352 - The Killing Fields of Africa: Trump Could Pause a Slaughter

Instead of building a sky-high hotel in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Trump could stop the UAE from funding the wanton killing of thousands of Sudanese. Instead of accepting illegal emoluments from the UAE in the form of investments in his crypto currency firm, Trump could command (as he does) the UAE to stop enabling ethnic cleansing and incipient genocide in West Kordofan State and Darfur State, the westernmost provinces of Sudan. How low has the U. S. presidency fallen? How corrupt has it become, with Trump personally profiting through his new commercial enterprises, all benefiting from his name and position?

The increasing death toll in Sudan's two-year old civil war is directly attributable to the UAE's backing of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) an Arab para-military militia led by Lt. Gen. Muhamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemeti. The UAE supplies the RSF directly, flying equipment into a convenient base in Chad, near Darfur, and sending drones for the RSF to employ in battle.

Hemeti and the RSF once exercised joint control of Sudan with the country's regular armed forces (SAF) led by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. Together, in 2019, they ousted President Omar al-Bashir, who had ruled Sudan harshly from 1989. In 2023, this partnership collapsed into anarchy, with the RSF quickly taking Khartoum, the country's capital, from the SAF and overpowering the SAF in the southern and western reaches of Sudan. The massive province of Darfur, in the far west (bordering Chad) became a major zone of conflict. Indeed, with help from the UAE, the RSF mounted a campaign to drive African residents of Darfur across the border into Chad and, much deadlier, to attack a large camp filled with 600,000 African displaced persons next to the important city of El Fasher.

In 2003-2005, Hemeti and Arabs on camelback -- a force called janjaweed -- pursued Africans in the same way, exiling 3 million and killing 300,000 in a pogrom officially listed as genocide. The RSF is a continuation of the janjaweed, and its pursuit of ethnic cleansing of Margalit, Fur, and Zaghawa Africans proceeds in much the same way now as it did twenty years ago. But the UAE now abets the RSF, making RSF attacks deadlier.

Yesterday, using an UAE-provided drone, the RSF even attacked an SAF-controlled military airfield near Port Sudan on the Red Sea. Air traffic in the area was paused and damage limited to an ammunition depot. But, for the first time, the strike showed that the RSF offensive had not been halted by the SAF's capture last month of Khartoum.

This was an unexpected reassertion of RSF potency. With Saudi Arabian, Turkish, Egyptian, and some Russian help, the SAF had finally managed to retake Khartoum and push the RSF definitively out of long-held positions near the capital city but, surprisingly, without otherwise fatally weakening the RSF.

The RSF retreated haphazardly westward, and many observers thought the SAF would now proceed to best the RSF. But, last week, a revived RSF rampaged in West Kordofan, just east of Darfur, and brutally attacked the ZamZam displaced persons camp next to El Fasher. According to the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights, a key active peacemaker in Sudan's civil war, "the horror unfolding in Sudan knows no bounds.” He said that many more than 500 civilians had been killed in the last three weeks in Darfur, plus another 100 or so "extrajudicial killings" around Khartoum. Videos showed men in RSF uniform killing civilians in Omdurman, across the Nile River from Khartoum. The RSF also managed to shell the presidential palace in Khartoum, which the SAF had been holding since April. In West Kordofan State, a gateway to Darfur, the RSF battled successfully against the SAF for control of al-Nahud, a key city, with hundreds of civilian fatalities.

For two years, all of the fighting in this entirely personal and otherwise senseless civil war has created the world's second most catastrophic humanitarian tragedy, after Yemen and before the eastern Congo. Mercy Corps, the World Food Program, and Catholic Relief all estimate that 12 millions of Sudan's 50 million people face acute hunger, with children and compromised adults dying from starvation and otherwise easily prevented diseases like cholera. Fully 25 million people are at risk of hunger. Millions are homeless, 3-4 million have managed to seek refuge outside Sudan, and food shortages are constant. International relief agencies have been prevented from helping, largely because of RSF interference and combat.

One report says that the RSF attacked a medical clinic inside Zamzam, killing the entire staff and forcing 400,000 internally displaced persons to flee into Chad.

The civil war would not exist, and the RSF would never have been able to mount an all- out attack on the national army, if the UAE had not backed Hemeti and continues to send materiel of war to his troops. Trump could check the UAE. More successfully than in Ukraine, and with right and morality on his side, he could charge the UAE with ethnic cleansing and demand that it stop backing Hemeti.

Before Trump's election, U.S. Department of State envoys had tried fruitlessly to persuade Hemeti and Burhan to negotiate. But, because of the UAE's ability to help mediate in Gaza, the Biden administration never exerted sufficient leverage to cease the UAE's malevolence. Trump now has that leverage and should use it for good rather than to gain crypto profits. Trump is thus able to end needless civilian suffering. His influence could make an immense difference in concluding a terrible civil conflict. All he would need to do would be to forego some illicit profits from investments in Dubai.