The Sudan Government that created Janjaweed/Rapid Support Forces now committing Genocide in Darfur sides with the Darfur Resistance

by Lt. General Abakar M. Abdallah and Jerry Gordon[i]

The near year-long civil war in Sudan between the former Transitional Military Council and Transitional Sudan Armed Forces chief General Abdel Fattah Abdelrahman al Burhan and Rapid Support Force commander Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo “Hemeti” has witnessed more than 10,000 killed over 6 million internally displaced and refugees in neighboring Chad, Ethiopia, and South Sudan.  General al-Burhan is backed by Egypt and Saudi Arabia, while the UAE and Russia back the RSF.  Efforts by the US and the UN to mediate the dispute have failed. Violence has spiraled out of control most prominently in Darfur and Al Jazeera, mirroring the 2003-2005 genocide by the deposed Bashir regime resulting in more than 600,000 dead, claims more than seven million internally displaced and hundreds of thousands fleeing to UNHCR refugee camps in neighboring countries.

The assassination of Khamis Abakar, governor of West Darfur in June 2023 who had accused the RSF of committing genocidal attacks on tribal groups. What followed were RSF-allied Arab tribe attacks in November 2023 on the town of Ardamata with 800 killed, many women raped, and children enslaved.  The RSF and allied Arab tribes engaged in the ethnic cleansing of the Masalit tribe in West Darfur. That resulted in the flight of over 300,000 to neighboring Chad.

On Friday, March 29, 2023, Sudan’s Permanent Representative Al-Harith Idriss Al-Harith called for the condemnation of the United Arab Republic for support of the Rapid Support Force in the civil war against the Sudan Armed Forces. A 78-page document accused the UAE of planning and supporting the RSF from the neighboring country of Chad allowing supply of military weapons and equipment and evacuation of wounded members to the Shiekh Zayed hospital in Abu Dhabi.  Hemeti, who commands the RSF, owns major gold mines in Sudan and has supplied gold to the UAE and Russia.

The irony is the Sudan Armed Forces has relied on support in Darfur of the SLA forces of resistance leader Sulliman Arko Minnawi “Minni Minawi, “leader of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) who was appointed Governor of Darfur by Former Prime Minister, Abdallah Hamdok.

On March 18, 2024, Minni Minawi and his SLA troops met with Lt. General Yasser Al-Atta of the Sudan Military Transitional Council in Omdurman. The occasion was an address by General Al-Atta at the Wadi Sayyidna (Sudan Military Academy) during the visit of Mini Minawi, the Chairman of SLA, and his troops joining government forces fighting against RSF.

What follows is a translation of General Al-Atta’s address.

Lieutenant-General, Yasser Al-Atta revealed the Rapid Support Force shadow government capabilities in the country.

“Come and see what these people were able to do in this country?

We have seen their practices since 2016. They have certain goals and certain issues to execute.

They have control over all things in a state.

They have a central bank parallel to the government bank, and they have a Ministry of Finance parallel to the Ministry of Finance of the state.

Controlling everything in the state, controlling the security services, the security apparatus, and the police, and destroying the army at the same time, raising the capabilities of the Rapid Support Forces, so that they become superior to the army. They control the financial institutions in the state. They own the Bank of Sudan parallel to ours. They have a Ministry of Finance parallel to the one of the government.

They have parallel ministries within all ministries in the state. They have parallel institutions within state systems.

Folks, sorry to say, they even have the Public Prosecutor. They have a judiciary within the state’s judicial system.

Even in the police, they have a large part in the security police, and they have a large group in the federal police.

They even infiltrated our military institutions, buying and selling the consciences of men. They have a specific goal which is to take control of the Sudanese state through the barrel of a gun.

Their objective was and it has been to seize control of the Sudanese state with the barrels of a gun and control it. This is a conspiracy aimed at forming an Arab state in Darfur, and if they were to control it, they would gain power over Sudan with the Arabs of the diaspora.

Then, they will invade Kordofan, destroying the Nuba tribes, and deporting them to South Sudan.

Then after that, they move on to our brother Malik Aqar area (the Blue Nile).

If we agree with them as the Arabs of the North, Central, and East, it is fine if we do not agree with them; they will separate Darfur, seize Kordofan, and a large part of the Blue Nile, and establish the state of Atawa, sometimes called Junaid. We feel sorry for our brothers from the sons of Mahamid, but these are facts.

Brothers, we care for any Sudanese before us, and we also respect any tribe before us, but if he is with the Janjaweed, we will fight him.”

Conclusion

The RSF implemented the UAE plan without thinking of the consequences.  It implemented a plan aimed at controlling the government by the RSF militias in opposition to political parties loyal to the government in Sudan to further the interests of the UAE in the region. The second plan is aimed at destroying the Sudanese army and dismantling the existing Sudanese state. The consequence of both plans is the separation of Darfur from Sudan. What the RSF plans amount to is the formation of an empire for the Hemeti Dogolo ethnicity in the African Sahel Region.  The spirit of tribal hatred, oppression, and revenge drives this RSF project.

[i] Lt. Gen. Abakar M. Abdallah is chairman of the Sudan United Movement (SUM). He is a native of Kutum, North Darfur, who served as a senior intelligence officer, and a Pan Sahel Counterterrorism unit commander in the Republic of Chad Army. He is a graduate of the US Army Intelligence and Security School and the US Army War College, and co-author of Genocide in Sudan: Caliphate Threatens Africa and the World.

Jerry Gordon is a senior editor at New English Review and co-author of Genocide in Sudan: Caliphate Threatens Africa and the World.