Britain’s alignment with the UAE over militia support.. London reveals its ugly face

Sudan Events – Agencies

Sources told the Guardian that British government officials have tried to suppress criticism of the United Arab Emirates UAE and its alleged role in supplying weapons to a notorious militia to wage an ethnic cleansing campaign in Sudan.
Allegations that Foreign Office officials are pressuring African diplomats to avoid criticizing the United Arab Emirates UAE over its alleged military support for Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces RSF are set to intensify scrutiny of the UK’s relationship with the Gulf state.
Crimes against humanity:

The Rapid Support Forces RSF a paramilitary group accused of crimes against humanity by human rights groups, are besieging the city of El Fasher in Darfur, a sprawling region in western Sudan.
The fighters have besieged the city, amid evidence that they are targeting and killing civilians on the basis of their ethnicity.
The siege has sparked warnings that the fall of El Fasher will lead to a large-scale massacre and possible genocide.
Yona Diamond, an international human rights lawyer, said that during informal talks earlier this month in Ethiopia – to explore possible legal action against the UAE over its alleged role in the fighting – sources told him that the UK was actively discouraging some countries from condemning the UAE. “They told me the UK was discouraging countries from criticising the UAE,” said Diamond, a senior legal adviser at the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights.
That has prompted accusations among diplomats that the UK has prioritised its relationship with the UAE over the fate of civilians trapped in El Fasher, home to 1.8 million people. Diamond’s talks in Addis Ababa were attended by officials from the African Union AU and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, an eight-nation trade bloc in East Africa, along with other diplomats. “We were looking to build support for a mechanism to protect civilians [in Darfur] and moves to hold the UAE accountable at the International Court of Justice or elsewhere in the region,” he said. “We were following the implications of those findings, the violations of the [UN] Genocide Convention and the need for states to comply with their obligations,” said Diamond, who co-chaired an independent investigation that found “clear and convincing evidence” that the RSF was committing genocide in Darfur. Denial of allegations
However, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office strongly denied the allegations.
A spokesperson said: “These allegations are completely untrue. The UK uses its diplomatic influence to support efforts to achieve lasting peace.”
The UAE’s role in Sudan’s brutal 14-month civil war between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) is hotly contested.
The UAE has repeatedly denied sending military support to either side in Sudan’s warring parties.
On Tuesday, Sudan’s military-allied government clashed with the UAE at the UN Security Council, where the latter dismissed allegations it was supplying the RSF as “absurd.”
But UN sanctions monitors have described allegations that the UAE was providing military support to the RSF as “credible.” Last week, the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab released photographs of a cargo plane flying over RSF territory near El Fasher, matching the type of aircraft seen at sites in neighbouring Chad where lethal aid was allegedly flown to the RSF. The findings have raised questions about possible arms resupply operations to the RSF by the Gulf state, although it is not known who operated the Ilyushin IL-76. “This should be investigated by the UN Security Council, which could ask the UAE whether it was involved,” said Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of the Humanitarian Research Lab.
Some say such intervention came too late, accusing the West of dragging its feet in dealing with the RSF’s assault on El Fasher.
Questions about the UAE’s support for the RSF were raised during a meeting in London on 13 June between the Foreign and International Development Office and members of the UK’s Darfur diaspora, which came after the Guardian revealed secret talks between Britain and the RSF.
Bahr Abdallah Idris Abu Garda, leader of the Darfur Diaspora Association, has accused the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of putting its relationship with the UAE above the lives of civilians. Officials have denied the allegation.
“We are very concerned about British interests. It is not helpful that the UAE appears to have influence over the UK.
The UK does not care about its moral obligations,” Abu Garda said.
His association represents 30,000 people in the UK and is believed to be the largest such organisation in the world, unusually representing all nine African ethnic groups in Darfur.
The UK is the current “penholder” of the UN Security Council on Sudan, meaning it leads the council’s activities on Africa’s third-largest country.
In response to the allegations, officials from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office also pointed to a UK-led UN Security Council resolution last Thursday that called on Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to “cease its siege” of El Fasher, the last town in West Darfur not controlled by the RSF. The resolution calls on “all member states to refrain from external interference that seeks to fuel conflict and instability” and to comply with the arms embargo on Darfur.
However, critics say the text should have explicitly referred to the UAE as well as Iran, which has been accused of supplying the Sudanese opposition armed forces and has also faced allegations of war crimes. “The UAE has helped the US shoo away Chinese dominance in Africa by spending on Beijing and in return getting US security guarantees,” Khair added. Human rights groups point to the economic ties and close links to the UAE of key British figures, including Foreign Secretary David Cameron. In 2013, as prime minister, Lord Cameron set up a secret Whitehall unit specifically to court the oil-rich sheikhs of the UAE, with the aim of persuading them to invest billions of dollars in the UK. In January, Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said he expected the UK to raise tens of billions of pounds in investment from the UAE.