Hello everyone! I have decided to start a new weekly series called Elsewhere in Focus. It will cover some of the stories and regions that do not usually feature in Daily Kos. I will post it every Wednesday at 4:00 PM Indian Standard Time, which would be 6:30 am EST.
Why?
Because I think it is important that we keep an eye on the people around the globe that are suffering or triumphing and build bridges with them. However, more importantly, I also think it is especially important for us to know when our own countries may be contributing to that oppression; or could do better with respect to policies be they that of immigration, trade, technology transfer, or regulation. Especially those of us who have disproportionate power in the world system.
Which Stories Will I Cover?
It’d be hubris to think that I can cover all the regions that are not covered in Daily Kos since Daily Kos, apart from Caribbean Matters and Black Kos, just covers Ukraine and US with an occasional foray into Canada or Europe when you have some disagreement. So, I don’t aim for that. I do plan to cover stories that have caught my attention and once caught, have stayed with me. I’d limit my focus to Africa and Asia.
I plan to start with Sudan, and then move onto Tigray, Syria, and Congo for now. Occasionally, if something from other areas caught my attention, I will add them too. I already cover South Asia on Friday, so this series will not include stories from South Asia.
What Structure Will I Follow?
I plan to include a standard intro text, and then, if it is a new topic, introduction to the subject that I am covering, followed by updates. I will end each post with latest tweet updates (one or two/country or region) on Sudan, Tigray, Syria so that you don’t have to wait weeks for the latest stories. Or perhaps, I will just post them in the comments. I have not decided yet.
All right then, let us go.
The first post will be on Sudan.
Sudan
What Is Going on in Sudan?
Sudan is in the midst of what is ostentatiously called a civil war though multiple regional and at least one global power are involved on different sides, using the warring factions as proxy. That makes it almost a regional war with global importance (as is any war where millions are affected, may I suggest?).
The latest iteration of the story starts in 2019 when the dictator of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir was overthrown by civilian protests. No doubt, the threads go back decades or a century by some measures. The war itself started mid April last year.
At its simplest, the war is between two generals: Abdel Fattah al-Burhan who leads Sudan’s army (Sudanese Armed Forces aka SAF) and Mohamed Hamdan Degalo (Hemedti or Hemeti) who leads the paramilitary forces called Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
As Sumeda explains for the Hindu (23 April 2023):
At the centre of Sudan’s crisis are two powerful generals — Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), who heads the ruling council, and Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo of the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group (RSF). Dagalo, commonly known as Hemeti, is the council’s deputy head.
The two Generals jointly led a military coup in October 2021, halting a plan to transition to elections which were part of an agreement after autocrat Omar al-Bashir was ousted by a popular uprising in 2019. The coup worsened the economic crisis and triggered mass demonstrations against the military. The two main demands of protesters were bringing the military under civilian government and integrating the RSF with the army.
The military finalised a preliminary deal with pro-democracy groups in December last year to relaunch the political transition. As per the agreed framework, the military, in charge since the coup, agreed to step back from politics. The pact, however, failed to address critical issues like security sector reform (SSR) and internal conflict in Darfur and other regions. The deal also provided no guarantee that military leaders would cede real power, analysts said.
Negotiations hit a roadblock before the final agreement could be inked.
Disagreements emerged over security reform, which proposed to bring the 1,00,000-strong paramilitary force under the control of the army. While the army preferred a two-year timetable for integration, the RSF proposed a slower transition of 10 years. The paramilitary also called for reforms within the army.
This piece from journalist Mat Nashed for New Lines Magazine will give you more context (17 April 2023, no paywall).
The most contested issue between the two forces was the RSF’s integration into the army. Hemedti called for his forces to integrate in 10 years, yet Burhan wanted the RSF to integrate in two.
The dispute distracted attention from equally important issues such as when and how the security forces would be subjected to civilian command and whether security sector reform would be a civilian or military-led process. FFC-CC officials, for their part, appeared to exacerbate divisions by siding with the RSF in hopes that the group could thwart the revival of NCP loyalists in the army.
Despite the sensitivity of the matter, the FFC-CC and the global community announced in March that a new political agreement would be signed on April 1 and a new government would be formed shortly after.
The timelines were pushed back a few days after the army walked out of the first workshop on security sector reform on March 29. Tensions mounted in the days that followed, with the RSF relocating hundreds of fighters to the capital. Arab activists in Darfur also reported that the army was recruiting a new force from their tribes to undercut Hemedti’s support base.
A number of Western diplomats believed that a new political deal would stabilize the situation rather than accelerate an armed confrontation between the RSF and the military, according to one Western diplomat who was not authorized to speak on the record.
“This [current] crisis is the making of the international community with all their stupid [calls] that a ‘swift deal is needed,’” the diplomat said.
High-level Western diplomats didn’t see the war coming since several were on vacation for Easter. Curiously, few, if any, rushed back to Sudan after the RSF deployed near an airport that houses Sudanese and Egyptian fighter planes. The military viewed the move as a preemptive attack to neutralize its aerial advantage and warned that all security could collapse unless the RSF withdrew. War erupted two days later.
Now, fighting could turn into a protracted conflict, with many fearing that the war could drag in regional patrons and neighbors such as Chad, Egypt, Eritrea and Ethiopia. In the end, nobody knows if the RSF or army will vanquish the other, but their quest could upend the region.
The international actors facilitating the transition were somewhat to blame for appeasing the military and making them part of the transitional council, rather than listening to grassroots resistance committees who overthrew Bashir. The committees will be the focus of a future segment. It is beyond this piece.
Who Are the International Players?
The Al-Jazeera guide provides a list of the international players (18 April 2023).
- Western powers, including the US, had swung behind a transition towards democratic elections following al-Bashir’s overthrow. They suspended financial support following the coup, then backed the plan for the new transition and a civilian government.
- Energy-rich powers Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have also sought to shape events in Sudan, seeing the transition away from al-Bashir’s rule as a way to roll back his influence and bolster stability in the region.
- Gulf states have pursued investments in sectors, including agriculture, where Sudan holds vast potential, and ports on Sudan’s Red Sea coast.
- Russia has been seeking to build a naval base on the Red Sea, while several UAE companies have been signing up to invest.
- Al-Burhan and Hemedti developed close ties with Saudi Arabia after sending troops to participate in the Saudi-led operation in Yemen. Hemedti has struck up relations with other foreign powers, including the UAE and Russia.
- Egypt has deep ties to al-Burhan and the army and recently promoted a parallel track of political negotiations through parties with stronger links to the army and to al-Bashir’s former government.
The US does not seem to have been directly involved beyond forcing an agreement between military and civilians after Bashir’s overthrow. The US/international involvement has been criticised for that and for other missteps. The countries directly involved in the fighting and atrocities however are UAE and Russia, with some of Sudan’s neighbours dabbling.
Mohamed Suliman’s article for the Politics Today contains details about UAE (18 January 2024).
This war has its investors and beneficiaries; for years, the UAE has pursued its narrow interests by providing the RSF with a lifeline of money and weapons to carry out its genocide in Darfur. It’s time for the world to put pressure on the UAE to stop perpetuating this vicious cycle of violence. [...]
The UAE’s support for the militia comes in various forms, from direct funding to logistics and military equipment. In December 2019, an investigative report revealed that the militia received vehicles from the UAE that could be easily modified and equipped with machine guns. The report also revealed how UAE-based front companies, such as Tradive, were used to channel the funds to the militia.
During the ongoing war, and in flagrant violation of the UN arms embargo resolution, the UAE escalated its military support to the militias through Chad, where, under the guise of a humanitarian operation, it established an airport and a hospital to transfer weapons and ammunition to the militias and to treat militia fighters. The national army reportedly destroyed a UAE military shipment to the militia in Nyala, South Darfur.
According to military sources, the shipment included drones, ammunition, advanced rocket launchers, and sophisticated communications systems. At the beginning of the war, the RSF militia received military aid from the Wagner Group through the al-Khadim airbase in eastern Libya, which was controlled by General Haftar, the notorious UAE-backed warlord. According to the U.S. Treasury Department, the Wagner Group also supplied the RSF with surface-to-air missiles.
The UAE is also the hub for the RSF militia’s social media team, which the militia brothers run to disinform the world about their ongoing genocides and violations. Previously, an investigative report revealed that a Dubai-based private equity firm was helping the militia lobby British parliamentarians and influence their opinions about the RSF militia’s crimes in the ongoing war.
An earlier article by Catrina Doxsee for Centre for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) tells you about Russian interests (20 April 2023). Interestingly both seem to be supporting RSF in Sudan though their interests diverge in other conflicts.
Most of all, Wagner (and by extension, Russia) has prioritized its two main interests in Sudan:
- Gold mining: Building from the initial negotiations between Moscow and Khartoum, Meroe Gold—a subsidiary of M-Invest that operates locally as the Sudanese front company al-Solag—has built a network of gold mining and smuggling operations in Sudan. In addition to funding Wagner operations and generating profit, this gold smuggling has also helped to soften the blow of international sanctions against key Russian actors, particularly in the aftermath of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s primary interest in Sudan is to preserve these operations and network.
- A Red Sea naval base: Russia has long desired basing access on the Red Sea. In late 2020, Moscow and Khartoum reached an agreement to establish a Russian naval base at Port Sudan. Per the agreement, the prospective base would host a naval logistics center and repair yard, up to 300 personnel, and four naval ships, including nuclear-powered vessels. The Sudanese transitional government paused plans to establish the naval base in April 2021, in part due to U.S. pressure. Even after the 2021 coup, the military government remained reluctant to revive the deal. Russia remains interested in establishing Red Sea access and likely hopes for a political outcome in which the ruling faction may allow basing plans to proceed.
The outcome of the ongoing power struggle in Sudan will impact the future of both of these key interests, and as a result, Wagner will likely try to shape the outcome in its own favor. Wagner maintains disinformation and security capabilities in Sudan that could be called into action, and further logistical support is likely to come from—or at least transit through—its other regional strongholds, notably its bases in Libya and the Central African Republic. Already, reports indicate that Khalifa Haftar—Wagner’s Libyan partner—has provided support to the RSF, amid rumors that Hemedti has called on Wagner for assistance. Pairing Wagner logistical support for the RSF with Haftar’s aid is an option that could allow Wagner to put a thumb on the scale while maintaining a layer of deniability.
The author says that Western actors should not take Wagner’s (or Russian) involvement as being in favour of one party or ideology. Forcing African nations to choose between them or Russia would most likely be seen as impinging on their sovereignty (or disrespect) and have adverse outcomes.
Foreign fighters, from neighbouring countries such as Chad are also involved in the fighting. This article is from Alexandra Bish for War On the Rocks (25 May 2023).
In 2010, Chad and Sudan struck a peace deal that created a joint border force to eliminate rebels from the area. Both countries also agreed to stop funding rebels fighting each other’s governments, which meant that Chadian rebel groups lost their safe haven and funding streams in Sudan. Conveniently, the 2011 Libyan revolution broke out the following year, and the ensuing war in Libya offered these groups opportunities to fight as mercenaries in that conflict. Over the past decade, Chadian rebel groups have made Libya their new home.
Libya, however, has begun to lose its appeal for these fighters just as the conflict and chaos in Sudan have created the possibility for them to relocate their operations there. Chadian rebels have had reduced incentives to stay in Libya since the October 2020 Libyan cease-fire agreement, which ultimately lowered opportunities for mercenary work. One of the key features of the peace agreement was — in the words of the then-acting head of the UN mission in Libya — “the departure of all mercenaries and foreign fighters from Libyan territory, air, land, and seas.” [..]
Meanwhile, Darfur is becoming ever more attractive for these groups. In Sudan, they could gain a potential new alliance and funding stream, similar to the one that rebels had with former Sudanese president Bashir. Ethnically Goran and Arab Chadian rebels, including those within the Front for Change and Concord in Chad, are likely to align themselves with General Hemeti’s Arab-dominated Rapid Support Forces, one of the two main belligerents in Sudan’s ongoing power struggle. Rebels from the Front for Change and Concord in Chad also have experience fighting alongside Darfurian fighters in Libya, which could also facilitate their relocation. Alliances, however, are never set in stone. In Libya, Chadian fighters crossed battle lines, aligning with rival factions for the right price.
A report from Mohammed Amin for the Middle East Eye from 17th May 2023 reports on Russian, Chadian and other regional actor (Libya, Central African Republic, Egypt) involvement in Sudan.
Chadian forces, including those government troops that have participated in joint Sudanese-Chadian forces on the border, support the SAF, leading the RSF to bring in more reinforcements from neighbouring countries.
Hemeti, whose family’s origins lie in Chad, has a cousin who is a Chadian general. But the RSF leader is feared by the Chadian government of Mahamat Idriss Deby, which does not want to see the Sudanese paramilitary leader extend his influence across the border and help enact regime change.
The deadly fighting in El Geneina, which is less than 30km from Sudan’s border with Chad, has seen Chadian fighters who are part of Arab militias taking arms against the Sudanese army.
A reason for so much regional/global involvement is the presence of gold. Gold is being looted at Sudanese expense (the story of many African countries really).
What Is the Humanitarian Situation?
Terrible.
There is of course displacement and hunger due to the war. There is also targeted attacks on non-Arab tribes leading to ethnic cleansing and genocide by Arab militias allied with the RSF who also engage in raping women and looting civilians in whatever area they are in. On the other side, the SAF conducts air raids and bombing without much care for civilian casualties, especially civilians among the non-Arab tribes (Mat Nashed for Al Jazeera—10 Nov 2023).
Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) besieged a camp for displaced people on November 2 after attacking a nearby army base in West Darfur. Over the next three days, the paramilitary group committed what may amount to the single largest mass killing since the civil war erupted in April.
Local monitors told Al Jazeera that about 1,300 people were killed, 2,000 injured and 310 remain missing.
“They went house to house to search for men and killed each one they found,” said Montesser Saddam*, who barely escaped the killing and arrived in Chad on Sunday. “There were so many corpses in the streets.”
The latest atrocities are part of a wider campaign by the RSF and its allied militias to eradicate the non-Arab Masalit tribe from West Darfur, according to activists and survivors.
Since the start of Sudan’s civil war, the United Nations and Western governments have condemned the systematic killing and displacement of the Masalit from their land. But the criticism and concern have not deterred the RSF from carrying out more atrocities.
Note: Many of the Arabs in Sudan would be racialised as Black in the US. They are Afro Arabs who became Arabicised following the Mahdian revolution of the nineteenth century. Tribes such as Masalit that refused to follow have been targeted. Both SAF and RSF have targeted them in the past; in fact, RSF’s origins is in the Janjaweed militia that Bashir strengthened to put down rebellions in Darfur (as the Al Jazeera guide and Nashed’s article above note).
The warring generals have also cracked down on resistance committees (mentioned above)—grass roots democratic networks that form the main infrastructure for aid, support and democracy in Sudan (Mat Nashed reports for Al Jazeera—9 Jan 2024).
When the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces captured Sudan’s second-largest city, Wad Madani, tens of thousands of people fled and sought safety in regions still under the army’s control.
Mohamad Osman* was among them, but military intelligence arrested him as he was trying to flee on December 27.
He was taken to a secret detention centre – commonly referred to as a “ghost house” in Sudan – where the army quickly found out that he was a member of the Kalakla resistance committee, one of many neighbourhood groups that spearheaded the pro-democracy movement before the war.
For five days, Osman was electrocuted and forced to look at seven corpses rotting on the cold concrete floor. He was going to be number eight.
Luckily, a friend in the military bailed him out.
Osman is one of dozens of Sudanese activists who have been arrested and tortured in ghost houses by military intelligence in recent weeks, even as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) threatens to defeat the army and capture all of Sudan.
“The first thing they asked him was if he was a member of the resistance committees,” said Fatma Noon*, a spokesperson for the Kalakla resistance committee. “We know they’re targeting us.”
Many of those being detained are members of the resistance committees, which played an instrumental role in organising mass protests to bring down Sudan’s autocratic former President Omar al-Bashir in April 2019.
Worst of all, there is hunger. El Pais article from a few days back notes the humanitarian situation.
Approximately five million Sudanese, 10.4% of a population of 48 million, are in emergency or Phase 4 of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), the tool that measures food security worldwide. This is the level that precedes the declaration of famine, or Phase 5. In addition, almost 13 million are in Phase 3 or emergency, which means that close to 18 million people (about 37%) are experiencing hunger in Sudan. The WFP executive director, Cindy McCain, warned earlier this month that the war in the country could spark “the world’s largest hunger crisis.” [...]
According to UNICEF’s estimates, nearly 3.7 million children are projected to be “acutely malnourished this year” in Sudan. “At a hospital we visited, we saw malnourished children and their caregivers in total darkness because of electricity outages,” explains Jill Lawler, after her visit to Sudan. [...]
More than eight million people have been forced to flee their homes in Sudan since the civil war broke out on April 15, 2023, according to U.N. data. Of these, some two million Sudanese have sought refuge in bordering countries. The six million who have been displaced within the country join another three million from previous conflicts, who have been unable to return owing to the continued deteriorating security situation. “One in eight of the world’s internally displaced persons is Sudanese,” says the U.N., which means the country has the “world’s largest displacement crisis.”
Meanwhile, the aid is barely trickling in. Whatever aid there is, both RSF and SAF have been trying to block it as Virginia Pietromarchi reports for Al Jazeera (29th March 2024).
A UN source, who asked that their name be withheld due to the subject’s sensitivity, said both warring sides are posing obstacles, trying to prevent food from getting to areas controlled by their rival.
The army has imposed bureaucratic hurdles: An aid convoy in Port Sudan, under the control of the army, needs five different stamps before being able to move to reach civilians in need – a process that can take from days to weeks, the source said. In January, more than 70 trucks were left waiting for clearance for more than two weeks.
Al Jazeera reached out to an army representative to ask whether it prevented aid from reaching areas under RSF’s control. By the time of publication, the army had not replied.
Where the paramilitaries hold sway, the RSF’s command and control structures make it challenging to facilitate access on the ground, due to a lack of communication between those on the ground and higher-up officials within the RSF.
More than 70 aid trucks have been stuck in North Kordofan state since October, the source said, in an area the army controls but surrounded by RSF. The convoy cannot leave unless their safe passage is guaranteed through some form of taxation, be it money, goods or fuel.
RSF spokesperson, Abdel Rahman al-Jaali, did not respond to written questions about whether his forces are profiteering from aid convoys as alleged.
The UNOCHA page on Sudan says that only 5.39% of the requirement in Sudan has been funded (click the Funding Update tab for details). That we can say is a failure of the international community.
Beyond that, you might look at the relaxation or lack thereof of rules of immigration for refugees to see both neglect and discrimination (a topic for another diary in the series).
That is the basic overview. It was getting long, so I will stop here but I hope did give you some intro.
If you want to keep up with Sudan, apart from Al Jazeera, Sky News, and Guardian have had some reporting. But Al Jazeera has been the only one that has had regular updates. In addition, you could also check out Sudan Tribune. I will share some of the people that you could follow in comments along with updates from Tigray, Syria etc.
All right then. Until, next Wednesday, everyone. Stay safe. Be well. Let me know if you are Sudanese or an expert and find something erroneous here.
May we always have space in our hearts for people from other lands and places and their well being.