Against War: We are all Sudanese

War has broken out in Sudan. From 15 April this year the capital, Khartoum, and other cities of the country became sites of bloody battles between the regular Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that have their roots in the Janjaweed militia that are accused of genocide in Darfur, 2003. The two warring sides are formidably equipped with weapons and military skills. There is no chance of one side achieving swift military victory. The two belligerents were fellow conspirators in the coups that have dethroned civilian rule in Sudan, the latest being the 2021 coup. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan who heads the national army and General Hamdan Mahomed Dagalo are former friends that successfully conspired to topple the government of Omar Al-Bashir in 2019. What appears ahead is a costly and bloody protracted civil war that will only leave the country a shell and a wasteland.  Millions of Sudanese people will flock into neighbouring countries as displaced and dispossessed refugees. That both sides have regional and international backers, including some superpowers, should disturb all Africans. The real victims of the war are multitudes of civilians of Sudan. The warlords and their backers are safe from injury, dispossession, displacement and death.

An unwanted war

All wars, except for liberation wars, are unwanted wars. All wars are ethically crimes against humanity. The present war in Sudan is particularly unwanted in that it comes at the wrong time and in the wrong way, perpetuated by the wrong people in Africa. The war also appears when the entire world system is vulnerable to war and other forms of large-scale violence. This war also has a history that dates back to the colonial times when Arabs became pitted against black Africans. Both generals that are leading the belligerent armies have a history of genocide and crimes against humanity, billionaires that have become warlords. These are angry soldiers that command marauding armies that are battle hardened from as far as Yemen and Libya. The two men have previously made religiously and ethnically inflammatory public statements that are capable of flaming divisions that can lead to large scale violence in a country whose national question has not been answered for a long time. The national question in Africa being the ability of the state to unite different tribes, classes, and other identity groups of people into one nation that salutes one flag and sings one national anthem while paying fidelity to a binding national constitution. For a long time, Sudan has not been able to even come close to that with Arabs divided from black Africans, and black Africans themselves divided into warring tribes and clans. The ultimate losers in this war are the ordinary African people of Sudan that are the victims of a war that has been brought about by wealthy powerful soldiers in alliance with powerful interested parties from outside the continent. This war comes at a time when Africa is being overtaken by religious extremism, terrorism, military coups, corruption and deep decline in the calibre of political leadership. The decline in political leadership in Africa is promoted by decline in the calibre of political followership. Political party members, supporters and voters in Africa have lowered the bar of standards far too low and this has allowed dubious political leaders to achieve power in the continent.

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

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

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

The war in Sudan will open the country and the continent to foreign military, economic and political intrusion, no doubt. Africans will kill each other for the benefit of foreign interests. Worse, there is a possibility that the war in Sudan will spill over to greater Africa as African countries take sides with this and that belligerent in the war. What historians call the “demonstration effect” is that some soldiers in different African countries are watching what is happening while they are planning their own moves. One war in Africa inspires a number of other wars in different countries. The war is Sudan is an unwanted war that is another bad example for Africa. From that war an African can ask the question: Where is African unity when we need it most? Indeed, where are African diplomats? Or where is that African continental army that can move in to quickly neutralise the war and protect the people of Sudan before some self-interested saviour from outside the continent comes in to colonise Sudan by pretending to enforce peace.

There is a need in Africa for a robust military, political and economic Pan-Africanism. A Pan-Africanism that will be able to beat into line any African regime and compel it to protect the rights and lives of Africans is needed. That Pan-Africanism will ensure that foreign powers and forces do not easily find any excuse to interfere in African affairs and gain access to African resources. Africans that are prepared to sell Africa to the world will not enjoy the room to do so if there is a muscular Pan-Africanism that is built first for the interests of ordinary Africans and is ready to protect them from ill-intentioned armies and governments. As Africans we are all Sudanese, the colonisation and domination of Sudan is violence against all of us.

Cetshwayo Zindabazezwe Mabhena writes from Gezina, in Pretoria, South Africa. Contacts: [email protected].