Sudan conflict and the scramble for Africa
By
Amen Izzadeen
Resource-rich, poverty-stricken, and corruption-ridden Sudan is now embroiled in yet another conflict. This time, the country’s military rulers are being challenged by a paramilitary force known as Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which the military itself formed to bring the rebellion in the Darfur region under control.
What is driving the conflict is not merely the power struggle between Military ruler Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan and RSF Chief Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, a.k.a. Hemedti, the number two in the ruling council. What remains blurred by the battlefield smoke is the power rivalry between the United States and Russia. Sudan has been turned into another Ukraine.
Despite oil, gold, uranium, chromite and other mineral resources, the country is one of the least developed in the world, ranking 172nd on the 2022 Human Development Index. Sudan’s oil fields annually produce 59,000 barrels of oil a day.
Oil exports bring in about US$ 320 million a year. In addition, it receives an in-kind royalty payment of 14,000 barrels per day from South Sudan, an independent land-locked nation which broke away from Sudan in 2011 and which depends on Sudan’s seaports to export its oil and receive its imports.
Yet, nearly about 90 percent of Sudan’s population lives below the poverty line. Economic mismanagement, political instability, rampant corruption and international sanctions are the reasons Sudan is still a least-developed nation despite its rich resources including agriculture fields nourished by Nile waters.
Sudan is a classic example of how international sanctions affect the poor and the vulnerable the most while they leave leaders unaffected. Sudan was slapped with international sanctions following war crimes charges in the Darfur region and South Sudan. The military government of President Omar al-Bashir was accused of committing rape and genocide during the Darfur and South Sudan conflicts.
Sudan received independence in 1956 from Britain and Egypt. However, for more than 50 years of its 67-year post-independence existence, the country had been enmeshed in one internal conflict or another. The secessionist war in South Sudan dominated by Christians and animists ended in 2005 but not before bringing deaths to 2 million people and making six million people refugees. In Darfur, 16 years of the conflict left 16,000 civilians dead and some 2.5 million displaced.
On Transparency International’s corruption index, Sudan ranks 172nd out of 180 countries. According to the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Center, corruption in Sudan is present in all sectors and across all branches and levels of government. “Public servants are known to demand bribes for services that individuals or companies are legally entitled to; government officials hold direct and indirect stakes in many enterprises, distorting the market through patronage and cronyism; and the head of state and government is believed to have embezzled up to US$9 billion from oil revenues.”
When President al-Bashir’s house was raided by the military after he was overthrown in a pro-democracy uprising in 2019, US$ 134 million stacked in suitcases was recovered. The 2019 pro-democracy uprising led to the formation of a transition-to-democracy council with a civilian prime minister, but the 2021 military coup put paid to Sudan’s democracy march.
What of Sudan’s gold? It is alleged that Russia’s private military company, the Wagner Group, is part of a corruption network that enables the ruling elite to profit from gold smuggling. The Wagner Group is at the forefront of Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine. Sudan sought Russian succor to overcome International sanctions.
Sudanese military leaders visited Russia for high-level talks. Soon, Russian companies, including the Wagner Group, were working in Sudan’s gold mines and oil fields.
The present conflict erupted on April 15 against the backdrop of a US-Russia power struggle in parts of Africa. On a different plane, there exists a US-China cold war. But that is another matter.
The Sudanese military junta, which included the two warring generals, agreed on a deal to allow Russia to set up a naval base near Port Sudan on the strategic Red Sea coast.
According to Western media, the 25-year agreement allows Russia to keep up to 300 troops and four warships, including nuclear-powered ones, in the Russia base at Port Sudan, providing Russia with easy and swift access to the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. In return, Russia would help Sudan to circumvent sanctions, buy weapons and equipment, and do business with Russian companies.
Sudan is a classic example of how international sanctions affect the poor and the vulnerable the most while they leave leaders unaffected. Sudan was slapped with international sanctions following war crimes charges in the Darfur region and South Sudan
Port Sudan will be Russia’s first in Africa and the second in the greater Middle Eastern region. In Syria, Russia operates three air bases and a big naval base that overlooks the Mediterranean Sea.
The increased Russian military presence in the Red Sea and around the Mediterranean Sea is a major security concern for the West, the dominating military bloc in the Middle East.
While the ‘embedded’ Western media get agitated by Russia’s military presence in Africa, rarely do they highlight the US military’s efforts to infiltrate Africa. The latest pretext is fighting Islamic terrorism, which the West is responsible for creating if not fathering.
If Russia has been accused of doing business with Sudan’s coup leaders, the US is no better. Last month, the US, NATO, and a few African states held a massive military exercise in Côte d’Ivoire (earlier known as Ivory Coast). Among those who participated in the exercise was Burkina Faso, which has been restricted from receiving US military aid after a US-trained military officer overthrew the democratically elected government in a coup last year.
The military exercise called Flintlock aimed to neutralize the threat from the so-called Islamic terrorists in the Sahel region – a region extending from the Atlantic coast in the West to the Red Sea in the East, south of the Sahara desert and north of the Sudanese savanna.
A recent US Defence Department report said the Sahel region now accounted for 40 percent of all violent activity by militant Islamist groups in Africa, more than any other region in Africa.
Despite increased US military exercises in Africa, its Africa Command (AFRICOM) is headquartered in Germany. Efforts by the US to locate its headquarters in an African country have not succeeded, largely because of African Union’s commitment to non-aligned principles and resistance to superpower military presence in the continent.
Some US senators have called on the Joe Biden administration to shift the headquarters to Morocco, where the AFRICOM holds its largest annual military exercise codenamed African Lions.
At present Camp Lemonnier in the Red Sea coastal nation of Djibouti on the Horn of Africa is the only US military base in the continent. Apart from a US naval base, Djibouti hosts military bases belonging to Germany, Spain, Italy, France, the United Kingdom, China, Japan and Saudi Arabia at little distance from one another. In December last year, US President Biden hosted an Africa summit, promising billions of dollars in aid, in a move seen as dissuading African nations from joining hands with China.
Given the scramble for military bases and influence, the Sudan conflict certainly has strong geopolitical undercurrents.
