By Abd-Allah Obeid-Allah
In the 1960s, the renowned British historian and philosopher, Arnold Toynbee wrote: “Sudan,the microcosm of Africa, holds the destiny of the continent in her hands”. His reference was to the prospects of stability,development and unity among the newly independent African states.
More than 40 years later, Thabo Mbeki, the second president of the democratic South Africa, and the Head of the AU High level Implementation Panel for Sudan (AUHIP) alluded to the centrality of Sudan in Africa, citing the appointment of three former African Heads of State to the AUHIP as evidence. To him:
“The Sudanese nation is a true melting pot of African peoples. Sudan’s Pan-Africanism has been of the most practical kind, welcoming and integrating people from across the continent. It has provided the Sudanese people with an exceptionally rich cultural heritage, and an unparalleled tradition of accepting and absorbing people.”
Commemorating the centenary of the Kirinding and Daroti battles between the French army and Dar Masalit Sultanate, Darfur, 1910, Alex de Waal, the well known researcher and author on Africa and Sudan, noted that the Sudanese were the only African people who defeated both the British and French colonial Empires when they had been at their peak.
Existential War
When the very existence, independence and territorial integrity of such an African country with this symbolic value and very important geopolitical location comes under threat from powers within and external to Africa, the entire continent ought to be alarmed and concerned٧.
Since mid April, Sudan found itself fighting an imposed existential war that very few in Africa comprehend and appreciate its real and far reaching dimensions and consequences.
The widely spread narratives of the current crisis in Sudan that portray it as either a power struggle between two “Generals”, or strife between equally legitimate military forces, are extremely misleading and therefore dangerous.
The correct perspective of the crisis must pay attention to the external factor that has a decisive role in hatching, nurturing and prolonging the conflict.
Transnational Mercenary Enterprise
There is concrete evidence that this crisis is externally brewed, externally fed and meant to further geostrategic interests of external powers to Africa, though they are employing internal and regional dynamics and actors to serve their goals.
Several respected international media outlets and reliable flight trackers
have lately documented how arms, ammunition and equipment supplies are flown from outside Africa to the rebel RSF, the militia that is currently fighting the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).
On the other hand, since last May, observers and an UN official have highlighted the participation of mercenaries in the fighting in Sudan.
Under the heading “Sudan becomes battleground for foreign fighters”, AFP, 14 May, detailed influx of mercenaries into Sudan after war erupted on 15th April. It quoted Volker Perthes, then the UN Special Representative, as saying: “Armed “fortune seekers” are flooding into the fight from across Africa’s Sahel region including Mali, Chad and Niger”, warning that their number is not insignificant. Andreas Krieg, associate professor of security studies at King’s College London told AFP “The fact that Hemeti has access to quite a lot of gold wealth and avenues to bring it to market means he can pay salaries in a way that many in sub-Saharan Africa or the Sahel cannot,”.
According to de Waal “The RSF is now a private transnational mercenary enterprise,” If the RSF wins, de Waal warned , “the Sudanese state will become a subsidiary of this transnational venture”.
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On the ground, the presence of foreign fighters has always been visible since the beginning of the war. Funerals of those killed in Khartoum in the past months are commonplace in the Sahel countries. Ironically, wedding ceremonies of the luckier mercenaries returning from Sudan with their spoils are also abound. Equally visible in those countries are the loot from Sudan, especially vehicles and other valuables offered for sale at popular markets there.
Threat to Sanctity of inherited Borders?
In fact, promised fortune and spoils are used by the militia to lure unemployed, ill-educated youth of the pastoralist communities in the Sahel to join the fight in Sudan. In addition, peculiar political slogans are addressed to the supposedly more sophisticated segments of these communities. “Dismantling the 1956 State” is one of these slogans. 1956 was the year of independence of Sudan with its internationally recognised boundaries. The slogan is opportunistically borrowed from the literature of the very insurgent movements the RSF was founded in the first place to fight; armed movements for peripheries of Sudan that fought against the perceived marginalization of their communities. Interestingly, most of these movements are now part of the Government the rebel RSF is fighting. Though initially understood as a call for a drastic reform of the Sudanese state, this slogan may mean that the country’s current boundaries have to be redrawn, given the regional context of the militia rebellion. The sanctity of borders inherited from the colonial era is one of the cardinal principles of the international order within Africa. In that sense, the slogan is a direct threat to regional stability.
The Role of Sahel Nomadic Arabs
More dangerous, however, is the underlying idea, that is rarely publicly expressed, though strongly held by supporters of the militia throughout Sahel countries. That is the idea of founding a national home for the diaspora Arabs of the Sahel, in a sinister reminder of the Apartheid policy of Bantustan. Oblivious of the international boundaries, the nomadic Arab communities have been criss-crossing the Sahel region for centuries searching for green pasture.
In the wake of the drought and desertification waves that hardly hit the region since the 1980s, coupled with proliferation of arms and weapons among them, especially with the aid of Gaddafi, who established the Islamic Corps (Al-Faylaq Al-Islami), made up basically of these tribes to help him pursue his regional ambitions, some of the leaders of the Sahel Diaspora Arabs, adopted strategy aimed at founding a national home of their own. Given the widespread disenfranchisement sentiments and marginalization grievances among these communities throughout the region, the call has resonated with younger generations who are ready to fight for a cause. The Darfur conflict in the past couple of decades, availed them an opportunity to further this strategy, by expanding their settlements there at the expense of the farmers communities.
With the phenomenal rise of Hemati to the apex of power since April 2019 by becoming number 2 of the state hierarchy, and with his RSF growing four fold in size and acquiring weaponry comparable to what SAF have, as well as the huge wealth he has accumulated by appropriating significant portion of Sudan gold resources and exporting fighters, it seemed to him that the moment for the dream of a national home for his clan becoming true, has lastly come. Towards this goal, he used his wealth to have his allies in two West and East Africa countries being controversially elected as Presidents. He equally colluded with certain covetous powers, from outside the region, who are scrambling for control of the Red Sea ports and arable land near to its coast.
Hence the war the rebel RSF is waging in Sudan is not against the current senior Command of SAF, or the remnants of the ousted regime, or even political Islam, as the militia propaganda suggests. It is rather against the State of Sudan. That is why the entire people of the country are united behind SAF in this existential battle. To them, SAFis not only their savior from savages that the militia men came across through the unprecedented atrocities they have committed, but also as the embodiment of their nationhood and the last resort for the survival of their home land. Unlike some countries in the region that are hit by internal conflicts and external interference, the State, national army, national institutions and more importantly the people of Sudan remain intact and united.
What at Stake for Africa?
The AU and IGAD adopted a rather simplistic and flawed approach to the crisis, by viewing it as a conflict between two equal parties. This approach coupled with the failure of the two organisations to condemn the atrocities by the rebel RSF, including ethnic cleansing and genocide in West, South and Central Darfur States, only feed into prolonging the crisis and encouraging impunity.
What is at stake for Africa, is more than the survival, territorial integrity and stability of its third largest country, and the first sub-Saharan African country to become independent after World War II, and which championed the cause of the continent liberation by being instrumental in the production and drafting of the UN General Assembly landmark Resolution 1514 on Granting Independence to Colonial territories. It is further the destiny of the nation-state model in the continent and the regional peace and security. Moreover, equating the RSF militia with the national army, the SAF, is a license to similar militia, transnational mercenary enterprises and warlords, throughout the continent, to challenge the legitimate national armies and become parallel pseudo-national armies. In the same vein, condoning appropriation of natural resources in African countries by illegitimate armed groups, will perpetuate the prevailing underdevelopment on the continent with its very high social and political cost.
For these reasons, solidarity of the peace loving Africans with their brothers and sisters in Sudan, during this difficult time, has to be translated into unequivocal support to their legitimate national state institutions against the external assault that they are now facing.
