At least twelve million internally and externally displaced people, health hospital and cultural infrastructures destroyed and looted as well as displaced persons camps destroyed, children out of school, food aid used to make the populations suffer, an unprecedented food crisis, sexual and mental violence, and at least 14,500 people killed since the start of the war according to estimates dating from April 2024, such is the macabre toll of the conflict of interests which started on April 15, 2023 in Khartoum and spread through subsequently in other regions of North Sudan.
The United Nations, through its Secretary General, denounced, condemned and demanded in vain the end of a war that some consider to be a "forgotten conflict" just like that of the neighbouring South, based on a geopolitical context characterized by the Russo-Ukrainian conflict and recently the Israeli offensives in the Gaza Strip which attract the most attention perhaps to avoid an escalation of the conflict towards other former territories of the Soviet Union and even on a NATO (North Atlantic Treaty organization) member Territories and the disastrous impact that a direct confrontation with Russia or a victory of Russia on Ukraine could have in Europe and the rest of the world especially on the economic level. Indeed, whether it is the resolution of March 8, 2024 and that of June 13, 2024 which correspond respectively to the call for an immediate cessation of the conflict for the first and a request to the rapid security paramilitary forces (RSPF) to put an end to the siege of Al Fasher or El Fashir, capital of the State of North Darfur for the second, nothing has changed. The situation has instead deteriorated further to the point where the hopes of success of the consultations planned this August in Switzerland and Saudi Arabia are slim, each of the belligerents having points of view to defend at all costs.
Under the United Nations Charter which codifies the main principles of international relations and which includes the sovereignty of States and the prohibition of the use of force in these relations, each State is free to make choices regarding its manner to resolve its internal problems even if these can sometimes be questionable and even reprehensible, especially when they seriously harm the physical and even moral integrity of populations who are part of a world where, despite the internal divisions linked in a majority of cases to the satisfaction of disproportionate selfishness, the misfortune of some does not at all make the happiness of others.
As a French representative to the United Nations already made known in August 2019, violations of the rules of the Geneva Convention are knowingly integrated into military strategies to deprive populations of any assistance and obtain their reissue. Indeed, signed by almost all countries in the world, the humanitarian rules of respect for human beings and their dignity in times of armed conflict are flouted by the main belligerents everywhere in the world where there are wars and particularly in Africa. Civilians are involved in wars; some are even forced to go to the front. Those who are sick and even injured do not always have the opportunity to receive quality care and even to eat properly because political instability favours the blocking of the delivery of food. This means that the true implementation of a universal and humanitarian consensus adopted varies depending on the context. Sovereign States and African States in particular which choose to resolve their problems through arms no longer want to be given moral lessons, especially with regard to how to manage their affairs. Earlier in June 2023, two months after the outbreak of conflict in the Republic of Sudan in the capital Khartoum, the United Nations special representative for Sudan was declared persona non grata.
But that does not prevent us from needing to redouble our efforts to achieve peace which, although uncertain, is not impossible. The discordant voices of excess must resolutely return to the negotiating table on neutral ground to faithfully respond to the aspirations of a people who are suffering in several ways. Indeed, despite violent initiatives aimed at seizing power, no one likes to see their country descend into chaos. Even the most insensitive souls are concerned with bringing peace and preserving it even if the way of showing it leaves something to be desired.
Whether we are in Central Africa, East Africa, West Africa, Southern Africa, North Africa and the North-East, particularly in the case of the Republic of North Sudan, Africans have always demonstrated particularly unique ways of seeking change and resolving their internal conflicts. When they are not putsches or successful or unsuccessful attempts to conquer power by force, they are institutional coups or flagrant violations of the fundamental law of a country; when they are not tribal or ethnic wars, they are conflicts of interest like in North Sudan where the two main actors of the 2021 putsch who had bring down the transitional government for economic and socio-cultural reasons in particular with the violence of ethnic wars, themselves entered into conflict two years later only to find themselves in an dead end that some consider to be a consequence of the slight involvement of the United Nations council, the impotence of the African Union, and the double support on the one hand and among others a certain great power which in addition to supporting the Territories sharing the same ideology as its own would also have particular interests there, particularly in the Northern part under the control of the rapid support forces (RSF ), and others, notably Westerners and other allies who would be more concerned with maintaining peace and the proper delivery of food relief. In fact, if we do not talk enough about the Sudanese armed conflict it is because it is indirectly an extension of the war between Russia and Ukraine. The bloody war between Russia and Ukraine has created a climate of cold war in a multipolar world where having one or many strong allies and who, moreover, have a right of veto or the right to unilaterally prevent the adoption of a common decision, favour the stagnation of a conflict or the maintenance of a strategic status quo of the situation to win the case regardless of the time it takes or the number of people who lose their lives.
Also read : The sovereignty of States under the influence of major economic, military, and technological powers
In any case and whether we like it or not, it is not the United Nations which will put an end to this war but the Sudanese themselves and in particular those who are at the head of the two main blocs in conflict. The United Nations Security Council is only a peacemaker whose actions depend primarily on those concerned. If the parties to the conflict want peace, the United Nations will play its role as facilitator. As long as they want to remain in an impasse, the situation will remain precarious because even in a context of hostility and insecurity, no one can afford to do what they want in another Territory without the agreement of the principal concerned. If it is war that they choose, the United Nations will be content to manage a conflict without worrying too much about the fact that there are parties who indirectly maintain this conflict which also has distant origins. The result of the referendum of July 9, 2011 which allowed the creation of the State of the North and that of the South after the multiple civil wars following the recognition in 1956 by the United Kingdom of the independence of a single Territory despite the reality of a context hostile to all forms of unification or single Territory leads to the same causes which produce the same effects on both sides and in particular on the North side where the divergences of points of view have divided the country into two blocs led by two former allies whose 2021 armed initiative foreshadowed a better future which is definitely no longer on the horizon since leadership problems have fragmented the country.
The Sudanese have their destiny in their hands and it is up to them alone to decide when this war will end to allow the populations to experience something other than a succession of deleterious and bloody moments which unfortunately favour the pre-eminence of individual interests over common of extreme emergency.
English|French
