Financial Times: UAE’s Role in Fueling Civil Wars to Exploit Wealth

The American newspaper Financial Times emphasized the UAE’s role in inciting civil conflicts to exploit wealth and advance its schemes for influence and expansion.

The newspaper demonstrated this by the conflict taking place in Sudan, which has displaced 10 million people, caused 25 million people to suffer from acute hunger, and unleashed horrific human rights atrocities.

The newspaper said that the conflict in Sudan is a proxy war, while the various sponsors of that war, which broke out in Khartoum in April of last year, are rising middle powers in the broader region, including the Gulf.

The newspaper indicated that the ongoing hidden conflict, coupled with a series of competing mediation attempts, complicates the process of disentangling the intertwined “goals” of the war, resolving even harder to achieve.

A recent Amnesty International report revealed that weapons and military equipment supplied by the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, China, and Russia have been used in the conflict, with civilians suffering the most as a result.

This month, the Integrated Phased Classification for Food Security, an independent group of experts, announced famine conditions affecting half a million people in Zamzam camp in North Darfur.

People were fleeing to the camp from the besieged city of El Fasher, which had once been a place of refuge but had recently turned into the site of relentless bombardment.

Doctors Without Borders reported last week that a hospital had been bombed for the tenth time and that trucks of food and medical supplies were no longer arriving there.

Almost all of Sudan’s seven neighboring countries are used as transit routes for lethal equipment. “This conflict is fueled by an almost unhindered supply of arms,” says Amnesty International.

When hostilities erupted last year between Sudan’s leading generals—who had previously united to oust Omar al-Bashir after his 30-year rule in 2019—there were concerns that regional powers might become involved in the conflict. These fears have proven to be well-founded.

Despite Sudan’s long-standing struggles, it holds valuable resources that other nations desire: gold, fertile land, an extensive stretch of the Nile, and, crucially, 750 kilometers of coastline along the Red Sea.

Agents on each side often deny involvement and do not align neatly. Still, the situation generally unfolds as follows: Egypt and Saudi Arabia support the Sudanese Armed Forces and its leader, Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan.

The United Arab Emirates and Russia back the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group that originated from the infamous Janjaweed and is led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, a former camel trader known as Hemedti. Other international backers have more varied and less consistent support.

Burhan represents the Sudanese state, but humanitarian workers argue that he has undermined this role by withholding food aid from regions controlled by the Rapid Support Forces.

In addition to using starvation to advance their goals, Amnesty International and others have accused Burhan’s forces of committing serious human rights violations.

The Rapid Support Forces are even worse than that. Alex de Waal, an expert on Sudan at Tufts University, describes it as a “plundering machine.”

He argues that if the Rapid Support Forces, which have long collaborated with the Russian mercenary group formerly known as Wagner, were to prevail, Sudan would become “a wholly-owned subsidiary of a transnational mercenary enterprise.”

The UAE denies supporting the Rapid Support Forces, but several independent experts, including a UN panel, have provided satellite and other evidence that suggests otherwise.

Observers who claim to understand the UAE’s motives believe that it views Burhan as being too closely aligned with Islamists, while Hemedti, despite his history of involvement in genocide, has managed to present himself as a proponent of democracy.

In this conflict, it’s hard to blame the West for orchestrating events; instead, the criticism is more about the West’s lack of attention.

This is one situation where it’s difficult to hold the West responsible for pulling the strings; if anything, the West is at fault for its inattention.

While the wars in Gaza and Ukraine are considered existential, moral, and strategic conflicts, it was difficult for him to practice determining the place of justice in the Burhan-Hemiti conflict.

Neither side seems capable of securing a decisive victory. Burhan’s forces have withdrawn from Khartoum to Port Sudan, while Hemedti’s forces remain entrenched around Darfur.

Khartoum remains contested, and with Sudan having already lost South Sudan after its independence in 2011, there is a significant risk of further fragmentation.

Thus far, various mediation efforts have resulted in little more than failed ceasefires, leading to increasing international calls for sanctions against the UAE and other countries backing the conflict in Sudan to end the war and restore peace.