At this stage, one wonders if the Sudanese tragedy is a war or a big international show scripted, budgeted, and stage-managed by the international actors who sell guns in the dark of night and preach peace in the morning,” writes Nuruddin Farah.
“The hypocrisy is revolting: Those who are drafting the cease-fire statements are the same who are working hard to ensure the guns never go silent.”
A news report from the Cable News Network indicates that the civil war in Sudan is one of the deadliest contemporary conflicts, with over 150,000 deaths in just two and a half years.
However, between the chaos brought about by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), there is an underlying dark reality of the involvement of powerful foreign countries that view Sudan as their chess board of interest, with everything taking place silently in the background.
The massacre of some hundreds of civilians in El Fasher, the capital city of the Darfur region, supposed to be perpetrated by rebels of the RSF, is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the geopolitical play unfolding secretly in the background.
The civil conflict is, in essence, much more than just an ethnical feud, since many forces believe the Sudan Republic is the prize to be won.
The terrain of Sudan is just irresistible. It is the bridge between Africa and the Middle East, with almost 500 miles of Red Sea shoreline, massive gold reserves, agricultural land, and the Blue Nile itself.
Those who own Sudan own the gateway to the region, and all the big players in the international world are well aware of this fact.
The RSF, facing increasing pressure from the Darfur massacre, has just accepted the humanitarian truce proposed by the “Quad” countries, the US, UAE, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, among others.
The twist, of course, is that three out of these “Quad” countries are also alleged to be taking part in the civil war itself.
Human rights activists, along with the Western world, have revealed how the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, or Russia supported one or both of the factions with arms, funds, or protection.
The UAE has attracted the toughest attention from the international community.
The UN had traced arms found with the RSF to firms connected with the siblings of the leader of the RSF, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who is commonly known by the name Hemedti.
The U.S. Treasury later sanctioned some of these firms for GOLD & ARMS TRAFFICKING to support the RSF militia group.
Of course, the UAE denies any wrongdoing, claiming support for peace negotiations only.
However, the evidence here leads one to believe that the peace activists are the same ones who are providing the warlords.
Meanwhile, the Egyptian government supports Sudan’s army chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, largely due to paranoia fear of instability on the banks of the Nile, its lifeline, and Sudanese democratization, which could spread dissent inside Egypt itself.
Egyptian forces have held joint military exercises with forces commanded by al-Burhan, who is working to topple Bashir, with the Egyptian military exercising in Sudan for the sake of “regional stability.”
Saudi Arabia, the ever-conservative player, is maintaining its stance on neutrality publicly while knuckling under to Burhan in private.
The Saudi Arabia priority is neither peace nor democratization but the protection of sea lanes from the Red Sea to fulfill its economic plans there.
The widely hailed Saudi attempt to mediate with the US has, so far, delivered only photoshoots and press statements.
Then, of course, there is Russia, with its notorious Wagner Group having previously delivered its missiles to the RSF in exchange for gold concessions.
The Kremlin is still pursuing its plans for securing a naval base in Port Sudan, securing the Red Sea foothold just when the international community is turning its back on the Kremlin due to the Ukraine issue.
In “this bloody geopolitical theater,” according to the article, “there is no foreign player who is impartial.”
Each one seeks its own ends: some possibly seeking benefits of influence, others seeking minerals or better strategic military locations.
“The struggle had originally involved only the players within the home team” but is now “an international tug-of-war over gold, oil, and geography.”
Meanwhile, the self-proclaimed “guardians of peace” in the West go on with their double-standard policies.
“Atrocities” are condemned, but the CIA funds its “anti-government” rebels instead. “Deep concerns” are raised by Europe, while the African gold crucial to the European economy is smuggled the same way the “aid” funds the conflict. Fairy tale diplomacy indeed!
Despite the turmoil, even the self-controlled but crafty China is pouring funds into Sudan’s infrascjostructure with the guarantee of easy passage to its vital oil imports.
“Non-interference” has always served the factional interests of the easily hypocritical great powers, but stability, not peace, is the dream of Sudanese trade.
The U.N.: always late to the party, still churning out stridently worded declarations that melt faster than the ink is dry on the page.
The U.N.’s “peace missions” are the stuff of tedious routine, lavishly budgeted but impotent, Sudan’s woes just another entry on the big ledger of international humanitarian ritual.
What we are witnessing today is merely war, but clothed in the guise of diplomacy, because there is also a business plan involved here. Pain is the commodity that is traded in the markets of international influence. Sudan’s sovereignty has been mortgaged to the highest bidder, with the world behaving as if the catastrophe is homegrown.
However, perhaps the biggest tragedy is the silence of the African continent itself.
The African Union occasionally makes some condemnation, which is quickly rendered useless, with the African states being unable to bring themselves to do anything about it. Many African leaders are just happy to be quiet, fearing to upset their foreign benefactors who are propping up their countries’ economies and their elections.
Meanwhile, the common Sudanese people are the ones who pay the price for all these dynamics.
“Families flee the burning cities, children starve, villages are reduced to smoldering ruins by drone attacks but the warlords sit down with diplomats who are still referring to them as “stakeholders in peace.” The irony is staggering.’’
Talk about an insult, but international governments call Sudan a “failed state.” A failed state is not something that occurs by itself but is instead made, or created, by “decades of foreign meddling, economic sabotage, and proxy manipulation.”
Sudan was clearly pushed, or rather, made profitable, because Sudan was certainly not going to fall apart on its own.
Sudan’s war, in the end, is not about these two generals, but about an order of the world which is addicted to control, which is unable to be compassionate, an order in which the price of blood is less than the price of oil, in which peace is valuable only if it is profitable.
The victims are the Sudanese, who are left voiceless in the game that none of them chose to play. The foreigners dictate the rules of the moves, then act as the referees, in effect, cheating in the process.
“Every time a foreign power promises peace, more people die,” said one Sudanese analyst quoted by CNN.
That, unfortunately, is the only truest statement about this global tragedy.
