Sudan Crisis: Part 2 - Today’s Scramble for Africa
The disaster in Sudan is fuelled by regional and global political actors seeking their own gain.
When it comes to the potential for conflicts to destabilise the world, the media focus is on Ukraine and Palestine. The fear of escalation at the edge of Europe and in the wider Middle East is all too clear.
Yet the situation in Sudan is potentially destablising in a region that is hugely important. Primarily for its people, who matter no less than those in Europe and the Middle East. But also for the region in general. There are over 600,000 refugees in Chad - which not only shares a border with Sudan, but tribal links. Egypt, which has received over 500,000 refugees, also has instability from the war on Gaza at its north-west. Whilst there are smaller numbers fleeing to Ethiopia (37,000), there are security tensions in that region.
So let us try to understand this man-made disaster and to remember the people who are suffering there on an unimaginable scale - as well as those whose continent is looted of the amazing resources that Allah has blessed it with.
In this, part 2, we look at the Sudan crisis from the perspective of:
The Struggle for Africa
Africa’s vital resources
How do Saudi and the UAE fit in the global game?
Who are the external players?
Mainstream media mainly talk in terms of the struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) under Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) under Dagalo (aka Hemedti) that I described in part 1.
The more serious commentators will also describe the conflict as part of a regional rivalry between the oil-rich gulf states of Saudi and the UAE - the former backing the SAF and the latter the RSF.
Whilst there is truth in this, the matter is not restricted to regional states and the different factions within Sudan. Africa is a region where many global states have a footprint: the USA, China, Russia - as well as former colonial powers like the UK and France.
Sudan & the modern Scramble for Africa
Sudan’s strategic importance is obvious from its geography. It is part of the Africa Transition Zone/Sahel(a term that can encompass Sudan but is more commonly used for the area to the west of the great continent including Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Senegal and Guinea), but it is also part of Sub-Saharan Africa more generally. It is also one of the countries in the Nile Basin region - and forms part of the west coast of the strategically important Red Sea.
European powers were the most famous colonisers in Africa. When their physical occupation ended, they often maintained their influence through proxies in the region - backing one autocratic ruler after another, or one faction or another. Their roots run deep in these societies.
The Sahel region has been hotly contested in recent years. France has been struggling to maintain its long held political influence through their deep rooted connections in the region, with coup and countercoup in recent years: in Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Gabon and Niger all since 2020. There were also failed coups in Gambia, the Central African Republic, and Sierra Leone. All of these coups have local factors driving them, along with the hand of global powers vying for influence (usually the United States wrestling with the deep roots of the former colonial power in the region). It would be unwise to see the instability in Sudan as something separate from the wider competition across Africa.
The United States has looked to edge out the declining former colonial powers from their colonies over many decades. It has been extending its political reach in Africa since the 1990s - with bloody interventions in Somalia in 1992-3, then backing Ethiopian troops to do their dirty work in the Horn of Africa. It reorganised its military presence in the 2000s with US Africom - with congress approving $500 million for “counter-terrorism” programmes. Its hand has been detected in some of the coups in Sahel, and it has a dirty record in its relationship with Khalifa Hafter in Libya. Twenty years ago, it had an almost 20% share of trade from sub-Saharan Africa. That has declined, almost mirroring China’s increased trading over two decades.
China’s economic footprint in Africa has grown over those years due to its $1tn Belt and Road Initiative. This has given them an advantage in the race for control of Africa’s minerals that are critical for defence, renewable power and electric vehicles in the modern era. Yet according to the FT, citing Boston University, Chinese interest in Africa peaked in 2016 when sovereign lending was worth $28.4bn as compared with lending of only about $1bn in 2022. Yet that economic influence for resources has not translated into political influence on the ground.
The United States attempt to rival this has been through the G7. The “Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII)” is offered to developing nations as an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. It aims deploy more than $600bn for infrastructure projects by 2027 across Africa.
This initiative, along with deep roots, in the continent still means that European countries still enjoy the largest share of trade in sub-Saharan Africa.
Russia’s involvement in Africa is altogether more crude than it was in the Soviet era. Through the paramilitary Wagner group, they exert a political influence through force and power-broking, according to the Royal United Services Institute, which says that Russia is offering governments in Africa a "regime survival package" in exchange for access to strategically important natural resources.
Within Sudan specifically, the UK had the deepest colonial roots in Sudan. Even though it is a declining global player, just as France had deep roots in the West African region of the Sahel, it maintains influence in Sudan. Britain’s commentary on the tensions in the region reflect where its interests lie, not any humanitarian concerns. This was illustrated when Britain shamelessly tried to pressure African diplomats not to criticise the UAE over its support for the RSF.
In addition to the gold, minerals and fossil fuels on the continent, the Nile Basin is an area subject to disputes over the control of that most precious commodity: water.
Furthermore, Egypt, Sudan and the Horn of Africa generally are crucial to controlling the strategic waterways that run from the Mediterranean, via the Suez Canal, to the Red Sea, through which around 12% of all global trade travels - and around 40% of trade between Europe and Asia. Around 1 million barrels of crude oil per day pass through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea.
One look at this map gives you some idea of why the conflicts in Yemen, Somalia, Eritrea/Ethiopia, Sudan - and indeed in Palestine - are all so vitally important. Indeed, one of the reasons why Britain and France fought in World War One was to protect their trade routes, particularly in the case of Britain to occupied India.
In early 2024, the Houthi regime in Yemen attacked ships using this trade route. The impact on global trade was obvious immediately. Supply chains were disrupted. Costs of rerouting shipping around Africa meant the “cost to ship a standard 40-foot container from China to northern Europe jumped from $1,500 to $4,000, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy in Germany”.
Sudan, like many other African countries, is awash with natural resources. This makes it a prize, not only in terms of the other strategic interests in the various regions it sits, but as an asset for itself regardless of those ‘jewels’.
Africa’s riches bring its people misery not wealth
Everyone wants a stake in the rich resources that lie in Africa and other strategic factors. Nearly half the world’s gold and one-third of all minerals are in Africa. The contrast with the levels of poverty and insecurity for the people of the continent are a disgrace for the modern world. Africa’s richest have long been exploited by Western powers through various phases of colonialism.
Yet Africa’s people get precious little benefit from this. Resources that are mined from Africa are not used to make things in Africa. In sub-Saharan Africa manufacturing declined as a percentage of gross domestic product from 18% in 1981 to 11% in 2023.
According to the Financial Times Africa’s political leaders have continued “colonial- style trading relationships in which they export raw materials and import finished goods”.
India now trails China and the EU as Africa’s third-biggest trading partner, and the UAE increased its trade “nearly fivefold in the past 20 years — much of it gold and diamonds — to make the nation the continent’s fourth-biggest investor, with cumulated investments of nearly $60bn in the past decade.”
Where Africa is blessed with natural resources, it is cursed by conflict and insecurity where local and global actors struggle for control over those resources.
The colonialist Sudan ‘playbook’ and the colonialist DR Congo ‘playbook’ are remarkably similar. Like Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo is suffering from conflict and is awash with riches that global powers have long fought over. It was directly occupied by Belgium in the original ‘scramble’ for Africa. Thereafter there was evidence of British influence in the region. And now there is evidence of different warring factions being backed by different global colonial players - all to control Congo’s immense riches - including coltan, used in all our mobile phones. Despite these immense riches, the people of Congo are amongst the poorest in Africa - and suffer from conflict. The warring factions receive support from their various sponsors channelled via different countries in Africa - and its leaders amass wealth by selling the countries resources, not dissimilar to the leaders in Sudan
The Game of Thrones: How do Saudi and the UAE fit in the global game?
In respect of Sudan, the two regional powers most engaged in Sudan are Saudi Arabia - supporting the SAF via Egypt -and the UAE supporting the RSF, via supply routes from Libya to Chad and then the western parts of Sudan.
Both Saudi and the UAE originated as artificial constructs fashioned by British colonialism decades ago. By empowering local tribal leaders over others, Britain gained influence in the oil-rich Middle East. That influence has waned over the years, in favour of the United States.
However, the US’s era as the only superpower has been in decline for some time. Whilst it is still overwhelmingly superior to other nations in terms of military, political and economic influence, the resurgence of a more locally assertive Russia and the rise of China globally as an economic force - as well as other countries in the G20 - has seen Saudi, Turkey and other Gulf States having pretensions to having increased local political influence. These are exemplified by Saudi’s war in Yemen and Syria, the UAE’s involvement in Libya - along with Turkey, who also played a role in Syria.
In a former era the United States would have sought to deal with these problems alone. But increasingly the US has a balancing act with these ‘middle power countries’ whilst it is seen to be declining from its formerly unchallenged status - keeping them on its side by promising a share of spoils in various regional issues, whilst at the same time making sure their foreign policy does not go against US interests. It sometimes does this by inviting them to take key roles in other regions which suit its interest, hoping that a symbiotic relationship with the US is a win-win situation for all concerned.
Both Saudi and UAE invested in Sudan over the years. Their partnership was one of cooperation. However, this has changed to one of competition, with either side on different sides of the conflict. Saudi Arabia has supported the SAF via Egypt. But in February 2024, the UAE announced a $35 billion financial package for Egypt, trying to influence it in the conflict.
More recently Turkey has invested more in Africa. Like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, it is a ‘middle power’ - a growing regional player that has manoeuvred so as to have a role within the boundaries of US policy in Syria and Libya.
In August 2024, the FT reported Somalian and Ethiopian diplomats meeting in Ankara to broker a truce in order to stave off a regional war. Turkey has forged commercial and security alliances in Africa.
It has growing interest in the Sahel region, particularly as African leaders increasingly express distrust of Western arrogance towards them. The position of the ‘middle-men’ states is helpful to the US in this regard. Turkey has invested in Africa with soft power - paying for a number of mosques, schools and hospitals in Africa - as well as facilitating travel in a way that European countries do not. Also, Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 drones have been bought by Mali, Niger, Ethiopia and other African nations, as well as small arms, mine clearance vehicles, armoured vehicles and helicopters.
Conclusion
The scramble for African resources continues until today. But the style has changed from direct occupation and colonisation, to backing the local rulers as long as they do their bidding, and using regional powers for mutual benefit.
The prize that is being contested by big powers - the United States, EU, China and Russia - are not merely the jewels. It is to have the political influence - the key to control that allows others access to these resources.
Countries like Saudi and the UAE play their capitalist game and expect rich pickings in the end, but they will not be the gatekeepers. It is a disgrace that Muslim countries can join in this cannibalism and theft at the expense of Africa’s MOST precious resource - its people - many of whom are Muslim. They have suffered death and robbery by global capitalism. Nothing less.
In the final article, part 3, I will look at some aspects of Islam that offer a real alternative for humanity, in the context of the problems I have highlighted in the first two articles on Sudan.
Abdul Wahid has been active in Muslim affairs in the UK for over 25 years. He has been published on the websites of Foreign Policy, Open Democracy, the Times Higher Educational Supplement, and Prospect Magazine. You can follow him on X/Twitter @AbdulWahid_X.
https://www.ft.com/content/cb2823c7-f451-4bc9-959e-ec7e07384a31
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/2/20/mapping-africas-natural-resources
https://www.lawyeringpeaceclass.com/maps-of-sudan
https://www.britannica.com/place/Democratic-Republic-of-the-Congo/History
https://www.ft.com/content/fdd7563d-1222-47af-bc33-1205bdb38702
https://geopoliticsjournal.com/water-crisis/
https://geopoliticsjournal.com/african-geopolitics/
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-are-the-major-natural-resources-of-sudan.html
https://apnews.com/article/red-sea-yemen-houthis-attack-ships-f67d941c260528ac40315ecab4c34ca3
Nice write, Barakallahu fih Doctor
Very neat analysis. Uncovering the real players behind the conflicts reveals the hypocrisy of the leaders of the international community.