{"id":37246,"date":"2024-11-28T00:38:26","date_gmt":"2024-11-27T21:38:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/?p=37246"},"modified":"2024-11-28T00:38:26","modified_gmt":"2024-11-27T21:38:26","slug":"de-ethnicizing-sudans-war-1-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/2024\/11\/28\/de-ethnicizing-sudans-war-1-2\/","title":{"rendered":"De-ethnicizing Sudan’s War (1-2)"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Amjad Farid<\/strong><\/div>\n
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Since the outbreak of the war in Sudan on April 15, 2023, various parties have attempted to distort the nature of the conflict, crafting false narratives to justify their alignment with one side\u2014specifically the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). By framing the war as an ethnic and regional conflict, these narratives aim to obscure its reality as a violent power struggle.<\/div>\n
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Recently, some politicians have revived claims that the war is not between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF, but rather between social groups in Sudan. However, the first report from the Sudan Conflict Observatory at Yale University\u2019s MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies\u2014which uses satellite imagery and was established in June 2023 with support from the U.S. State Department\u2014debunked this notion. The report confirmed that the war erupted due to the RSF\u2019s moves to seize power on the morning of April 15, 2023. Sudanese citizens didn\u2019t need satellite images to affirm this; they witnessed the RSF mobilizing to besiege the Merowe airbase in northern Sudan as early as April 13. Despite this clarity, efforts to misrepresent the war continue in an attempt to legitimize the RSF\u2019s political presence.<\/div>\n
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The RSF and its allies initially claimed they were fighting for democracy, civilian transition, and against Islamist rule\u2014echoing the slogans of Sudan\u2019s December Revolution, which ousted former President Omar al-Bashir. However, the RSF\u2019s violations quickly discredited these claims. Now, the RSF relies heavily on portraying the war as an ethnic conflict, a narrative it uses not only for propaganda but also as a recruitment tool.<\/div>\n
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This misleading discourse draws from Sudan\u2019s troubled history, highlighting genuine past abuses by its military and security apparatus. Yet, it selectively weaponizes these truths to condemn one party while obscuring the shared culpability of both warring factions. The SAF and RSF were both integral to Sudan\u2019s military-security system, responsible for atrocities and tragedies under the same political agendas and power structures.<\/div>\n
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The RSF, however, is arguably the most egregious product of this system. Any comparison between the two sides must consider their conduct since April 15, 2023. But past crimes cannot justify present atrocities; attempts to rationalize today\u2019s violence by invoking history are simply a cover-up for ongoing abuses. The correct stance is to condemn violations both past and present and to work toward preventing their recurrence.<\/div>\n
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The RSF\u2019s Role in Ethnic Violence<\/strong><\/div>\n
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During the Darfur war in 2003, ethnic dimensions were starkly evident. The RSF\u2014whether in its current form, established in 2013, or its earlier incarnation as the Janjaweed militias\u2014fought alongside the SAF, perpetrating systematic ethnic violence and crimes against humanity. These included mass killings, rape, forced displacement, and even ethnic cleansing targeting African communities in Darfur, such as the Zaghawa, Fur, and Masalit peoples.<\/div>\n
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The RSF\u2019s crimes extended beyond Darfur to South Kordofan\u2019s Nuba communities, where similar atrocities were committed. In the current war, the RSF has replicated these patterns, again targeting the Masalit in West Darfur early in the conflict. Their actions, including the brutal killing of West Darfur Governor Khamis Abakar and the mutilation of his body after the Genena massacre in June 2023, were marked by overtly racist celebrations. The RSF has continued to perpetrate ethnic-based crimes across Darfur, prompting the U.S. House of Representatives to pass Resolution 1328 on November 20, 2024, recognizing the RSF\u2019s actions in Darfur as genocide.<\/div>\n
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Contradictory Narratives<\/strong><\/div>\n
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In central Sudanese regions such as Khartoum and Al-Jazirah, the RSF has adopted an opposing narrative of “anti-Jalaba” racism. The term “Jalaba” refers to Sudanese of Arab descent and has been politicized to denote central governments dominated by Arab elites. The RSF has committed mass killings, rapes, and widespread property theft against these groups, even poisoning farmland and water resources in Al-Jazirah. This contrasts sharply with the RSF\u2019s ethnonationalist rhetoric in Darfur, where it uses Arab supremacist discourse to recruit and mobilize fighters.<\/div>\n
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The RSF\u2019s pattern of violence in central Sudan is not new. Its emergence as a force under General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemeti) can be traced back to its brutal suppression of the September 2013 protests, during which it reportedly killed over 200 peaceful demonstrators. Granted legal immunity and state backing, the RSF became a tool for repressing dissent, a role it escalated during the June 2019 massacre at the Khartoum sit-in, carried out in partnership with the SAF.<\/div>\n
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Sudan\u2019s current conflict is deeply socially complex, but the RSF\u2019s contradictory ethnonationalist narratives expose the falsity of its claims to ethnic representation. Meanwhile, the willingness of political allies to embrace such narratives reflects their opportunism, exploiting ethnic rhetoric to justify violence and secure temporary gains at the expense of Sudan\u2019s unity and stability.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Amjad Farid Since the outbreak of the war in Sudan on April 15, 2023, various parties have attempted to distort the nature of the conflict, crafting false narratives to justify their alignment with one side\u2014specifically the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). By framing the war as an ethnic and regional conflict, these narratives aim …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1621,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37246"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37247,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37246\/revisions\/37247"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}