Sudan's Civilians Deserve Better

It is often suggested that the horrific crisis in Sudan garners little international attention because of its complexity, and specifically because “there are no good guys, only bad guys.” It’s true that Sudan’s crisis grows more complicated by the day, as groups that aimed to stay out of the clash between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) feel compelled to take up arms to defend their communities, and as the numerous outside powers fueling the war with arms and materiel engage in proxy competition at the expense of Sudanese civilians. But the reasons for the world’s relative indifference are manifold, including limited bandwidth to seriously engage with yet another international crisis, and, in the case of the United States and other Western powers, limited direct leverage with the warring parties. Add to that the unfortunate lack of attention and knowledge to African developments in general, and the result is the world’s anemic response to the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time. 

The notion that there are no good guys in Sudan is also just wrong. The Sudanese people, who transcended regional and socioeconomic cleavages to join together in ousting the tyrannical government of Omar al Bashir, are in fact “the good guys” (though it’s important to remember that Sudanese women were very much a part of that civic movement and the resilient compassion that can be found in Sudan today). The main antagonists in the nearly two-year old conflict were both enforcement arms of that old dictatorship, each as unwilling to cede power to the other as they were unwilling to cede power to Sudanese civilians—despite having agreed to do so after Bashir’s fall. The warring parties were part of the vile machinery of oppression that civilians found the courage to refuse and resist. The good guys are still hanging on to decency, working to help each other in desperate circumstances.  

The United States’ belated acknowledgement that genocide is occurring in Sudan is intended to help. It’s both a flare sent up to attract the urgent attention of incoming administration, and a tool to shame the deep-pocketed backers of the RSF in the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere, should anyone find the courage to use it. But making this determination about the nature of some of the worst crimes occurring in Sudan may also make it easier for the uninformed to dismiss the entire conflict as one driven by ethnic divides, a trope that encourages some to dismiss African conflicts as somehow inevitable. The world needs to understand that two things are simultaneously true—the Masalit people of Darfur are the victims of a vicious genocidal campaign, and the overall conflict in Sudan is about members of the state Bashir built struggling for power and access to resources, not identity. The bad guys are fighting each other without regard to civilian casualties and suffering—they are willing to starve the country if that is what it takes to hang on to power. The good guys are trying to keep each other, and the dream of a united Sudan at peace with itself, alive.