmon 2007). |
| Weapons and Training: | The PDF received arms from the government. In the first year of its operations, it was supplied directly by the regular army. As the PDF grew, it established an independent purchasing and supplies department, which was allocated with an autonomous budget controlled by the commander general. Their access to arms was controlled by an executive independent from the regular military (Salmon 2007). In 2012, it is mentioned that the PDF received their weapons from the Sudanese military (Amnesty International 2012). The PDF also issued weapons to tribal militias (Human Rights Watch 2007). Weapons include tanks and artillery (Salmon 2007), Ak-47s (Human Rights Watch 2012) and Chinese-manufactured small arms ammunition (Amnesty International 2012). Many PDF recruits received training. Training camps were supervised by pro-NIF military officers. Training differed by recruit type: The elite PDF section received tanks and artillery training; the students and civilians were taught the use and maintenance of small arms, as well as basic military tactics and ideological training; military officers and civil servants received re-education and indoctrination classes at the training camps. A training course typically lasted 45-60 days (Salmon 2007). According to news sources, the PDF received training from Iranian officers in 1992. |
| Size: | It is difficult to obtain reliable numbers for the group’s size. Many recruits served in the PDF only for a short-term, typically three months. Some local recruits did not receive centralized training and are therefore not included in training estimates. Training was sometimes held at military bases, making it hard to distinguish the PDF from regular military. In rural areas there is only a blurred distinction between the PDF and other paramilitaries, especially because many recruits left the PDF without returning their weapons. Even government officials are reported to be unaware of PDF numbers. In theory, every Sudanese man above 16 years of age had to participate in PDF training in the 1990s; however, evidence suggests massive evasion of such training: in 1998, only 4,000 out of 70,000 legally obliged school leavers actually joined the PDF. In 1989, the first PDF coordinator announced that the PDF would enlist 100,000 fighters. In June 1993, the PDF numbers roughly matched the numbers of the Sudanese army forces in Southern Sudan. Estimates by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London suggest that the numbers of active fighters increased from 15,000 in 1992-93 to 40,000 in 1993-94. The number of active fighters then fell to 10,000 in 1995-1996 and remained constantly between 10,000 and 20,000 ever after (estimates are calculated until 2006). The decline of active fighters in the 1990s resulted from a high number of casualties combined with low recruitment rates. Reserve forces are estimated to number 60,000 until 1996-97, and then rose to a constant level 85,000 reserve recruits (Salmon 2007). |
| Reason for Membership: | Until 1997, all male Sudanese citizens over the age of 16 were required to attend PDF training. A certificate of training was the prerequisite for graduating from university, being employed in government institutions or large companies, or to travel abroad. Although actual combat was officially voluntary, some recruits were taken directly from training camps to the frontline against their will. This practice diminished since the mid-1990s. PDF mass recruitment strategies diminished in the late 1990s after an outcry in society after government security forces killed secondary school PDF conscripts who had broken out of the Eilafoun training camp to spend the Islamic holiday Eid al Adha with their families in 1998. There is evidence of massive evasion of forced conscription. Tribal PDF members were primarily interested in looting, but not willing to enter serious combat. When the PDF experienced immense casualties in the 1992-93 and the 1995 campaign against the SPLA, recruitment fell sharply. Frontline combat was promoted in mosques, the education system and the media. In 1992, the government declared the war a jihad. In the 2000s, the legitimacy of fighting for the PDF decreased after al-Turabi, the sole recognized Islamist intellectual in the regime made peace with the SPLA, which made it impossible for PDF casualties to be considered martyrs anymore. Tribal leaders began discouraging their youth from joining the PDF (Salmon 2007). News sources report that 10 and 11 year old boys were forcibly recruited and sent to combat. One news source from 2005 mentions that PDF members received salaries from the government. |
| Treatment of Civilians: | The PDF regularly attacked villages, which they burnt and looted. During these attacks, they arbitrarily detained people, raped women, killed civilians or beat them (Human Rights Watch 2012, 2007). News sources mention that the PDF abducted southern children in Khartoum and forced them to be child soldiers. The PDF enslaved civilians, including women and children. Many village attacks were directed against the Dinka community. The actions of the PDF led to massive displacements of civilians (Salmon 2007). There is evidence for coordinated attacks with other government security forces. In 2011, the PDF, together with the government’s Central Reserve Police, shelled and bombed residential neighborhoods in Kadughi, where they killed civilians. This action amounted to crimes against humanity according to the UN’s Officer of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. In November 2011, PDF soldiers raped two underage girls (Human Rights Watch 2012). The government is considered to be unwilling to protect civilians and to prevent the PDF from attacking them. With the formation of the PDF, overall levels of violence increased (Human Rights Watch 2007). The PDF actions were ordered by their commanders. The ICC seeks to indict the PDF coordinator Ali Kushayb of war crimes (Salmon 2007); Ahmed Harun, the governor of South Kurdufan, used the PDF to attack the village of his political rival; and Captain Ginat, commander of the PDF and a member of the Sudanese government council in Wao, ordered attacks against Dinka villages in 1993. |
| Other Information: | The relationship and cooperation between the PDF and the regular army is very tight, and observer find it sometimes hard to distinguish between the PDF, the Janjaweed and the regular army (UCDP). News sources report that the PDF had been designed to eventually replace the regular army as Sudan’s primary defense organization. PDF members are drawn from Fellata and other nomadic ethnic groups (Human Rights Watch 2012). The PDF is an umbrella group encompassing other PGMs, including the Murahilin, the Janjaweed, Arab Baggara militias in general (Rizaygat, Missiriya, etc) and the Fertit Militiamen. As a consequence, the PDF is a very heterogenous group, which can be divided into five levels: an elite section similar to the Iranian Revolutionary Gurads, students and other civilians forced into the training camps, military officers and government officials forced to undergo PDF training for re-education, localized militias which are part of the PDF umbrella organization, and a network of informers. Despite the official minimum age for recruitment being 16 years, this minimum threshold was not seriously enforced, resulting in several cases of child soldiers. The PDF was most active during the 1990s, when it functioned as a pretorian force for the National Congress Party (NCP); in the 2000s, PDF activity decreased. It remained operational in areas of active conflict, such as Darfur, and became inactive reserve forces in other areas (Salmon 2007). |
| References: |
Amnesty International. 2012. “Darfur: New weapons from China and Russia fuelling conflict.” February 8. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2012/02/darfur-new-weapons-china-and-russia-fuelling-conflict/ Human Rights Watch. 2007. “Darfur 2007: Chaos by Design. Peacekeeping Challenges for AMIS and UNAMID.” September. https://www.hrw.org/reports/2007/sudan0907/sudan0907webwcover.pdf Human Rights Watch. 2012. “Under Siege. Indiscriminate Bombing and Abuses in Sudan’s Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile States.” December. ISBN: 1-56432-970-4 Salmon, Jago. 2007. “A Paramilitary Revolution: The Popular Defence Forces.” Small Arms Survey. HSBA Working Paper 10. ISBN 2-8288-0088-1 Uppsala Conflict Data Program. 2019. “PDF”. https://www.ucdp.uu.se/actor/667 Information was taken from news sources listed in the PGMD |