240 - Continuing Carnage: Africa's Destruction, I

Resumed Ethnic Cleansing in Sudan

            Along with the horrendous battles for freedom in Ukraine, and for Israel's security and survival in Gaza, Africans wreak destruction on themselves.  A worsening internecine irruption of deadly venom consumes Sudan. Likewise, Ethiopians are still fighting among themselves, and contributing to one of the continent's worst famines. The eastern region of the so-called Democratic Republic of Congo is afire with as many as 200 militant groups competing for territory, power, and resource wealth. Other conflicts threaten stability and peace in the Central African Republic and in Mozambique; three military-ruled nations in the Sahel are consumed with Islamist uprisings; and students are trying to overthrow the monarchy in tiny Eswatini.  But there is a little good news from Senegal.

            Furthermore, the combat in Ukraine, Russians against Ukrainians, has begun to spread to Sudan. There a thoroughly personalized and pointless combat between two irredeemably vicious contenders is reducing a once proud and prosperous African nation to rubble. Civilians are in the way as two internal fighting forces attempt to annihilate each other. More than 7.5 million Sudanese have been forced to flee their homes; about 3 million have exiled themselves. More than 500,000 have escaped to Chad. The death toll — at least 30,000 — rises daily as the two sides put their innocent compatriots at supreme risk.

Sudan

            The chief of the regular army of Sudan (Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan) thinks that he alone should govern his giant country (the third largest geographically in Africa, spanning the White Nile River and much desert). So does his sometime subordinate, Lt. Gen. Muhamed Hamdan Dagalo (known as Hemeti), who created and commands the so-called Rapid Support Forces (RSF), originally Arab vigilante camel soldiers called the janjaweed  --  perpetrators of the 2003-2006 genocide in Darfur Province in West Sudan. Burhan also led competing army legions against Africans in Darfur. Together the two officers presided over the killings of 300,000 Africans and the displacement of millions in the earlier ethnic cleansing episode.

            Fast forward to 2019. Burhan and Hemeti together led a coup against Gen. Omar al-Bashir, the tight-fisted ruler of Sudan since his own 1989 coup ousting a civilian government.  (Bashir was and is subject to an indictment for war crimes by the International Criminal Court. But he remains incarcerated in Sudan.)

            Burhan and Hemeti fell out in April 2023, thrusting Sudan into an all out civil war that has surprised observers in and out of the country with its ferocity.  The known casualties have come in bombing raids along the Nile and in ethnic cleansing renewal atrocities in Darfur. Millions have sought refuge across the Red Sea in Saudi Arabia and Yemen and have crossed land borders to neighboring countries such as Kenya and Ethiopia.

            Much of Khartoum and Omdurman, major cities at the junction of the Blue and White Nile Rivers, lie in ruin. So do other principal towns, especially El Geneina  and Nyala in Darfur. Much of Sudan is in shambles, with the RSF dominant in Khartoum, the capital, and farther south and west and the army in full charge in Port Sudan and along the Red Sea, as well as down the Nile toward Egypt. Both sides commit war crimes against the people of Sudan.

            Both contending forces seek unquestioned power and control over Sudan's main resource: gold.  Another source of wealth is the revenue from transporting petroleum by pipeline from wells in the nation of South Sudan to Port Sudan (and on to Europe and China).  Much of the gold makes its way to Russia, and helps to fuel Putin's assault on Ukraine.

            There is an international dimension to the Sudanese conflict:  Hemeti is closely allied to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), from which he receives immense financial and equipment support in exchange for gold. He also works closely with Putin's Africa Corps, successor to the Wagner Group.  That Corps has cadres in Sudan seeking and mining gold and making sure that a good proportion of the gold goes to Moscow.

            Hemeti has been more successful in gaining territory and prominence than was originally imagined; Burhan correspondingly has emerged weaker, with less territory and, presumably, less gold. Hemeti’s warring advantage has come from an alliance with the rulers of the UAE. They have backed him strongly, providing arms and cash, even flying fuel and tracked vehicles into clandestine airfields in eastern Chad. Egypt suopports Burhan, but it has provided little air cover and hardly sufficient cash.

Recently, however, Ukraine has joined Egypt, taking its battles against all things Putin into Sudan. There are eye-witness reports that Ukrainian special forces are a part of Burhan's counter assaults against Hemeti and against his Russian allies.  Ukraine wants to keep Putin's legions in check, even as far away as Sudan. It also seeks to avoid Putin gaining sizable proceeds from Sudanese gold.

            Given internal clashes and the internationalization of the conflict, Sudan is beset by carnage. The country is in shambles. Millions are hungry, some starving. And all of this destruction of infrastructure, livelihood, and future fortune results from avarice and ambition -- two vain generals and their followers fighting for spoils with no concern for their country or their fellow Sudanese — and with profound disdain for Western and Arab attempts to halt the mayhem.

            It is not even evident, except for spoils from gold and oil, what the two generals and their legions hope to accomplish. Having already reduced much of the Sudan to rubble and destroyed the civil infrastructure and commerce of their land athwart the Nile, whichever side emerges victorious -- or even if they split the country down the middle -- will have conquered for nought.

Bringing the Sudan back will be easier than Ukraine, but that is because there will be much less to restore. And since neither Burhan nor Hemeti are "legitimate" in the sense that Sudanese elites and Sudanese people believe in their leadership, neither has any sustainable corps of popular support.  Sudan’s 49 million people want both gone. Instead, bigger guns prevail, especially with forceful external support from the UAE and Russia.

            It long past time for the African Union, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (a regional governmental entity), Arab allies, and the U.S. to compel the fighting parties to stand down.  Not only has stability, peace, and prosperity in the Horn of Africa been vastly compromised but Sudan's carnage also contributes to unrest in South Sudan, Ethiopia, Chad, Uganda, and Kenya. Its Red Sea littoral also makes Sudan prey to the Houthi led troubled roiling of Red Sea waters.

If the two antagonists and their followers can be contained, or pushed aside, then civilian leadership can resume attempting to develop Sudan on behalf of its residents, not its soldiers. But sending the militants back to their barracks is an essential first step, together with a firm rejection of UAE and Russian (and Ukrainian) interference.

            (This Newsletter comes in two parts.  I will write about the Ethiopia, the Congo, Senegal, next time.)