By Fathi El-Fadl
The catastrophic war in Sudan continues on unabated. It intensifies with ever-worsening cruelty, resulting in thousands of innocent victims and the unprecedented movement of people desperately fleeing to save their lives. Over eleven million people have been displaced, seeking refuge in areas away from the military conflict raging in the country. Over two million of them have crossed the borders into neighbouring countries, mainly Egypt and Chad.
This gigantic exodus of the people is taking place with no sight of an end to the military disaster on the horizon. Peace talks at a resort near Geneva in Switzerland concluded with an agreement on famine relief, but an actual ceasefire was not even discussed due to the refusal of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) generals to attend.
The US-led initiatives to reach a ceasefire, open safe corridors for humanitarian assistance to reach those most in need, and to protect civilians, failed to reach their objectives. With a ceasefire off the agenda, mediators concentrated on humanitarian issues to deliver food and medicine to the millions of starving Sudanese languishing in camps, schools and makeshift shelters. Despite the agreement to open entry points at the Sudanese borders, there is still no clear agreement in place apportioning responsibility for the taking receipt of aid and its proper distribution thereafter.
Failure of the talks to reach a ceasefire means the continuation of the misery and suffering of the Sudanese people. The people are enduring what is now regarded to be the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. According to experts and international organizations, the war has led to the fragmentation of the country. A number of provinces remain under the control of the SAF, while others are controlled by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia. Ten provinces out of a total of eighteen are active war zones. The few provinces well away from the fighting instead suffer its direct consequences, hosting millions of displaced persons with pressures on what were already meagre resources. The internally displaced millions are seeking refuge in the Eastern and Northern provinces. However, to make matters even worse, the displaced and their compatriot hosts have had to contend with unprecedented rainfall resulting in disastrous floods. Hundreds have lost their lives, while crops and agricultural production have been devastated.
Hunger and the spread of diseases like cholera represent an additional cruel infliction upon the Sudanese population. According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (UNFAO), around 25 million Sudanese are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance to prevent them dying of hunger. Furthermore, 80 percent of functioning clinics and hospitals have been destroyed in the fighting.
The de facto authority in Port Sudan refused to attend the talks in Switzerland, demanding that the RSF first evacuate the civilian homes it has occupied. Yet this is a weak argument – for what is more important, the buildings and houses or the lives of their occupants?!
A statement issued by the Sudan Doctors Union accused international humanitarian organizations and their donors of failing to provide basic aid to alleviate the dangers Sudanese children are facing. At the same, it accused both the SAF and the RSF of willfully obstructing the entry, delivery and distribution of vital food aid and medicines.
A report by Tuna Turkmen, the Emergency Coordinator for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Darfur, states that there are children dying every day across all Sudanese provinces. In addition, Claire San Filippo, the MSF Emergency Coordinator for Sudan, has declared that her organization has been prevented from bringing more medical staff and supplies to provide much needed medical care in the country – a need made even more acute considering the outbreak and spread of malaria as well as other diseases transmitted through contaminated drinking water. These restrictions have led to the spread of cholera in five provinces.
On the economic side, the continuation of the war has resulted in the further deterioration of the Sudanese pound. Prior to the war, the US dollar equated to 110 Sudanese pounds, while today it is over 2,700 pounds. The war has also led to the loss of earnings by the state since factories, private and public, have stopped production. The agricultural sector faces ruin as major projects, like that in Gezira, have been forced to stop due to the occupation of the area by the RSF militia. According to the UNFAO, the production of seeds, which is the main staple for the majority of Sudanese people, decreased by 45 percent. Another alarming development in the country is that over half the working people are now unemployed.
Lip service, meddling from foreign powers
While regional and international powers pay lip service to the notion of a ceasefire at minor and limited gatherings such as the one which just ended in Switzerland, they continue to malignly meddle in the sovereign affairs of Sudan, siding with either of the war’s belligerents, allowing them to further escalate, to the detriment and suffering of the Sudanese people.
Calling for a ceasefire, without any clear vision to effect it and restore the peaceful democratic transition to civilian rule in Sudan, is not an option and represents a failure. This is further underlined when US-led talks exclude and ignore input from the bona fide popular forces that struggled against and brought down the Muslim Brotherhood military regime of Omar al-Bashir in the December Revolution [the Sudanese Revolution 2018-2019]. The forced absence of the Resistance Committees, the Forces for Radical Change (FRC) alliance, and the newly formed trade union front from the talks pertaining to Sudan’s future will only result in repeating the old mistakes that led to the present catastrophe.
The Sudanese radical forces, including the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP) and the Resistance Committees, have both consistently emphasized that the main conflict in our country is both national and international. The central contradiction remains between the project hatched by imperialism and its lackeys which was accepted by the transitional governments. The October 2021 coup and the war of April 15, 2023 were tools used by the reactionary forces, locally and internationally, to arrest the democratic transition in Sudan and resolve the arising conflict in their favour. These events were simply continuations of a political plan to crush the Sudanese Revolution.
In response and opposition to the war, the revolutionary forces, especially the SCP, have adopted the slogan “Stop the war and reclaim the revolution through the broadest grassroots mass front,” aiming to stop the war, defeat its political and social objectives, hold those responsible accountable and bring them to trial, thus opening the road towards achieving the main goals of the revolution – Freedom, Peace and Justice – which the masses have embraced as their path to radical change.
This declaration by the radical forces in Sudan of their political stance is coupled with a practical struggle towards the realization of their objectives. Our fight is to stop the war, secure the right to live in safety, as well as compel responsible state organs to provide essential services and livelihoods to the people of Sudan. In condemning both warring sides, we refuse to legitimize the war, while rejecting any compromise that would see the externally supervised restoration of the partnership between the remnants of the deposed Muslim Brotherhood regime and the Taqadom civilian alliance to form a government that would essentially serve foreign interests.
The Sudanese revolutionary forces are committed to mobilizing a peaceful mass struggle that would bring about the defeat of reactionary groups and unmask their long-running conspiracies against Sudan and its people as well as reclaim the December Revolution. We will not tire!
Fathi El-Fadl is a member of the Forces for Radical Change (FRC) alliance in Sudan and a vice-president of the International Centre for Trade Union Rights (ICTUR)
[Liberation.org.uk]
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