Paul’s Deceptions!!

As I See

Adel El-Baz

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The only skill this man, Paul—Senior Advisor on African Affairs in the U.S. administration and President Donald Trump’s envoy for the Africa file—seems to possess is deception. Hardly a day passes without some hollow rattle of falsehoods emanating from him. Just last week alone, Advisor Paul put out a tweet, gave an interview to Semafor with journalist Yinka Adegoke, and made statements to Bloomberg—all of it spin, distortions, and outright lies.

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In his Semafor interview, the deceiver declared: “Sudan is the world’s largest humanitarian crisis today. According to the UN and UNICEF, more than 522,000 children have died from malnutrition since the war began.”

But who is blocking food supplies and besieging cities, Mr. Paul? Who is responsible for those 522 children dying of hunger? Paul knows the answer well but feigns ignorance, playing for the world’s sympathy as if the culprit were unknown.

He went on: “The battle for El-Fasher—the besieged city in North Darfur—has become a symbol of the humanitarian tragedy, with reports of repeated shelling of civilians, including the targeting of mosques, and depriving residents of medical and food supplies.”

Once again, who is bombing civilians inside mosques? Who is defying Security Council resolutions? Of course, he dares not point at the culprits. Instead, he loudly condemns Islamists and Al-Bara’a Brigades.

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When interviewer Yinka Adegoke pressed him: “You mentioned the Quartet. The UAE, specifically, is playing a destructive role in this conflict. How do you respond?”

Here’s how Paul replied: “Look, in every conflict there are narratives, accusations, and different perspectives… We are trying to balance these dynamics!!”

Do you see? Thus, the UAE’s well-documented arming of the Janjaweed is brushed off as “narratives” and “points of view.” This, despite the mountain of evidence, UN expert reports, and hundreds of investigative exposés in America’s most credible newspapers. Are those just fairy tales? What a pitiful deceiver you are, Mr. Paul.

And what “dynamics” is he talking about balancing? Between the national army and a militia? Between the militia’s backers and U.S. interests? Or between the militia’s financiers and those who still support Sudan’s state institutions?

Paul’s deliberate disregard for UN findings—which explicitly described the siege of El-Fasher and RSF crimes as “crimes against humanity”—renders his words not just misleading, but a political shield absolving the perpetrators of blatant violations of international humanitarian law.

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Adegoke asked him: “So if you had one message for the Sudanese people from the Trump administration today, what would it be?”

Paul answered: “The message is simple: You are not forgotten… and we are committed.”

Imagine! The same man who admits in the same interview that children are dying by the hundreds, unseen and unheard, now claims Sudanese are “not forgotten.” How is it not neglect, when the world watches children die from hunger and shelling while he stays silent—refusing even to call for lifting the siege on El-Fasher’s children?

As American researcher Eric Reeves put it in an August 26 tweet:
“What could be more brazenly hypocritical than having the United Arab Emirates listed among U.S.-led mediators working to alleviate civilian suffering in Sudan, while it is the very country supplying the RSF with advanced military, technical, and logistical support—enabling its genocidal siege of El-Fasher and the Abu Shouk IDP camp?”

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After the failed sidelines meeting during the UN General Assembly last week, the deceiver tweeted on September 25, peddling spin to mask deep rifts within the Quartet: “The four countries reaffirmed the importance of ending the war, restoring peace, and meeting the humanitarian needs of the Sudanese people.”

This was nothing but a recycled statement from September 12—no new ground broken.

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In a Bloomberg report on September 24, Paul claimed: “The RSF has agreed to allow humanitarian trucks into El-Fasher, with some supplies already beginning to flow. It is starting to take shape.”

That is an outright lie, and he knows it. Aid officials told The Guardian, visibly alarmed: “With RSF approval, aid convoys were allowed into Darfur, but not to El-Fasher—only to Mellit, 56 miles north. The convoy arrived at noon.”

What followed? RSF drones struck the convoy, destroying three of its 16 trucks.

Separately, a UN official told the paper: “The RSF warned that UN aircraft are legitimate targets. They refused us safe passage.”

That is the reality. Yet Paul, eager to polish the RSF’s “humanitarian face,” spews lies refuted by facts on the ground. El-Fasher remains under total siege, no aid is reaching it, people are starving—and the militia has never once allowed relief to pass through.

Such deception does not merely mislead international opinion; it deepens the agony of trapped civilians who die daily from hunger and lack of medicine, while a U.S. official works to whitewash a criminal militia.

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Paul did not stop at deception. He leapt straight into fabrication, telling Bloomberg on September 24: “The warring parties in Sudan are close to entering direct talks to end one of the world’s worst crises.”

Is that fact, wishful thinking, or some new covert U.S. proposal? What gives Paul such optimism when militias have scuttled every mediation effort—whether U.S.-backed or otherwise? The Quartet failed. Geneva failed. London failed. IGAD failed. What’s different now?

If this is a fresh U.S. initiative, it signals Washington’s quiet burial of the Quartet and a unilateral push for direct mediation. But we’ve seen this movie before—Jeddah’s Declaration fell apart, the RSF never abided by its commitments, and nothing was achieved. What, then, is new? The RSF has been driven back militarily, and so Paul scrambles to propose direct U.S.-led talks—talks doomed to fail, even if Washington manages to strong-arm Khartoum into the room.

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Paul’s lies and deceptions are little more than a desperate attempt to salvage a floundering mission. In truth, he has waded into a crisis he does not understand, floundering with less sense than his boss.

The real danger of Paul’s deception is not measured in words alone, but in its direct consequences: the laundering of documented crimes and violations. When truth is replaced by political hedging, wars last longer and humanitarian costs multiply.

What Sudanese need today is not hollow statements that cloak the criminals, but a clear stance that holds accountable those funding and arming militias. Any discourse that evades this reality—as Paul’s does—is complicity in crime and a license for impunity.