Against War: We are all Sudanese

War has broken out in Sudan. Since April 15 this year the capital, Khartoum, and other cities in the country became the site of bloody fighting between the regular Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Force (RSF), which has its roots in the Janjaweed militia, which has been accused of genocide in Darfur. 2003. The two warring sides are formally armed and armed. There is no possibility of a quick military victory by either side. The two belligerents were co-conspirators in the coup that dethroned civilian rule in Sudan, the latest being the 2021 coup. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who heads the national army, and Gen. Hamdan Mahomed Dagalo are former friends who successfully conspired to topple Omar al-Bashir’s government in 2019. The country a shell and a wasteland. Millions of Sudanese displaced and evicted will come to neighboring countries as refugees. Both sides have regional and international supporters, including some superpowers, who resent all Africans. The real victims of the war are the citizens of Sudan. Sardars and their supporters are protected from injury, eviction, displacement and death.

an unwanted war

All wars except liberation wars are unwanted wars. All wars are morally crimes against humanity. The current war in Sudan is particularly undeserved because it is being waged at the wrong time and in the wrong way, by the wrong people in Africa. War also appears when the entire world order is vulnerable to war and other forms of large-scale violence. The war also has a history that dates back to colonial times when Arabs turned against black Africans. The two generals leading the belligerent armies have a history of genocide and crimes against humanity, billionaires turned warlords. These are angry soldiers who command marauding battle-hardened armies from as far away as Yemen and Libya. The two men have previously made religiously and ethnically inflammatory public statements capable of inciting divisions that could lead to large-scale violence in a country whose national question has long remained unanswered. The national question in Africa is the state’s ability to unite various tribes, classes and other identity groups of people into a nation that salutes a flag and sings a national anthem while paying allegiance to a binding national constitution. For a long time, Sudan has not even come close to dividing Arabs from black Africans and black Africans themselves into warring tribes and clans. The ultimate losers in this war are the ordinary African people of Sudan who are victims of a war that has been waged by wealthy powerful militaries in alliance with powerful interested parties from outside the continent. The war is taking place at a time when Africa is being overtaken by religious extremism, terrorism, military coups, corruption and a sharp decline in political leadership capacity. The decline in political leadership in Africa has been fueled by a decline in the capacity for political follow-up. Political party members, supporters and voters in Africa have lowered the bar of standards and this has allowed questionable political leaders to gain power across the continent.

war of liberation

Where are the teeth of Pan-Africanism when we need them?

What the common people of Sudan need right now is solidarity and protection from other Africans. As the Nigerians say, when two brothers fight, a stranger reaps the harvest. The fighting between the two military and political groups in Sudan will allow some foreign vested interests to win in Sudan. Sudan’s gold, oil and other resources would be exposed to exploitation by powerful foreign forces as the owners of the resources, the Sudanese people, would pay a dear price for violence and destruction. The case of Sudan is yet another test of the relevance and value of the African Union in protecting Africans, ordinary people, from their leadership. If the AU had the power and relevance to Africa, the union would put the two warring factions in their place, either through dialogue or militarily, and save Africa from crisis. But it is the foreign superpowers who have a say in how the war in Sudan will end. Even the children of Africa know that if Sudan did not have as much oil and gold, there would be no war in that country.

What is called the “resource curse” in Africa is actually the relationship between a country’s mineral wealth and war.

The war in Sudan will undoubtedly open the country and the continent to foreign military, economic and political intrusion, there is no doubt about it. Africans would kill each other for the benefit of foreign interests. Worse, there is a possibility that the war in Sudan will spread to more and more Africa as African countries take sides in the war on this and that belligerent side. What historians call the “demonstration effect” is that some troops in different African countries are watching what is happening while they plan their moves. One war in Africa inspires many other wars in different countries. The war Sudan is an unwanted war which is another bad example for Africa. That war can lead an African to ask the question: where is African unity when we need it most? Indeed, where are the African diplomats? Or where is the African continental army that can quickly move in to neutralize the war and protect the people of Sudan, before some selfish protectorate from outside the continent pretends to enforce the peace and colonize Sudan? come for

There is a need for a strong military, political and economic Pan-Africanism in Africa. There is a need for a Pan-Africanism that can defeat any African regime and compel it to defend the rights and lives of Africans. Pan-Africanism would ensure that foreign powers and forces do not find easy excuses to interfere in African affairs and gain access to African resources. Africans who are ready to sell Africa to the world will not enjoy the room to do so if there is a powerful Pan-Africanism built to put the interests of the ordinary African first and to protect them from malicious armies and governments. Is. As Africans we are all Sudanese, the colonization and domination of Sudan is violence against all of us.

Cetshwayo Zindabazwe Mbhena writes from Gezina in Pretoria, South Africa. Contact: [email protected]