When a landslide last month struck a mountainous region in western Sudan, it leveled a village and left as many as 1,000 people dead. In the race to help survivors, though, international aid agencies had to navigate administrative red tape that officials say has routinely been put in place by the Sudanese Armed Forces, the military group seen by some as Sudan’s de facto government after two years of devastating civil war. The group and its rivals have been accused of restricting aid flows into territories they do not control — the stricken region is in a rebel stronghold — and although some aid did eventually reach the area, the bureaucratic obstacles cost valuable time in the effort to save lives.

The delay is a stark example of how granting legitimacy to one side in a civil war has become a matter of life or death for Sudanese.

Now, the international community may be poised to entrench the Sudanese Armed Forces’ rule. After months of negotiations, the United States, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have proposed a road map for peace in Sudan. With further discussions expected to take place on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly this week, who gets a seat at that negotiating table could either pave the way for democratic rule or solidify the grip of the very military leaders who derailed Sudan’s democratic transition.

After the country rose up in 2018 and 2019 against 30 years of dictatorship, a transitional government was appointed to steer the country toward democracy. In October 2021, the Sudanese Armed Forces, the country’s army, and the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group that emerged from a militia notorious for slaughtering people in Darfur, teamed up to topple the civilian government led by Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok. But by April 2023, the two had turned on each other in a battle for dominance.

Now, the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces are locked in a stalemate that has triggered what experts consider one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, displacing some 14 million people and pushing hundreds of thousands to the brink of starvation. Unlike in other civil wars, these two forces are primarily fighting to entrench their own financial and political interests, not those of any civilian bloc.

Each side has created a puppet government to push its agenda on the global stage: The Sudanese Armed Forces are propping up the so-called “Government of Hope,” whereas the Rapid Support Forces have created the “Government of Peace and Unity.” Neither of these administrations represents the Sudanese people, nor do they embody hope or peace. The belligerents behind these supposedly civilian governments are responsible for sabotaging the country’s democratic transition, stand accused of war crimes and continue to funnel the nation’s resources into private coffers.

Broad swaths of civil society continue to support the country’s pro-democracy coalitions, one of the most prominent of which, Somoud, is headed by the ousted Mr. Hamdok. Although Somoud operates mainly from abroad, many of its constituent groups — political organizations, youth and women’s groups and trade unions — remain active inside the country, providing vital humanitarian aid and coordinating community efforts for peace.

Despite Somoud’s civilian backing, the Government of Hope has come to be seen by the international community as Sudan’s de facto government, given its backing by the armed forces and control of the organs of the state. In the past, the leader of the Sudanese Armed Forces, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has represented Sudan at the U.N. General Assembly. Because the United States imposed sanctions on General Burhan in January, this year, the Government of Hope’s civilian prime minister is likely to attend in his place. The Rapid Support Forces lacks widespread international credibility because of its conduct during the war: even though both parties stand accused of serious human rights violations, the Rapid Support Forces’ widespread and systematic attacks against civilians, often based on their ethnicity, have led to the United States designating it as a genocidal force.

Now, with a potential peace process on the horizon, the international community risks repeating a grave mistake. Should peace talks proceed under the status quo, the Sudanese Armed Forces would effectively be seated at the bargaining table, acting as a legitimate government quelling an insurrection. This ignores the fact that both the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces are equally responsible for usurping civilian democratic rule. If the United States and others are serious about achieving lasting peace in Sudan, they must empower the country’s civilian representatives, not its warlords.

The dilemma of deciding who should represent Sudan isn’t new; it highlights a core tension in international affairs. The world recognizes states — the unchanging, legal entity of a country. But it must deal with governments — the temporary political leaders who hold power. This becomes a crisis when a country has rival groups that each claim to be the legitimate government, especially when each controls swaths of territory.

In the past, the international community has often defaulted to a blunt principle: recognize whoever is in charge. This unwritten rule, known as the doctrine of effective control, means that legitimacy is granted to anyone who successfully controls a country’s land and population, no matter how they got there. In cases such as Libya, where territorial control is split, rule over the capital city is often important both symbolically and practically. Those who control the capital are often recognized as the government of the day. This approach might be borne out of expediency, but it has also put dictators and unelected rulers on the same footing as leaders chosen by their own citizens.

It has also created perverse incentives across Africa’s dictatorial states. Rebels and would-be leaders see a shortcut to power if they can overtake the capital by force, leading to cycles of unconstitutional coups and destructive civil wars, as occurred in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast. Sudan has been sucked into a similar cycle.

The world doesn’t have to condone entrenched military rule in Sudan. The African Union, for instance, freezes a state’s membership in the event of a successful coup or military takeover. Sudan’s membership has been suspended since the 2021 coup. The United Nations and other international bodies could do the same.

And when the next wave of negotiations does come, international actors must demand that Somoud and other pro-democracy forces be at the forefront of these talks. Sudan’s civilian leadership may not have guns or hold territory, but they have something much more powerful: the support of the Sudanese people.

Suliman Baldo is the executive director of the Sudan Transparency and Policy Tracker. He was previously director of the Africa Program at the International Center for Transitional Justice and Africa director at International Crisis Group. Mai Hassan is an associate professor of political science at M.I.T. and faculty director of M.I.T.-Africa.

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