No Collaboration With Either Sudanese Armed Forces or the Rapid Support Forces!
For A Popular Armed Insurrection To Defeat the Two Generals!
Statement of the Revolutionary Socialist Vanguard (RSV), Nigerian Section of the RCIT. 6th June, 2023. http://www.communism4africa.wordpress.com
There has been renewed bloody feuds in the Dafur region since the war of the two generals began in April 15. An already war-torn region now faces fresh rounds of ceaseless atrocious attacks aimed at the targeted displacement of the non-Arab ethnic nationalities of the region. As Al Jazeera reports: “With both the RSF and army focused on the battle in Khartoum, Arab militias have been able to kill hundreds and possibly even thousands of non-Arabs without facing much resistance, according to victims and local residents. The ceasefires reached in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia have not resulted in lulls in the violence in Darfur as it has in Khartoum.”¹
About 90,000 of the 450,000 Sudanese who have crossed the border fleeing from the war are non-Arabs who have been displaced from their home in Dafur by raiding Arab militias. About 33,000 of these Darfurians are spread throughout refugee camps in Chad.² According to Al Jazeera the extent of the rampage far exceeds that of raids prior to the outbreak of the war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF):
“In previous bouts of violence, civilians in Darfur would typically flee to safer areas not too far from their villages until local tribesmen restored calm by striking an accord between the warring sides. But this time, things seem different. Workers from both Doctors Without Borders and the International Rescue Committee said the duration and the brutality of the fighting has prompted refugees to make the “rare” request to relocate permanently across the border in Chad. “We are not going back there. We are staying here,” said Kadija Arbab Bilal, a 25-year-old mother of two.”³
The refugees also say that the Sudanese security agencies and law enforcement abandoned their duty posts shortly after the war began leaving civilians defenseless to the invading Arab militias:
“Most refugees here escaped from the town of Konga Haraza in the first two weeks of May after local authorities – some described them as the Sudanese army; others referred to them as the local police – abandoned it. In the absence of security forces, Arab armed groups stormed the town, looting houses and killing residents, mostly men, according to accounts by refugees and aid workers.”⁴
The fighting in Dafur never stopped since 2003 when a coalition of Arab militias called the Janjaweed armed by the dictator, Omar Al-Bashir and in concert with the Sudanese Armed Forces led a genocide against non-Arab communities rebelling against the Sudanese government. It has only assumed greater dimensions now with the war between the SAF and the RSF. Moreso this war draws global attention to Sudan so that the scale and intensity of the deadly armed confrontations becomes more palpable. The genocidal war of the Janjaweed 2003/04 and the continued advance of like militias in Dafur is part of the onslaught of Arab expansionism and settler colonialism in Sudan and this dates back to even the decades long war that culminated in the independence of South Sudan from Sudan in 2011.
Eye-witness testimonies affirming the abandonment of security posts by Sudanese local police and the participation of the RSF in attacks by Arab militias do not just confirm the acute xenophobia against non-Arab ethnic nations throughout the whole rotten body of the Sudanese ruling class but such antics are seen elsewhere. In Nigeria where the northern oligarchy has very close ties with Sudan, the Nigerian army have been equally accused of culpability in raids of Fulani Bandits and other Salafi terrorists. One of such testimonies from the victims goes thus:
“the Fulani militias leader coordinating the attack is simply known as Wariri and the soldiers know him and where he camps with his fighters but would not go there … Now whenever our people see soldiers entering any village, everybody will disappear. This is because after soldiers entered any village, within 30 minutes the Fulani will launch an attack on that area. We don’t know whether the soldiers now work with the Fulani herdsmen,” the source said.”⁵
In short many survivors of such attacks give different versions of events linking the military to the attacks and they range from visiting victim communities prior to the attacks to joining the pillaging in this communities even with military fatigues.
The war in Dafur has been that of Arab subjugation of the Masalit, Fur, Zaghawa and other non-Arab African ethnic nationalities. That is why these nations have put up a resistance from the onset of this Arab settler colonialism.
Sudan will never be free from authoritarian rule if Dafur is not liberated from Arab oppression. In this light, the concurrent wars ongoing in Sudan which can solely or mutually develop into a full blown civil war(s) are interconnected but not the same. While the war between the RSF and SAF has zero revolutionary content, the non-Arab ethnic groups wage a war of national defence and liberation against the Arab Conquistadors. The main enemy of the Arab people of Sudan is their own ruling class who are hell bent on the conquest of non-Arab African nations, thereby forming the structure that perpetuates Arab anti-Black racism in the region.
Hence revolutionaries must give military and physical support to the militias fighting to defend their homeland from Arab invasion. They must support the supply of weapons to these self-defence militias from anywhere possible. However revolutionaries cannot give political support to the petty-bourgeois or reactionary leaderships of these militias and fight against any collaboration or deal between these militias and the SAF. They must also fight for the replacement of the merely radical, petty-bourgeois or pro-bourgeois leaderships of these militias with a revolutionary socialist one that is formed through democratic elections by the militants and that will organise the militias on a democratic bases so that officers are voted and recallable.
The Sudanese people must call for an end to Arab expansionism and land grab in Dafur and all regions of southern Sudan. Progressive, working class and change seeking Arabs must support and join the resistance of the non-Arab ethnicities of Dafur and in the south of Sudan in their fight against the rampage of the Arab militias. By so doing, the base of Al-Burhan’s military junta is undermined and the paramilitary Rapid Support Force of Dagalo is weakened as his auxiliary forces will be cut off.
Moreso, any coalition formed between militant Arab activists and the Darfurian defenders on this basis could serve as a medium for a popular armed insurrection against the two generals. Such a coalition would target the low ranking soldiers of the warring parties in order to win them over to the side of revolutionary change and advocate for a Revolutionary Constituent Assembly whose members would be drawn from local fighting bodies of the masses as a step towards a socialist revolution in Sudan.
Lasting peace and prosperity can only be guaranteed in Sudan under a socialist regime which is basically a Workers’ and Poor Peasant government that asserts the independence of Sudan by expropriating without compensation the local capitalists cum oligarchs; putting the control of the resources in the hands of the workers and oppressed masses in their various regions; and ending servility of the country to regional and imperialist powers. Only then will external forces and imperialist powers find no agent to supervise the extraction of the countries resources and sow discord amongst the people by perpetuating a racist social heirarchy.
Defeat and expunge the Janjaweed offsprings in Dafur! Defend the Masalit, Zaghawa, Fur and other ethnic Dafurians resisting raiding Arab militias but no political support for their reactionary leaderships! Increased Autonomy For the Various Regions in Sudan!
No Deal With RSF or SAF whether through opposition parties or ethnic militias! Socialists Must Advocate For the Formation of Workers’ Councils and Armed Militias Controlled by the Masses! Increase Agitation Amongst the Lower Corps of the Warring Parties To Win them over to the Socialist cause!
For A Revolutionary Constituent Assembly in Sudan! For A Popular Armed Insurrection To Defeat the SAF and RSF!
Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, hands off Sudan! Kick Russia Out of Sudan! Down With US/NATO intervention in Sudan! No normalisation with Israel!
Link the liberation struggle in Dafur with other anti-colonial and self determination struggles in Western Sahara, Palestine, Yemen and Syria!
Transform the war into a Socialist revolution! For A Workers’ and Poor Peasant Government in Sudan that expropriates the local bourgeoisie and foreign multinationals; nationalises the economic mainstay and plans the economy for the benefit of the masses and unemployed!
[1] What does Minnawi’s call to arms mean for Darfur? https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/6/1/what-does-minnawis-call-to-arms-mean-for-darfur
[2] ‘As the night descended, they came and killed’: Sudan’s other war https://www.aljazeera.com/features/longform/2023/5/30/as-the-night-descended-they-came-and-killed-sudans-other-war
[3] see [2] above
[4] see [3] above
Revolutionary Socialist Vanguard (RCIT Section in Nigeria) 
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