In numerous journals and newspapers, death and destruction in Sudan is described as probably the greatest, certainly the most neglected, humanitarian catastrophe in existence.
Save the Children identifies 15 million people, more than one third of a population displaced, of whom 5.8 million are children under 18, one quarter of whom are under five. The UN World Food Program estimates “more than half the population (of over 48 million) now experience crisis levels of hunger”, the worst in the country’s history.
UNICEF acknowledges that the vast majority of the millions displaced are women and children, victims of a war between rival military men Abdel-Fattah al Burhan, general of the Sudanese army, and Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti), leader of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
In this civil war, millions of children pay the heaviest price. Starving, experiencing severe malnutrition and consequent weakened immune systems, their lifetime prospects look grim. Al-Jazeerah interviews with mothers from the western region of Darfur show the women being pessimistic, their misery extending beyond words. From displaced persons’ camps in neighbouring Chad, mothers cry, “We cannot feed our children. We are at mercy of the Janjaweed (the RSF)”. “They killed my father, my brother, they took all we had”. “Can anyone hear or help?”
As of 7 January, the US Government has charged the RSF with genocide against non-Arab ethnic minorities, but in response, the international community still appears fatalistic. Diplomats wring hands. Pessimism persists. In common with accounts of genocidal brutalities in Gaza, in Sudan too, commentators serve up only their descriptions. Apart from mention of UNICEF mobile teams to provide water purification tablets and iron supplements to prevent anaemia in pregnant women, they have almost nothing to say about large-scale intervention to halt a catastrophe.
Given that a substantial part of Sudan’s infrastructure of schools, hospitals and roads has been destroyed, foundations for building on a ceasefire would, in any case, be fragile and, in large parts of the country, non-existent. Agriculture has been a backbone of the Sudanese economy, but in almost two years of war, the World Food Program estimates that more than 40% of farms no longer operate, a development which threatens the stability of a whole country.
In response to these bleak pictures, grassroots initiatives by Sudanese citizens suggest that reliance on local initiatives can be more life-saving than hoping to be rescued through international intervention. In parts of Sudan, a broken people and a country’s broken parts are being addressed by self-help groups. For displaced citizens with no income, community kitchens have become crucial to stave off famine. Emergency response rooms provide food, medicine, water and shelter. Not overly optimistic, Haitham Elnour a member of the Sudanese diaspora, nevertheless argues, ‘The resilience and resourcefulness of the Sudanese diaspora in supporting each other show how localised aid can be more suited to the culture and context and more efficient than major international operations.”
This judgment also teaches about local ways to initiate peace as an alternative to international focus on the warring generals and their rampaging soldiers. Australian peace theorist, the late John Burton, visionary former head of International Affairs, forerunner of DFAT, advised, “Peace negotiations start and end by paying attention to meeting people’s basic needs.” Achieving food security from local kitchens, of guarantees of care within local groups and the beginnings of projects for some children’s education display responses to the Burton-like advice. Each response goes beyond pessimism to start peace-enhancing communities, perhaps more pragmatically called humanitarian corridors or war restricted zones.
But the DNA of Sudanese militaristic authoritarianism remains the obstacle to ending war, to protecting the vulnerable, let lone to building peace. Within that authoritarianism lies a deep-seated misogyny compounded in the RSF case by prejudice against Sudanese of African ethnic origins.
Preoccupied with maintaining and extending power by force, the Sudanese generals promote their “mine is bigger than yours” ways of thinking. Within that lexicon, General Burhan does not have words to consider the uncertainty of democracy while his enemy Hemedti of the RSF proclaims “Anyone who does not fight does not have an opinion.”
The top down, one-dimensional bravado of Sudanese warmongers is augmented by other countries whose economies and national identity gain more from war than from peace. The US, Russia and China do not recognise the authority of the International Criminal Court, hence the disinterest in holding to account any perpetrators of war crimes in Sudan. In the neighbouring countries of the UAE, Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, abusive power is also treated as legitimate and for the Sudanese war there appears to be no shortage of weapons and military equipment. Security of Sudanese citizens takes second place in a system that prioritises the profits of arms manufacturers and dealers.
Sudanese self-help groups are showing alternative, non-discriminatory, non-violent, life-enhancing ways of thinking, their means of proceeding beyond pessimism. But to nourish that development, prospective peace negotiators will have to replace the Sudanese military fascination with violence, with love of guns, with ignorance of human rights, let alone with the notion that lawlessness is a way to govern.
Beyond pessimism, we must envision far more than pity for Sudan’s women and children.
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