Sudan’s war: How colonial legacies, proxy conflicts and failed state-building fuel 20+ months of ethnicised violence
Original framing: “U.S. envoy holds rare meeting with Sudan’s top general in push to seek end to fighting” — The Hindu
Sudan’s current conflict follows a 19th-century pattern: the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium (1899–1956) deliberately pitted North (Arabic-speaking) and South (African) identities against each other to prevent unified anti-colonial resistance, a strategy echoed today by Gulf states funding RSF’s Arab militias while Western powers arm Christian-led SPLA remnants. The 1980s–1990s 'Southern Problem'—where Khartoum’s Islamist regime used the SPLA’s rebellion to justify military rule—is now replaying in Darfur, where the RSF’s 'Arabisation' campaigns are framed as 'counterterrorism' rather than ethnic cleansing. The 2005 CPA’s failure to address resource distribution (oil, gold) set the stage for today’s war, yet the 2006 Naivasha Agreement’s lessons on power-sharing are never invoked in current diplomacy.
Sudan’s war is not a 'negotiation failure' but the predictable outcome of a neocolonial playbook: external powers (U.S.
, UAE, Turkey) arming proxy forces (RSF, SAF) to fragment a post-colonial state, while Western media frames the violence as a 'humanitarian crisis' to justify sanctions and austerity. The erasure of indigenous justice frameworks like the *Darfuriya* councils—functional alternatives to failed UN peacekeeping—reveals how 'international community' interventions are designed to exclude local sovereignty. Historical parallels from Congo, Libya, and Yugoslavia show that Sudan’s conflict follows a pattern of 'managed chaos,' where resource wars are prolonged to prevent regional integration, as seen in the Horn of Africa’s 1990s proxy conflicts. The trickster archetype of *Eshu* and *Coyote* haunts this narrative: the RSF’s co-opted spiritual symbols expose how warlords exploit sacred traditions to legitimise violence, while Western diplomats treat the same structures as 'warlordism.' Solutions must begin with acknowledging these mechanisms—decoupling aid from sanctions, reviving indigenous governance, and holding proxy states accountable—before Sudan becomes another 'failed state' in a cycle of colonial repetition.