Sudan: Proxy War not “Civil War”

29-11-2025: Images and reports of a massacre of civilians in El Fasher, in the northern part of the Darfur region of Sudan, have shocked many around the world. The paramilitary Rapid Support Force (RSF) are accused of slaughtering some 2000 people in a final drive to take the city, after subjecting it to a siege for the last 18 months. Al Jazeera has reportedly verified accounts of RSF fighters executing and torturing people, and RSF members are known to have recorded themselves committing atrocities in the past.[1] The bloodstains from the massacre are said to be visible from satellite photographs, taken from a vantage point high in the atmosphere.[2] In 2023, the RSF was accused of massacring up to 15 000 people in West Darfur’s capital, El-Geneina, targeting those from the Masalit ethnicity. The RSF have also targeted the non-Arab Fur and Zaghawa ethnic groups. While the world has been focused on the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza since the October 7 terror attacks on Israel, the warnings of another genocide in Sudan are indeed “flashing red”.[3]

Aftermath of regime change

To grasp the gravity of the violence occurring in Sudan today, one must begin with the 2019 overthrow of longtime Sudanese leader Omar Al-Bashir. This act was orchestrated by the government of the United States of America (US), though it is largely not recognised as yet another reactionary colour revolution. Voice of America, US state department propaganda, at the time reported that one of their own – Rudwan Dawod, a Sudanese American politician, helped organise the protests that took down Al-Bashir.[4] Al-Bashir stated in 2017 that the US Empire seeks to Balkanise Sudan into five parts. Indeed, it has already brought about the secession of South Sudan in 2011. In response to US threats against Sudan, it secured the S-300 missile defence system, as well as the advanced SU-30 and SU-35 fighter jets from Russia. In recent decades, both the US and the EU (European Union) governments have armed, funded and trained terrorist militia opposed to the Sudanese government. When conflict necessarily results, the chaos is then blamed on the Sudanese “regime”. Yet in fact, US and EU officials themselves literally visited protestor sit-ins during the pro-Western 2019 “uprising”.[5]

However, Washington and London also sought to derail economic co-operation between Sudan and the socialistic People’s Republic of China (PRC). Indeed, Sudan was slated to become a key part of Beijing’s flagship Belt and Road Initiative, or New Silk Road. For example, in 2017 it was announced that the PRC would build a railway connecting the strategic Port Sudan on the edge of the Red Sea to the Chadian capital N’Djamena, to enable countries such as Cameroon, Nigeria and the Central African Republic a path to Port Sudan – which means a link to Europe and Asia.[6] The deep states of the US and the United Kingdom (UK) are loathe to allow Sudan and other African countries the pathway to development which only cooperation with Red China can bring about. With the US and European economies in rapid decline, only the still expanding economic power of the PRC can offer favourable terms for the building of much needed infrastructure across the African continent. The African nations themselves are well aware of this and can weigh up for themselves a clear choice. Even with this option, many African nations still attempt to maintain good relations with the US and the former European colonial states.

However, if imperialism today cannot brook African economic cooperation with the PRC, still less can they tolerate military cooperation with the Russian Federation. The Russian Federation and Sudan signed an extensive accord in 2017. Under this accord, Russia would be invited to build a military and naval port facility on the Red Sea. Al-Bashir stated at the time that Russian military assistance was necessary to counter US aggression. Despite the overthrow of Al-Bashir in 2019, Russia and Sudan were still able to sign a 25-year agreement to build the Red Sea naval logistics facility which could host up to 300 troops and four naval vessels. Under this agreement, Russia gains access to the Red Sea, and Sudan gains a counter presence to AFRICOM (US Africa Command). This cooperation, and ongoing coordination with the PRC, is what led directly to the fake uprising largely led by US and EU backed “Civil Society Organisations” (CSOs) in 2019.[7]

“Civil War”

In October 2021, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) overthrew this Western backed coup, and re-established sovereignty for Sudan, led by General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan. Western governments again leapt into action, orchestrating the 2023 outbreak of the “civil war””, when the RSF began attacks on the SAF in the capital Khartoum and its twin city Omdurman. This war has been ongoing since 2023, but it is anything aside from a “civil war”. The RSF is led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo or “Hemedti” who originally was a part of the SAF. The RSF was originally created by Al-Bashir in 2013 and includes the feared Janjaweed militia which fought on the government’s side against Western backed “rebels” in Darfur in the early 2000s. So, while originally the RSF was pro-Sudanese government, imperialism has pulled its many strings to switch it to do its bidding.

Hemedti only launched the coup against the SAF after meeting with high-level representatives of the governments of the US, UK, and Norway. Hemedti claims that the October 2021 restoration of power by the military was a mistake, and that he and the RSF are on the side of the people against the “elites”. This is now risible, as the RSF now includes thousands of Al Qaeda terrorist fanatics who swept into neighbouring African countries following their contracting for NATO during its regime change bombing of Libya in 2011, triggering the overthrow and murder of Colonel Gaddafi.[8] The fact that imperialism has found a local proxy in Hemedti and the RSF does not in the least indicate that the subsequent war it launched against the SAF is a domestic affair. Without the express encouragement and assurances from high level American and British government officials, the RSF would never have launched an attack on the SAF government and would never have been able to recruit thousands of Al Qaeda linked barbarous hordes to its “cause”. The current conflict in Sudan bears all the hallmarks of a proxy war of Washington and London against Moscow and Beijing, regardless of the human cost.

Accusations against the UAE

The fact that Washington and London are covertly behind the RSF and its barbaric atrocities numbering in the tens of thousands is the main basis for the litany of claims that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is instead arming and funding the RSF. The claim is that the government of the UAE uses illicit gold revenue to fund Emirati weapons funnelled into Sudan and into the hands of the RSF.[9] It is likely that the governments of Saudi Arabia and Egypt are giving some support to the SAF, as Egypt would necessarily be keen to secure its border and prevent the war from spilling over. However, among those claiming that the UAE is enabling the massacres of the RSF is none other than the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) ![10] This is about as credible as it sounds, as the CIA has been behind US imperialism’s scores of coups, regime change operations and proxy wars since World War II. Many leftists and liberals in the West parrot the claims against the UAE, falling for the base manoeuvre.[11]

On its part, the UAE has repeatedly and consistently denied every charge that it is arming and bankrolling the mercenaries of the RSF. Imperialism deftly hurls charges against the UAE, because the UAE has donated some 3.5 billion dollars in aid to Sudan, partially through the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), and because the UAE has supplied military aid to Sudan. However, the UAE state that they ceased the military aid to Sudan with the outbreak of the RSF attacks which launched the current war in 2023.[12] This is why UAE sourced weapons are inevitably still to be found on the battlefields in Sudan, given that the start of the current war was only two years ago. The UAE states that it does not take sides in the conflict, and has consistently called for de-escalation, a sustainable ceasefire and the initiation of diplomatic dialogue in Sudan.[13] It says that the accusations against the UAE are designed to derail a potential peace process, which is a credible claim.

Imperialist accusations against the UAE serve as an attempt to delegitimise the non-imperialist BRICS bloc, of which the UAE is a full member. It also helps cloud over the fact that imperialism is behind the initial Balkanisation of Sudan, the overthrow of Al-Bashir, and the initiation of the horrific massacres carried out by the RSF and its Al Qaeda cut-throats. This proxy war (and proxy genocide) is aimed at Russia and China and preventing Sudan and Africa from developing without the US and European elites. Capitalism is in such a dire crisis today that mass murder is seen as necessary cost.

Working people internationally need to defend Sudan against all imperialist interference, up to and including a proxy war. The SAF may not be saints, but it is the only force remaining which is defending the remaining sovereignty of Sudan. African nations must have the right to engage with Russia and China and whomever they choose for their path of development. Genocides and proxy wars are bound up with late capitalism, and to put a final end to these abhorrent outcomes, workers need to forge internationally linked Marxist vanguard parties which can lead the masses towards a much-needed socialist future.

Workers League

www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@redfireonline.com

[1] www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/29/massacre-in-el-fasher-whats-happening-in-sudan-right-now (26-11-2025)

[2] www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11-11/satellite-imagery-of-el-fasher-sudan-massacre-verify/105992360 (26-11-2025)

[3] www.france24.com/en/africa/20251029-genocide-warnings-flashing-red-after-rsf-takeover-of-sudan-s-el-fasher (26-11-2025)

[4] www.redfireonline.com/2019/02/11/sudan-us-fuels-deadly-subversion/ (26-11-2025)

[5] www.redfireonline.com/2019/06/20/sudan-us-plots-further-balkanisation/ (26-11-2025)

[6] www.globalresearch.ca/sudan-is-indispensable-to-chinas-silk-road-vision-for-africa/5619886 (26-11-2025)

[7] www.redfireonline.com/2021/12/20/sudan-resists-fake-uprising-led-by-foreign-funded-csos/ (26-11-2025)

[8] www.redfireonline.com/2023/05/01/sudan-washington-and-london-trigger-deadly-coup/ (26-11-2025)

[9] www.middleeastmonitor.com/20251113-uae-exposed-as-key-backer-of-sudans-rsf-militia-amid-war-crimes-in-darfur/ (26-11-2025)