By Michael Shiel
The world has been captured by the devastating civil war in Sudan and the genocide perpetuated by the RSF, a war that has left 150,000 people killed and forced over 13 million people to flee their homes. Since April 2023, the head of armed forces and President Abdel Fattah al-Burnham and his deputy (and RSF leader) Mohamed “Hemedti” Dagalo have been engaged in a vicious power struggle with devastating consequences for the Sudanese people, some of whom have been living in overcrowded, unsafe refugee camps such as those in Chad for over two years.
In 2019, revolts across the country toppled Omar al-Bashir’s 30-year military reign, created a military-civilian council government, and led to hopes of an end to the cycle of coups and imperialist-backed violence that has dominated the region. But the powers of capitalist domination both outside and inside the country have reared their head (including the competing SAF and RSF forces, who were both involved in al-Bashir’s governance and both complicit in atrocities before the revolts), and those hopes are shattered now. RSF have claimed that a truce was agreed earlier this month but the SAF have rejected this, and the events in El-Fashir show no stop to the violence.
The RSF, led by Hemedti, controls much of the south-west of the country. It has captured El-Fasher after an 18-month siege; already, 89,000 civilians have fled the city and 2,500 more have been killed, with evidence of RSF shooting unarmed captives emerging from the beginning of the takeover. This is the most severe recent attack in an ongoing campaign of genocide carried out by the RSF against non-Arab communities, particularly in West Darfur, which has been accelerated by the actions of the SAF and of various imperialist powers, including the US and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
A genocide fueled from abroad
The RSF grew out of the Janjaweed militia, which carried out a genocidal campaign in Darfur in 2005 under al-Bashir’s now-overthrown government; the current violence is a continuation of that genocide. The SAF have also committed atrocities throughout the war and used civilians as cannon fodder for their own interests. Before al-Fashir fell, the SAF negotiated safe passage out of the city for their own military personnel, leaving the civilian population to be massacred. The resulting humanitarian crisis has been worsened by Trump’s aid cuts, with over 1,100 emergency food kitchens shuttered, while there are 24 million people with food insecurity. At the same time, the US has declared the RSF actions as a genocide and imposed sanctions, laying bare the insincerity of their concern for the Sudanese people and their true imperialist interests in dominating the region.
UAE and Iranian drones have been used throughout the war, and Amnesty International have accused the UAE of breaching the arms embargo by selling Chinese weapons to the RSF, directly arming the genocide. [5] The UAE are the main factor of support for the RSF, but they are not alone; some of the UAE weaponry found in Sudan was sold to the UAE by the UK military. The EU’s ‘Fortress Europe’ campaign has involved expanding border walls and leaving migrants to drown in the Mediterranean while surveiling them with Israeli technology, but it has also involved enabling the genocide. The EU have struck deals with Sudan, Turkey, Morocco, Libya and Tunisia to hold migrants in detention facilities to prevent their passage to Europe. In Sudan, this has led to accusations of the RSF ransoming and trafficking these migrants, as well as carrying out human rights abuses against them while in detention. [2] The RSF carry it out while the SAF enable it, the UAE, EU and Iranian powers fuel it, the US accelerate the food crisis growing out of it, and the wider imperialist world has sat by and allowed it to happen for two and a half years.
Legacy of European colonialism and complicity of capitalism
This catastrophe cannot be separated from the legacy of colonialism that has created these conditions. After the British government colonised Sudan, the broader African continent was carved up by the European powers at the 1884-5 Berlin Conference (no African leaders were present at this meeting). At this conference, border lines were drawn through communities to deliberately stoke ethnic and national tensions, making it easier to dominate the region and control its resources.
Sudan won independence in 1956 and 17 other African countries followed in 1960 in an inspiring anti-colonial wave that continues to impact world politics today, but capitalist-imperialist domination and exploitation continued. This involved direct political interference, such as the IMF strangling the anti-apartheid movement by imposing restrictions on the ANC government, but also assassinations, such as the killing of Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba.
Capitalist states continue to profit from war, not only with the UAE and UK selling weapons to use in Sudan, but also in the battle for natural resources. Gold trading is crucial to the UAE economy, and the capture and sale of Sudanese gold are their ultimate interests in the conflict. After the US, Ireland is Israel’s biggest trading partner. US and European governments have continued to sell arms to Israel while carrying out brutal crackdowns on the Palestinian solidarity movement, particularly in Germany and the UK.
While the capitalist powers are complicit in the civil war and genocide in Sudan, solidarity struggles from below stand as the only force that can oppose it. The uprisings in Sudan in 2019 showed the power of the Sudanese working class to overthrow the capitalist powers, and the Sudan solidarity protests show the potential for an international solidarity movement. Involving the SAF and RSF leaders in the 2019 government allowed them to seize power back on behalf of their own capitalist interests. There can be no compromise with capitalist powers of any nation if we want to see an end to imperialist control of the global south and the disastrous consequences it has had for humanity. The working class, the poor and oppressed of Sudan must become the masters of their destiny and the resources of their country in a struggle for a democratic, humane and socialist society.
