Two years have passed since the war broke out in Sudan between the two sides of the military regime that the country inherited from the infamous Omar al-Bashir. While the situation in Sudan does not get even a tenth of the global media attention of the ongoing Zionist genocidal war in Gaza, the scale of the human catastrophe there is equally horrific. The death toll from the military-on-military war is estimated at more than 150,000, while the number of displaced people stands at approximately 13 million, and the number of those threatened with severe famine reaches 44 million. This makes the war in Sudan the greatest humanitarian crisis in today’s world.
White wars get more attention
There is an underlying racist inclination that dominates the global “spontaneous” ideology. Global media attention to wars is inversely proportional to the degree of blackness of the skin of those involved.
A striking example is the five-year war in the DRC between 1998 and 2003, which claimed approximately six million direct and indirect victims. Outside of sub-Saharan Africa, the world turned a blind eye, while paying far greater attention to events with far lower death tolls, such as the Kosovo War (1999) and the Al-Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington (2001).
In general, wars in which white soldiers from the global North do not directly participate receive very little global attention. This is the case of Sudan, which is witnessing a war between two exclusively local parties, even if fuelled by regional parties, particularly through their support for the genocidal Rapid Support Forces militia. The most dangerous role in this regard has been played by the United Arab Emirates, in alliance with a global player, Russia. This is the same duo that played the primary role in supporting Khalifa Haftar in the Libyan civil war.
Responsibility of the West
The truth, though, is that Western countries bear primary responsibility for what has befallen the country. The coup led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan disrupted the democratic process resulting from the 2019 revolution. It occurred in the autumn of 2021 under the watch of the German Volker Perthes, UN envoy to the country. Perthes sought to reconcile the military and the civilian leadership they had overthrown, instead of taking a firm stance against the putschists and calling on the international community to exert maximum pressure on them to return to their barracks and allow for the continuation of the democratic process. This encouraged them, and two years later, led to the outbreak of fighting between the two factions of the military, the regular forces and the Rapid Support Forces, each side vying for sole control of the country.
Two possible outcomes
The reality is that the war in Sudan faces only two possible outcomes:
- The UN finally assumes its responsibility and organises the intervention of international forces. It imposes a ceasefire on both warring parties, and then forces them to retreat to their barracks, allowing the democratic process to continue and providing it with full support. This support would include the means required to disband the ill-fated Rapid Support Forces and impose radical changes on the Sudanese regular forces, transforming them from the army of a military dictatorship into one subject to civilian authority.
- Sudan heads toward partition. This would perpetuate military rule in its eastern part and allow the Rapid Support Forces (formerly the Janjaweed militia) to impose complete control over the Darfur region. This would enable them to continue the racist, genocidal war that they began waging at the beginning of the current century under Bashir’s leadership (he rewarded them in 2013 by granting them official status as a faction of the Sudanese Armed Forces).
Finally, it is necessary to also point out the failure of international solidarity with the afflicted Sudanese people. We warmly welcome the tremendous development witnessed by the solidarity movement with the Palestinian people against the Zionist genocidal war in Gaza. But we can only regret the continued dependence of global solidarity on the shaping of media attention described above. There is utmost urgency for a broad solidarity movement with the people of Sudan to emerge, particularly in Western countries, but also in all regions of the world, including the Arab region, pressing for United Nations intervention to halt this great tragedy.
Gilbert Achcar is Professor of Development Studies and International Relations at SOAS, University of London.
