Sudan: Blood on Foreign Powers’ Hands

Sudan’s ongoing conflict is not merely a clash between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), but a systemic manifestation of the global arms trade’s role in perpetuating proxy wars. The war’s escalation is deeply rooted in the post-colonial state’s fragility, exacerbated by foreign powers exploiting Sudan’s resource wealth and geopolitical vulnerabilities. Mainstream coverage often frames the conflict as a local power struggle, obscuring the structural role of external actors—including Western nations, Gulf states, and regional powers—that arm both sides while profiting from instability. The UN’s report highlights how this proxy warfare enables the extraction of Sudan’s gold, oil, and agricultural resources, reinforcing cycles of violence and displacement that disproportionately affect marginalised communities. Without addressing the global arms trade’s complicity, any peace effort risks repeating the historical pattern of short-lived ceasefires followed by renewed conflict.

The narrative framing Sudan’s conflict as a ‘clash of local factions’ serves to deflect attention from the geopolitical interests of foreign powers, particularly the United States, Russia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Saudi Arabia, which have all been implicated in supplying weapons and mercenaries to either the SAF or RSF. This framing obscures the structural power dynamics where Western and Gulf states leverage Sudan’s strategic location—between the Red Sea and the Sahel—as a battleground for influence, while also extracting economic benefits from the chaos. The media’s sensationalised language (‘slaughter,’ ‘impunity’) humanises victims but rarely interrogates the systemic incentives for foreign intervention, such as the arms industry’s profits or the resource extraction tied to conflict zones. By focusing on ‘foreign hands,’ the narrative also risks oversimplifying Sudan’s internal divisions, ignoring how colonial borders and neocolonial economic structures continue to shape the conflict’s trajectory.

The original framing omits the role of Sudan’s colonial legacy in shaping the current conflict, particularly how arbitrary British-Egyptian borders in the 20th century fragmented ethnic and tribal identities, creating fertile ground for militia formation and state fragility. Indigenous knowledge systems, such as the traditional conflict resolution mechanisms of Sudan’s pre-colonial societies (e.g., the *Dinka* and *Nuer* mediation practices), are entirely absent, despite their potential to offer non-violent alternatives. Historical parallels, such as the 1989 coup by Omar al-Bashir that destabilised Sudan and set the stage for today’s violence, are also underemphasised, as are the voices of Sudanese women and youth who have led grassroots peace initiatives (e.g., the *Sudan Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Organization*). Additionally, the framing fails to connect Sudan’s conflict to broader regional trends, such as the Sahel’s militarisation or the global resurgence of mercenary warfare (e.g., Wagner Group’s role in Libya and Mali).

In many pre-colonial African societies, conflict resolution was not viewed as a binary ‘war or peace’ dichotomy but as a cyclical process embedded in social harmony. For example, the *Adinkra* proverbs of Ghana and the *Griot* oral traditions of West Africa frame conflict as an opportunity for communal reflection and renewal, not just destruction. Sudan’s indigenous *Beja* people, who have historically navigated tensions between nomadic and sedentary communities through decentralised governance, offer a model where leadership is rotational and based on consensus rather than coercion. Similarly, the *Hausa* *Kano* emirate’s historical use of *majlis* (council) systems to mediate disputes demonstrates how Islamic legal traditions in Sudan could be repurposed to address modern grievances without resorting to armed conflict. These perspectives challenge the Western narrative of conflict as inherently violent, instead highlighting it as a site for cultural and political negotiation.

Sudan’s civil war is not merely a local power struggle but a systemic manifestation of the global arms trade’s role in perpetuating proxy conflicts, rooted in the colonial legacy of fragmented borders and neocolonial economic exploitation. The conflict’s escalation is driven by foreign powers—particularly the UAE, Russia, and Western nations—who arm both the SAF and RSF while profiting from the extraction of Sudan’s resources, a pattern seen in Libya, Syria, and Yemen. Indigenous knowledge systems, such as the *Dinka* and *Nuer* mediation practices, offer viable alternatives to militarised conflict resolution, but these have been systematically sidelined by modern state structures. Historical precedents, like the 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement, demonstrate that foreign mediation alone is insufficient without addressing the structural causes of conflict—namely, resource control and state legitimacy. Cross-culturally, non-violent frameworks (e.g., *Maasai* courts, South Africa’s TRC) provide models for post-conflict reconciliation, but Sudan’s current negotiations exclude marginalised voices, risking another cycle of violence. The trickster perspective reveals the absurdity of proxy wars, where external actors arm both sides while civilians suffer, exposing the real ‘blood on hands’ to be those who profit from instability. To break this cycle, Sudan must disrupt the arms trade, reintegrate indigenous conflict resolution, invest in climate-resilient infrastructure, and amplify marginalised voices in peace negotiations—lessons from Colombia’s peace accord and South Africa’s TRC offer a roadmap for systemic change.