Ethiopia

How the UAE kept the Sudan war raging through Uganda? #mrlukwagoswalihliveshow Muhoozi Kainerugaba’s links to Abu Dhabi and Sudan involve a mix of regional geopolitics, diplomatic friction, and military relations. Abu Dhabi (the UAE) faces widespread international accusations of backing Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the ongoing civil war,charges that Abu Dhabi denies. Meanwhile, Uganda and Muhoozi Kainerugaba have navigated a complex and sometimes volatile role in the crisis. Muhoozi’s Controversial Remarks on Sudan Khartoum Threat where Muhoozi posted and later deleted inflammatory remarks on social media threatening to capture Sudan's capital, Khartoum. Diplomatic Row since the comments prompted a sharp rebuke and a demand for an official apology from the Sudanese government, straining relations between Kampala and Khartoum. Uganda and Abu Dhabi (UAE) Relations Military and Defense Ties. Muhoozi has held high-level meetings with Emirati delegations and military counterparts to build bilateral security and defense cooperation. Aerospace and Tech Engagement: Leadership from Abu Dhabi-based firms like MIRA Aerospace have met with the UPDF in Uganda to discuss potential regional aerospace and communication hubs. Regional War Dynamics where International reports and analysts frequently link UAE supply networks running through neighboring states to the belligerents in Sudan's conflict, drawing scrutiny to East African nations maintaining ties with Abu Dhabi. A network of munition supply lines, backing the Rapid Support Forces against the Sudanese army, can be traced to the Gulf via Libya, Chad, Uganda and elsewhere. The RSF’s Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo met with Yoweri Museveni at his country home in Rwakitura, southwestern Uganda, on 27 Dec, 2023, the first stop on the RSF leader’s charm offensive across eastern and southern Africa. A plane carrying unknown cargo was seen on the runway at Hamrat al-Sheikh, an airstrip in Sudan’s North Kordofan state. A handful of local people gathered around it. One of them took a video. Hamrat al-Sheikh is a remote but strategically important site. It’s 250km from el-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan, which was besieged by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in its war with the Sudanese army. The town, which in peace-time has a population of more than 400,000, is also at a key intersection of several roads, linking the RSF’s power base in western Sudan’s Darfur with Khartoum. Details taken from that airstrip video and verified by Middle East Eye, as well as information from flight trackers Flightradar24 and JetPhotos, indicate that the ordinary-looking plane at Hamrat al-Sheikh was a white Beechcraft 1900D with a blue tail and owned by Bar Aviation, a company based in Uganda. The company did not respond to questions from MEE by the time of publication. News of the landing spread to el-Obeid, two sources in the town told Middle East Eye. The reason was clear, one of the sources said: the plane’s cargo contained weaponry,possibly Russian Katyusha rockets, destined for the RSF, which has been using the artillery in the area, as it has across the country. The munitions would support the group’s hold on el-Obeid as well as its attempts to control the supply lines running from Darfur to Khartoum. Another source said that the rockets had been used to fire on North Kordofan’s Centre of Peace and Development Studies. According to multiple sources, both local and international, the plane originated from the UAE. The UAE has previously denied “supplying weapons or ammunition to any of the warring factions in Sudan”. But the supply of weapons to the RSF has allowed it to punch above its weight, in a complex network of supply lines and alliances that encompasses not only Sudan but also Libya, Chad and Uganda. The revival of the RSF The war in Sudan is going on. According to the UN, the conflict has displaced 7.3m people and killed more than 12,000. The numbers go up day by day. Death tolls in Darfur are largely unrecorded: the real figure is probably far higher. Both sides have committed atrocities. The army has revitalised the prospects for ultra-conservative groups and figures connected to the autocratic administration of former president Omar al-Bashir, who was removed from power after three decades following a popular uprising in 2019. In Darfur, which has been in an almost permanent state of conflict throughout the 21st century, eyewitnesses have told Middle East Eye of summary executions, rape, and ethnically motivated killings perpetuated by the RSF and its allied Arab militias, targeting the Black African Masalit population. These crimes, denied by the paramilitary, have been recorded by human right. ‘What is coming from the UAE is very substantial. It has kept the RSF in the fight’ On the battlefield and in the diplomatic arena, the RSF, which was brought into the Sudanese state under the auspices of the intelligence services in 2013, following a series of protests that threatened Bashir, is now in the ascendency. When fighting began in Khartoum last April, there was a feeling among many inside and outside Sudan that the SAF’s greater numbers, its air power, status as the national army, and its control of the country’s institutions would eventually see it overcome its ally-turned-enemy. Although the RSF only has about 100,000 men compared to the army’s estimated 200,000, it has been battle-hardened by crushing dissent across Sudan, and fighting for UAE-backed forces in Yemen, Libya and other parts of the Sahel region, making it the more effective outfit. But while the paramilitary force was able to take weapons and equipment from the army, it would need more than that to keep it properly supplied. Cameron Hudson, a former CIA analyst and senior associate at the CSIS Africa Program, told MEE: “At the beginning of the conflict, I and others were saying it will be difficult for the RSF to sustain. And yet we have all been proven wrong and I think the difference…has been external support. “I think what is coming from the UAE is very substantial. It has kept them in the fight, and it has allowed them to sustain this fight with no end in sight.” Sudanese and western officials, diplomats, local activists and human rights lawyers have all echoed Hudson’s view. The support has come primarily from one place, a key US ally: the UAE. It was also, according to the US government, facilitated by the private Russian military group Wagner, which “has been supplying the Rapid Support Forces with surface-to-air missiles to fight against Sudan’s army, contributing to a prolonged armed conflict that only results in further chaos in the region.” Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the leader of the RSF better known as Hemeti, has headquartered his commercial empire in Dubai, one of the emirates. He is reportedly close to the UAE’s vice president, Mansour bin Zayed, and took a long trip to Abu Dhabi last February and March, before the war began, meeting with Sheikh Mansour and the UAE’s president and ruler, Mohammed bin Zayed. The gold that flows out of RSF-controlled mines in Darfur is traded in the UAE, where Hemeti’s youngest brother, Algoni Dagalo, is based. Dagalo also leads some of the RSF’s regional ventures there, including the now-sanctioned Tradive, which the US Treasury defines as “a procurement company that has purchased vehicles for the RSF in the past”. Youssef Ezzat, the paramilitary’s top political adviser, told MEE: “I have said many times that they accuse the UAE and forget that the RSF controlled all military storages and bases. The RSF doesn’t need supply lines from outside. That is what the world doesn’t want to see.” The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to MEE’s requests for comment on reports that it is supplying the RSF. Aside from its relationship with the Dagalo family and its use of RSF fighters in Yemen and Libya, the UAE has other long-standing interests in Sudan. They include buying up agricultural land to address food security issues at home, the import of livestock from Sudan, and a series of port projects along the Red Sea coastline, including one $6bn plan finalised last year for a port north of Port Sudan. There is also the political dimension. The Sudanese revolution that brought an end to Bashir’s three decades in power aspired to bring back democracy to one of the largest countries in the Arab and Muslim world. Abdullahi Halakhe, senior advocate for East and Southern Africa at Refugees International, told Middle East Eye: “The UAE has worked more than any other country to stifle the emergence of democracy in the region. “They have funded regimes in Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Libya and are now supporting the RSF in Sudan. Chequebook diplomacy works for them.” The messaging has been different. In the months before the war began, according to European diplomats based in North Africa, Emirati officials were briefing that if European countries wanted to support democracy in Sudan, then they should support the RSF, which began to adopt a pro-democracy public relations campaign. The paramilitary has since picked up some backing from leaders in the pro-democracy Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) coalition. Hemeti met with Sudan’s former prime minister, Abdalla Hamdok, whom he ousted with army general Abdel Fattah al-Burhan in the military coup of October 2021. Hamdok now lives in the UAE, where his think tank, the Centre for African Development and Investment (Cadi), is registered. At the meeting in Addis Ababa, he and Hemeti embraced. How to get arms into Sudan The army dominates Sudan’s airspace: the challenge for the RSF and its backers once the war began was to secure supply lines. In the early months of the conflict, officials in southern Libya and sources close to the forces of eastern commander Khalifa Haftar, told MEE that the UAE was using Haftar, who it supports, to send military supplies to the RSF in Sudan. Those sources also identified a series of key Libyan air bases, from where cargo would be flown to the Central African Republic (CAR), then driven overland into Darfur. Days before the war began, one of Haftar’s sons, Sadeeq, was in Khartoum meeting Hemeti, and donating $2m to a football club that the paramilitary leader is involved with. It was Ramadan: Haftar’s son returned to Hemeti’s Khartoum residence, where the two men broke their fast together. Jalel Harchaoui, a political analyst and an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), told MEE that the Haftar family were mindful of maintaining the “illicit trade networks that exist between Sudan and eastern Libya”, including fuel, Captagon, hashish, gold, stolen cars, and people trafficking, and began “sending aid” to the RSF. “Hemeti was their preferred belligerent,” Harchaoui said of the UAE and Russia. “They had been supporting him for several years before the war erupted. Both nations knew there was a way of supporting him without being denounced by the international community and they took that path.” As the war raged, supply routes out of Libya shifted because of international monitoring: the UN Security Council has placed an arms embargo on western Sudan, which was renewed later on. Moussa Tehoussay, a member of Libya’s Change Party and a researcher in African affairs, told MEE that the military support running from eastern and southern Libya to Sudan mostly went through the Wagner Group, which had transported advanced weaponry and military equipment, such as SAM-7 missiles and anti-aircraft systems, via air cargo from the town of Kufra. “The modus operandi kept changing,” Harchaoui said. “The volume also varied. But there was always some flow of aid. It never really stopped. The UAE and Russia have always had every intention of making sure Hemeti wins. Since day one.” Making use of Sudan’s neighbours Darfur, the vast region of western Sudan from which the RSF grew out of the Janjaweed militias once employed by the state to crush the rebellion, also borders Chad and the Central African Republic. In CAR, the government of President Faustin-Archange Touadera is dependent on Wagner forces for military support in its fight against rebels. The Russian group also helped Touadera win a referendum that allows him to run for office as many times as he likes. Opposition sources in the country have told MEE that Wagner mercenaries were involved in the transit of weapons across the border to the RSF in Darfur. The supplies are sometimes but not always flown in from Libya. Abdu Buda, a spokesperson for the rebel Union for Peace in the Central African Republic (UPC), said: “Wagner and the CAR government are keen to secure the situation of their ally in Sudan, which is the RSF, so they have handed huge quantities of weapons to the RSF through the Sudanese-CAR borders.” At the same time, the Emiratis were looking to shift the position of Chad’s government, which fears the destabilisation from a war on its borders and sees the RSF as a group that could help regime change in Chad. Mahamat Idriss Deby, Chad’s military leader and transitional president, met with an adviser to Mohammed bin Zayed, and Abdelrahim Dagalo, Hemeti’s brother and right-hand man, in N’Djamena, according to Hudson and the western military analyst. The UAE offered Deby “more than a billion dollars” to “flip Chad towards supporting the RSF,” according to Hudson. And during summer 2023, the remote Chad town of Amdjarass, which is where the Deby family hails from, turned into a “boom town”, according to a source close to local officials, who also confirmed Hudson’s observations. The flight tracker Gerjon recorded 109 cargo flights coming from the UAE, stopping briefly at Entebbe in Uganda and then flying on to Amdjarass. Gerjon has since deactivated their account following what they described as “a recent incident” which, they said, meant they “no longer feel safe”. Amdjarass became, according to the New York Times, the heart of an “elaborate covert operation” being run by the UAE to back the RSF, “supplying powerful weapons and drones, treating injured fighters and airlifting the most serious cases to one of its military hospitals”. But flights from Uganda to Chad can be tracked, and so the RSF and its backers have been trying to bring cargo into Sudanese airspace, where it cannot be followed. Uganda, flights and the president The culmination of Hemedti’s shuttle diplomacy was his extraordinary inclusion at the IGAD Heads of State Summit in Kampala in January 2024. The 6 August flight into North Kordofan, which MEE tracked at either end with the help of the video supplied by local sources, appears to have been part of this effort to fly supplies directly into Sudan. Though that flight landed, army air strikes a few days later put an abrupt end to this route until the middle of November, when the army once again started bombing Hamrat al-Sheikh because it believed the RSF was again flying in supplies. Bar Aviation, the owner of the plane in the video, is headed by its CEO, Barak Orland, an Israeli businessman who has lived in Uganda for almost two decades. He is close to the family of Yoweri Museveni. On its website, the company, which is based at Entebbe International Airport and Kajjansi Airfield, where the flight into Sudan is believed to have come from, describes itself as the “leading service-orientated Ugandan airline”. There are also local and industry news items in which Orland is described as a “visionary”, or in which the man himself heralds the successful air transport of 18 rhinos from South Africa to Congo. But this view is not shared by everyone. “I have spoken to several people who know Orland as an arms dealer,” Nicholas Opiyo, a Ugandan human rights lawyer, told MEE. Neither Bar Aviation nor Barak Orland responded to Middle East Eye’s requests for comment on the allegations and events presented in this article. Ehud Yaari, an Israeli analyst who has served his country as an adviser on Sudan, told MEE that Orland was “a small operator who found a niche for himself in Uganda… He’s a sort of an unguided missile, he’s close to Museveni.” Asked about reports that Orland had been involved in selling Israeli arms to Uganda, Yaari said: “I don’t think Israel needs him for that.” Married to a Ugandan, Orland is the co-owner of a host of security companies and previously ran a communications operation called Roke Telekom, which he later sold. The Israeli is particularly close to Muhoozi Kainerugaba, a Ugandan general and son of Museveni, who has held power in Kampala since 1986. Kainerugaba, who is portrayed as being groomed to succeed his father, is known for his erratic behaviour, once tweeting that it would take two weeks for him and his men to conquer Kenya,a comment Museveni then had to apologise for. Muhoozi posted pictures of him and Orland together on social media and has thanked him publicly for his work as vice president of Uganda’s Federation of Motorsport Clubs. Yaari told MEE that Bar Aviation had also made flights from Uganda to eastern Chad. “The suspicion is that they were bringing in supplies from the UAE,” he said. The analyst added that there were “business dealings between Hemeti and the Ugandans which fit in with the financial assistance the UAE provided Chad.” Museveni, who with his wife Janet brokered a ground-breaking 2020 meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Sudanese army chief al-Burhan, which was seen as beginning normalising relations between the two countries, has maintained communications with both sides in Sudan’s war. ‘I think Museveni is playing a behind-the-scenes role in this conflict, as he always has done, primarily to boost his military economy’ Nicholas Opiyo, Ugandan lawyer He visited Abu Dhabi at least twice last year and has allocated more and more Ugandan farmland to the UAE as part of a “plan to take advantage of the civil war in Sudan to turn the country into a hub for Emirati trade in the region”. In May, Museveni received Ezzat, the RSF adviser, who “provided a comprehensive explanation” for the reasons behind the war in Sudan and “conveyed a message” to Museveni from his boss Hemeti. “Actually, Uganda is not an ally,” Ezzat told MEE. “When I visited Museveni he was the president of the African Union Peace and Security Council. We needed to brief him about what happened in Khartoum.” Ezzat said Museveni was an “important African leader” who knew the Sudanese conflict well. “Uganda is an African country, and we are African. We need African solutions to our conflict,” the RSF adviser said. Opiyo said that if Bar Aviation’s planes were being used to fly weapons into Sudan, they could not be doing it without Museveni’s knowledge. “I think Museveni is playing a behind-the-scenes role in this conflict, as he always has done, primarily to boost his military economy. I wouldn’t be surprised if businessmen like Orland are conduits for these deals because he has the infrastructure,” the Ugandan lawyer said. Bar Aviation company is affiliated with Mossad and under the cover of being a company that provides safari flights within the continent. Barak Orland the face of the (Israeli-Emirati) entity in Africa, owner of the aircraft company that serves the Rapid Support Forces to transport Emirati military supplies through intermediaries to Sudan, met with the Dqlu brothers in Entébè accompanied by an Emirati "Aircraft owner who appeared in Hamra al-Shaykh in August last". He is the CEO of YAMASEC, SPARTASEC and SWAT Private Security Companies. He is also the owner of Busiika Motorcross Arena, Barak Orland. Museveni’s office did not respond to Middle East Eye’s request for comment on the allegations. Sudan’s army hits out at UAE Back in action: After months out of the limelight, Sudan Armed Forces chief, Gen. Abdul Fatah al-Burhan inspected the 44th Brigade on 30 Jan, 2024. Throughout the war, Sudanese army officers and officials aligned with the army,spoken in private about what they perceive to be the main influence of the UAE and its support for their enemy. General Yasser al-Atta blasted the Emirates in a speech to members of the General Intelligence Service in Omdurman. “We have information from intelligence, military intelligence, and the diplomatic circuit that the UAE sends planes to support the Janjaweed,” al-Atta said, referring to the RSF by the name of the militias from which it emerged. Atta accused the UAE of funnelling its supplies through Uganda, CAR and Chad. The general praised Russia for dismantling the Wagner Group, which he said had facilitated supplies through CAR. “We warn any country that participates in supporting this rebellion that what goes around comes around,” he added. Responding to the accusations, an Emirati official said that the UAE had “consistently called for de-escalation, a ceasefire, and the initiation of diplomatic dialogue” in Sudan, as well as providing humanitarian support. According to the lawyer in el-Obeid, “many civilians were injured, and some killed as a result of the bombings”. Cop 28, the United Nations Climate Change Conference began in the UAE, one of the ten largest oil producers in the world. “The Gulf countries have mastered the soft power thing,” Halakhe told MEE. “Qatar hosted the World Cup, COP28 was just in the UAE, which owns Manchester City Football Club, the Saudis have LIV Golf, and so on.” Sudan’s army-aligned government expelled 15 Emirati diplomats. Days later, the RSF attacked el-Gezira state, pushing into central Sudan for the first time and sending the army and hundreds of thousands of civilians scattering before them. As 2023 drew to a close, the UAE continued to deny that it was supporting the RSF, emphasising its “active role in de-escalation efforts in Sudan” in a letter to the UN’s panel of experts. Khartoum was shrouded in darkness. The sound of gunfire and artillery rounds echoed across the city. “As we welcome the new year, let us stand united and pray for peace and progress for all people in the UAE, region, and world,” posted Mohammed bin Zayed. Meanwhile Hemeti, clad in a suit and tie, was off on a diplomatic tour of Africa, travelling in an Emirati jet and meeting Museveni and other heads of state in Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa and Rwanda. His tour ended there, in Kigali, where he visited the memorial to the Rwandan genocide. “As Sudanese, we must learn from Rwanda,” the former Janjaweed commander wrote. “The war our country is experiencing today must be the last, and we should work toward creating a just and sustainable peace for ourselves and for the prosperity of our future generations.” Not long after, Hemeti repeated at length his calls for a “democratic and peaceful Sudan”. His statement came on 16 January, on the eve of a summit convened by IGAD, a group of east African nations that has sought to broker talks between the Sudanese army and the RSF. Sudan’s army-aligned foreign ministry suspended its involvement with IGAD, accusing it of “violating” Sudan’s sovereignty by inviting Hemeti. The summit was held in Entebbe, the Ugandan city in which Bar Aviation has its main hub. Sudan’s army chief, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, says the Sudanese Armed Forces remain committed to defeating the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) but are open to “genuine” peace initiatives. Speaking during the SAF’s 72nd anniversary, Burhan said peace must begin with the RSF laying down its weapons, gathering in designated areas and allowing security and normal life to return. He rejected any peace deal that would allow the RSF or its leaders to return to power. Burhan also called for a purely Sudanese political dialogue involving political and social groups to help restore state institutions, including the legislative council. Sudan has been at war since April 2023, with the conflict killing tens of thousands and displacing nearly 13 million people.

How we should look at the relationship between the two Sudans By @Yasir Arman Should we look at the relationship between the two states of Sudan through a keyhole or from the broader perspective of history, geography, culture and mutual interests? I dedicate this contribution to martyrs and friends, and especially to our leader Dr John Garang De Mabior, Yousif Kuwa Mekki, Mohamed Juma Nail, Hashim Abubakr, Mohamed Ahmed Omar Al Haboub, Yasir Jafar Al Sanhouri, Abdelbaset Al Adnani, David Majok Mac, Lol Chol, the well-known singer of the Belfam battalion, Bona Obec Nyuela, Isaac Tut Dhier, Dr Justin Yac Arop, Clement Katinga, Gilo Agada, David Nari, Jok Dum, Mabuto Mayen, Malwal Biong, Koul Deng Koul (Suk), Daud Yahya Bolad, Scopos Lubro Kenyi, Lewis Al Yardou, Peire Okeruk, Abd Al Hamid Abbas and Rafat Rahmatallah. They are just a few of my many departed friends who were martyred. They wrote a new history of relations between the two Sudans and these are seeds that must grow and yield results for the benefit of the two peoples. From those who are still with us, I dedicate this to Dr Mansour Khalid with warm affection. By Yasir Arman At the start, let me express my gratitude to the newspaper Al Watan and to my friend Michael Christopher for this great initiative. I salute all the leaders and ministers involved and everyone who took part in this seminar entitled “Peace in Sudan and its effect on the stability of South Sudan”. We learned from our communities and some of our teachers in school and in public life that South and North Sudan occupy the same place in our hearts and minds. Our love for the two Sudans is everlasting and we will always have a joint task now and in the future to build strategic relations between the two countries. We cannot afford to forget this task. Let me take this opportunity to thank the Mediation and the Government of the Republic of South Sudan for hosting the Sudan peace talks in their capital city, Juba. It is a historical event that will strengthen and improve bilateral relations between the two countries. The historical contradictions which have characterised relations between Northern and Southern Sudan and which later extended to the two Sudans are rooted in the depths of history and in the issues of nation-building which Sudan has encountered since 1956 and long before and which the two Sudans continue to face today. We believe that peace in the two Sudans and its effect on them, as well as on the region and the world, is the right theme for today’s seminar and that each country will contribute to peace in the other, even if the peace process has different features in each country. The current peace processes in Sudan and South Sudan and the contribution being made to them by the leadership of both countries will not only have a significant impact on stability but should also be extended to our ongoing efforts to create a new relationship that enables us to recover slowly from our troubled past and benefit from our historical, geographical and cultural links, blood ties and mutual interest in achieving strategic relations, leading eventually to a Sudanese Union between two independent sovereign states. We should not take a narrow view of relations between Sudan and South Sudan. This relationship is much broader than that and has deep roots in the history of the Nile Valley civilisation. Without considering the historical and cultural links between the two peoples, there will be something missing in our efforts to achieve a paradigm shift in this relationship in a manner that is truly consistent with our mutual interests, our links, our blood ties, geography, history and culture. If we want to move forward, we need to see where we have come from in order to understand where we are going to. Sudanism still exists and has not been erased by international borders between the two countries. It is the umbilical cord of relations between North and South Sudan. Despite the fact that we are now in a different situation and live in two countries, most of us still believe in Sudanism and long for the Sudan that no longer exists today and for the strategic links between the two countries that are dictated by current and historical interests. We can see this clearly just as Michelangelo saw an exquisite statue in a block of marble and trimmed off excess material before he began to carve the statue itself. Creating strategic relations between the two countries will not happen without difficulties like a sculpture hewn from rock. But it is possible and necessary to do this just like Michelangelo created his statue from a block of raw marble. The Sudan peace talks in Juba offer another opportunity to correct the historical mistakes in Sudanese politics which led to the secession of South Sudan and to pursue a new National Project within Sudan and between the two Sudans. Juba itself is an open history book of the mistakes made by the centre of the Sudanese state in Khartoum. If we had dealt wisely in the past with the issues of nation-building, we should not have needed a visa to come to Juba. Hovering around us in this hall in Juba are the spirits of Benjamin Loki, the leader of the Liberal Party, who came from Lainya and whose constituency was several miles from Juba, Father Saterlino Ohure from Eastern Equatoria, Frank Wel Garang from Wau in Bahr el Ghazal and Buth Diu and Bullen Alier from Upper Nile. They addressed issues of nation-building in bold and strong speeches in the First Parliament (1954-58). These uncles of ours were sublime and, if we had listened to them, we would not be in this position today. Frank Wel Garang said that they did not have any bad or ill intention towards Sudan but that, without responding to the demands of the Southerners, the South would leave Sudan just as Pakistan had left India. He went on to say that, unless things were to go well in Southern Sudan, they would never go well in Sudan. Peace in Sudan still faces the same old and renewed dilemmas of how to reach a credible process of nation-building based on equal citizenship without discrimination. So the contribution of the Republic of South Sudan is not only necessary for the stability of South Sudan but is also important for the Sudanese story itself and to avoid the mistakes of the past, including correcting fatal political mistakes between the two Sudans and restoring strategic relations between them with good faith and a clear vision for achieving peace in both countries. The importance of hosting the Sudan peace talks in Juba is driven by the importance of the relationship between the two countries. South Sudan is the only country in the region which has an organic geographical relationship with the three regions where there are wars in Sudan (Blue Nile, South Kordofan/Nuba Mountains and Darfur). South Sudan is connected by the Nile, history, culture, values, interests, borders, national security and a common future with Sudan. The current peace process is an opportunity to transform the catastrophe in relations between the two states into an asset and to transform secession into a Sudanese Union between two independent states. The borders of the two countries are not separated by natural phenomena like a sea or an ocean. On the contrary, there are more than 10 million pastoralists on the borders of the two Sudans. This border was linked in the past to river, rail and road transport and extends more than 2,018 kilometres. It represents an important border for national security in both countries and is perhaps equivalent in length to the international borders between South Sudan and its other neighbours. South Sudan used to import more than 137 different commodities from Sudan, just as the products of South Sudan, which has a climate similar to East Africa, will find a welcome market in Sudan and the Middle East. We should restore river, road and rail transport links so that the economies of both countries will prosper. The two Sudans have more than 140 million feddan of arable land and the largest animal resources in the African continent. What we are lacking is the vision to establish strategic relations on a new foundation. The fate of each country could impact seriously on the fate of the other, be it prosperity or collapse, and it is up to them to make sure that they prosper rather than collapse. The project of the New Sudan, which first emerged from South Sudan, is another intellectual resource for linking the two countries. It is another currency that can be a medium of exchange and intellectual commonality as the glorious December Revolution, in one of its key slogans, called for building a New Sudan. Economics, security, defence and correct parameters of nation-building are the agenda for both Sudans and it is possible to develop them into a Sudanese Union between both countries. There is indeed great potential for the Sudanese Union to develop into a regional union that includes Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, Uganda, Eritrea, Kenya, Libya, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo. A Sudanese Union would contribute to improving African-Arab relations and would increase the chances of prosperity in the region and in Africa. South Sudan’s biggest asset is its people and culture. Moreover, it also has a bigger geographical area than Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya put together. If we stand back and look at the two Sudans from the perspective of their geographical size rather than through the keyhole, we see that they have the biggest area in the whole of Africa. The future of the two countries lies in their huge agricultural area and arable land. What clearly shows the importance of agriculture is that expert studies have concluded that three countries – Canada, Australia and the two Sudans – can provide food for the whole population of the world. The wars that have taken place in the two Sudans have been at the expense of the future of their populations. The two countries have a combined population of no more than 50 million people, whereas their land area is enough for more than 500 million people. So wars pose a threat to the population’s strategic existence and strategic interests. Peace and progress towards a new democratic national project based on equal citizenship is the main issue in the peace process. In our meetings these days with the Forces for Freedom and Change, I suggested that the Sudan Revolutionary Front, the Forces for Freedom and Change and the Mediation should go and visit the tomb of Obaid Haj Al Amin in Wau, who is one of the most important leaders of the 1924 White Flag Revolution. We are on the threshold of the one-hundredth anniversary of this great 1924 Revolution, which represents our national, symbolic and historical capital and heritage and the social roots of many of its leaders were both from the North and the South. The revolution was led by Ali Abdel Latif, who spent many years in prison-like our icon of change and struggle, Nelson Mandela, and by Abdul Fadil Al Maz who led the Second River War and who was martyred at the age of 28. As Obaid Al Haj Al Amin is buried in Wau, Abdul Fadil al Maz in Khartoum and Ali Abd Al Latif in Cairo, the Nile and its tributaries embrace them all. The absence of Southerners has made Sudan like tasteless food. Southerners also miss, to a large extent, the warmth of relations which connected them to the North. Our relations did not just revolve around war but there were more human aspects based on history, culture and blood ties and many good things despite the ugliness of war. But even the war, if we start to write its history, brought out many common human values. Our humanity was reflected in some aspects of the worst human phenomenon, which is war. How many brave men and women joined the battlefield from both sides! We should build on their courage to develop a new strategic relationship. The Sudanese state after independence gained many of its national resources in the fields of culture, music, the arts, the military, professionals, technicians, nursing, education and services from the contribution of talented Southern Sudanese. There are talented people in both countries who could contribute to the prosperity of both countries if a meaningful strategic relationship is established between them. One of the most important things about the mediation of the Republic of South Sudan in the Sudan peace talks is that South Sudan does not have an agenda to damage Sudan’s national interests. South Sudan’s interests lie in exporting its oil and managing to resolve its own internal wars. Sudan has a lot of experience and experts in many fields who could contribute to state and institution-building in the Republic of South Sudan and Northern Sudanese are also closest to the social psychology of the Southerners. Through their relations with each other, the two Sudans can consolidate independence and sovereignty in both states. As for the global economic landscape and exploitation within the nation-state, the leading intellectual Joseph Garang, who was Minister for Southern Affairs in the early period of Nimeiri’s Government and author of the booklet “The Dilemma of the Southern Intellectual”, in one of his perceptive sayings, compared those who escaped from national exploitation to global exploitation to “someone who escapes from a den of hyenas to find himself in a den of lions”. Consequently, the two Sudans need each other if they are to confront this troubled world and projects for global exploitation. European countries have fought wars with each other and, in the Second World War which ended in 1945, no one could have imagined that France and Germany would join a single European Union. Today you can go from Spain to the borders of Turkey with a single visa. Although individual European countries have different democratic governance systems, there is one European political and economic area, and borders do not present any impediment to movement. If European countries, developed as they are, have established a European Union, it is all the more necessary for us to establish a Sudanese Union and the current peace talks have an important role to play in achieving this. Redefining Sudan’s National Project and achieving sustainable peace in Sudan call for lessons to be learnt from the two biggest events that Sudan has witnessed: the secession of the South and genocide. The Sudan peace talks in Juba therefore have a deep meaning and significance for Sudanese and are a catalyst for achieving a new National Project. During the wars in South Sudan, it was remarkable that millions of displaced Southerners headed northwards. This trend was driven by shared values and cultural links, blood ties, history and geography and the Nile has always played a significant role. Today, refugees from both Sudans all go to the other country. This movement of IDPs and refugees reflects the need for strategic relations between the two countries. The common history and the participation of many Northerners on the side of the Southerners in the last war (1983-2005), especially from the Two Areas Southern Kordofan/Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile), is an additional important reason for building a strategic relationship because this area provides an organic link between the two countries. The border area is an area of human intermingling and the most beautiful place for building a Sudanese Union. In the last 32 years, there has never been a better opportunity for peace in Sudan than the one that exists today. The good news is that Juba is playing an active role in this. What happens now presents big opportunities as well as challenges and concerns. Boosting peace in both Sudans would be an added value and would reflect progress and stability in both countries. We call for the holding of an inclusive conference for active forces in both countries to promote a joint vision for a Sudanese Union and the establishment of political, economic and cultural institutions to support this concept. We have been an advocate of a Sudanese Union since South Sudan’s independence in 2011. When the last Framework Agreement between the Transitional Government of Sudan and the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement-North/Sudan Revolutionary Front was signed on 24 January 2020, President Salva Kiir Mayardit mentioned, in response to my call for a Sudanese Union, that he is in support of strategic relations and that he dreamed of seeing security and peace prevail in both countries. He mentioned that, in earlier times, vehicles carrying goods used to travel safely from Dongola in the far North of Sudan to Yei in the far South of South Sudan without encountering any obstacles. He called for this situation to be restored. This represents an important call. Finally, the one thing I want to achieve in my future political work and to which I will devote my remaining effort, energy and time is to contribute humbly to establishing a Sudanese Union between the two Sudans as independent sovereign states.�Many thanks and appreciation.

I live in Ethiopia. AMA I’m upper-class and live in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. A lot of people online seem to have a very different picture of what life here is actually like. Happy to answer questions about daily life, infrastructure, education, culture, or anything else. AMA.