WORLD WORLDWIDE ITALY SUDAN News Journal Update - (en) Italy, UCADI #171: SUDAN, A WAR AT HOME'S DOORS (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 The civil war that has broken out in Sudan hides behind tribal motives to take

possession of oil and gold, it also has geostrategic effects and risks further
destabilizing the Mediterranean area. To understand the reasons for the conflict
and analyze its possible consequences, it is advisable to start with an analysis
of the country's economic and social situation. It should also be remembered that
the country represents an important crossing point for a large part in the escape
routes of migrants from central Africa; moreover, with its view on the Red Sea,
it offers strategically important ports to those powers that want to play a
significant role in African political and economic affairs. Although the country
is one of the poorest in the world, it is nevertheless rich in mineral and
petroleum resources and constitutes an important bridgehead for both Chinese and
Russian settlement in Africa.

An appendage country of Egypt

The history and destinies of Sudan have been intimately linked to those of Egypt
since prehistoric times, when the country was incorporated into the area of
Egyptian political and cultural influence. The civilization that developed there
was greatly affected by the influence exerted by Egypt and, shifting attention to
more recent times, the colonial ones, it should be remembered that Sudan was
annexed to the destiny of Egypt through the extension of the protectorate to its
territory English established over Egypt. And yet Sudan has never passively
accepted foreign domination because in the 19th century Islamism gave birth to a
strong nationalist movement, led by Muhammad Ahmad ibn al-Sayyid ?Abd Allah ibn
Fahl, known as the Mahdi(1844 -1885) who managed to defeat the British, expelling
them from the country for many years. Subsequently, Great Britain regained
control of Sudan which only achieved independence in 1956.
Since then, constant institutional instability has prevailed and, as happened in
many former colonial countries, it has not been possible to create democratic and
participatory governments, since with the support of the post-colonial powers the
coup militias of this or that have prevailed. orientation, in a situation
complicated by the fact that while the north of the country is predominantly
inhabited by Islamic populations, Christianity prevails in the south, as a result
of an evangelizing action carried out above all by the Comboni fathers; there is
also the presence of animist populations while the Arabs consider themselves the
elite of the country.
The discovery of oil in the western territories of Darfur has set off a conflict
for control of this resource, which has added to that between the north of the
Islamic country and the Catholic south, which has lasted for 40 years, fueled by
the interest in control and exploit the gold deposits discovered to the south.
The outbreak of the civil war was aggravated by the constant attempt by the
central government to impose Shari?a on the whole country, an attempt obviously
opposed by the Catholic component which forcefully asked for the independence of
the populations of the South who considered themselves discriminated against by
the central power. Hence the presence of millions of displaced people fleeing,
forced to live in refugee camps due to the persecutions, destruction and violence
they suffered.
The complexity of the situation summarily described up to now has made and still
makes a recomposition of the conflict almost impossible, even if after a bloody
civil war, still not completely dormant, the south of the country became
independent as a result of the referendum held between 9 and January 15, 2011; a
simultaneous referendum was held in Abyei province to choose whether to be part
of South Sudan or to remain in Sudan. On 9 July 2011, after a trial period, the
independence of South Sudan was proclaimed, immediately recognized by the
Khartoum government.
Meanwhile Omar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir was reconfirmed president of Sudan,
obtaining 68% of the votes. Except that between 2018 and 2019 the country was
shaken for months by popular uprisings that led to the resignation of the
President Omar Bashir on 11 April 2019 who had failed to democratize the country,
but had begun a gradual and timid distancing from fundamentalist Islamism and
during 2020 female genital mutilation was declared illegal, abolished the death
penalty for homosexuality and apostasy and the canceled alcohol ban (for
non-Muslims only). The obligation of the veil for women and public flogging has
been repealed.
In September 2021, an attempted coup, attributed to supporters of former dictator
Omar Bashir, was thwarted. After a series of demonstrations by various factions,
on 25 October 2021 a new coup d'état by the armed forces, led by General Abdel
Fattah Avdelrahman Burhan, deposed the civilian government and a new agreement
was signed with the armed forces led by commander Mohammed Dagalo, head of the
RSF, the Rapid Support Force created by Bashir for the ethnic cleansing of
non-Arabs in Darfur: the ongoing unrest is the consequence of the breaking of
this agreement.

Behind the scenes

The ongoing clash is only partly the result of the ethnic-religious conflicts
that we have pointed out because each of the two sides defends precise economic
interests and can count on the support of powerful forces outside the country.
The territory of Sudan is the subject of attention from both China and Russia, as
well as the United States. The main interested parties when it happens in South
Sudan are the Russians who aim to take control of the deposits of gold and
precious minerals in the country.
Operational instrument of force for Russian penetration are the Wagner venture
company, as well as the Russian Orthodox Church, which in its competition with
the Ecumenical Patriarchate for the conquest of hegemony in the Orthodox world,
has the Exarchate of Northern and Southern Africa was established with the
intention of removing from the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Alexandria -
an ally of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and supporter of the Autocephalous Church
of Ukraine - the jurisdiction over the Orthodox of Africa. Since then, a
veritable campaign has been underway for the purchase of already Catholic
ministers and faithful, financially supported so that they pass through the
structures of the Russian Orthodox Church which, taking advantage of the presence
of Christianity in the region, carries out an action of proselytism which has
also the aim of binding the populations to Russia. On the other hand, it seems
that Patriarch Kirril himself, through the Wagner company, has invested in
companies that intervene economically in South Sudan. Russia, moreover, is
interested in maintaining relations with Sudan, as it aspires to build a military
base in Port Sudan which will act as a foothold on the Red Sea coast for its
fleet committed to controlling and being present in the various strategic
chessboards of the planet. It is quite evident that a port Russian military on
the coast from Sudan would make it possible to control one of the busiest routes
in the world which is the one that crosses the Suez Canal.
In short, China is the main commercial and economic partner of the country to
which it offers the construction of infrastructures in exchange for a joint
management of these for a period necessary for the return of the investment and
the accumulation of profits. China does the same with reference to Darfur where
the oil imports from which it benefits come.
This ever more pervasive presence of Russians and Chinese is contrasted by the US
attempt to establish a military base on Sudanese soil that would allow both
listening to communications in the Pacific area and the Red Sea, but also hosting
a rapid intervention force that allows the USA to operate on the various crisis
scenarios and to extend their control over the Suez Canal and the maritime
traffic that develops through it. It must also be considered that Sudan,
bordering numerous African states, represents the inevitable crossroads where
migratory flows from both the Horn of Africa and Central Africa meet, proof of
this is that the migrants who pass through the its territory feed the flows
coming from Libya, from Tunisia from Egypt and arriving on the coasts of the
Mediterranean. The flow of migrants is also fueled by the ethnic clash between
the Arabs of Darfur, by the gangs of anjawid (literally, devils on horseback) who
claim possession of the land and water, kill, rape, loot, burn.
This combination of reasons tells us that the country has an essential strategic
role in the strategies of the various powers operating in the new multipolar
world that is emerging. This is the reason why the ongoing civil war is worrying
as well as the obvious humanitarian catastrophe it represents for the country's
41 million inhabitants who thus add to the migratory potential of the area,
strengthening it with a flow originating and fueled by persecutions, liberticidal
laws, the denial of human rights, political freedoms, hunger and misery, the
progressive desertification of a territory exploited with predatory logics,
through an agriculture which, after having exploited the territories, abandons
them, to move to contiguous ones and continue to desertify the land. The only way
to stop the conflict and to prevent the ongoing civil war in Sudan from fueling
the migratory flow is to stabilize the country economically, by financing a more
rational and less predatory agriculture, carrying out an agrarian reform worthy
of the name, providing capital, taking into account that the crossing of the
country of the great rivers, the White Nile and the Blue Nile, allows investments
that concern the production of hydroelectric energy, but also to manage a
precious asset such as water in a rational way, in the face of a crisis constant
water. It should not be ignored that this territory constitutes in perspective an
immense crisis area due precisely to the inevitable conflict between Ethiopia,
Sudan and Egypt for the control and use of water and that, following the
construction of reservoirs and dams, started.
In the light of these considerations, the Sudanese crisis is very serious and
fraught with consequences at the geostrategic, economic and migration policy
levels, as well as those of access to mineral and oil resources and water.

E.P.

http://www.ucadi.org/2023/05/29/sudan-una-guerra-alle-porte-di-casa/
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