In most Hollywood films that use civil wars in Africa as a plot device, the commanders of armed groups are usually portrayed as erratic tyrants with little understanding of the wider world. Such assumptions even permeate news coverage of subnational militias, tribal forces and armed political factions, contrasting their supposedly primitive structures with those of state militaries. Senior commanders that dominate these armed groups—such as the RSF’s Mohamad Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, in Sudan and the Deby family in Chad—are quite effective managers of large organizations controlling far-flung business empires and patronage networks. The extent to which such institutionally complex forms of “warlord-ism” have expanded in power and regional scope was already visible in the civil wars that tore Chad apart in the 1970s and 1980s. Over time, the effectiveness of these irregular militias in Chad enabled commanders such as Hissein Habre and Idriss Deby to seize presidential power and legitimize their positions as internationally recognized heads of state.

Source: The North Africa Journal May 10, 2023 14:08 UTC