Placating the RSF Did Not Tame the Beast

By Abdullah Ali Ibrahim

The calls of the “No to War” campaign amounted to little more than an extended attempt to appease the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), hoping the militia would restrain itself, refrain from excesses, and incline toward peace.

In October last year, Dr. Al-Tijani Abdel Qadir published an article titled “Gullible Leaders: Fatal Errors in Diplomacy”, discussing British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (1937–1940), whose name became synonymous with appeasement. In global political discourse, appeasement refers to the concessions—political, material, or territorial—offered to an aggressive power to avoid armed conflict. The term gained notoriety due to Chamberlain’s dealings with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler on the eve of World War II. Chamberlain made repeated efforts to dissuade Hitler from invading Czechoslovakia, eventually agreeing to let him seize its western region, even warning the Czech government to evacuate it to avoid casualties. He then met Hitler to secure a pledge not to bomb Prague, even if the Czechs resisted. Hitler accepted—for the moment—and signed a pact with Britain promising “peace for our time.” Chamberlain returned to London triumphantly proclaiming “peace with honor,” dismissing military warnings to strengthen Britain’s defenses, arguing such measures would provoke Germany. Yet while he basked in his imagined peace, Hitler overran Czechoslovakia and Poland in 1939, igniting World War II.

Dr. Al-Tijani merely recounted the familiar history. Yet the concept of appeasement—avoiding confrontation with an expected aggressor by yielding to its immediate demands—fits, in some respects, the stance of the “No to War” groups within the “Sumood” coalition. Their critics accuse them of siding with the RSF, to the point where some of their figures now face charges of treason. But the truth is likely more complicated. The Sumood forces are fully aware of the RSF’s atrocities—knowledge they themselves publicized during their years of opposition to the former regime (1989–2019), from whose womb, as they often say, the RSF emerged. They campaigned tirelessly through skilled American lobbying networks to expose these abuses. During the revolution and the transitional government, they suffered directly at the hands of the militia, making their rallying cry: “Dismantle the Janjaweed (RSF)—no militias can rule a state.”

Thus, their muted criticism of RSF atrocities today likely stems not from sympathy or allegiance, but from a tendency to appease—shaped in part by their deep hostility toward the army and their longstanding animosity toward Islamists.

One manifestation of this appeasement has been avoiding naming the RSF when documenting its violations. When RSF fighters occupied the Sudanese Communist Party headquarters in Khartoum, the party issued a statement condemning the act but attributing it to “individuals wearing RSF uniforms,” as if that phrasing absolved them of responsibility. A similar event occurred on 16 May 2024, when forces seized the Umma Party’s premises. Rabah al-Sadiq al-Mahdi later wrote a public self-rebuke, revealing she had been misled by someone claiming the RSF had denied involvement—only to discover that the perpetrators were indeed RSF fighters.

While the “No to War” coalition has no hesitation in sharply criticizing the army whenever it commits abuses, the same voices grow timid when the RSF commits worse. The Civil Democratic Forces of the Revolution (Sumood) accused the Sudanese Armed Forces of targeting tribal leaders in North Kordofan with a drone strike—a claim disputed by multiple accounts. Yet when the RSF captured El-Fasher and its crimes became undeniable, Sumood’s leader Abdullah Hamdok called for an international investigation into violations “committed by both sides,” balancing one accusation with another.

In another example, the Sudanese Congress Party (North Darfur branch)—a founding member of Sumood—issued a fiery statement in October 2023 condemning what it described as an attack by “the terrorist Islamic Movement Army and the Port Sudan authority” on the Saraf Omra market, labeling it a war crime. But when the RSF bombarded the Zamzam IDP camp near El-Fasher on 15 April, the same party refrained from naming the RSF, despite overwhelming evidence. Instead, it referred vaguely to an “unknown perpetrator” and called for an international investigation—long after the international community had already condemned the RSF.

It remains unclear whom these groups expect the army to please. They appear to criticize the RSF only lightly, balancing their remarks by assigning heavy blame to the army. The Communist Party condemned the army’s withdrawal from El-Fasher as “irresponsible,” insisting the army’s duty is to protect civilians, not itself. Yet it was the Sixth Infantry Division that defended the city for 18 months under siege before being forced to withdraw—no army can remain invincible simply so citizens may never fall into the hands of a brutal foe.

Journalist Rasha Awad condemned the RSF’s assault on El-Fasher, saying the militia must be held responsible for every drop of blood spilled under its control. But even as she criticized the RSF, she also reproached the army, accusing it of restricting civilian movement in El-Obeid and implying that it engineered a repeat of the El-Fasher tragedy for political gain.

Yasir Arman, of the People’s Movement, perhaps paid the full price of Chamberlain’s lesson. For over a year, he consistently sought to appease the RSF. In a July 2023 interview with Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Taha, he refused to offer clear advice to RSF leader Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti), instead pivoting to blame Islamists for igniting the war and for weakening the army. This rhetorical evasiveness is known in Sudanese idiom as “entering by Hamad and exiting by Khogali.”

Arman’s clearest moment of appeasement came after the RSF’s invasion of Gezira State in December 2023. He argued the attack was partly caused by army abuses and claimed RSF looting was carried out by “Kaseeba” gangs allegedly created by military intelligence—a justification that exonerated the RSF itself. He repeated this reasoning in May 2024, describing RSF units entering Gezira with heavy equipment as “professional forces” uninvolved in violations, which he attributed to other militias arriving on motorcycles from distant regions.

But Arman’s patience finally collapsed after the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher. In October, he issued a statement urging the UN and African Union to secure RSF withdrawal from El-Fasher and Bara, describing what happened in the city as a “cold-blooded massacre,” documented by RSF fighters themselves. After more than two years of insistence on appeasement, he ended up discovering—too late—that the beast never changes its nature.

The “No to War” campaign amounted to little more than continued appeasement of the RSF, hoping the militia would moderate its brutality and choose peace. It never did. The RSF’s most significant advances were made not through threats, but through the absence of real resistance—replaced instead by appeasement.

It is said that a girl once dreamt of two beasts fighting fiercely, a nightmare that kept her awake. She asked her father, “Which beast will win?”

He replied, “The one you feed more.”

The “No to War” forces fed the RSF abundantly.