Pan-African Attitude | The Forgotten War: Sudan

Arab and black African how is it played out in these conflicts the birth of the modern Sudanese state was kind of hijacked by an elite that see themselves you know if you talk about certain factions of some of these Elite that have taken over sud from Independence they see themselves as the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad that there's unity and diversity and that um diversity is not a thing to divide uh or to take people apart but to bring them together okay welcome to panafrican attitude episode 3 we have a very very important topic a topic very close to my heart as someone of San descent and we have a very very special panel to discuss this very important topic so I'm going to start with my co-host seph usani she actually organized a community event in Matari is that how I pronounce it marari D um about Sudan and you know as a Sudanese person in the attendance it was really touching to see people in in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Nairobi come out to support Sudan the room was packed we had SS we lit a candle it was a beautiful demonstration of solidarity and at the event I met the special guest to my left muab Baba someone that we've been in contact since he presented a very powerful presentation we did an Instagram live in the Instagram live everyone was saying please please please put a link to the presentation I've been asking you for the link you haven't put it yet but I'm sure it'll come in the comments of this YouTube show uh wasab is a researcher and consultant who's worked with syan civil society since 2000 and is a contributor to a network focused on digital media development in sedan and the media sphere and to my right we have Kamal Ramadan also known as general KD Kamal has a beautiful name such a beautiful name I actually gave it to my son Kamal Cabello Kamal is a Sudanese artist who's B who was based in newba mountains and went to cartoon for the first time after Basher was outed in 2019 it's part of the newba mountain sound an artist Collective performed for crowds around sadan before the war everyone welcome to the show thank you welcome to the show like I said it's a very very important topic we're talking about today the UN has described this as the world's largest humanitarian crisis they say 7.8 million people have been internally displaced close to 2 million people externally displaced the war has been going on for 10 months it's now the worst place for food insecurity 20.3 million people are facing high level of acute food insecurity in a in a population of around 45 million so the situation is very very dire but it doesn't get the media attention it deserves so come on I'm going to start with you how did we get here how have you arrived in this in this mess uh yeah thank you thank you very much so actually you know um I'm glad you know to be with you here and uh yeah to say something also about my home Sudan uh yeah actually it's like my second time to be in in Kenya um yeah there uh War home you know this war home they fight home and like everybody is looking into a solution for it like all the youths and everybody out Sudan is like thinking how are we like going to stop this war so there's no like answers you know we are not getting answers you know we are trying everybody's trying we are trying with music you know but still there's a a lot of issues you know within our people so we need like to you know to go and check ourself first of all as a Sudanese yeah and then I think we will yeah okay M when people talk about this conflict they kind of start April 15th uh 2023 and some people might go a bit further and say oh you know during the revolution this was the origins of this conflict but from your presentation that you gave very powerful one the roots of the mess that we're in today start a lot earlier than that is that right yeah could you touch on that please okay well thank you for having me I mean shout out to you and Seth and everybody African stream and the bigger kind of panafrican movement that's happening in here in so thank you for having us first of all uh yeah you're right I mean people when they want to analyze how the conflict is gone you know some people go to April 15 some people go to 2019 some people go to 2011 when South Sudan became an independent country uh but it goes Bey it goes way before that and if you want to draw kind of a a trajectory of when this current massu if we were looking at April 15th at as like the boiling point of a huge War that's been kind of happening over a long period of time you could trace it to the period of between the late 70s and the early 80s you know for in Sudan this was the moment that yeah the islamist movement in Sudan got a vice grip on the country and they controlled the country and they made certain people to be second class citizens and some people would be first class citizens on an international level of course people would recognize this time period as being the beginning of kind of the neoliberal project where the entire political Spectrum moved to the right where you started seeing a lot of neocolonialism trying to take hold there was a lot of the Cold War policies and everything so Sudan was kind of caught within that and the people that were kind of the handlers for these forces have been been in power since that time every time they find a way to kind of survive you know at first they went to war with the South Sudan and then it moved into the Blue Nile and nuba mountains area is probably KD when they were young they've seen a lot of that uh and then it started moving into darur but then when it started to kind of you know solutions for the problems there Solutions were always Solutions so that the central government can keep power South Sudan wants to become a a separate country let it become a separate country as long as they stay in power therefore 300,000 people died no problem as long as they stay in power go to war again with the nuba mountains and Blue Nile as long as they say in power uh people's Revolution happens in 2018 and 2019 coer it so that they can stay in power again of course every time you start sweeping these problems under the rug all that dirt under the rug starts piling up slightest misstep will blow it up so this is now a a war for control and for power among the bashid factions like the they were both part of the same government and as soon as it became mathematically impossible to run a country with a military economy and repression and still having like milit izing entire communities and stuff it was bound to happen but people just didn't know when that boiling point would happen so that's just kind of generally to kind of like see if we want to draw a trajectory to what led up to now you know and that's usually not an answer that people want like a very quick kind of diagnosis the it's going to be hard to unpack but because the problem of Sudan is pretty complicated yeah thank you uh Baba for that and if I can just do a bit of a followup on that when we are speaking about the Genesis of the crisis that we have in the Sudan we have seen issues of economic deprivation which is what led to people even coming up and you know going out to the streets and uh we have seen that Sudan has been listed as um the country with the most uneven development in the world and this is not to say that it is the most unequal which is South Africa or uh the country living in EX in extreme poverty which is Nigeria and uh we see uh the capital of Sudan which is Harum is made up of three states of om Duman Bahari and Kum itself but most of the economic activities are centered around herb meaning that um a lot of the people there uh would be very economically viable as opposed to people in the vast in the vaster regions of Sudan and uh because of this of course there are people who Thrive you know when there are these oppressive regimes and they are are living in opulence this is equal to uh most of the wars we've seen like in the DRC or the war that we're seeing now in Sudan and and in other parts uh of the world and especially in Africa and these people of course whenever they uh their citizens of this country these countries yes and um whenever they're discussing of course they say oh for example it was better during the time of Mutu ceso when he was in Congo or it was better during the time of Omar Al Bashir what do you say about uh the people who actually are are for these repressive regimes citizens of the countries where um there is more like in Sudan what do you say about these people and also on the economic crisis yeah so this is kind of goes with you know the whole idea of imperialism you know you have people at the center of the Empire who feel like they're part of the power structure of the Empire so for them it's it's like yeah everything is going fine you know we were happy you know the dollar was 2 and2 lbs you know yeah you couldn't speak about politics but we were living comfortably but at that same time when you go to places marginalized places in the peripheries even when you go to as far as that or nuba mountains or anything it's a very different reality during those times so it's kind of like the people who are at the center are usually very insulated from what's Happening outside of that Center and you you you would see this inum for such a very long time even and you're right you know in Kum the you know the district itself you'll find you know crazy wealth but even if you cross the bridge over into like where my family is from you're going to see a very different reality as well so it's kind of like you know this the the center of the Empire is always people who are going to argue for the the structures of Empire you know the control of the police the Army I mean until this day people are saying that you know the national Army is still our national Army but you know what has this National Army done in the past you know is the thing that's kind of not discussed right now uh you know the rsf as a militia was the militia to keep the people in the periphery in check you know the center of power Ed the militias the jid the rsf as a way to quell rebellion and Uprising in Dar for and in Kuran and in these areas so it's it's it's you know that whole view of someone who would argue and say that you know things were better under bash you know there's three million dead people in Sudan who would think would say otherwise and how do we bring the Gap closer the economic crisis because this is the Genesis of you know of everything that's going on including the people who are coming out and they were democratically fighting for their rights for example in Sudan so that's that's a very you know there's a huge debate in Sudan is it a material war or is it a cultural War M which we get to the Crux of the problem itself you know the idea of identity Supremacy you know if we're talking about for example Arab Supremacy I always tell people it's the illegit illegitimate child of white supremacy you know what I mean do you start looking at this problem as an economic problem or are you looking at it as Nations and peoples so Nations and peoples identify themselves at with their culture and with their identity and everything and there's freedom of Association of course and there's you know freedom of identity identifying with the group that you want to identify with but what happens when identity cultural Supremacy is mixed with the tools of War economic Warfare you know cultural Warfare genocides like until this day you have a an idea that the non-arabic speaking non-arab groups in Sudan are inferior to the Arab groups in Sudan this is and I have to say so-called Arab groups because sudanes are all Africans yeah you know but once you start getting into your cultural identification what you identify as that's when it becomes a different story and add to the fact to that that you have this Arab Supremacy that is actually enforced by other countries that just so happen to be other Arab countries that are enabling you know these military you know militias and the ruling class in Sudan for a very long time right now so you get to a point where the line between the material analysis and the cultural analysis starts getting very blurry once there starts to become a long history and a pattern of this type of aggression and this type of you know the human suffering that we're seeing in Sudan is Extreme haven't seen in a time but there's people that have been suffering in Sudan for a very very time based these ideas of Supremacy can you separate imperialism and neocolonialism from racial and cultural Supremacy ideas or not so at some point it gets to the point where you you know it it's hard to make that distinction and say that the root of the problem is one two 3 4 of course there's the resource Wars and it's not separate from the rest of Africa but at the same time when we start looking at the cultural aspect of it and how long it's happened we have one of our Elite you know thinkers bakar he wrote a book about the margin and the center in the periphery and within the Sudanese context and he says that most of the Societies in Sudan are precapitalist societies mean societies that their way of life and their way of how they live economic and everything have been in existence before an Adam Smith or before an a Rand or anybody who was you know talking about you know uh uh uh you know ideologically talking about materialism and capitalism and things of that sort so you know we we have a lot of heated debates in Sudan about about that so I was about to say because they're interlinked it's not one or the other if you look at the colonial project in Africa you know they said it was a civiliz Mission they said that they were saving Savages but it was just about the resources that was just the lie that enabled them to extract the resources from the land now when you have an uneven country and you have no desire to develop the places that need developing the easiest thing to do is to say Well they're not really sudanes they're you know Africans they're not like us and you create a a a racial lie to continue the supremacist elitist ideology it's the easiest you know straight out of the colonial Playbook divide and Rule and one of the places which I'm going to move to KD in a second where this has happened is definitely the newba mountains so if Sudan is the Forgotten War some would argue that the newba mountains is the Forgotten conflict in The Forgotten War as someone from the nuba mountains um I'm going to guess that most of our viewers have no idea what happened in the newba mountains could you just give us a breakdown of what it was like growing up in the newba mountains what type of violence was you know enacted on the people there uh well so actually in the uh in 2011 uh when the war broke I was actually in the nuba mountains and uh I was like you know young but you know I I could like know anything what's like going on and all these things um it was like tough days and uh I never thought that we will again go back to war cuz there was war since like uh '90s and then nobody like was thinking again we will go back to war it just happened like you know so a lot of people from from nuba Mountain went to South Sudan some of them came to Kenya like uh we have even refugees in Kenya since uh 1998 they in kakuma even like few month last month event I went and performed there to them there's some of people you know I met them and I know them from Noba Mountain so it was like uh this War I don't know how like to say it it was like you know the government is f fighting his own people you know the government is fighting his own people in like down there's Army and up there's planes you know you cannot sleep day and night you cannot sleep and we went even to the level even there's no food you know there's no food to eat there's no like Goods in the markets the road is close from south from North you know the government like trying to capture nuba Mountain like from from everywhere so it was like tough Days by the way uh and uh in those days like most of the youths like you know join the the SPM the SPM not so that they can defend you know the their self they defend their land they defend their their culture they defend their you know so for me I will just like wanted to say something I met musab in 2015 in the nuba mountains uh actually if I haven't met like with them there's him and there's also other other friends so I will have been like a military right now I will be like in the Army now fighting because this is the idea of this is it this is what the government plant in in our heads you know so we know our enemy is from every every every every person in the nuba mountain knows that his enemy is is from Kum like we are blaming everybody in the north that they are fighting us so if I haven't met them I will be like an army you know fighting right now so I met them so not in the Army you would have joined one of the the rebel groups yeah yeah that's North is the Sudan people's Liberation Army North yeah and actually I I never knew anything aboutum I never knew even about Sudan but I get to know about Sudan through them you know about Sudan about Africa about doing this about you know and I get to know aboutum and I get to know there's people from Kum against this war they don't they don't want this war but right now there's youths in the nuba mountain they think that everybody in the north is their enemy yes this is it and this is what like uh uh went like I you know I get to know these guys you know I started doing music I started doing this thing so this is one of my like like Mission you know I'm working right now you know to the youths I'm working on the youths like to tell them yeah this is like this this we have people in Sudan we have people in Kum who are like against this war and we have to like work together all of us so that we can like stop this war we can get peace you know we unite we do all this things cuz like we alone in the Noba mountains we cannot manage this we cannot manage this because um we don't know anything aboutum you need to have connection with people inside there who knows what was what was going inside there and then you can be like able to change to make change to unite with with the other places thank you I got just a follow-up question so right now a lot of sanese people online they've created this kind of good and bad so because the rsf are looting in people's homes the rapid support forces because they're using rape as a weapon of War because they're committing all sorts of atrocities in the darur region and against different tribes they've made it seem that the Sudanese Army are the good guys that we should all get behind the Sudanese Army and support the Sudanese Army and what I try to remind them is why don't you ask people from newba mountains how the Sudanese Army is why you ask people from South Sudan Blue Nile how this how the Sudanese Army is do you have a message to some of those of us from the north about trying to paint the Sudanese Army as these kind of Heroes that's going to liberate Sudan from the terrible rapid support forces no no there's there's nothing like hero you know this actually the Sudan government is the one who created the rsf they the one who created rsf it is like you know a father and a son something like that you know they know they know each other um both of them of them they have been like fighting fighting people in the nuba mountains that for Blue Nile they have been you know doing all this so there is no difference between rsf and Sudanese army they actually want I think what made them now fighting it is just power it's just power and the resources we have in in Sudan and all this but they don't have difference uh actually what rsf is doing is the same what the the government is doing so they they are all the same uh I do remember like in 2016 there was like a huge attack on the nuba mountains it was like in collaboration with the Army and the and the rsf so they were like saying you know you enter and don't leave anybody like alive you know you know something like that you know and it was like tough you cannot sleep you cannot sleep you know at night like in the morning when you get up you m you must like hear the sound or the voice of anting of coming and then it bombs first when it goes back and then you will now feel safe that you will maybe take a tea now you know you got a new life something like that you know I was like you know I don't eat I just make they bomb first of all then when they go you know they have it like they bomb from in the morning the midday in the evening you know it is just like this so there's no different actually between rsf and and the sudane army so they are both two sides of the same coin what you're saying and they're both um two cheeks of the same backside that's I like to put it same difference and um with that uh Kamal and now I'll just go back to the Musical part of it where he was speaking about earlier and you coming from the Nouba mountains and we've also seen some of the videos of the music you've done how an African stream we've featured some of them and it's very good music so in Swahili we have a saying which saysi yes it's an old an old proverb and it Loosely translates to Art is the mirror of society so whenever you're doing any form of art uh you're mirroring one your Society but two you're teaching you're educating you're bringing about lessons or also you know entertaining but not just shallow uh entertainment and we've seen the kind of work that you're doing in music in the NOA mountains you've spoken about if you would have not been an artist then you would have Jo you would have joined the rebels and I'm so happy that you're an artist and you're able to pass this message in a in a cultural way that will be able to reach out to all the masses and you know people will not be able to say okay this is from this side or this side but they'll be able to take the music or other forms of Art in the in whichever way that you give them and um maybe you can give us a bit one bar so that we can hear we can hear we can hear like of course he has to half like uh this song here well that's a yeah yeah uh the song is uh about Unity so it says that uh you know you know let us like unite and work together and build our our country thank you that that's very beautiful and also you spoke about of course the refugees that we have here in kakoma and of course most of them we've lived with them in society we know them and they even integrated as part of our society and we see that in Kenya uh in the 20 20 2007 2008 elections we had something similar though in a much smaller scale than what is happening in Sudan but lot of we had a lot of internally displaced people there was war basically uh coming out from the elections the disputed elections that happened then and uh during this time there was a specific song especially from this artist and he's called Eric quina he sang A called a song called daim Mak Kenya and it was a very beautiful song but at this time there was a lot of ethnic tensions and people were of course angry with each other and fighting and machetes and rape and a lot of things but this one song was able to unite kenyons like people would sit somewhere and say no you know uh there's no need for us to fight we are one country and this music reminded the people of our patriotism of who we are that your neighbor is not your enemy even if this person is from another tribe or even if this person is supporting somebody else that they're not your enemy and largely this song would play and Replay in the radio and I think in my opinion it was one of the factors you know that led to our stability coming back but also in history we see people like the andc during the time when they were fighting for appetite there was so much music that they used to go soorry yes fighting against oh yes my apologies when they were fighting against appetite there was a lot of music uh that you know came out from this one of them including this song that is almost of panafrican Anthem because it's sung across across Africa we see this with Fred Lio we see this with uh the NRA in Uganda when the were also fighting and they had Rebels and now you have this um you have this opportunity to use your music to be able to unite people so what is the role of Art and music when it comes to the war and how can it be used as a tool to unify to unify Sudan and to put an end to or minimize this war to reach out to the masses and you know Cil what is going on with the fighting uh yeah that's uh good question by the way but it will take a long you know for me to answer it so yeah so actually music is there's love in music music like has no boundaries there's no border for music so when you record a song like it will cross borders it will go to other countries uh actually I'm I I grew up in the nuba mountains and like I was doing music there and uh I went and I recorded uh album in Uganda and then like in the coming two weeks I just you know get some message from people in Kum they they playing my songs there the new songs that I recorded them in Uganda they are playing it people in us they are playing it you know everybody's playing music so music has no like boundaries it will cross and everybody will but the music must to have like like a message this is our problem I think it like a Sudanese you know artist problem and also there is this issue of like even artists we our artist there we have problems when we grow up like this there's these a lot of politician political parties you know they are like everywhere P you know when you grow up you just be part of them so right now for me if I'm if one if I'm one of these politic IAL parties and I'm doing music you know the other people they say k is from that political party just singing for them no no I'm I'm representing myself I'm representing my people I'm representing Sudan I don't belong to any political party so if you know this this artists actually for me I haven't get like enough opportunity when I was like in the nuba mountain doing music actually there's no social media there when you do things unless you go outside and then you try to share it with other people you can maybe record a song you stay with it like for two years and then someone inum will get to know it but there's a lot of artists in Kum there's a lot of you know they have that opportunity of uh singing music of unity singing music of of this but when you go you get like this one belongs to this uh political party This one belongs to this political party but uh for me I believe that uh I believe that music music and art like will make a very big change uh cuz uh when artists perform on the stage you know audience like from different counties they can like dance to the music you know people need to come together people need to come together and dance and you know we stop that crazy thinking of like you know to fight no this is you know when this you know music music is like it kills racism it kills you know it kills racism in in people's hearts in people's mind it makes you feel like you know you enjoying your life uh even if you don't want like to dance you will be looking like at someone dancing you know you feel you feel the way how he dance you feel you know this is peace so and uh right now actually we are like uh we have been working with very many artists from Sudan uh in in their different places from darur Blue Nile nuba Mountain even in kakuma in Uganda we are doing this we are like we are working together to produce songs that talk about Unity that's you know we used to tell them let us talk more about Unity about love about how we can you know let us work together instead of like everybody's doing his own thing you know let us like have one idea as an artist you know we have problem home there's fight going on you know so I think we as an artist if we unite and we work together I think and I'm very sure we will make very big change in Sudan and we will make a change now we've talked briefly about how the economic situation led to some of these conflicts but uh you you briefly touched on the elephant in the room something that most of these people don't want to talk about at all and that's this manufactured dichotomy between Arab and black African how is it played out in these conflicts cuz I think when people hear from um Kamal that the Sudanese Army are bombing his Village from the sky they just it it sounds unbelievable but when you when you explain you know the curse of racism and how it's affected s Denise politics it begins to make sense because some of the worst crimes in humanity have been committed under this kind of this lie of racism so can you explain conflict in darul conflict in bluna a conflict in the nuba mountains how is this socially constructed Arab identity played into these conflicts that's a long one a long but an important one but generally I mean just remembering that the birth of the modern sudin state was kind of hijacked by an elite that see themselves you know if you talk about certain factions of some of these Elite that have taken over sud from Independence they see themselves as the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad you know what I mean like you see how once you have that kind of mentality that when like you know I am it's kind of like the Isis thing you know how Isis when they broke it up into you know all of Sudan and Ethiopia and Somali and everything is they go in like is like you know Egypt so it's kind of the same thing where it's like Africa is a place to be carved up and ruled and Africans are people to be ruled by the the Cultural Center which for them was the Arab world you know what I mean now this white supremacy and European Supremacy has had a lot of light shed on it because of the transatlantic slave trade a lot of the Pana Africans that came from the Western Hemisphere and stuff like that but the Horn of Africa and East Africa has never had kind of like a civil rights movement to start evening the Playfield you know and that's you know South Sudan doesn't didn't choose Independence just because you know they were sick of bash and only bash it's because it's a widespread deepr rooted problem that goes back now how does this how do these sentiments play out on the ground I'll give you a small an anecdote we talked about that beginning of that neoliberal area uh era like the early ' 80s and stuff like that this is where you know someone someone like hassabi was talking about Sudan is the gateway to the rest of Africa the Gateway for arabism and Islam to spread into the rest of Africa so was this just rhetoric or did they actually do something on the ground to actually make that happen so you have institutions that popped up in the early 80s you know some of the institution if you take like one example of it there's something called Africa International University yeah the the name is very misleading because when you see the name you're like oh man this is a Pan African University it's going to be beautiful go inside there's going to be African stream and everything but it was exactly the opposite what it was was the Council of Islamic countries and Arab countries were basically funding this to be a university to be that bridge that durabi talked about so who were the attendees of this University Unity you know once you start looking at the leadership of for example shabab in a lot of them went to African International University in so in BO Haram in Egypt in uh Nigeria a lot of them went to this University over there because it was an expansionist idea it wasn't just an idea of this is my identity and this is my culture and I'm proud of it nobody would have a problem if that was the case but once it becomes a a system of control and expanding that everything you see like as far as the war right now the war with the South the war with the nuba mountains the war with DAR for there's a common denominator in there of the issue of one of our thinkers calls it Islam Islam arabism where the Islam the the religion part is used as like a sugar coat the Trojan Horse inside is Arab Supremacy within it to actually go in and start having a framework for Domination and domination of people within the immediate vicinity but into the extended vicinity also one of these extended vicinities is the sah so once these institutions started popping up in the early 80s they started expanding Westward as well as South and to the east Westward then they started started get into Chad nijer Mali and because there's already a background over there of like for example Timbuktu being one of the oldest you know libraries in Africa that was part of those you know Muslim empires over there so it was you know once you start expanding that way and at the same time you start recruiting militias to quell the opposition that's where recruits from these areas also eventually became the rsf so you take a small kind of idea it's not a small idea it's a big idea but like you know a simple idea of Supremacy but how does it actually play out on the ground you know the economic incentives at that time it was a long-term economic incentive but initially it was the tactics and the tools that were used to kind of expand and subjugate uh Africans in the vicinity and like and in the expense of it and this is where that's why when this war broke out saf has had almost a a like a postcolonial relationship with the Egyptian army yes you know the Egyptian Army had a very tight control over the saf where at the same time the rsf was squarely supported by the UAE in a big way now is it a coincidence that both Egypt and the UAE were the the ones who were pushing for a normalization with Israel out of all the Arab countries and out of all the Muslim countries it was specifically the countries that also had an expansionist you know mode of operation who were like okay yeah we want resources we want to take recruit young people from Dar for to go and fight in Yemen we want to extract the gold from the gold mines over there Egypt wants to make sure that Sudan doesn't make use of the GD in e in Egypt and doesn't build any more dams and at the same time getting a lot of produce and agriculture from Sudan so it's almost like this mentality of Supremacy made Sudan to be kind of a backyard for these countries people ask about for example US policy what is US policy towards Sudan it's like you know it's a policy by proxy you know the US is not going to go against what the UAE and what Egypt and what Saudi Arabia want in the region so they're going to kind of give them the green light to kind of like deal with Sudan as a backyard now there's a lot of reflection about this internally within the attitudes among because the problem primarily is internally within Sudan with how we perceive ourselves what do we consider ourselves as do we look at ourselves as just being in Africa on the map or do we look at ourselves as being Africans culturally politically and start looking economically how we can be part of Africa and stuff like that that's been missing for the past 70 years you know and I think when we talk about stopping the war and everything I mean there's a reason why like even the European countries and like a lot of Arab countries they were pushing Sudan to solve its problem in the EOD and in the Au and solve it in Adis and you have them a lot of these political parties and the saf and rsf people running around between Kenya and Uganda and Ethiopia and Egypt and stuff like that because it the the first yeah you know there's a lot of an element of a proxy war that's happening but the people who are directly affected are the people inside of Sudan and their neighbors primarily before anyone in the Arab Gulf or anything is affected by the war so I think that is slowly kind of dawning on people that the modern State developed in a very uneven way like Seth was saying earlier very unequally and that there was a very kind of Center and periphery Dynamic that was going on but it's very intertwined with this issue of identity and who do we see ourselves as and I think that's slowly Dawning on Sudanese even people who are supporting saf some people who are supporting rsf I mean there's tons of rsf people sitting in Uganda and coming to Kenya why do they feel more comfortable over here than going to Egypt for example so there is some kind of dynamic where there's some kind of realization that's starting happening of the unification of Sudan but it was kind of like niria was saying you know you know nationalism is destructive and deadly if it's not panafrican nationalism you know what I mean so under that guys I think now there are some negotiations happening because both of these parties saf and rsf know they can't keep this up and they know how much hot water they're in right now and most I think to a large extent like both parties as you've spoken about have expressed a form of contempt when it comes to the Au for example yeah uh trying to resolve this conflict which of course has not borne any fruit and now I think I'll ask I'll ask this in two ways because you've also spoken about uh some other issues that I'll I'll delve into so on the issue of the Au how do we have these International bodies uh come in to help in the conflict but also in the humanitarian and social crisis such as food and the rape and sexual offenses and the schooling for the children but also how do we educate now to unlearn and relearn and be able to bring about this integration of society and maybe both of you can come in on this I think the uh the main issue with the Au is that the Au members themselves are at War especially when you start looking at Sudan's neighbors you know you have arria now a lot of tension with Ethiopia Ethiopia got Somalia angry because of the port issue with somal land Egyptians are at war with Ethiopia not physical War but Pro by proxy you have Chad kind of you know kicking out Sudanese diplomats and taking them back there's tensions within South Sudan so our neighborhood is kind of you know problem very problematic right now and there's a lot of internal conflicts going on with it but that being said that's why once you start zooming out into the African Union as a whole we've been kind of talking as civil society to try and see like you know there's this whole issue of doing advocacy and whenever people hear advocacy they think about going to Geneva or going to like one of these centers who we like no there needs to happen some local advocacy on the continent Grassroots that funnels up to the various governments you know there is something to say about a push from the Grassroots on the continent that would push the governments themselves to play a more active role now you you you've talked about like the human suffering part and the sexual violence against women the just fear famine that might come up right now and everything you know the people who are tasked to protect the people and provide for them are the ones killing and robbing them so it's like the Sudanese civilian who's inside of Sudan unfortunately does not have any kind of support or any kind of protection internally within Sudan now that being said like the saf areas the Army areas are a little easier to live under than the rsf areas you know the rsf areas with communities that are from the rsf it's easier to live over there but if you're not from these communities and you're under rsf rule just prepare for your house to be raided and any time and anything to happen and get robbed and women get raped like it's a very this was kind of The Nightmare situation that the entire sudin like civil soci society and Grassroots all those people that came together in 2018 and 2019 to remove bash this is the worst case scenario that could have happened and because there's been a lot of compromises a lot of coercion and a lot of countries that didn't want to see a democratic civilian Sudan so they supported these military forces by doing that the African Union kind of has to be pushed in a direction to play a bigger role and they can't play it by themselves you know they they you know they you know well they could but I think there needs to be a little bit more International coordination the UN is starting to become a little bit paralyzed I think by what's happening in Ukraine in Gazza and Congo all these areas and there's a political problem now with the UN there's a political issue where you have unfortunately in the Western World you have the rise of of the right-wing movements which is going to be a real problem going forward because there's going to be less support for these un bodies and there's going to be more support for their domestic problem because like if you take the US for example as an example you know it does look like Trump might win and come back and they're talking about hey we don't want to send money to anywhere around the world we need to secure our borders with Mexico you know and create a new Force within the immigration and custom enforcement and everything where they're going to do border control and start doing raids on communities to see who has who's there legally who's not there the internal politics of these countries is going to reflect on what these International bodies are able and not able to do Sudan the the needs are around 4 billion dollar there's been about less than two billion I think that's been pledged but so far a fraction even of that has just you know has actually made it through and part of it is because these International bodies are telling the International Community that there's no way to bring in Aid if the rsf is going to rob them or if saf is going to take that Aid and then push it to its political you know uh political bases and not you know give Aid to certain communities and ignore certain communities and stuff like that so even like you know a heart goes out to kind of you know the people on the ground and the humanitarian workers who are try who see that need and are trying to push it forward but that being said there's also still there's a huge Grassroots volunteer effort inside of Sudan this is the same kind of volunteer Grassroots effort that when like you know after removing bashid started working on the ground and starting wanting to rebuild uh the country but it's not enough like there still needs to be ultimate Ely a stop to the war that's the biggest question mark right now like KD was saying earlier everyone outside of Sudan is working of like how do you actually stop the war now there's a couple of different routes you know the politicians are going more towards a power sharing deal another Power sharing deal where they would tell the staff and the rsf okay let's form a national government and you know we be there and it be you know it's a transitional period and then we'll work it out uh from there but most of Sudan is looking around like after all of this you're still going to bring these Waring parties and give them power and put them in a government again so I mean it it's it's a complicated situation I mean it's and there are some shortcuts to stop the war and everything and the power sharing and everything but will that bring back a war that's worse than what we've seen or will it actually bring peace because there's also the issue of justice and accountability yeah you know it's like there's not a lot of appetite we talking about Justice accountability in this situation right now with this level of human suffering but a part of me always feels like well that's kind of the point of Oppression is to make you get down on the floor beg for just you know survival and not hold anyone accountable you know what I mean like that that effort of like you know there's some kind of dynamic of military Powers punishing the civilians for speaking up and wanting to get their rights so the African Union has to be the the place to exert pressure on now that being said there are some other factors like for example the bricks countries the bricks countries they've added Egypt and Ethiopia into the fold I they have they're a little Hush Hush about it they're not very vocal about what the strategy is but it seems like it's a way to contain the the you know the conflict in the region I mean they could have added Nigeria being a huge economy you know they could have added other countries like Congo as far as the potential the economic potential but I think within the brics countries they were very kind of targeted very particular about bringing in Egypt specifically Egypt and Ethiopia because these are also countries that are playing a part within the conflict inside of Sudan so if they and when you look at also the other Middle Eastern countries that were added Saudi Arabia the UAE and Iran also when forget about Sudan for a second if you look at the Middle Eastern conflicts in General a proxy war between Sunni and Shia and everything over there so it also seems like it's a strategy to I don't know how it will play out or where it will go but I do know that sudin have been relying and playing to the UN and to the world bank and to all of these International bodies for the past decades but I don't think we should even hold our breath for these bodies to come in because there's a security Council that we don't have a say in we don't as Africans in general we don't have a say in the security Council and what gets decided within these bodies and how they move and who they're supporting who they're not supporting so I think within the African Union and even if you you know the East African Community I always tell Stane like we need to kick in the door and get into the East African Community by any means necessary you know the egad is cool but the egad is you know on development the the East African Community is a community that should have complete integration within it so South Sudan is in there right now there's no reason why Sudan cannot be with joined as well Somali has just joined the Congo has joined so it makes sense for a country like Sudan to join and now we have to go in Sudan and see who has those Hang-Ups about not wanting to be part of the East African Community so it's you know we don't have any my concern is that when I was in Sudan and the economic crisis After the Revolution the older generation were already fed up they already saying what did all this revolution get us you know price of bread has gone through the roof fuel we can't we can't get fuel uh we can't get anything so and that was before there was any you know violence in my concern now is 10 months of violence over 13,000 people officially who have been killed the number is probably a lot a lot higher than that uh as we said 20 million people facing Feud insecurity and over 8 million people displaced internally and externally what do you think that you know we've we've highlighted that rsf and the Sudanese Army are both problematic but do you think at this stage people have become fatigued and that all they want is you know maybe the Sudanese Army to take a decisive Victory and if it means going back to military dictatorship anything's better than a situation now that's not my words but you are you worried of someone that's been organizing in civil societies that's tried to raise a Consciousness about what can be are you worried that this conflict has taken us so far back so far back in terms of building a new Sedan a more prosperous sedan sedan without these kind of racial and tribal differences you think that's further away now than it's ever been or closer than it's ever been that's a complicated question but I think in general that the war has kind of been a wakeup call for a lot of people around Sudan now the sheer Terror and the horror of war it's natural that people take sides m you know for example there's a big debate right now of should people pick up arms to defend their specific areas or not you know and this is this becomes like uh a Natural Instincts you know if you have a militia that's coming and that's going to attack then it you know as far as organizing in your community and picking up arms and defending yourself against it becomes a natural human instinct rather than a political issue now there are a lot of groups in Sudan that have picked up arms but they're not with SEF they're not with the Army it's they organized around tribal lines which is still scary you know which is still you know not something that should happen in you know the 21st century but that's the reality that these go these governments within the center have created now we often forget that for the past decades there have been groups that have been squarely against whether it's saf or rsf and they've picked up arms and they've actually fought against them if you take a lot of the DAR for armed movements for example they haven't joined the war they actually have a Joint Force that's in Al and in these areas that are protecting the markets protecting civilians protecting these people vplm North in the newa mountains and Blue Nile has been protecting civilians and facilitating aid for a very long time so you do have other options that are outside of the saf and rsf dichotomy that are qualified and from their track record have shown that they can actually protect civilians they can be a peacekeeping force we don't have to bring a peacekeeping force from outside of Sudan you have these forces that are qualified to be a peacekeeping force but neither side of the conflict actually want that to happen nor the countries that are supporting them people out of the survival Instinct right now are looking for a leader a strong man to come and like you know end this war but the problem is you have two Waring sides each civilian on these sides are looking at like they are wishing for their their strong man to actually take over and you know govern the place HEI was just in Rwanda like a couple of weeks ago so he went to the genocide Museum and he was yeah you see him looking at the pictures at the genocide Museum and he's the look on his face it's like there's a million thoughts going through his through through his head but ultimately it does seem like he wants to be a kagami he wants to be a strong man who ended the genocide and who's ruling Sudan and with an Iron Fist and just focusing on development and just like you know just shut the f up and like here's some food here are some roads here's some Health Care here's some this which a lot of people their natural instinct they're fine with that they're like if I have basic services offered to me then I don't need to speak about politics yeah I need to speak about freedom justice and equality I don't need these things I could go to work I could come back I could put a roof over my head I can put some food on the table and everything so that's always going to be there there's always going to be the instinct for people who say like if we have the basics I don't care what happens on the government level or with politics or anything like that but the problem is we know where these things lead in the Sudan context you know what I mean so the people that you see that are very loud about supporting saf and it's gonna get rid of rsf first of all saf is not going to get rid of rsf that's mathematically it's impossible by force to get rid of them is impossible it's impossible for the rsf by force to get rid of SEF there's a deadlock that's happening right now and we have to remember also the the networks that are actually have Financial gains and benefits with both of these sides you know there's for example you have the niss the national uh intelligence and Security Services in Sudan for the past 40 years they've been oppressing detaining coercing and making a lot of money out of businesses that are part of the NS 2019 they were gone but they stayed there in the shadows these are some of the factions that are very loud about the war and about like supporting the actual military effort of taking sides with either ones of these but I think inherently the sudanes know that within since 19 it still was a military government yeah you had huk there and you had some political parties over there but who controlled the country's resources who controlled the foreign policy who controlled all of these different facets of government it was still the military and that's what the youth in the streets were actually talking about they were saying like the military has to go back to the barracks and the Gen the militias have to be disbanded this is what they were screaming since 2019 so in the immediate future you're going to see a lot of that you're going to see a lot of people are like you know this 2018 Uprising was a mistake in the first place you know it destabilized our country it caused the War and stuff like that without looking at who actually was pulling the strings to start the war I'll send you a report that we've done in early 2023 which was about the race for recruitment between saf and rsf in places like that for this is before the war so they were winding up they were getting ready to actually go through this war and I think because they thought the the countries that are backing them would allow them to have a decisive Victory but now with this stalemate I think there's a lot of reflection that's happening people are starting like the people who want to stop the war are more than the people who want some kind of military victory in Sudan we we've been going on for an hour so we just going to ask concluding questions and then we'll wrap up but I have to talk about a conspiracy feed that I've seen online um and just get your thoughts on it really because when you were speaking and analyzing what's going on it's hard not to at least reflect on the conspiracy theory and its merits The Conspiracy Theory goes like this part of the transition to democracy was trying to untangle Sudan's economy from the Sudanese Army and from the rsf the rsf controls the gold mines the Sudanese Army controls all of the Industries in Sudan so what many people say is the coup that that removed hamog that happened at a time where there was this unit set up specifically to go after and untangle Sudan's economy from these from these uh from these two forces and as soon as that happened there was a coup and then it would shut this stuff down now both of these guys were friends they both fought together in Yemen they both fought together in D four so some people have been saying that this is coordinated come together f everything up destabilize the country when we come back and we make peace and we sign some sort of treaty no one will try to go after our money again the industries will remain in the same places they just want to thin their herd yes exactly now obviously there's no evidence of this it's hard to prove we don't have any documents or text messages between what do you think about that and why do you think that conspiracy theory has got so much traction I think it's because uh most people didn't realize just to what extent exactly these guys have been militarizing not just the economy but the societies themselves if you're sitting in Kum you are not aware of what kind of discourse thatti was using to arm tribes in Dar you don't know what Boran was doing with the islamists in the East and in these areas to get them ready for this war they've been winding up for a long time and for anyone who actually has that idea that they're going to come back and just like you know make a deal and everything just look at the social dynamics you have people from the North and the East saying that from now until Judgment Day we're going to be chasing down these Arabs from the West meaning the rsf constituency and you have people from these rsf communities from their bases saying that we're going to completely eliminate the 1956 country which means the Arab rians who live along the Nile who we've been protecting for all this time from the Mia days that their rule their time is over and we're going to come after them and they're not going to live in this country the amount of hate and the amount of animosity that this war has instilled on top of the animosities that are already available makes it kind of impossible for these two to come together and do a deal and say you know we're going to have military rule and we're going to control our military areas and just all you civilians get out if they are looking for third parties to come between them and actually separate them so it's it's past the point of no return it's past the point of no return but it's a pretty juicy conspiracy so I can see why people are spreading that Cal before we wrap up any thoughts about you know how we move forward any message not just to the audience but to the rest of the Sudanese people about how we move forward how do we get past you know the crimes of the past how do we beyond this conflict between the rsf and the army how do we build a new Sudan H okay so for me it's like uh like when a lot of sudanes now a lot of them are saying like these people must to be hold accountable like the rsf and the government and and the Sudanese government so like so if you want to do this which means that we are going to kill all the rsf and plus the Sudan they have been committing crime you know for for for long years where where to like you know so if you want to take them we are going to take all of them you know for for me uh this is my personal like thinking this is what I do think about it uh and I used like to tell other people also other sudanes like I used to tell them you know we have been suffering a lot you know we suffered we we are tired of fighting even you know we are tired of running to other countries we and uh there's also issue of like we as a Sudanese like we are like more connected to Arabs than than Africans like when you go to Kum actually it was my first time to visit Kum in 2019 2019 so like and I got my family there my own family even there like more connected to Arab than than Africans even like one of my brothers is here right now like it's my cousin now he want to travel like to Arab countries he want to go and work there he don't want he doesn't want to stay here cuz you know he grew up like he was like doing all these things traveling his father was traveling to Arab countries doing so I used to tell people like you know let us get connect to AR to to I mean to to African to Africans because because we look like them exactly we look like them exactly and you know their style of living it is like peace you know like in the nuba mountains like people are living you know in in in peace like there's Muslims there's Christians there's non-religion people there's people who drink alcohol there's you know but they all living together they don't they don't have like problems but when I was like inum there's like all these things you know don't drink alcohol alcohol is Haram you've been drinking here you know military police come here and you know and take you and I used to tell people like you know we need like to everybody should like concentrate on his own like own self you know you build yourself you build your own peace you know don't think of someone like the other people this one is Christian this one is taking alcohol I don't want to be with him he smiling what no if he's smiling just move to to Other Place give him his space even let him do his things and uh for me uh we need just how do you call it reconciliation this is this is this is my cuz if you want to like judge all these people we are going like to kill half of or quarter of of of of sudanes yeah cuz they have been like working together with this these politicians they have been working even all of them they have commited crime you know so if we are going to judge them but what we need from them we need them to come down we need the people the civilians you know let them give power to the civilians let Civ civilians Rule and then for them we are not like going to do anything with them you know we know you you have been killing people you have been doing so we cannot like kill how do you alone and leave Alan we cannot kill Al and leave how do you no if you want to judge we must to judge all of them because they have been killing people in Dar and in theba mountains if there's like any judgment it must be equal and if we need peace and we need to go on We like Let Us forgive each other and we built new sudant and uh yeah this is my personal thinking this is you know that's beautifully there is a a thing to say about you know there's a growing Grassroots movement that's looking for more of a transitional Justice framework that would include what ktie is talking about which is Truth and Reconciliation as being one of them you know Sudan we have a lot of homegrown traditional Justice mechanisms where it's not just bringing someone and cutting off their head it's like no you two or have a fight come and in front of the elders State what your problem is with this person what is your problem with this person but what have you done the truth part what have you done who and and this has to be based on the people who are actually victims of these wars so there's like 3 million idps inside of that phot before the war who are waiting for some kind of mechanism where there has to be Truth and Reconciliation and the sudin public a lot of times we're very forgiving so if someone comes and says I have done one two three but I was getting orders and I did mean to do one two 3 4 there could be a forgiveness on this issue but there has to be a mechanism where like K saying it has to be equal it has to be a national mechanism definitely and I just add to that that you know I took my friend with me to Sudan I think 2015 and he was just amazed by the diversity of people and when you have sanese food there's diversity of Cuisine you listen to sanese music there's diversity of music diversity should be our strength but we've allowed it to be weaponized by the elites to divide us against each other I think once we you know respect the ethno religious diversity of the country and use it as PR about how great our country is how beautiful our country is you can see sitting these people standing up you know 5 10 people in the line they all look different they all have different slightly different uh C that they bring from the different regions of Sudan that's something that we need to embrace and we need to move away from as you said earlier the term used was Arab Arab ISL Islam arabism Islam arabism and you know uh when N I think it was in 1983 imposed Sharia law on a multi-religious society it was it was a recipe for disaster so yeah we we we need a a more broader Revolution that includes all the people from Sudan that doesn't Park the Grievances of people from nuba mountains and dar for and says we'll talk about that another day we just need to remove Basher and actually you know tries to understand what the root causes of it are and that's the way I think that we move forward seph any final thoughts I think you guys have said it all from the uh I would call it truth and Justice and Reconciliation as it's been called in other places and we hope that it works and the same thing he saying uh to bring in the uh the Civil Society and the Grassroots uh activists who are coming in and even what you're saying about unity and diversity and I think that is the most profound that there's unity and diversity and that um diversity is not a thing to divide uh or to take people apart but to bring them together and the minute that the Sudanese people will be able to see their diversity as you know something to unite them then they'll be Unstoppable I mean the three of you are all sudane and you all look different basically you know and you're an example of that unity and diversity by coming here today speaking from different viewpoints and also all of you wanting a United Sudan so mine is to just hope that this will also resonate uh with the Sudanese people and that um they will use the use this as a strength and with that then we can find an end to this war perfect perfect perfect note to end on there's so much we didn't really get into because of time so we'll have to invite you guys on again as we end all shows I've beened until next time peace peace peace peace peace

Channel: African Stream

Views: 868

Keywords: africanstream, panafrica

Id: WDFbxJonxjI

Length: 77min 44sec (4664 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 28 2024