Due South: Professor Alex de Waal on Sudan.

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, good evening, good afternoon, whenever and wherever you're listening to us from this is the Due South podcast with me, your host Wilfred Miner and today I am joined by someone who is without a doubt one of the leading experts on the situation in Sudan in the entire world.

If you have followed any of my coverage on Sudan, then the name I'm about to mention next will sound very intimately familiar because he is someone I have quoted quite liberally in our videos and he is someone I have alluded to on social media as the special guest coming up on the Due South podcast multiple times.

He is someone whose expertise I deeply respect and the fact that he is on our podcast today is an absolute all for us.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am talking about Professor Alex DeWall, research professor at the Fletcher School at Tufts University and the executive director of World Peace Foundation. His books are just masterpieces. My favourite has to be Darfur, A Short History of a Long War and he also has a new book called The Sudans which we will be talking about shortly.

So yeah, Professor, thank you so much for agreeing to be on this podcast today. Please introduce yourself to our audience. So thank you, Wilfred, and it's a pleasure and an honour to be on your podcast and to reach your listeners.

So I first went to Sudan in 1984 and the reason I went to Sudan was I just was completing my undergraduate degree, which was at Oxford, and I was interested in the study of refugees for family reasons, because my family on my father's side had been refugees from Nazi Germany some decades earlier.

And at that time, the most exciting centre for research for intellectual production on the study of forced migration and refugees was the University of Khartoum. So that was where people went, including students from universities like Oxford, like mine.

And so I went to Sudan and was amazed by the vibrancy of the political culture, the hospitality of the people and the challenge. challenges that the country faced but also the way in which the Sudanese were very open and creative in addressing those challenges and having a drunk from the intellectual waters of the Nile I came back again and again and my

First research for my PhD was on famine in Darfur in the 1980s I then worked on human rights I worked for human rights watch Africa in the late 1980s early 90s for other human rights NGOs I worked with the African Union doing mediation work including with President Harbour Mbeki and the AU high level panel for Sudan that's the focus of this book that has

Just come out this is the history of really how that which was the African Union's most ambitious most high level peace diplomacy in its 25-year history how that unfolded a detailed account and I of course was very supportive of the civic revolution of 2019 and aghast at the way in which the military overthrew that and then dragged the country into this

Terrible war which they're in at the moment Professor your research on Sudan's famine crisis has been very pivotal to my understanding of the entire situation as a whole and just as you rightfully said the military did drag Sudan into a crisis and it's it's such a deeply deeply sad situation so because we don't have much time I want us to hit so many points

Today so I'll just stick to you the areas we agreed to talk about over our email you know a few hours before we started talking as you mentioned in our email I'm giving the audience a little bit of a behind the scenes peek into how we organize these podcasts so as you mentioned in our email you wanted to begin today's conversation by talking about the

15-year anniversary of South Sudan gaining independence so we won't go directly into the Sudanese civil war we'll we'll start with an incident that by its very nature may have broken Sudan professor take it away so the South Sudan's independence day 9th of July 2011 was widely celebrated it was heralded as the birth of a of a new nation and what one of the

Most remote remarkable things about it was that the president of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, a man who committed many crimes, many blunders during his long tenure, actually welcomed it.

He, some six months before, just before the referendum in which the southern Sudanese voted for separation, he visited the city of Juba and he said, you know, we welcome this referendum going ahead. And in making that speech, he had actually overruled many of his own party cadres and generals in accepting it.

And he said, you know, let us work together, let us live together as brotherly nations in the future. Now, whether he truly meant it, whether he was able to deliver on it, those are both uncertain questions.

But the fact was that at that moment, as the South Sudanese were celebrating, the northern Sudanese at the highest level were very gracious in saying, we accept this reality.

Yet, in that moment of hope, there was, tragedy was born in both countries. And I was a member of the team that worked with the three African former presidents, Thabo Mbeki, as I mentioned, former president of South Africa, who chaired the AU high-level panel, former Nigerian president of the Salama Abu Bakar, former Burundian president Pierre Boyoyer.

And that team was responsible for facilitating the negotiations that allowed for the peaceful separation of the South, the process of secession, which went at the end of the day remarkably smoothly.

And they, during the very early stages of the negotiations between North and South, between the representatives of the government of Sudan, the National Congress Party, and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement and Army, the two sides agreed to a basic overriding principle.

And that principle was that the outcome should be two viable states that should be at peace internally and with one another, that should cooperate economically, that should have a soft border between the two so people could move freely. And in the days before the referendum, President Mbeki made two speeches, one in Juba, one in Khartoum.

And the one in Khartoum was particularly significant, because he said when Sudan divides into two, it will not divide into an African South and an arab and muslim north it will divide into two african nations each of which are characterized by diversity and if the people of northern sudan recognize this diversity and embrace it then there is the strongest

Hope for cooperation and a bright future now the tragedy of sudan and south sudan is that the two principles of two first of all two viable states and second two african nations they were violated politically this began in the north it began in khartoum and it began specifically with the nuba mountains an area of within the geographical confines of northern

Sudan but where a large probably the majority of the people sympathized with the south sudanese cause the splm was very active there they had they had the governorship they had you know fought the war etc and this was an area which was going to be orphaned when south sudan took its independence and a formula needed to be found for the coexistence of the

Northern sudanese political establishment and the splm and indeed the spla its army within that location and that formula was not found in time and or rather to be correct there was there was the flare-up in violence just a few weeks before independence and then the panel and i was a member of that particular negotiating team worked out a framework agreement

Which would resolve this problem but then some hardliners close to president bashir vetoed that so on the very eve of independence president bashir said he would not accept this framework agreement and in doing that he was succumbing to this hardline faction islamists people who believed in the arab identity of northern sudan who did not want to compromise

Did not want to accept that sudan was actually a plural african nation this was the rancorousness the bitterness that associated what many northern sudanese saw as selling out with the secession of south sudan and that war that was then continued it had broken out it had lulled it then it then continued fiercely undermined the possibility of that other core

Principle which was two viable states two states cooperating with one another and here that the most crucial aspect was economic and inter independence because while sudan was united its major source of revenue foreign exchange etc was oil and most of the oil was in south sudan so with the independence of south sudan there were two parallel crises that

Threatened within northern sudan there was the loss of most of most of its revenue most of its money and a possibility of a very hard landing and within southern sudan there was a the newly independent republic of south sudan there was the possibility the probability that you would get a state so dependent upon oil revenues that it would become a you know

Platocratic patronage based political market without snuffing out the hopes of democracy it would be rich but it would be it would be an oil rentier state and the formula that the panel under president mbeki proposed was it was called the mbeki plan or the or the debt for peace plan the idea was that sudan northern sudan was profoundly in debt south sudan

Was going to be born debt free that this formula would could lead to viable states if the two countries cooperated in going to the world bank the imf and the donors and saying forgive the debts of northern sudan in and in return for that the northern sudan's government will implement various measures to adjust economically resort south sudan to develop to

Diversify its economy and the two will cooperate that didn't happen and it didn't happen because of the rancor between the two which unfolded into a war within a year there was a short but calamitous war between sudan and south sudan in early 2012 2012 but most importantly what that did was it meant that the that the united states which had sanctions on

Sudan it had designated sudan a state sponsor of terror and sanctioned it that state sponsor of terror designation needed to be lifted the sanctions needed to be lifted for there to be debt relief for sudan to be economically viable and none of that was politically possible while this conflict conflict while these two conflicts were ongoing and the result

Was that we saw first of all civil war in south sudan as the south sudanese recklessly plunged into this confrontation with the north and then a calamitous austerity economic collapse within the north that brought about discontent and a wonderful civic people's revolution but then a civilian government that was completely bankrupt that had no means of

Addressing the needs of the people whatsoever and the western powers the united states europe did not bail it out they basically let it hung it out to dry leaving it in the hands of the middle eastern powers particularly saudi arabia and the uae which provided the generals with political money to keep going but who had no interest in neither the patrons nor

The generals they had no interest in democracy so in a nutshell that's how i see the last 15 years of tragic missed opportunities of sudan's history bringing us to where we are today professor before we go on so you're the very first guest that i've had who's been on such a panel like the mbeki team what is that experience like so it's absolutely fascinating

To see the way in which these negotiations and these politics are conducted close up and one of the key features of the of tabo mbeki's approach to peace diplomacy to mediation is that he has the principle which is i think a very sound one which is we will not mediate we will not negotiate in public it is not our job to negotiate by press release and what

This means is that the actual the true story of how those negotiations unfold it has not been written until now and one of the reasons why we why this book is now published only you know 15 years on is because there's a lot of detail in there that many of the people who are involved would not want to see public it would have been it would have been it is

Actually profoundly embarrassing for them to see the actual statements the actual decisions put under the microscope and president and becky did not want these these realities to come out you know for some years so 15 years on is the right time for this to come out and this means actually that some you know misconceptions can be corrected so there were a few

Occasions for example when one or other of the parties would publicly condemn the panel saying you got it wrong you were biased you made a mistake and then becky would say that's fine our job is to be blamed our job is to take the blame it is your job if you come to an agreement to take the credit to actually you know say you agreement is ours we will make

It work and then if it doesn't work you blame the mediator now one of the consequences of that has been that of course the you know people on either side when they come public they blame the mediator they blame the african union and the journalists do the same so the public history is one thing that the au failed the real history which is documented through

The actual sort of meeting notes the private correspondence the etc tells a very different story and i think this is highly relevant when we reflect on the african union so much of what passes for peace diplomacy is public posturing today there's very little in the way of that readiness to actually invest in the real hard labor of facilitating negotiations

And it's really hard work i can tell you that is one of the most that is the key insight it's it's extremely time consuming requires a huge dedication of time and resources and it requires a very thick skin it requires those who are involved to be subject to all sorts of public criticism and not respond not come back and say you're wrong this is what's

Really happening because if one were to do that you would actually destroy the process itself so i think that those are you know so peace negotiation is not for somebody who wants to have a glittering career it's it's it's for someone who either has achieved that and is ready to make the sacrifice or someone who is ready to work in the shadows and not take

Any you know any of the public products peace negotiations are top of mind for me right now because we've been covering the iran war and the peace negotiations that are breaking down you know as of right now as you're speaking both sides seriously believe that the other is breaking the mou the other is violating the peace deal so i find it very fascinating

Having been able to have such a conversation with you someone who's been in the room who understands the politics of it all just how it works i find it very fascinating there's a statement you've said professor that you know underscored underpinned mbeki's approach to diplomacy that we do not negotiate by press release and you went on to explain that you

Need to have a really thick skin and you know those involved will be subject to so much criticism and you know now that we're 15 years away from it do you think you know with you the benefit of hindsight with the benefit of time on your side do you think that criticism right now will you be as much as it could have been at the start obviously you it won't be

But you what kind of criticism do you expect now with a book being published so i think you know there are many valid criticisms and the ultimate verdict on the au panel is yes it may have achieved a number of things but the fundamental goals that it sort set out to achieve it did not achieve and of course the i think what the book will do was will be it

Will allow the reader to judge for him or herself based upon the evidence who is responsible for what who so in by providing the detail of actually what happened people can pass judgment on their own and i think what people will begin to recognize is that several things were absolutely crucially important to the successes that were achieved insofar as they

Were one of them was the importance of cooperation among the key multilateral institutions so where the panel had successes the african union had close cooperation with the united nations with the united states there was a remarkable u.s special envoy princeton lyman who sadly passed away a couple of years ago we also had access to his own correspondence and

Notes and some of the things that he said and did in private which were not public at the time the then prime minister of ethiopia melissa now he was absolutely crucial and once again he was someone who worked behind the scenes very effectively he did not want to sort of you know prance around under the spotlight you know claiming that he was solving all

These complicated problems he was ready to take hard decisions and take real risks and again not take the credit for his achievements i mean sadly nobel prizes are only awarded to people who are alive otherwise i think you know he the nobel committee would have many nominations for the late melissa nowi as a the most worthy ethiopian nobel prize winner so

That type of cooperation and i should say the chinese also part of this and the african union was able to do this because it had access to everybody and it was able to sort of hold the ring and to hold off you know create a space so that even when you the russians and the americans weren't talking to each other because of you know the unfolding crisis in

Syria the african union was able to get a consensus so one of the one of the key things that was possible then because of partly geopolitics partly the skill and the commitment of the african union leadership was that level of cooperation and it also meant that the those who have been i think most deleterious have been the spoilers in the peace arena namely

The particularly the uae although it will deny it but i think it's it's indisputable that the emirates has played a negative role in the last few years and also saudi arabia to a lesser extent they were not actively involved they could be kept at bay by that you know that process that was that existed some 15 years ago and what we see now is a is a form of

Peace diplomacy that is obviously transactional peace diplomacy always has that transactional element but now it is you know unshackled from principles it's blatantly self-interested it is openly kleptocratic in that material interests not only for the protagonists but also for the mediators themselves are coming to play i mean it would was unthinkable 15

Years ago for the african union or the ethiopians or the un or the us to think about peace in sudan through the lens of well how do we make a profit well now wherever there is some form of peace diplomacy involving the united states or indeed actually involving some of the other key actors in the middle east when they become involved they're looking for a

Profit for themselves so i would call that kleptocratic peacemaking and then the other element that is was absent then but it's very present now and is what you might call populist peacemaking where the peacemaker does it partly for his or her own glory for winning a prize for getting the acclaim and that all that combination makes it very difficult to

Achieve the sort of well grounded lasting comprehensive peace agreement that actually delivers for citizens in a conflict-affected country and therefore we have you know as in the case of us and iran we have this i mean frankly a circus And, you know, those who were initially trying to mediate, like the Omanis, gave up in dismay because even in the middle of

Their mediation, the US and Israel would, you know, attack and kill leaders on the Iranian side.

And that's, you know, that is violating not just the rules-based order of the last 80 years, but it goes and violates precepts of diplomacy, conduct between envoys going back a thousand years. Not even Genghis Khan would have done something like that.

In fact, he very, you know, his code of conduct was very much to respect the peace envoy. However many other atrocities he may have committed, he didn't commit that particular transgression.

I find it curious that you mentioned Genghis Khan because there was a report in the New York Times about a week or so ago, or within this week when we were recording, just for our audience to give you a temporal signpost of where we are at in the world where we're recording.

Today's the 9th of July, 2026, obviously. So there was a story in the New York Times a little while back saying that Israel had seriously considered assassinating, you know, the Iranian negotiators during the negotiations process. And, you know, this would have obviously tanked the negotiations and, you know, would have been really, really bad.

And as you said, it's a circus. It's something that, you know, even one of the most bloodthirsty, one of the most bloodthirsty actors in world history, you know, wouldn't consider doing. So, Professor, I want to go back to South Sudan's government, just briefly, because I find that government so fascinating.

And the country is on the brink of elections, elections that have been postponed multiple times. You said the government, even in the very early days, with so much oil wealth, it's risked becoming a patronage system. And even today, it did become that patronage system.

And the oil flow issues, all of them coalescing, have significantly reduced some of the oil revenue coming into South Sudan. So how do you see all of that playing out and leading South Sudan into a direction of war? Do you think you were looking at a major crisis and do you think it could dovetail with the situation in Sudan?

So back, I mean, in 2012, 2013, what happened was that South Sudan, in my view, very recklessly went into war with Sudan.

There were reasons for deep unhappiness, but to turn the... that into a rationale for going to war was in my view irresponsible and in the extreme and wrong and in doing that they shut down their oil supply they said we can't and the rationale for that was if we go to war with sudan our oil is pumped to the sea through sudan so our source of revenue will be

In the hands of our enemy and of course you would expect them to steal it and so rather than see northern sudan stealing it they shut it down what in doing so of course they put themselves on a sort of an economic doomsday clock and because their resources would run out and indeed that's what happened they were not able to secure regime change in the north

And they lost their key resources and they in there they then had to go back and essentially beg for the pipeline to be reopened and as a precondition for reopening it what umral bashir said to president salva care was well i need some changes in juba i need such and such people out and i want such and such people in and he basically imposed his own team on

Salvakir and that division between those who were brought in at the behest of bashir and those who were pushed out created a crisis which and salvakir was unable to manage the crisis because he didn't have enough money so that if bashir had been perhaps cleverer he would have then provided opened up the pipeline provided enough money for salvakir to buy off

The opposition he that didn't happen and south sudan descended into war from which it has never recovered it never recovered from the outbreak of war in 2013 and i think what we see and the you know the economy has collapsed it's been in famine hundreds of thousands of people have died yes elections are scheduled but no one has any expectation that elections

Will actually solve the problem salvakir is visibly ailing he's not in good health but he hasn't put in place plans for a smooth succession to the next president and so south sudan is you know continues to be in turmoil and chaos and i think many south sudanese are beginning to recognize that they're not thinking that the independence of south sudan was a

Mistake but they are recognizing instead that a solution to their problems must be found in conjunction with a solution to the problems of northern Sudan, the Republic of Sudan.

And I don't think the northern Sudanese have yet really begun to embrace this agenda.

But my view is that there can be no standalone solution for Sudan. Yes, the Sudanese need to take ownership and leadership.

But clearly, any solution needs to involve bridging the differences between the sponsors of the two sides, that is, the UAE on one side backing the rapid support forces led by General Heimetti, although he denies it, but the evidence is pretty overwhelming.

And then on the other side, there's a coalition with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Qatar, that are backing the Sudan armed forces led by General Burhan.

And so the first step towards any serious peace talks, let alone resolution in Sudan, has to be those external backers need to either come to an agreement or they need to at least agree that they should not be, you know, fueling the war, they need to agree to step back, they need to recognize that they have interests in Sudan.

But they do not have interests in Sudan being destroyed as it is being destroyed at the moment.

But then the other element that is, I think, absolutely indispensable is that Sudan will not be at peace unless its neighbors' problems are also settled. And that begins with South Sudan. So there are many issues within, between Sudan and South Sudan, many issues of cooperation that could be enhanced, and with other neighbors too.

I mean, one of the disturbing developments in the last few months is that Ethiopia, that had remained, how shall I put it, and plausibly claiming neutrality in the Sudan war, has clearly come in on the side of the RSF. There is fighting in along the Ethiopian border.

The RSF is using Ethiopian air bases for its drones, etc. And there's no doubt that the reason for this is that the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in Ethiopia is beholden to the UAE, which is its main patron and sponsor.

So a settlement to Sudan will require a broader settlement across the Horn of Africa. Thank you... Professor, that mention of Ethiopia leads us perfectly to where I wanted to go next.

Meles Zenawi didn't get a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts, but Abi Ahmed did get a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts within the Eritrean War. So I find it oddly ironic that the person who ended up getting a Nobel Peace Prize is actually one of the ones supporting one of the most destructive forces in Sudan, the RSF.

And as you said perfectly, it's because he is beholden to the UAE, to the Emirates, and their interests in the RSF continue to push this war further and further.

So Professor, I want us to talk a little bit more about this interest that the RSF has in the war, that the UAE rather has in propping up the RSF. Why are they propping them up when a peaceful Sudan seems like it will be much better for their own interests?

So one of the problems with dealing with the UAE is that because it denies everything, it's impossible to actually engage in a serious conversation with diplomats, officials from the UAE to ask them, you know, what are your interests?

What is it you are trying to achieve with this? And so we have to work on inferences, which is very, which is a real handicap because of the opacity. It's very, it's very rare, actually, to find a state in the modern world that simply will not admit what it is doing, not even privately.

And it's sufficiently powerful. I mean, to be specific, it uses its very considerable political money very skillfully in order to shield itself from scrutiny and examination.

So it gets away with this really profound violation of the honor code among heads of state and heads of government, you know, who do tend to speak frankly to one another, even if usually in a coded manner.

The UAE just simply doesn't. So what can we infer might be its interests? Well, there's a lot of and there's no doubt that the UAE is very interested in gold.

Dubai is, you know, one of the world's main hubs for gold.

We are not buying hubs for gold, a large amount of gold that arrives in Dubai comes from sudan but also from other african countries including increasingly ethiopia and aritrea but interestingly all gold is also coming from the areas of sudan controlled by saf now it goes first to egypt but then egypt tends to or egyptian traders tend to re-export it to

Dubai so it's the gold story doesn't completely add up gold was certainly the sort of the lubricant one of the ways in which hemeti got himself enamored with in with the emirates but i think more important in winning the support of abu dhabi was the role of hemeti in providing mercenaries to fight in yemen during that war but i think the bigger picture here

Is how the emirates is positioning itself in what is really a sort of global economic war so the in over the last 10 15 years what we've seen is a enormous shifts and tensions and cracks in the world order with the united states sort of withdrawing its military umbrella from much of the middle east and especially the red sea to some extent the even the gulf

We've seen challenges to the u.s dollar in the form of the bricks the brazil russia india china south africa club which the uae joined a few years ago so it was you know putting one foot in keeping its main investments in dollars its main political investments in the united states but was also hedging against the dollar and hedging against the u.s by dealing

With the u.s's rivals challenges adversaries notably china also until fairly recently with iran also with russia the uae worried about the status of the dollar so while it's as i said very heavily invested in the dollar also seeking alternative currency arrangements through the shanghai cooperation organization through its own digital currencies and of

Course if you want to have any independent any sort of currency autonomy you do need to have and you're not the united states which is which is which is the sort of exception to all rules in when you're we're talking about currency but if you want to have any alternatives you need to have that underpinned by the sorts of resources that resources that you

Will guarantee a currency and here the three main traditional you know backers of any currency arrangement are land oil and gold and so getting gold is important as part of that strategy not just for profit commercial profits land banking is very important so what we see is the uae buying or getting on very long-term leases huge amounts of land and they're

Not developing a lot of this land it's not as though they need it for agriculture and food security although it may be useful for that in due course a lot of this land is not turning a profit in terms of investment but it's a it's being banked literally against you know future sort of currency alternatives and strategic autonomy and oil of course they have

They have a lot of oil but they know that oil will be running out in the decades ahead so they need alternatives for that's also why they're investing so heavily in digital technology in data centers and in cryptocurrency and so i think if we see the uae as you know historically having played a role as being a sort of small vulnerable trading nation that is

Always hedging always dealing you know across the persian gulf across the indian ocean with all sorts of different actors and you know that's its historic survival strategy going back centuries now it's doing this at a global scale and one of the and the collapse out in much of africa and also in yemen but particularly in africa and most notably in sudan and

So the practice of the uae the way it actually turns this you know strategic ambition into a practical strategy is through financial sponsorship of clients and we see a number of those clients you know abhi ahmed muhammad hamdan kmati and its principle is that it will stick with those clients so you and i may think that you know when kmati's forces go on the

Rampage in al fascia in darfur and kill possibly tens of thousands of people in a in a genocidal rampage that brings a reputational risk to the uae well certainly it does and i think the emirates recognizes that but in their book what really counts in terms of reputation is standing by their Having made a pact with a protege, someone who has come under their

Protection, is very important, according to their honor code, according to their political strategy, to stick with that individual through thick and thin.

And I think in seeing off the challenges that are made in the international community, in the international press, by the liberal media, possibly by the courts, the challenges that are made to Abiy Ahmed over his genocidal war in Tigray, to Kemeti and the RSF over their conduct in Sudan, they are affirming, yes, we are in this long term and we will stick

With our friends come what may.

So it's basically a system of patronage that the UAE is very reliant on, just to prop itself up. And it's not worried about what much of the world thinks. The reputational harm isn't worth it.

So I have a question that I tend to ask all of the Sudan experts that I get on the podcast. The UAE doesn't care about much, you know, other than its money and its ability to maintain these relationships. And there's no relationship more important to the UAE than its relationship with the US.

Within days of Trump ascending to office, the UAE bought 49% stake in his family crypto venture, World Liberty Financial, for about $500 million, which gave the Trump family a lot of cash. And that's how willing they are to go, you know, the lengths they're willing to go to maintain, you know, improve their relationship with Washington.

So why do you think Washington, knowing the kinds of massacres that, you know, the RSF, which we all can agree, you know, is being propped up by the UAE.

Why does the US, which is a lot more sensitive to public pressure and your public perception and these kinds of pressures that don't necessarily work on the UAE. Why does it keep standing by it? Why does it not put any pressure for the UAE to back off from the RSF?

So the Biden administration could have done this and did it a little bit. So it was very evident early on. So this current war broke out in April of 2023 when the RSF staged a coup which didn't work and it descended into warfare, first of all in Khartoum.

So this was an important move. And one big thing that went through 2015. And that's why I started this last year.

This was a bold move, Wes Westman Ловим may have heard about the World Support and Peace Foundation, ı then spread throughout the country now within days it was clear that the in order for this war to be resolved the key middle eastern patrons the saudis and the uae needed to be involved and at that stage the rift between saudi and arabia and the uae was

There but it was not as deep as it has become and the biden administration made i think a simple miscalculation which was that they that they thought that the saudis would be a sufficiently neutral acceptable facilitator host venue for peace talks now had that worked had that work weeks had they got to a ceasefire everyone would have said great that's fine

The fact is that it didn't work and it became clear that this wasn't going to work and one of the reasons why it wasn't going to work was the uae was backing the rsf and the rsf was depending on that and really i would say by july august this was this was clear to everybody that step number one required the u.s at the highest level to talk to the leaders of

Saudi arabia and the emirates and it had to be at the highest level these you know the crown prince muhammad bin salman emirati president muhammad bin zayed will only initially take a call from the u.s president and then they would hand it you know then having agreed they would then hand it to be to their immediate you know subordinates and it would be

Handled at secretary of state level there is no way that you can influence either of those countries by having the assistant secretary of state for africa in this case molly fee and however good she may be and she wasn't terribly good but however even if she'd been the world's best diplomat she would not have got her voice heard in either riyadh or abu dhabi

But secretary blinken president biden were not prepared to make that level of that high level intervention that was that was required and i think the reason was their calculation was at that time that you know they were sufficiently busy with ukraine with and with taiwan and then a few months later with israel and gaza and so they just didn't do it and there

Was one occasion towards the about a year later when vice president kamala harris was in the emirates and brought it up but it was too little and too late and so the biden administration basically had allowed the emirates to get away with it the first trump administration had basically put u.s policy in that region in the hands of israel egypt saudi and the

Emirates and biden did not roll that back then trump too well it's very low down on their list now to give him credit secretary of state marco rubio on taking office recognized that a plan that had been drawn up by the biden state department and the egyptians which was to have a quad a group of four u.s egypt saudi arabia and the emirates get together and

Hammer out the outlines of a deal was the first step so something that his predecessors could have done but didn't do rubio did and he tried it and i must say he tried quite hard it didn't work and it didn't work because by this for two reasons one is by this time the stakes were higher the sides were more entrenched but secondly by it required you know

Ultimately it had to be the deal had to be sealed by president trump the only place where mohammed bin salman and mohammed bin zayed might shake hands and make a compromise was in the oval office and mohammed bin salman brought the case to trump when he made his state visit in november of last year and this was just a few days after that appalling genocidal

Massacre in al-fasha so mohammed bin salman brought it up now a president who was diplomatically savvy who knew how to handle this would have said thank you know your highness i will take this up and he would then have made a private call to mohammed bin zayed and said there's something i would like you to do he would not have mentioned the saudis he would

Have said you are doing this for me as the president of the united states i want you to make a concession it's then conceivable that the emiratis would have done that and there could have been an engineered rapprochement between between the saudis and the emiratis trump would have got the credit for it and the process would have been set in motion trump does

Not have operated announced publicly that he was acting on behalf at the request of mohammed bin salman and that he would be calling the emirates that immediately killed the possibility of a face-saving you down, stepping back by Mohammed bin Zayed.

It is just stupidity. And we all know that in this arena, Trump does not take advice from people who know what they're talking about, who are cleverer than he is.

So Trump actually basically killed that. And in the first months of this year, there was still some hope it could be salvaged. But I think as soon as Trump was entrapped by Benjamin Netanyahu into war with Iran, the possibility of there being a solution to Sudan disappeared.

I mean, 15 years ago, it required a lot of very skilled peace diplomacy to thread that needle to get the US, China, UN, AU, EGAD, Ethiopians, everyone on side. And it was possible for President Mbeki working with others to do that. Today, threading the comparable set of needles that involves those Middle Eastern capitals is even trickier.

And we have a very clumsy set of hands in the White House. And while conflict in Sudan, while war in Sudan can only be solved with the intervention of President Trump, frankly, it is not going to be solved. Let's be candid about that.

Professor, we have a phrase that we like to use internally when we're describing someone of Trump's particular nature when it comes to diplomacy and the complex issues of geopolitics. And just how little tact he has shown when it comes to these complex issues. We like to say that they have Shrek hands after the ogre from the classic Disney show.

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. At least Shrek was an amiable and ultimately harmless character.

Well, you know, the people in the castle allied with Lord Farquaad would disagree that Shrek was harmless. But, you know, away from Shrek for a minute. I want to talk about Trump's particular negotiation style.

Early in our conversation, you mentioned that the world is moving towards a more kleptocratic form of negotiation, a more kleptocratic type of diplomacy. And, you know, we see it particularly in the DRC where, you know, both DRC and Rwanda are trying to court Trump's favors, you know, with mining concessions, you know, whatever they have to give him.

How do you think this affects just the ability of the world to find peace?

Frankly, I think the possibilities of peace are becoming vanishingly small. What we are seeing with this sort of geocleptocracy is in the context of an extremely turbulent system, and any system that is built upon very short-term financial rewards that are based upon trading on short-term options is going to be turbulent. It's not going to be predictable.

So if peace negotiation is locked into that essentially short-termism, turbulent short-term returns, frankly, we're not going to have peace. And the material conditions for peace, one of the things that we have learned, is that peace requires certain material rewards for those involved. So at the elite level, there has to be some reward.

At the popular level, there needs to be a peace dividend. And in the 1990s and 2000s, prior to the great financial crash, there was the option of, there was a serious prospect of a peace dividend.

And when you get rising living standards, better education, better health, better welfare, more jobs, etc., then the more kleptocratic rewards going to the elites don't matter so much.

Partly because people are better off, partly because when an economy is developing in that way, it makes sense for those who have ill-gotten gains to invest them in the legitimate economy, not to move them into more criminal or speculative activities.

You take away that background of economic growth, which is essentially what has happened in the 15 years of pretty much nonstop austerity in most parts of the world that we have now had. And yet the political elites are ever more avaricious in what they want as their personal returns for any political dealings, including peace agreements.

And therefore, and you have a formula for peace only being as good as that particular deal is good. And that deal is not likely to last for very long. And what we see in so many cases is that the deal unravels within weeks, months, or, you know, most it will last a couple of years.

So at the moment, I'm... profoundly pessimistic about the chances of peace because i don't see the material conditions being there for even you know medium term lasting peace well and we're seeing that all over the world there's there's really no chance at peace in our coverage one thing that i really try to emphasize whenever i am covering conflicts around

The world is that for much of our audience the fascination with crisis like this is those geopolitical maneuvers because they're very fascinating i had a line in one script basically saying the reason we find this was so fascinating is the same reason hollywood keeps going back to that well again and again and again there's a show that you did really really

Well on netflix it's you're on its second season they're recording the third called the diplomat and you're in it a uk ship is attacked by what people believe is a russian submarine turns out it was a uk submarine at the behest of the u.s vice president it's such a complicated web of your geopolitical affairs and that's what people find fascinating but i

Keep trying to go back to this idea that without peace while all these geopolitical chess maneuvers are happening the civilians are actually suffering but there's a real cost to all of this there's so many people who are suffering at the start of this podcast before we even started recording professor alex and i were talking about just how hopeless the

Situation in sudan has become i know several people who are refugees from sudan and whenever i talk to them they constantly have such a hopeless expression it's it's heartbreaking professor i want to use that idea of peace and the other peace talks to pivot into the current situation in sudan every time i talk to sudanese officials you know those affiliated

With you know the sudanese armed forces the what is well recognized as the government for lack of a better word of there's a constant refrain that they will not negotiate with the rsf and that their plan is to have an all-out military victory looking at what happened in el fascia and what might happen in el obid that doesn't seem likely and you know i'm not

Saying this to downplay the achievements that the saf has had taking back a tomb taking back vast swats of territory those are not small achievements but the country right now is for all intents and purposes divided between the rsf and the saf the saf that the crash that has taken back and has been abandoned and has been an outside risk so Professor, two

Things I want us to discuss here.

One, what's the situation like in El Obed? And two, do you see a military victory as a possibility for the SAF?

In a piece for the BBC, you wrote that we were in a stalemate. And this was a little while ago, a couple of months back. So do you still think we're in a stalemate?

So all Sudan's wars have their tactical ebbs and flows. This one is no exception. None of Sudan's wars have ever ended in a decisive victory.

And I don't see how this one can be any different. I think what is sadly, strikingly new is that in the past, Sudanese were always ready to talk. And even though they might not publicly say they were going to compromise privately, they recognized that would have to be the solution at the end.

But I think that there is a very disturbing degree of polarization, not just among the political elites, but really deep into society at the moment because of the level of atrocities by the RSF against civilians in major cities. This is a war that has really affected the middle class in a way that no other Sudanese war has done in more than 100 years.

And on the other side, you know, the extent to which the deep-seated grievances about inequality and exclusion, which were manageable through negotiation, I think, through the expectation that there could be a reformist future from the centre.

That seems to have gone. That seems to have gone. And so what I fear is the division of Sudan has already taken place in the minds of the Sudanese.

There is not even a shared contemplation of how they will come together and, you know, as the war ebbs and flows, I don't, it's not exactly in a stalemate in the sense that you have, you know, trenches and nothing moves, but it's strategically in a stalemate, politically in a stalemate.

It will either lead to complete disintegration, de facto partition, or there will be some other transformation, you know, as yet, not on the political horizon that would change the calculus.

And meanwhile, as to El Abed, it has... all the makings of another tragedy, another great crime of starvation, of massacre, of mass displacement, of the destruction of another Sudanese city.

And has anything been learned? I mean, there were so many warnings about the impending attack on Al-Fasha, what it would entail if the RSF came into the city. And the governments that were, you know, international governments that were in possession of this information did not do anything to stop it, anything of significance to stop it.

And they're being tested again. And I don't see much beyond, you know, the usual public statements, the usual, you know, loud warnings from the UN. And so it's a, it is a terribly dire situation.

And, I mean, let's hope that, you know, the situation is, you know, will turn around, that the night is darkest before the dawn. But certainly, really, none of the Sudanese or external political actors have really offered anything.

And the Sudanese civil society is struggling, you know, with extraordinary courage and resilience to try and find ways of surviving and of keeping hope alive in these dark times.

That line, Professor, that the night is darkest just before the dawn, really, really resonates with me because I have no better words to describe the crisis facing Sudan right now other than it's a really, really dark night. And I don't see, you know, I honestly don't see a way out.

It could be that, you know, I am too young or that I simply just don't have enough experience with these things.

But I just don't see a way out. As you've said, the Sudanese people feel that their nation is split. And, you know, there's no shared contemplative drive to even figure out a solution.

So, again, it's just, I don't have the words for it. I fear, yeah, yeah, yeah, I fear you're right. Sorry, you are still there?

Yes, Professor, I'm still here. Sorry, just a small network issue. Yeah, yeah.

I'm going to have to go in a few minutes, I'm afraid. So, with this, we will really have to wrap up, I'm afraid. Oh, definitely.

Sorry, definitely. Sorry.

I think sudan has been through dark times and there you know there have been times when the wars have seemed endless and this is one of them and you know what we should do is keep that you know candle of hope alive because there will be a change even if we cannot perceive it now there's no doubt that there will be a change and i think the possibly the most

Important thing is for those who believe in a progressive emancipatory change to be prepared to take the opportunity when it arises the in the lesson of sudan's several civic revolutionaries and peace agreements over the years has been they've all presented opportunities but for various reasons those opportunities have been missed and sudan can't afford to

Miss the next opportunity and the fact that we can't yet grasp what that opportunity may be should not prevent us from being prepared to grasp it when it when it comes professor i feel like that's such a perfect spot to end the podcast because you're normally it's the youth who are optimistic and you know the older generation and you know i'm not saying

You're older but you're just a little older than i am that it feels cynical and i feel like today we've we flipped the script you are optimistic about the future for and i know you feel like there is an opportunity people just need to be ready to grab it and honestly i feel as cynical as i have ever been because the situation honestly to me at least just

Feels unsalvageable professor alex de wall thank you so much for joining us on the dear south podcast today i want you to plug your book one final time because it's something that i already have in my inbox and i am going to be reading voraciously over the next few days and weeks so i want people to be able to access to access it and read it as well the book

Is the sudans africa's search for peace democracy and two viable states professor take it away thank you very much and i should say that for a limited time there is a free digital download available of the book and wilfred i trust you will circulate the link to that on when this show goes out i hope that next time that i come on your show we'll be able to

Have a more upbeat and optimistic conversation about a real piece process democracy justice all being achieved in sudan thank you professor and yes i will definitely share the link to where people can get the book as soon as we put out this podcast it's one of the many links i will be including but this will be at the top so if you're listening to this

Podcast you know exactly where to look to get the link to the professor's book and yeah i hope the next time you're on this podcast because i would absolutely love to have you here again we are having a more positive conversation about how justice has been achieved in sudan how peace has been achieved how you know the people who have lived their lives in

Other countries i know young sudanese children who have never been to sudan because you know the families fled a long while ago and you're very scared of returning i hope they get to experience a peaceful sudan and with that we're going to end this podcast here if you've listened to this so far one you're definitely a fan of professor alex deval as much as i

Am as much as the rest of the fronts team is and two you're probably a premium subscriber to fronts.co we couldn't do the work that we do without you guys it's an absolute honor that you continue to subscribe to our website you continue to follow our work on our multiple platforms we are absolutely grateful we don't take that for granted so with that we're

Going to end this here professor alex deval thank you so much for your time today we really appreciate it thank you have a lovely day thank you for being here