On the evening of Tuesday 4th Aprilin a magnificent villa on the banks of the Need the two generals who now vie for control of the Sudan and the fate of 45 million people, have had a Iftarthey had dinner together breaking the fast of Ramadan and talked about pace. But as they talked about chordsunderstood, harmony, Union, concordia and reconciliation, they prepared the guerra. Six days before the Sudan catastrophic conflict, its two most powerful generals seemed close to an agreement that the brokers – American and British who sat with them at the table that evening – hoped would defuse their rivalry explosive and even led the vast nation africana towards the democracy.
That was the last of the long dating which the foreign envoys held with the two generals – the head of the army, general Abdel Fattah al-Burhan (left in photo) and the leader of the paramilitaries of the RSFgeneral Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (To the right) – in an attempt to reach a agreement. Promises have been made, extorted concessions which to the Americans and the British seemed very believable. But for her streetsthe means and the men of the two rivals they were preparing to fight. From the following night the troops they started siding silently around the rival military camps across the capital, where they marked each other like opposing players on a soccer field.
And when the first shots rang out on Saturday morning kalashnikov, the fiction of the dialogue was immediately shattered. It was an excessive claim that of the United States and of Great Britain – former colonial power in Sudan – to arrive and become the main players on an already very crowded scenario. The Chinese throughout East Africa have been a reality for at least a decade and the Sudan is no exception, there is the Russia friend of the former dictator Bashir and now deployed with his mercenaries Wagner con Hamdan – that everyone calls Here – for the exploitation of the gold mines with which he finances the war in Ukrainethere is the Türkiyethe UAE and Saudi Arabia supporting the RSF who fought for them in Yemen.
Abdel Fattah al-Burhan62, is a serious four-star general, trained in Egypt e Jordanwho commanded troops in the harsh counterinsurgency campaigns of the Sudan in the south and west of the country. Born in a village along the Needembodies the officer class of the river Arab tribes who dominated the Sudan since independence in 1956. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo instead, he is in his early 40s and is a former camel trader turned militia commander with a reputation for ruthlessness that has grown alongside his wealth and influence.
The general Hamdan grew rich on lucrative gold mining concessions and his role in sending thousands of his paramilitaries to fight in the Yemenwhere the United Arab Emirates they paid handsomely for his services. She has also received support from theEuropean Unionhis troops prevented migrants from crossing the long borders of the Sudanalthough Hamdan himself is suspected of profiting from human trafficking. His career is a lesson in political entrepreneurship from a specialist in violence.
Instead of being ostracized, these generals were courted too from the West which hoped to snatch them from power and ignored the pro-democracy movements protagonists of the 2019 revolution. Herewhose family hails from Chad, went from being considered an illiterate warlord in the Darfur who did the dirty work of Bashir on the wild frontier, in the center of power a Khartoum. Some, American and British special envoys, have begun to treat these generals as statesmen, not as putschists with stars. It doesn’t look like the now right strategy.
The fragile Sudanese federation then borders with 9 different countries, blurred and porous borders. Burhan has long enjoyed the support of Sudan’s neighboring Egypt, where he was trained and where the president’s anti-Islamist government Abdel Fattah el-Sisi which turns a blind eye to the fact that the main internal support of Burhan comes from the Islamists of the era Bashir. The rival of Egypt and the other big neighbor of Sudan, Ethiopia, he might decide that his enemy’s enemy is his friend and argue Here who, it is said, has also bought many properties ad Addis Ababa. Il Firstwhich shares a 1,300-kilometer border with the Sudanhas its internal problems but it should not be forgotten that Hemeti’s cousin, Bichara Issa Djadallahis a Chadian general.
There are also other minor players in the “big game of Sudan” and disreputable, like the general Khalifa Haftarthe strong man of the Cyrenaica. Here is receiving aid from the Libyan military leader: two planes took off from A suitcasein the Cyrenaica from the Southeastern Libyacontrolled by Haftar and landed in Sudanese territory controlled by Here. A suitcase it is a major trading center for legal and illegal goods crossing Libya’s borders to the First and the Sudan. The family Haftar cares deeply about the fate of Here and the survival of the illicit trade networks that exist between the Sudan and the Eastern Libya. Fuel, captagon, hashish, gold and stolen cars are among the illegal goods smuggled in and out of the Sudan and the Libya. The territory controlled by Haftar in Libya is located at the end of the long migratory route that fromEthiopia and fromEritrea cross the Sudan – in an area controlled by Here – and then heads towards the Mediterranean. Human trafficking has been a lucrative business in Libya since 2014. But also in Sudan.