URGENT FROM ALEX DE WAAL - Sudan crisis: Mediators over a barrel in mission to end fighting

NOTE from Sudan Watch Editor: Here is Alex de Waal’s latest take on the current Sudan crisis. Fortunately, it was published yesterday in the form of a carefully worded piece for BBC News. See copy below. 

As usual, it didn't disappoint. I had to read it six times to see if there was any wiggle room in the stance he has taken. There is none, it is crystal clear with no way of misunderstanding this: speed is of the essence.

While reading it, I agreed with every word but my heart sank at not seeing anything that was news to me.

The overall message he conveys in his analysis, without appearing to be dramatic, is the urgent need for speed: that there's no time left to lose on haggling for peace. We're talking hours and days, not weeks.

Also, he didn’t mention justice or for Messrs Burhan and Hemeti to be called to account for their crimes. It seems to me that Alex's advice to the current mediators is this: appease them, agree amnesty for war crimes.

So, after giving it much thought, and it pains me to say this, one side will have to be backed in order to give Sudanese civilians a chance to run their country and army, which means backing Mr Burhan and SAF.

Rewarding Hemeti, treating him as a victor would make the Janjaweed victorious. Unthinkable. He must not have any role leading any part of Sudan or South Sudan. Retire him to Chad where he was born, or to the ICC. 

Over the past 20 years here at Sudan Watch, I've argued strongly in favour of the African Union, for Africa be governed by Africa-led solutions and initiatives, for it to be empowered and lead without outside interference and to be given a seat on the UN Security Council.

Please God stop the fighting, let the world unite in supporting Sudan and South Sudan by providing them with what they need, humanitarian assistance and access to aid until they can stand on their own feet. 

And let them decide what to do with the RSF. Hopefully, Hemeti will disappear peaceably, forever. 

Wish I had time to write a better intro instead of this half-baked draft but as Alex shows in his heavy-duty not light-weight piece, if one reads it carefully: there is not a minute to waste. Seriously. Every minute counts.

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Report from BBC News

By ALEX DE WAAL

Dated Monday 08 May 2023 - full copy:

Sudan crisis: Mediators over a barrel in mission to end fighting

AFP

With the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, transformed from tranquil city to war zone, Saudi Arabia and the US have called the warring parties to Jeddah to seek agreement on a ceasefire. But as Sudan expert Alex de Waal says, it will just be a short-term, emergency step.

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There is a dilemma for mediators: whatever decision they take on the format and agenda for emergency talks will determine the path of peace-making in Sudan through to its conclusion.

To silence the guns, the American and Saudi diplomats will deal only with the rival generals who have each sent a three-person negotiating team to Jeddah. 

The agenda is a humanitarian ceasefire, a monitoring mechanism and corridors for aid. Neither side wants to open negotiations towards a political agreement.

The civilian parties and neighbourhood resistance committees, whose non-violent protests brought down the authoritarian regime of long-time leader Omar al-Bashir four years ago, will be onlookers.

It will not be easy to get the two generals to agree to any kind of ceasefire.

The army chief, Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, will insist that he represents the legitimate government. He will label Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as "Hemedti", as a rebel.

But Hemedti, his de facto deputy until the clashes, will demand equal status for the two sides.

He will want on a freeze-in-place, leaving his paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) fighters in control of much of Khartoum. Gen Burhan will require a return to the positions in the days before the clashes began.

Getting a compromise means hard bargaining with the generals. 

The mediators need to gain their confidence and assure them that, if they make concessions now, that will not leave them exposed and vulnerable.

The downside is that the two warring parties will then demand the dominant role in political talks and an agenda that suits their interests.

One thing on which Burhan and Hemedti - and the Arab neighbours - agree is that they do not want a democratic government, which had been on the cards before the fighting began. The two military men had run the country since the 2019 which ousted Bashir, refusing to hand power to civilians.

AFP

The real losers are the civilians who helped oust Bashir in 2019 and want elections and a democratic government

Another point of agreement will be amnesty for war crimes.

Negotiations dominated by the generals are likely to end in a peace agreement in which they share the spoils, setting back the prospects for democracy for many more years.

But if the fighting is not stopped soon, Sudan faces state collapse.

Abdalla Hamdok - prime minister of the joint military-civilian government ousted by the generals in 2021 - has said the country's new war threatened to be worse than Syria or Yemen. 

He might have added, worse than Darfur.

Frontline reinforcements

There is a grim predictability about how Sudan's civil wars unfold.

In the opening days, the military commanders - army generals and rebel leaders - are driven by an angry resolve to land a knockout blow on the other side.

Combat is fierce as each side focuses its attacks, and it is easy to identify who is on which side - and who is staying neutral.

AFP

The RSF has its roots in Darfur where some fighters are alleged to have been involved in what the International Criminal Court considers a genocide

We saw this when the Sudanese civil war broke out in 1983, again in Darfur 20 years later, and in the conflicts in Abyei, Heglig and the Nuba Mountains close to the north-south border at the time when South Sudan separated in 2011.

The first clashes in South Sudan's own civil war in 2013 also looked like this.

On 15 April, when fighting erupted between the army and the RSF, each side vowed to destroy the other.

They concentrated their firepower on each other's strategic positions in the capital, regardless of the massive destruction inflicted on the city and its residents.

Past wars show that if the fighting is not quickly halted, it escalates.

Each side brings reinforcements to the frontline, bids to win over local armed groups that are not yet involved, and solicits help from friendly foreign backers. 

We are in that phase now.

The regular conflict script tells us the adversaries will not be able to sustain their cohesion for long. They will run low on weapons, logistics and money, and cut deals to get more.

The fissures within each fighting coalition will begin to show. Other armed groups will join the fray.

Local communities will arm themselves for self-defence. Outsiders will become entangled. 

All of this is already happening. It is most advanced in Darfur, Hemedti's homeland, which is in flames again.

Up to now, we have not seen civilians being systematically targeted because of their ethnic identity.

But that is a major risk, and as soon as fighters on one side commit mass atrocities, the antagonism will escalate.

The next stage would be conflict spreading across the country, igniting local disputes as it goes.

Armed groups will fragment and coalesce, fighting for control over the lucrative locations such as roads, airports, gold mines and aid distribution centres. 

In Darfur, after the fierce battles and massacres of 2003-04, the region collapsed into anarchy.

The head of the joint African Union-United Nations mission called it "a war of all against all".

This was the lawless political marketplace in which Hemedti thrived, using cash and violence to build a power base.

There is an all-too-real scenario in which the whole of Sudan comes to resemble Darfur.

'Abandoned in moment of need'

The US and Saudi mediators are high-level and even-handed. Unlike other Arab neighbours - Egypt backs Burhan and the United Arab Emirates has ties to Hemedti - Riyadh does not have a favourite. 

The US is threatening sanctions. That is unlikely to deter the generals - Sudan has been under American sanctions since 1989, and military-owned businesses thrived nonetheless. 

GETTY IMAGES

The one thing Gen Burhan (R) and Hemedti (L) are likely to agree about is that neither wants a civilian government

Effective pressure needs international consensus. Everyone - including China and Russia - agrees that the fighting is a disaster.

Protocol at the UN puts the responsibility on its African members to raise the issue at the Security Council. 

Up to now, they have not acted, and the African Union has not even convened its Peace and Security Council.

In the meantime, every passing day risks the war becoming intractable.

Silencing the guns today is a hard-enough task. It would be far harder if there were dozens of fissile armed groups claiming a seat at the table.

What is unprecedented about today's armed conflict is that the battleground is in Khartoum. 

It is generating a humanitarian crisis quite different to the rural displacement and hunger that the country's aid workers have dealt with over the decades.

Civilians trapped in urban neighbourhoods may benefit from old-style food convoys, but they also need utilities - electricity, water, and telecoms. And they desperately need cash. 

With the central bank burned and local commercial bank branches closed, some people rely on mobile phone banking services. Others are penniless.

With the UN and most foreign aid workers evacuated, local resistance committees have stepped into the vacuum, organising essential aid and safe passage for civilians to escape. 

REUTERS

Civilians have become trapped in urban neighbourhoods with truces failing to hold

Many Sudanese feel that the international community abandoned them in their moment of need, and ask that such local, civilian efforts become the lynchpin of an aid effort.

There is a danger that hunger will become a weapon of war, and aid will be a resource manipulated by warlords.

Aid agencies will need to find ways to bypass them and directly help civilians.

There are no simple solutions to Sudan's escalating war. The situation may yet get much worse before it gets better.

And it is likely that whatever decisions are taken in the ceasefire talks - who is represented, on what terms, and with what agenda - will shape the country's future for years to come.

Alex de Waal is the executive director of the World Peace Foundation at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in the US.

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View original: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-65495539

[Ends]

Sudan: Militia strike gold to cast a shadow over Sudan's hopes of prosperity

Supported by wealthy foreign backers, a feared paramilitary outfit controls Sudan’s most lucrative industry, complicating the country’s path to democracy. Read more:

Militia strike gold to cast a shadow over Sudan's hopes of prosperity

Analysis from The Guardian UK

Written by Ruth Michaelson (funded in part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation)

Dated 10 February 2020, 07.00 GMT

Photo: Sudanese Rapid Support Forces display gold bars seized from a plane that landed at Khartoum airport as part of an investigation into possible smuggling. Photograph: Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/Reuters

Ornate, heavy necklaces gleam on stands above stacks of thick filigree bangles in the windows of Khartoum’s gold market. The gold is Sudanese, dug from the rich mines that span the country.

Shop owner Bashir Abdulay hands over a palm-sized lump of pure gold with two small bore holes as he explains how the prized metal goes from mine deposit, through middlemen, to Khartoum.

Abdulay describes the Jebel Amer gold mine in Darfur [ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sudan-darfur-gold/special-report-the-darfur-conflicts-deadly-gold-rush-idUSBRE99707G20131008 ], one of several controlled by the Rapid Support Forces, the paramilitary group whose leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo [ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/29/hemedti-the-feared-commander-pulling-the-strings-in-sudan ] is now a central figure in Sudan’s transition to democracy.

“There are many people working there, some work on their own, others for the RSF. Everyone has his place, and the RSF have theirs,” he says, the metal twinkling in the bright shop lights. “The RSF have a big place producing gold, and selling it on their own.”

The RSF seized control of the Jebel Amer gold mine in Darfur in 2017, immediately making Dagalo, known as Hemedti, one of Sudan’s richest men. The RSF and Hemedti also control at least three other goldmines in other parts of the country, such as South Kordofan, making them a key player in an industry that produces Sudan’s largest export [ https://oec.world/en/profile/country/sdn/ ].

After the 2019 uprising that overthrew [ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/11/sudan-army-ousts-bashir-after-30-years-in-power ] former dictator Omar al-Bashir, Hemedti became part of the transitional military council and the sovereignty council designed to shepherd Sudan to democracy before elections are held in 2022.

Despite tentative government efforts to wrestle parts of the gold industry away from Sudan’s security services and back under state or private control, questions remain about whether Sudan [ https://www.theguardian.com/world/sudan ] can truly transition to democracy while the politically powerful RSF run a parallel economy all of their own.

To buy gold from the RSF, where do you go? Abdulay answers without hesitation: “Al Gunade have an office upstairs on the second floor,” he said, gesturing at the ceiling, unapologetically connecting the two organisations.

Al Gunade is a mining and trading corporation with deep ties to Hemedti and the RSF. Hemedti’s brother Abdul Rahim Dagalo and his sons are the three owners of Al Gunade, while reported RSF deputy Abdul Rahman al-Bakri is the general manager.

According to one of the documents [ https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6469821-Al-G.html#document/p1/a530944 ] obtained by the anti-corruption NGO Global Witness, Hemedti himself sits on the board of directors.

Photo: Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, head of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces, at a meeting in Khartoum. Photograph: Ümit Bektaş/Reuters

After reviewing evidence of the activities of Al Gunade and the RSF, Global Witness concluded [ https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/conflict-minerals/exposing-rsfs-secret-financial-network/ ] that “the RSF and a connected company have captured a swathe of the country’s gold industry and are likely using it to fund their operations”.

The organisation obtained bank data and corporate documents that, they say, show the RSF maintains a bank account in their name at the National Bank of Abu Dhabi (now part of the First Abu Dhabi Bank) in the United Arab Emirates, providing “evidence of the financial autonomy of the RSF”.

The UAE is by far the largest importer of Sudanese gold in the world. Global trade data from 2018 shows it imported [ https://trademap.org/Country_SelProductCountry.aspx?nvpm=1%7c729%7c%7c%7c%7c7108%7c%7c%7c4%7c1%7c2%7c2%7c1%7c1%7c2%7c1%7c1 ] 99.2% of the country’s gold exports. The Gulf nation has also subcontracted RSF militiamen to fight in Yemen [ https://apnews.com/d5705f44afea4f0b91ec14bbadefae62 ] and Libya [ https://www.dabangasudan.org/en/all-news/article/1-000-sudanese-militiamen-arrive-in-libya ], providing funds to the RSF.

The relationship between Sudan’s gold, wealthy foreign backers and the RSF militia is concerning observers. Global Witness believes the RSF is “an organisation whose military power and financial independence poses a threat to a peaceful democratic transition in Sudan”.

A former camel-trader, Hemedti gained his nickname from the words “my protector”. Before taking part in the coup that toppled him, he was the right-hand man of former dictator Bashir. Hemedti’s RSF grew out of the infamous Janjaweed militia active in Darfur, described as “men with no mercy” and accused of war crimes in a 2015 Human Rights Watch report [ https://www.hrw.org/report/2015/09/09/men-no-mercy/rapid-support-forces-attacks-against-civilians-darfur-sudan ].

HRW found that during the RSF’s campaign in Darfur, the militia were responsible for “egregious abuses against civilians … torture, extrajudicial killings and mass rapes”, as well as “the forced displacement of entire communities; the destruction of wells, food stores and other infrastructure necessary for sustaining life in a harsh desert environment”.

Last June, the RSF were accused of attacking peaceful protesters [ https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/11/17/they-were-shouting-kill-them/sudans-violent-crackdown-protesters-khartoum ] to disperse a sit-in in Khartoum calling for a handover to civilian rule. Protestors and observers said [ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/06/sudan-remove-rapid-support-forces-from-khartoum-streets-immediately/ ] the RSF brought the violent methods deployed in Blue Nile, South Kordofan and Darfur to the capital, shooting, stabbing, burning or crushing the skulls of at least 104 civilians, dumping bodies in the Nile, and raping at least 70 men and women.

Photo: Members of the Rapid Support Forces secure a site in Khartoum. Photograph: Ümit Bektaş/Reuters

The RSF have consistently denied their involvement. An investigation is ongoing.

“Hemedti himself, he understands the process of transition personally,” says Montaser Ibrahim, a former human rights defender who works with the RSF as an “unofficial consultant” on human rights. “This is one of the reasons that led me to deal with him.”

His new role has led to criticism from some in human rights activism, but Ibrahim sees the RSF as champions of minority rights, and Hemedti as a challenge against political elites.

“Hemedti is a revolutionary,” he says. He dismisses any notion of the RSF’s involvement in violence against protesters, branding accusations of war crimes against Hemedti and the Janjaweed as “propaganda”.

Both of Al Gunade’s two offices above Khartoum’s gold market are accessed via a dank staircase where bare wires jostle for space on the filthy walls.

Behind the tinted windows of Gunade’s offices, a kilogram gold bar sat on a lacquered wooden desk among office stationary, an ostentatious paperweight that may be the real thing. A man who repeatedly refused to give his name referred all questions about Al Gunade to the central bank, opening the office door to indicate that no further discussion would be accepted.

Sudanese authorities have begun attempts to overhaul the gold trade, dissolving mining companies involved with the former regime’s security services. Sudan now allows private traders to export gold [ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sudan-gold/sudan-opens-up-gold-market-in-bid-to-raise-revenue-idUSKBN1Z81M2 ] provided 30% of deposits remain in the central bank.

An official from Sudan’s mining ministry, who cannot be named as they are not permitted to brief the media, said extra checks are made to screen out companies associated with the previous regime. The official said that the people behind a company mattered less than whether or not it followed the rules. 

“Now even if the head of the transitional military council came himself, he has to go with the regulations,” the official said.

Photo: Goldmine workers wait to get their raw gold weighed at a shop in the town of al-Fahir in North Darfur. Photograph: Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/Reuters

Mohammed Tabidi, a Khartoum gold trader, says the new gold trading laws are a world away from those under the previous government that forced traders to buy gold from Sudan’s security services, or face arrest. “It’s a free market now,” he says.

He is hopeful about the possibilities of free trade amid a powerful black market and spiralling inflation that make daily life a struggle for many. Around the corner from the glistening mall where Tabidi works, men perch on bonnets in a car park, flicking fat wads of Sudanese pounds to signal their trade to drivers passing through. The official rate of 25 Sudanese pounds to the dollar is obsolete compared with the black market rate of 75, maybe even 80.

Tabidi says that while gold companies associated with other security services were rendered obsolete by the overhaul, Al Gunade remained.

“There is no company similar to Al Gunade [now],” he says. “There is nothing else like it.” The law is in flux, he says, and it is up to the authorities whether Al Gunade will continue.

“If export opens for traders, maybe Al Gunade won’t work,” he says. “But if they get a deal with the ministry of finance, they can.”

“Hemedti now is vice-president,” he said. “There are some things I can’t talk about.”

The RSF said [ https://www.globalwitness.org/en/press-releases/global-witness-response-to-news-that-head-of-sudans-rapid-support-forces-preparing-to-hand-over-gold-mining-areas-to-hamdouk-government/ ] in December that they would hand control of Jebel Amer to the government. Who will reap the profits remains very much in question, given the lack of transparency in Sudan’s gold industry and the difficulties in controlling a supply chain plagued by smuggling and remote sites controlled by militias. There are also few safeguards in place to prevent the RSF and Al Gunade operating illegally.

Richard Kent of Global Witness is critical of the RSF’s claim: “We welcome the development because it is potentially very beneficial to the Sudanese people and gold industry, but it’s still unclear exactly what this means,” he says. “Does this mean giving up the Al Gunade concession, reinstating some kind of civil or traditional administration – and if so how would that work, would it be independently appointed by the civilian government?”

Political transition offers the tools needed to transform Sudan’s most lucrative industry, cleaning up ministries and the supply chain. But there is a long road ahead before the Sudanese gold industry reaches the standards set by international observer bodies such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

“There needs to be a level of transparency in the process,” Kent says. “The RSF and to a lesser extent other security agencies haven’t demonstrated [that] in other areas of their business until now. The reality is, there are still a lot of individuals associated with the intelligence agencies riddled throughout the industry and ministries. As long as general intelligence service and the RSF still have a hold over natural resources and over governing institutions, it’s very hard to see how the gold industry would be able to implement the internationally accepted standards it needs to improve and attract investment.”

Sipping tea outside a French cultural centre where he is taking classes, the RSF’s consultant Ibrahim, an avid reader of Paulo Coelho, says: “The RSF looks like a rebel force. But we need to use them to change the political situation in Sudan.”

Ibrahim’s role illustrates the RSF’s hints of reform and change. While Ibrahim is very concerned about being misunderstood, he declines to say whether he is paid, what the job actually entails or whether he believes there are receptive RSF ears for his talk of human rights.

“Hemedti believes in the revolution – I know you might be shocked by this,” he says.

Ibrahim maintained that the only way forward for Sudan’s transition is for cooperation between civil society and the security sector. He believes he is part of the solution, not the problem. “The security sector in Sudan can’t be cut from the political process,” he says. “This doesn’t contradict the idea of democracy.”

Formerly a “a political adviser” to the Sudan Liberation Army, Darfur-based militants, Ibrahim says he became a prisoners’ rights campaigner during Bashir’s regime and his latest role is the apex of a long journey in Sudanese politics. He has created an organisation within the RSF intended to provide training “for NGOs and civil society”. But not the RSF themselves? “No,” he answers dismissively.

Members of the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), an umbrella trade union association that spearheaded the mass protests leading to Bashir’s overthrow, are confident that Sudan’s path towards democracy isn’t threatened by the RSF or their economic interests, says their spokesman Dr Mohanad Hamid.

“Hemedti is dangerous not because he’s one of the richest men in Sudan, but because he has an army, a militia in pure terms that’s independent from the Sudanese army – this is the issue,” he says. “Of course the economy is one of the main concerns, [but] peace is also one of the main concerns.”

Photo: Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, centre, waves a baton as he arrives for a rally in the village of Abraq, about 60km north-west of Khartoum. Photograph: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP via Getty Images

Hamid is confident that Hemedti and the RSF’s wealth won’t present a problem, provided their businesses are eventually brought under state control. “It’s all of four months since the beginning of the transitional period – this process is years,” he says. “If we get all the money back into the ministry of finance at the end of the three years it will be great, but we’re still waiting.”

Other SPA representatives, like Dr Batoul Altayeb, are unfazed by the RSF.

After protesters staged a mass demonstration [ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/13/sudanese-protesters-demand-justice-after-mass-killings ] against the RSF and the military following the Khartoum massacre, the SPA believe people power can contain the force of the RSF.

“We did it before and we will do it again,” says Altayeb calmly. “[The sovereign council] includes the RSF because they know that peace is the key before the economy. Democracy is on the way – it’s a process, not just an outcome.”

This article was corrected on 10 February 2020 to clarify the ownership structure of Al Gunade. This article was amended on 11 February 2020 to add additional comments from the Sudanese Professionals Association. About this content This website [above] is funded by support provided, in part, by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The journalism and other content is editorially independent and its purpose is to focus on global development.

View Original: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2010/sep/14/about-this-site

Sudan fires 109 diplomats with alleged links to Bashir

Sudan fires scores of diplomats allegedly linked to Bashir

Report from Reuters

Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz, 

Writing by Mahmoud Mourad, Editing by Timothy Heritage

Dated Saturday 29 February 2020, 6:16PM

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan has fired scores of diplomats for alleged links to the administration of toppled President Omar al-Bashir, a legal committee said on Saturday.

The Empowerment Removal Committee was formed under a law introduced in November to dismantle the system built by Bashir, who was ousted in April last year after nearly three decades in power.

“One-hundred-and-nine ambassadors, diplomats and administrators were fired from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and those were appointed through political and social empowerment,” Mohamed al-Faki, deputy head of the committee, told a news conference in the capital, Khartoum.

Some of the diplomats were appointed by Bashir himself and the others were picked through his now dissolved National Congress Party, said Taha Othman, a member of the committee.

Earlier this month, the committee dissolved the boards of the country’s central bank and 11 other state-owned banks and fired the managers of eight of the banks.

It also seized the assets of the former ruling party last month.

View Original: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sudan-politics/sudan-fires-scores-of-diplomats-allegedly-linked-to-bashir-idUSKBN20N0WB