Sudan has been living, since April 2023, through a fierce war between its armed forces, led by the Chairman of the Sovereignty Council, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the mercenary “Rapid Support Forces,” led by the Hulagu of our age, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti). Those modern-Mongol hordes swept into the city of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, on the 27th of last month (October), after an 18-month siege that exhausted the population: medicines disappeared, food nearly ran out, drinking water dried up, and then the mercenary forces rained heavy artillery shells, loitering-drone bombs, and deadly rockets on the city – weapons they obtained from neighbouring countries, together with financial and logistical support from parties whom God has blessed with wealth yet who know only how to spend it on the destruction of homelands, the tearing apart of their unity, and the plundering of their riches. The brutality of Hemedti’s mercenaries was no less than the brutality, cruelty, and barbarism of Israel against our people in Gaza and the West Bank; thus they proceeded to destroy El Fasher with all who were in it and around it, slaughtering its civilian population and abusing its children. The painful lesson that choked every witness was perhaps encapsulated in the sight of that child – not yet five years old – whose fate is unknown, who knelt and begged in terror as one of the mercenaries pursued him.
An important question arises throughout the Arab world: what prevents the member states of the Arab League, the countries of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, some Gulf Cooperation Council states, in cooperation with the African Union, from intervening with all their diplomatic, economic, and military capabilities to end the chaos and crimes in Sudan? Why do we beg for solutions from America when we are capable of resolving them? There is currently talk about a U.S.-mediated truce between the legitimate Sudanese authorities and the renegade mercenary forces, and everyone welcomes a humanitarian ceasefire – but the conditions for achieving it should include withdrawal from all cities and villages occupied by the Rapid Support Forces and handing over everyone involved in the genocide in El Fasher and its environs to the International Criminal Court. A truce cannot be imposed between the rightful parties and the aggressors. Any truce made today will benefit Hemedti’s forces so long as they hold the upper hand in Darfur and its environs. This ceasefire, whose terms are drafted by America, would mean entrenching the authority of Hemedti’s forces over the territories they seized by external force and facilitating the smuggling of more weapons. That is unacceptable – no truce with thieves and aggressors.
This pattern of truces and agreements imposed by America is a dangerous precedent likely to repeat in more than one Arab country. It is an explicit encouragement to commit crimes and genocide against humanity whenever the result is impunity and praise for criminals for accepting “ceasefires” or “agreements” that consolidate an unjust fait accompli affecting victims counted in the hundreds of thousands, even millions. Was the Gaza scenario not repeated in Sudan?
If matters are left as they are in Sudan, there is fear that Hemedti’s forces will extend toward Kordofan to reach the shores of the Red Sea and impose their hegemony over its ports. Then the Arabian Peninsula will be encircled by sea: beginning with an Israeli presence on Socotra Island in Yemen, passing through control of the Horn of Africa’s ports and Bab al-Mandeb, and culminating in Hemedti, and those who support him, tightening their grip on Sudan’s coasts. Then regret for our silence will be of no use, and the losers will be clear: the countries of the Arabian Peninsula.
[by Mohammed Saleh Al-Musfir in Al-Araby Al-Jadeed]
Compiled and translated by Faizul Haque