Four years later
''What is happening in Sudan is a mobster shootout, and the world is running away from it.'' ''Along with Western nations, Sudan’s Arab and African neighbors, as well as China and Russia, agree that the conflict is a disaster. Failing to halt it is a devastating indictment of the multilateral order, and especially of the quad that had supposedly steered the negotiations. ''
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/sudan/sudans-descent-chaos
Hemedti known for his part in the Darfur genocide of the Janjaweed has built ties to major regional powers by renting out the RSF to fight in Yemen, on behalf of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and by forging links with General Khalifa Haftar, head of the so-called Libyan National Army, and with Wagner, the Russian private military company affiliated with the Kremlin. These international players don't care about the Civilian revolution or democracy.
When Hamdok, a civilian ruler was sworn in, the Trump administration did not care to support him, they delegated US policy to Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. None of these regimes wanted to see a democratic revolution and they all preferred to deal directly with their favored generals.Washington unconcerned about giving Hamdok credibility, did not lift sanctions or provide debt relief. Without economic stability he did not have the necessary clout to dismantle the military-commercial complex. The Biden administration did not do better, they decided to continue a policy of turning a blind eye or worse, they even refused to impose sanctions targeted at the warlords’ respective business empires.
Betrayal at all levels, can we wonder how things deteriorated. No international power wanted this war. Yet each of the major players is backing a faction. Cairo backs Burhan, the US, Qatar, and Turkey to a lesser extent. The UAE, Wagner group and the Kremlin back Hemedti.
''The hope is that the Saudis can convince Cairo and Abu Dhabi not to fund or arm their respective favorites, and the United States can champion the democratic movement that it has so shamefully betrayed.''
Published on 10/6/19
The “great revolution” of Sudan has succeeded and the Government and people and will now rebuild and restore the values of human coexistence and social cohesion in the country as they try and turn the page on three decades of “abhorrent oppression, discrimination and warfare,” Prime Minister Abdullah Adam Hamdok told the United Nations on Friday evening.
Seems nobody is hearing. Why?Bashir, the President of Soudan who was on the International Court list of wanted persons is now in prison. He was removed by a popular uprising that did not deviate from peaceful protests despite the violent response by the dictator.
For month the people of Soudan were in the streets, women had an important role during the protests and have a place and voice now in the new government.
Yet the US is reluctant to remove Soudan from the list of countries that back terrorism. Though not long before the revolution, Trump was holding talks with Bashir…
When South Soudan broke away from Soudan, the world ran to support the secession and funded development, removing the debt of the country to help it. Today nobody is ready to talk of lightening the burden of a country that was a victim of the Cold War, when the world turned the away from a military Islamist coup that plunged Soudan into despair for decades.
Maybe values have no more any say in foreign policy. Seems that all the talk of freedom and fairness of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, were just propaganda to fight the Soviet Union.
It is so sad.
Yet hope prevails today in Soudan, and I have faith that they will move forward.
A young Soudanese man that works as a labourer in Lebanon went home for Eid Adha, just after the fall of the regime. He came back with a feeling of pride and hope.
He said that hope prevailed. People were smiling and laughing. He told me that before, everyday people fought on crowded public transport vehicles. Fights that often turned into shouting matches and fist fights. Today, people talk and try to solve problems by negotiation. It is like if the culture of the country changed.
He also told me a story that I cannot confirm, however, he has no reason to lie.
He said that when 300 young people were found killed by the security forces, the same night, a jeep filled with Kalashnikovs stopped in the square of his neighbourhood and the driver just left it there unattended. The elders of the neighbourhood immediately went and surrounded the car, forbidding the youngsters to take the weapons telling them that it was a ploy by Bashir. If one round was shot, then the army could break the sit-inns violently and pretend that there were terrorists among the demonstrators. And as we learned, these days all is permitted under the title 'War against terrorism'.
Maybe the Soudanese learned the lessons of Syria.
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