Seeds Will Grow

Cross-posting this recent statement by the Resist US-Led War Movement, summarizing the struggle of the Sudanese people at this time (source):

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Sudan is being torn apart and over 150,000 Sudanese people have died as a result of conflict between warring factions backed by global powers who are carving up Sudan for their own profit. The Resist US-Led War Movement joins the people of Sudan and all peace loving people around the world calling for an end to the bloodshed and accountability for all war profiteers engineering genocide for the sake of their profit-making.

Contrary to its frequent depiction as an internal civil war, the devastating conflict in Sudan is more accurately understood as a proxy struggle, driven by a scramble for the nation’s resources, land and strategic sea ports. External powers arepropping up different reactionary armies led by rival factions of the same comprador class, agents working in favor of foreign organizations and countries engaged in investment, trade, economic and political exploitation of the Sudanese masses. This war pits the two main pillars of the former Omar al-Bashir regime, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), against each other in a brutal struggle for state power. While these forces formed a temporary alliance following the 2019 mass protests to overthrow al-Bashir’s 30-year rule, their partnership would soon collapse. After establishing a joint military-civilian government, both the RSF and SAF orchestrated another coup in October 2021 to seize full control of the state. The fragile alliance rapidly degenerated following failed negotiations to integrate the RSF into the state army. Tensions escalated as foreign powers lined up to support one side over the other in a war they knew would be in their favor, a war which exploded in April 2023.

Origins of the RSF 

The crisis in Sudan, escalating over the past five years from a popular uprising that ousted former President Omar al-Bashir in 2019 into a devastating full-scale proxy war in April 2023, has created one of the world’s most severe humanitarian catastrophes. The war is being waged between the SAF and the RSF, whose relentless siege and urban warfare have claimed an estimated 150,000 lives. The recent RSF capture of El-Fasher in Darfur resulted in a massacre of at least 2,000 civilians, with summary executions, mass rape of women, and the murder of patients in hospitals who were recovering from wounds and diseases. This has driven 26,000 people to flee through checkpoints amid extortion and violence, adding to the over 14 million internally displaced, the largest displacement crisis globally. The nation now faces systemic collapse, with extreme shortages of food, water, medicine, and fuel; 25.6 million people face acute food insecurity, including 8.5 million at emergency levels. Nearly three-quarters of health facilities are inoperative, with diseases like cholera and measles spreading unchecked.

RSF has its roots in the Janjaweed militias, which were used by the Sudanese Government in its attempts to fight the anti-government insurgency during the War in Darfur (2003-2006), a genocidal war that led to the deaths of approximately 200,000 civilians from national minorities like the Fur and Masalit. The RSF was officially formed in 2013, following a restructuring and reactivation of Janjaweed militias in order to combat rebel groups in the Darfur region, South Kordofan, and the Blue Nile states, following joint attacks by Sudanese Revolutionary Front, an alliance between Sudanese factions that was created in opposition to the government of President Omar al-Bashir, in North and South Kordofan in April 2013. 

In September 2013, the RSF was deployed against peaceful demonstrators who were protesting the Sudanese government’s removal of subsidies on basic commodities. More than 170 people were killed in September 2013, in incidents that unmasked the Sudanese regime’s dependence on the militia to quell political dissent and marked a new evolution in the role of the RSF. Starting in 2015 and 2016, convinced of the RSF’s effectiveness as a counterinsurgency force, the regime designated the RSF as Sudan’s primary force tasked with patrolling Sudanese borders to interdict migrants’ movement. The Sudanese government made this designation within the framework of its partnership with the EU for the control of migration

Under the command of Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo “Hemedti,” the RSF evolved into a vast, economic conglomerate controlling major gold mines, key trade routes and engaging in illicit mineral smuggling.

WHO IS SUPPORTING WHOM

The suffering of the Sudanese people is propped up by ever-changing alliances between the competing factions and international powers who are using the nation as a proxy battlefield to advance their own geopolitical and economic interests. 

The RSF’s Backers

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) serves as the RSF’s primary international sponsor. It supplies the paramilitary force with weapons, drones, and financial support via airlifts from northern Chad. In return, the UAE secures access to Sudan’s vast gold reserves from RSF mines, which are smuggled out through RSF-controlled territories, allowing the Gulf monarchy to bypass sanctions and secure its strategic resource interests. Further support comes from Chad, which provides a rear base and additional weaponry, and the Libyan National Army, which similarly offers support in exchange for lucrative smuggling rights. Recent investigations have shown that “Israeli” Mossad agents have even been advising RSF leaders at the request of the Zionist-friendly government of the UAE.

The SAF’s Backers

The Sudanese Armed Forces are backed by a coalition countering the RSF’s Gulf allies. Egypt provides the bulk of this support, supplying weapons, conducting airstrikes, and even deploying troops. Cairo’s primary motive is to ensure a stable, friendly government in Sudan that will ensure steady trade through the Egypt-administered Suez Canal and support Egypt’s claim and potential war efforts against Ethiopia over control of the headwaters of the Nile. Turkiye channels its own military support through Egypt, seeking to expand its influence in the Red Sea and Africa. Ukraine previously sent military trainers to the SAF as part of its NATO-backed war against Russia, (in retaliation for the RSF’s use of Russian private military contractor firm, Wagner Group, mercenaries) but pulled its troops out after Russia switched sides in 2024 to gain access to a new port from the SAF.

Regional destabilization efforts by US imperialists, leading to shifting proxy war alliances

Several international backers of the factions reveal the purely opportunistic nature of the plunder project by certain foreign powers in Sudan, and the other national and regional interests pulled into the proxy war. Russia, which initially backed the RSF through the Wagner Group to secure gold mining concessions, has increasingly pursued a more pragmatic engagement with the SAF to secure strategic access to the Red Sea via a naval base at Port Sudan. This dynamic intensified with the UAE’s robust logistical and financial backing of the RSF. 
The increasing support of the UAE to the RSF, in turn, prompted its regional rivals to support the opposing side. Most significantly, a shared opposition to UAE influence facilitated a military rapprochement between the SAF and Iran. This partnership marked a big reversal from Sudan’s previous foreign policy. In 2016, the country had cut ties with Iran to align with Saudi Arabia and the UAE and had even begun normalizing relations with “Israel.” The new military understanding led to Iran, looking to defend its national security against “Israel” and the US aligned gulf monarchies, to sell Mohajer and Shahed combat drones to the SAF which proved to be instrumental in breaking the RSF’s siege of Omdurman in February 2024.

While it may seem at first glance that all external actors are equally at fault for the war’s atrocities, it must be remembered that the US-led war machine has worked for decades to keep the countries of North Africa and West Asia destabilized so that it could use the these power struggles in its favor. The Sudan crisis is the result of these years of schemes to ensure political chaos in the entire region while Washington, London, and Tel Aviv direct the chaos in their wider conflicts with rivals like Russia and Iran.

The Military Industrial Complex Reaps Profits 

While the US and its European allies consistently condemn the humanitarian crisis in Sudan through official statements, their actions and investments reveal them to be direct participants in the war in Sudan. Their condemnations and targeted sanctions against the SAF and RSF ring hollow, as the very weapons they supply fuel the massacres conducted by these groups.

This complicity is most evident in the supply chain leading to the RSF. The US acts as a principal arms source for the UAE, the paramilitary’s main international patron. Billions of dollars in authorized sales, including a $1.2 billion package under Biden and a $1.4 billion deal under Trump, have proceeded despite the UAE systematically diverting this equipment to the RSF and bills in the US Congress condemning the sale of arms to the UAE on the basis of human rights violations.

In the past month an investigation based on documents submitted to the UN Security Council confirmed that British military equipment, including small-arms target systems and engines for armored vehicles, has been recovered from RSF combat positions. The same applies to France whose military technology incorporated into armored personnel carriers made by the UAE is used on the battlefield in Sudan. As the war creates one of the world’s largest humanitarian catastrophes, imperialist nations and their military industrial complex are directly implicated in arming the factions responsible for Sudan’s devastation.

Furthermore since 2013, the EU has allocated millions of euros in “aid” to Sudan. This financial support was in reality designated for technical resources and training programs aimed at curbing migration to Europe, a crisis that has its roots on the European colonization in Africa. The initiatives targeted migrants originating from Sudan itself, as well as those from nations like Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, and other sub-Saharan African countries who use Sudan as a transit route. These EU resources were directly channeled into strengthening the capabilities of the RSF, the unit identified as Sudan’s principal border control authority.

All of this proves that the US and its NATO allies support either side in a proxy war of their own engineering. As long as the fighting continues, profits will flow while they can act like the saviors calling for humanitarian aid while secretly keeping the conflict raging.

The People of Sudan Continue Their Fight for liberation 

As global powers carve up Sudan for its gold, oil, and strategic ports, the people’s resistance emerges from neighborhood committees, women-led unions, refugee relief efforts, and the radical youth organizations that toppled Omar al-Bashir six years ago. Today, the Sudanese people continue their march toward a just peace, a goal that is only attainable by breaking the foreign military and economic stronghold on their nation.

It is the duty of all peace-loving people to stand with them. We must mobilize against external interference and expose the military-industrial complex fueling the war. Through education, propaganda, and mass direct action, let us build the international solidarity necessary to support the liberation of Sudan and challenge the destructive policies of Western aligned governments and all imperialist forces.