The Rapid Support Forces, the paramilitary group fighting Sudan’s military in the country’s calamitous civil war, signed a political charter with its allies late Saturday that aimed to establish a parallel Sudanese government in areas under their control.
The paramilitaries said the agreement, which was signed in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, would pave the way for peace after nearly two years of a war that has killed thousands of people and set off a devastating famine. Critics called it an audacious gambit by a group that the United States has accused of genocide, and warned that the charter could further splinter Sudan.
The charter’s signatories included the deputy leader of the S.P.L.M.-N., a secular-minded rebel group that stayed out of the war until last week. Now it is firmly aligned with the Rapid Support Forces, more often referred to as the R.S.F.
The most immediate effect, though, was diplomatic. Triumphant appearances by R.S.F. leaders — many of them accused of war crimes and under American sanctions — in Kenya’s capital this past week set off a bitter public row between the two countries. Sudan’s military-led government accused Kenya of “disgraceful” behavior that it said was “tantamount to an act of hostility” and withdrew its ambassador from Nairobi in protest.
Kenya’s Foreign Ministry said it sought only to provide “a platform for key stakeholders” from Sudan, and to halt “the tragic slide of Sudan into anarchy.” Still, many in Kenya condemned the talks as a political blunder by President William Ruto, and called on him to reverse course.
The Kenyan chapter of the International Commission of Jurists said Mr. Ruto was “complicit in mass atrocities against the Sudanese people.” One Kenyan newspaper denounced the R.S.F.’s leader, Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, as “The Butcher” on its front page.
After holding a lavish political event in Kenya’s main convention center on Tuesday, the signing ceremony on Saturday occurred behind closed doors. A video supplied by an R.S.F. official showed the group’s deputy leader, Abdul Rahim Dagalo, holding aloft a copy of the charter in a hall filled with mostly turbaned delegates, some of whom pumped their fists in the air.
An Arabic-language version of the charter, a 16-page document, seen by The New York Times, called for a “secular, democratic and decentralized state” in Sudan that would respect the religious and ethnic identity of all citizens.
But many Sudanese question the R.S.F.’s ability, or even desire, to govern in such a manner. R.S.F. fighters have a reputation for brutality and abuses, rather than sound administration, in areas they control. The group has not announced a timeline for the formation of its breakaway government.
Sudan’s de facto leader, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has also promised to form a new and more inclusive administration based in the wartime capital, Port Sudan.
Some critics accused Mr. Ruto of bowing to pressure from the United Arab Emirates, the R.S.F.’s main foreign backer and an increasingly influential force across Africa. In Kenya, Mr. Ruto has assiduously courted the Emirates as funding from China and Western investors has dried up.
A $1.5 billion loan from the Emirates, which Kenya hopes will alleviate its crushing debt, has been under negotiation for over four months. The loan is expected to be finalized later this week, Bloomberg reported on Friday.
The Trump administration has not yet commented on the R.S.F.-led political initiative in Kenya. The State Department did not mention Sudan in a statement that followed a call between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Mr. Ruto on Friday.
Mr. Rubio, though, criticized Emirati support for what he termed the R.S.F. “genocide” during his confirmation hearing in January. In recent days, senior Republicans expressed disquiet at the sight of accused war criminals parading through the capital of a major American ally.
Kenya “is helping the RSF legitimize their genocidal rule in #Sudan under the guise of peacemaking,” Senator Jim Risch, Republican of Idaho and the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote on social media.
The triumphant scene in the R.S.F. video contrasted with the group’s fortunes on the battlefield, where it has suffered a series of recent defeats. The military has recaptured swaths of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, in recent months, and pushed the paramilitaries out of a key breadbasket region in central Sudan.
Still, the R.S.F. retains control over a significant portion Sudan, Africa’s third largest country. Its troops are pressing in hard on the besieged, famine-stricken city of El Fasher, an urban area in the western region Darfur.
The undiminished support of the United Arab Emirates remains a potent source of military strength for the paramilitaries, American officials say. They also appear to have at least tacit support from several of Sudan’s neighbors including Chad, South Sudan, Ethiopia — and now, perhaps, Kenya.
