Joining me now, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield. Ambassador, welcome. Welcome back to “Capehart” on Washington Post Live.
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Good. Great to be back with you, Jonathan. Thanks for inviting me.
MR. CAPEHART: Of course. So 18 million Sudanese are facing acute hunger, and about 8 million have been displaced since the war began. Washington Post reporters recently gained access to Sudan to document the humanitarian crisis. How is the international community responding, and should it be doing more?
MR. CAPEHART: Let me start with your last question, and the answer to that question is yes. The international community needs to do more. You referenced the assistance that we have provided over the course of the past few years. Others have to contribute. We can’t do it alone. The needs are too great, and the situation is truly, truly dire. Twenty-five million people are on the verge of hunger. A famine is looming. The fighting continues. The pictures that you just showed really made me so incredibly sad to see young kids who are being forced to flee their homes because these two generals want to fight until the last one is standing.
MR. CAPEHART: I’m going to come to those warring factions in a moment, but I want to bring your attention to an op-ed you wrote for The New York Times in–I believe it was March, March of this–yes, March of this year. And you wrote on–this is still on humanitarian assistance. You wrote, quote, “Just a tiny fraction of the United Nations humanitarian appeal for Sudan has been met. This is unacceptable.” The UN is appealing for $4.1 billion. How much has the UN received, and how would it be utilized?
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: You know, I’m not sure what the latest figures are now, but it is in the low percentage points. I think the last time I looked, it was somewhere around 5 to 10 percent of the appeal had been funded. Where it is right now, I don’t know. But I do know that it is not fully funded by significant amounts, and that funding means that the UN will be able to respond to the dire needs, provide the food that will save lives, provide medicines and other humanitarian assistance that will be needed to save lives in the future, help those refugees who are fleeing across the border move into some kind of semblance of housing. So the needs, again, are extraordinarily dire, and it’s important that others make a firm contribution to the UN’s efforts.
MR. CAPEHART: One of the things you suggest is that the UN appointing a senior humanitarian official would help the UN’s efforts. Why do you think so?
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Look, this is a huge, huge problem, and it is a regional problem. So it takes a lot of hands on deck. There is an extraordinary UN person who is based in Port Sudan. She’s operating inside of Sudan to address the dire situation inside of Sudan.
There’s a personal envoy to the Secretary-General who’s trying to address the broader humanitarian issues, while at the same time working on trying to find political solutions.
So I do think–and I’ve had these conversations with the UN–that they need to have someone who is laser-focused on the regional elements of the humanitarian situation and on the fundraising.
MR. CAPEHART: We’re going to talk about the political solution in a second. Let’s talk about those warring factions, Ambassador. How have the warring parties–the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, how have they hindered aid from reaching those in need?
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: For one, just the conflict is hindering aid. But the SAF, the S-A-F, they have blocked aid going into Sudan from Adre, which is on the border with Chad, which means one of the most underserved areas in conflict is not able to easily access assistance. Assistance is being brought in from a northern border location, but then the RSF is interfering with that aid getting into the SAF-controlled areas. So they both are equally responsible for denying necessary assistance getting directly to people.
MR. CAPEHART: And they’re not only hindering aid getting to everyone by looting and other things. War crimes are being committed, no?
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: War crimes are being committed. They are using food as a weapon of war. They are focusing on particular populations in the al-Fashir area. We see a genocide unfolding in front of our eyes. So they are committing war crimes. They are committing violations against–they are committing human rights violations. So we see it happening on both sides.
MR. CAPEHART: Ambassador, you visited the Sudanese border last year. What did you see?
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: You know, in the article that you mentioned, I talked about, one, the silence. And the silence that I heard was not just the silence of the international community, but it was going into a hospital for children who were malnourished and not hearing the sound of laughter and the sound of playing but sheer silence in the hospital, not even hearing the sound of a child crying. Because they were so weak, that they were too weak to cry.
I saw donkey carts crossing the border with grandmothers bringing their young grandchildren across, because either their sons had been killed, their daughters had been raped, and the grandmothers were left with young children coming across the border. And I saw the thousands and thousands of people who were in a refugee camp waiting for assistance to be provided. I was really pleased to hear from UNHCR that some of the assistance that I announced when I was there was used to provide shelter for those refugees who had come across the border.
But, Jonathan, the worst part of that trip was the reality that I had been in that same place 20 years earlier and saw exactly the same thing. It hadn’t changed.
MR. CAPEHART: You know, I was going to ask you to talk about the silence of the international community, but I wonder why maybe things haven’t changed have to do with what you wrote in that op-ed in The New York Times.
You wrote, “Even after aid groups designated the country’s humanitarian crisis to be among the world’s worst, little attention or help has gone to the Sudanese people.” And, you know, we’ve received a lot of audience questions with a similar sentiment, and here’s one: “Why does the conflict in Sudan get so much less attention than Ukraine and Gaza?” That comes from Linda Oppenheim in New Jersey.
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Well, Linda, the answer to that question is really multifaceted. First and foremost is that there are other conflicts that are directing the attention of donors, certainly, as they look at Ukraine and Gaza and DRC, and there is a sense of donor fatigue that is there. It’s real.
But second, I would say it’s Africa, and people don’t pay as much attention to Africa as they pay to other parts of the world. So that’s why I have made it my–I’ve made a commitment to continue to raise this issue, to address this issue, to put it on the front of the burner, so that it is not ignored, it is not forgotten.
But the real answer to this is–and I think we’ll talk a bit about that–is a diplomatic solution, finding a path to ending the conflict. That is the solution that we all need to be working on.
MR. CAPEHART: Ambassador, when you raise this issue with your fellow ambassadors at the United Nations, how are you received? How is your message received?
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: You know, I have to say it’s positive. People are happy that I’m raising the issue, that it is being addressed. And I think it has refocused some of the attention toward Sudan.
We’ve had a number of meetings in the Security Council since this trip, and we’ve had additional funding to be contributed since I started raising this issue. And I’ll keep raising it until I’m blue in the face to ensure that it’s not forgotten.
MR. CAPEHART: You’ve mentioned many times that this will be solved at the negotiating table. There needs to be a political solution. You said the conflict will not be solved on the battlefield. It will be solved at the negotiating table. So then, seriously, not so much what diplomatic efforts you would like to see to help end this war, who should be around that negotiating table to make this happen?
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Well, the most important individuals who should be at the negotiating table are the warring party. It’s getting the SAF leader, Burhan, and the RSF leader, Hemedti, to come and sit at the table with each other and figure out how to address these issues.
But I will add that it can’t just be the two of them figuring out how they’re going to divide up the spoils. We have to bring civil society and other political entities to the table as well, and so that’s where we start.
But there are also parties in the neighborhood, in the region, who should be at the table. Egypt should be at the table, and then the UAE should be at the table. So as you know, we have called for talks to be held in Geneva in August, co-hosted with the Saudis, supported by Switzerland, in which we have invited the UAE. We’ve invited Egypt. We’ve invited the UN, and we have invited the EU as observers to try to push the needle on this.
MR. CAPEHART: Do those–do those folks in the region—the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt–do they share your level of commitment and determination to bring about a resolution, or are they being dragged to this negotiating table due to U.S. pressure?
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: I think we’re leading on this, but I do think that they want to see a solution. They want to see a diplomatic solution. So they’re not being dragged to the table. They are coming willingly. This will be a follow-on to the very intense negotiations that took place in Jeddah previously. So again, I think they are willing partners.
The individuals we have to drag to the table are the warring parties, and we will keep pushing them until they actually show up.
MR. CAPEHART: I know that–I’m going to rustle through my papers to try to find their comments. Each side has made positive rhetorical noises about wanting to go to the negotiating table, but am I right in assuming that the rhetoric has not matched any kind of action to getting there?
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: The rhetoric has not matched the actions. We’ve had a very difficult time getting the SAF to come to the table. The RSF has indicated that they are prepared to show up at the negotiating table, and we’ll see what happens when they–and whether they actually show up when the meeting starts.
MR. CAPEHART: Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield, one more question before we go on a different topic, this time about Israel as it weighs its response to a rocket attack from Lebanon over the weekend. How concerned is the United States about a wider regional conflict spiraling out of the war in Gaza?
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Jonathan, we’re very concerned about that, and it is for that reason that we have been in continuous discussions with the Israelis and Lebanese counterparts since this attack took place. And we will continue to support efforts to reach a diplomatic solution so that this war does not expand. We do not believe an all-out war in this region is inevitable, and we believe that it can be avoided. And that’s what we’re working to try to do over the course of the next few days.
MR. CAPEHART: How hopeful are you that the ceasefire hostage deal that President Biden and Secretary Blinken have been pushing really hard to conclude will actually happen?
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: I remain hopeful that it will happen, and the reason I remain hopeful is that the parties continue to negotiate. They have not walked away from the negotiating table, and I think they both have indicated that they want to see this deal move forward. Israel has agreed to the deal, and Hamas has agreed to the deal. And now we’re working out details that we’re very optimistic that we can get passed.
It is so important and–just really important for us to move this deal forward, to get this ceasefire, to get the remaining hostages released, and to get humanitarian assistance in to the Palestinian people who are in dire need and desperate for assistance. So we have not given up on the negotiations, on the peace deal, and we will keep working until we bring it to closure.
MR. CAPEHART: Linda Thomas-Greenfield, 50–nope, sorry–31st United States Ambassador to the United Nations. Thanks, as always, for coming back to Washington Post Live.
AMB. THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Thank you so much, Jonathan, and thank you for keeping a focus on Sudan. It is because of people like you that the rest of the world can hear how dire the situation is there and keep it on the front burner.
MR. CAPEHART: Thank you for those kind words, Ambassador. Thank you again.
The program will continue shortly. Please stay with us.
MS. KOCH: Hi. I’m Kathleen Koch, longtime Washington correspondent.
As we just heard, more than a year of escalating conflict has plunged the country of Sudan into a crisis of epic proportions, yet while there are reports about Gaza and Ukraine on the news almost every night, no one seems to be talking about Sudan. Well, here to help us understand the dire conditions and the race to turn things around is Edgar Sandoval Sr. He is president and CEO of the Christian humanitarian organization, World Vision. Edgar, thanks for joining me.
MR. SANDOVAL: Thank you for having me, Kathleen.
MS. KOCH: Edgar, you recently traveled to the border of Sudan and Chad. What did you see there?
MR. SANDOVAL: Well, what I saw is that Sudan is quite possibly the worst place in the world to live as a child. It truly is. People are fleeing unimaginable violence. Many children actually witness their own families being killed or other horrible abuses.
And then the humanitarian conditions in the countries where they arrive, well, they’re also terrible. There’s no shelter, no water, very little food. I saw kids digging sticks into the ground, then draping them with whatever they had, whether clothing or scarves, and that would be their only shelter for weeks and months under triple-digit heat.
Also, child hunger and malnutrition levels are very high. In fact, one story that has stayed with me since I came back is the story of five-year-old Adoum, who he fled with his mom to Chad from Sudan last summer. Here’s the thing. Adoum weighs only 26 pounds. That’s about half the weight of a healthy boy his age. Truly heartbreaking. And his mom, Kaltoum, told me that she has watched people fight ants for food. Yes, ants for food. They raid the anthills and dig up the millet stored inside. So that’s the level of desperation that I saw.
MS. KOCH: So that level of need is just simply unimaginable. Can you help us put things into perspective? How serious would you say the Sudan crisis is on a global scale?
MR. SANDOVAL: Yeah. The scale of the crisis is truly unimaginable, and it continues to get worse. Kathleen, I’ve visited many of the most difficult places in the world, and every crisis is the hardest on the children. But the level of despair and hopelessness that I saw in the moms and the children of Sudan at the border, well, it’s beyond anything I have ever seen.
I’m going to give you two very concerning headlines. This Sudan crisis is now the largest displacement crisis in the world, and it has become the largest hunger crisis in the world. That’s right. More than 12 million people have fled the conflict, including more than 5 million children. And so 5 million children displaced makes it also the largest child displacement crisis in the world. That’s 5 million children urgently in need of safety, food, shelter, health care.
And in terms of hunger, well, UNICEF is reporting that close to 4 million children are acutely malnourished, with more than 700,000 on the brink of dying if they’re left untreated.
MS. KOCH: So how is your organization, World Vision, helping?
MR. SANDOVAL: So for those who may not be as familiar with us, World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organization with 74 years of experience serving the world’s most vulnerable children. We work in nearly 100 countries, and we have a pretty strong track record of impact.
For example, we are the largest implementing partner of the World Food Program. We’re the largest nongovernmental provider of clean water, and nine out of ten malnourished children that we treat, well, they make a full recovery. World Vision is one of the largest humanitarian agencies in Sudan as well. We have worked in the region for decades, and we’re currently responding both inside Sudan and in the neighboring countries such as Chad, South Sudan, Ethiopia, and the Central African Republic.
Over the last year, World Vision has reached more than 1.8 million people, most of them women and children, with emergency assistance such as food, health, nutrition, water, and sanitation.
MS. KOCH: So in the country of Sudan, specifically, what would you say is the biggest challenge that aid organizations like yours are facing as you try to respond?
MR. SANDOVAL: Yeah, there’s a number of challenges, but I would say there’s two pretty big challenges–lack of funding and lack of access. As I said, World Vision is there. We’re on the ground. We know what to do. What is lacking is the funding, and to put it in perspective, only 31 percent of what is needed for the United Nations Humanitarian Response Plan has been funded, only 31 percent. So there’s a huge gap.
A second challenge is humanitarian access. Well, that’s because Sudan is an active conflict. So operational disruptions due to violence are hampering aid agency efforts to reach those in extreme need. And so what we need is consistent and safe access for humanitarian workers to get to the people that are in most need inside of Sudan.
MS. KOCH: So what are you calling on the world–you know, on people who are watching our conversation right now, what are you calling on them to do?
MR. SANDOVAL: Well, we’re calling on three things. An immediate, peaceful resolution to the conflict. Without a cease to the violence, children and families are going to continue to be impacted, going to continue to be displaced, and they continue to go hungry. We need all parties to come together to support the global community in ending this conflict.
Second, we’re calling for sustainable access to deliver these lifesaving essentials and basic health services to the people in need.
And finally, we’re calling for people to help us help those precious children. This cannot wait. Now is the moment. So please help by visiting WorldVision.org/Sudan and donating to our Sudan Crisis Fund. The children of Sudan will be very grateful.
MS. KOCH: Edgar Sandoval Sr., president and CEO of the Christian humanitarian organization World Vision, thank you so much for shedding light on this heartbreaking crisis.
MR. SANDOVAL: Thank you, Kathleen.
MS. KOCH: And now I’ll hand it back over to The Washington Post.
MR. CAPEHART: Welcome back to Washington Post Live. For those of you just joining us, I’m Jonathan Capehart, associate editor at The Washington Post.
My next guests will give us more historical context on the conflict in Sudan and how the country can rebuild in the future. Alex de Waal is the executive director of the World Peace Foundation and a research professor at Tufts University, and Dr. Comfort Ero is the president and CEO of the International Crisis Group. Dr. Comfort, can you please pronounce your last name for me? Because I feel like–I fear I got it wrong.
DR. ERO: No, it’s fine. It’s Ero. You got it right.
MR. CAPEHART: Ero. Wonderful.
MR. CAPEHART: Professor de Waal, Dr. Ero, thank you both very much for coming to “Capehart” and Washington Post Live.
Professor de Waal, let’s go back before the war started. The International Rescue Committee reported that Sudan was already experiencing a humanitarian crisis describing the state that Sudan was in before the war and how the war has made it–has made it worse.
MR. de WAAL: So Sudan has been in one form of food crisis or another ever since I first went to Sudan, which was actually 40 years ago this month, and we have a layering of different crises. We have a history of crises brought about by drought and by rural food collapse. We have a layering of crises brought about by conflict, most notoriously the conflicts in southern Sudan, which resulted ultimately in the independence of South, and 20 years ago in Darfur, which Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield referred to. And we have a macroeconomic crisis that had led Sudan’s core economy to crumble. It was the cities were being fed on imported wheat, and Sudan could no longer afford to buy that.
So even before this crisis, we had, as it were, the crisis before the crisis, unsustainable food systems, unprecedented numbers of people who were hungry, and the need for a massive transformation of Sudan’s economy in order to be sustainable. And then we have the war and the devastation on top of that.
MR. CAPEHART: Right. And, Dr. Ero, this is the perfect opportunity to bring you into the conversation. How are attempts at ethnic cleansing shaping this conflict?
DR. ERO: I mean, that’s an additional layer, I would add on to the way in which Alex sort of unraveled the onion that is Sudan’s conflict, that you’ve got a real clash. I mean, some of that ethnic tensions that you’re talking about is what also led to the breakup of Sudan. In South Sudan, for example, you’ve seen the return of Darfur, which is very much an ethnic conflict. You’re seeing tensions among political classes, which could also be explained–I mean, ethnic tensions. So you’re seeing old wounds resurfacing, new wounds returning as a–coming into the fold as a result of the 2019 revolution.
And then you’re seeing the merging of that old crisis that Alex spoke about with newer ones that speak more to the fragmentation, both within the warring factions, but also tensions within Darfur, within the east of the country, and in the south of the country. So you’re seeing sort of a tsunami of old history and new conflicts, layering and layering, leading to a complex picture in Sudan today.
MR. CAPEHART: Professor de Waal you have called the hunger crisis that Sudan is facing a, quote, “man-made famine.” Explain why.
MR. de WAAL: Well, in fact, all famines in the modern era are man-made. It’s very difficult to go back in recent history and find one that is caused primarily by drought. Even the drought famine of 1984-85 that was the focus of Bob Geldof’s Band Aid, Live Aid was — there was a drought that caused it, but then there was economic marginalization, neglect, failure to respond.
But in the case of Sudan today, the particular features are both sides are using hunger as a weapon, and Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield referred to this. What we have is one side, the Rapid Support Forces that are essentially a looting and pillaging machine. Everywhere they go, they are a mechanism of plunder, like a swarm of human locusts stripping everything from the countryside, from the towns, from the cities where they go, leaving people utterly destitute without the means of survival. And the other side, the Sudan Armed Forces, the south, isn’t doing that, but only because it is really in defensive positions. It’s a garrison army, and what they are doing is they are preventing humanitarian access into the vast areas that are controlled by the RSF in the name of sovereignty. They say, “We are the sovereign government,” and they are recognized by the UN. And the UN, I think, are being extraordinarily timid in not challenging that, not saying, “How dare you claim sovereignty, and yet refuse to allow us and humanitarians to feed the Sudanese people?” So it is man-made in very specifically in those particular ways.
MR. CAPEHART: And, Dr. Ero, Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield talked at length about the need to get the two sides to the negotiating table, and there have been many diplomatic efforts to end this war. What are your hopes for this meeting that the ambassador mentioned, this meeting happening in Geneva, scheduled to take place on August 14th, that–being led by the U.S., but UAE and Saudi Arabia in Switzerland next month?
DR. ERO: Yeah. Look, this is the last attempt, I think, at least one that’s driven by the U.S. There have been various efforts on both sides, particularly the south have resisted coming to the table. So this is the last-ditch attempt. Will you be able to agree on proper humanitarian access? Will you be able to begin to define and shape the framework for a peace deal, a national ceasefire that leads to the ending of violence? These are big questions.
I mean, it’s important to note that this is the first time that–if they commit to going, this is the first time that you’re going to get the Sudanese Armed Forces in the form of General Burhan coming to the table with the Rapid Support Force, Hemedti, on the other side. It’s notable to us that they didn’t resist or refuse the invitation. The other key aspect of this is that all the crucial actors that Ambassador Linda Greenfield-Thomas laid out in terms of the UAE, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UN, the EU, that all the critical mediators will be at the table. It has been a very difficult, uncoordinated mediation, a sense in which the mediators are competing against each other, a sense in which you have to coordinate the mediators.
And one of the reasons, one of the lifelines–and I think it’s important to note this. Although both sides see reasons to continue fighting, one of the reasons that they’re continuing to fighting is that they see what is happening on the other side with the mediators, where they are also competing against themselves. All have different notions of what security ought to look like in Sudan, and that continues to give a life to both sides in this conflict.
MR. CAPEHART: That’s interesting.
Professor de Waal, I see you nodding in agreement. Love your thoughts on this as well.
MR. de WAAL: I think what Comfort Ero has said is absolutely correct, but I think we can be actually rather more specific here, because the major sponsor of the RSF is the UAE, the United Arab Emirates. While Saudi Arabia is not exactly supporting SAF, but it is in line with a coalition that is keeping SAF in place.
And what we have is actually what has become a rather bitter rivalry between the two leaders in Abu Dhabi and in Riyadh, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia and President Mohammed bin Zayed of the United Arab Emirates. And the two do not agree.
And out of that, I think, rather petty rivalry, commercial rivalry, all sorts of reasons for them to disagree, Sudan is way down the list. But the UAE does not want to see the Saudis getting the glory of a peace deal, and the Saudis do not want to see the UAE coming in as the sponsor, the broker, the patron of Sudan. And until those two agree, I don’t actually see a prospect of a peace settlement in Sudan.
And despite all the best efforts of Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who has really been a champion of this, and the U.S. Special Envoy Tom Perriello, it’s only when there is, in my view, a much higher-level engagement of presidential, vice presidential, secretary of state, national security advisor from Washington, engagement with the most senior leadership in those two countries, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, that we will have the prospect of actually getting the Sudanese to negotiate seriously.
MR. CAPEHART: Well, Professor de Waal, you have actually suggested that the Biden administration–and I’m quoting you–“stop America’s Middle Eastern allies from arming the perpetrators.” Why haven’t they done that?
MR. de WAAL: I don’t think it’s enough of a priority. I mean, when President Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris deals with these countries, they have such a list of priorities to do with Israel, Gaza, Iran, security in the Persian Gulf, the price of oil, all these different things. And Sudan just doesn’t make the cut, and until it does, I fear Sudan is going to be a second- or third-tier priority and is going to be orphaned, despite this enormous, terrible tragedy that we know is unfolding.
MR. CAPEHART: Professor Ero, you wrote in Foreign Policy–and I’m quoting you to you–“Perhaps the biggest shift in crises over the past decade has been the changing nature of foreign involvement as non-Western midsized powers are jockeying for influence.” You talked about that in your previous answer. But I bring that up, because in a story in The New York Times from last December, they point out that Kenya wants to be involved in all this, and, like, the Kenyan president is eager to play a constructive role in stopping this crisis. This is according to The New York Times. Why–I mean, will Kenya be at the negotiating table? And should they be, and if not, why not?
DR. ERO: You know, at the end, what matters is who can deliver and who can help craft a way out of the crisis. So if Kenya thinks it can play a role, the region itself, the African Union, the problem is that there are so many competing forces, so many different actors who have a different understanding of what stability looks like in Sudan. That is the big challenge. If any of those actors is able to define the center of gravity and have the leverage to influence either the SAF and the RSF to come to the negotiation table, that is what–that is what we’re looking for.
In the end, it’s not a beauty contest. In the end, we need to find a way in which to create a pathway to ending the violence. People are dying. You heard the figures that were outlined by the ambassador at the beginning.
I want to go back to something that Alex said, because I didn’t want to undercut or underplay or underestimate the impact or the role of the UAE and Saudi Arabia. I actually think that Sudan is caught in a massive geopolitical tussle between both countries, and we’re seeing the impact of that, the outside’s role, not just in Sudan, but in the entire Horn of Africa as well. So until they begin to work out their own competition, I think Sudan is stuck in that.
But I think another important factor of that is that you have to ask yourself, why isn’t the Sudanese Armed Forces ready to come to the negotiation table? Do they believe, fundamentally, that they can get the peace that they want also, or will they still see the United Arab Emirates, in their view, continue to support the Rapid Support Forces at the end of the day? So there’s got to be clarity on that side.
Who can get the UAE and the SAF to talk? We heard conversations about Prime Minister Abiy going to court Sudan to try to facilitate, negotiate some kind of conversation between General Burhan and the President of the UAE, MBZ, as well. So there’s so many moving parts in this, and we’ve got to focus in who has the leverage, who has the pressure point, who is the key mover on this? It’s not just the U.S. who was the old player. There are new players, new actors who have a fundamental national interest in what is happening in Sudan.
This is not just owned by Sudanese, unfortunately, but this is owned by a number of players that sit outside of the region and further afield into the Gulf and into Europe and into the U.S.
MR. CAPEHART: And, Dr. Ero, I’m sorry. We’ve got a professor and a doctor, and I called you “Professor Ero,” but Dr. Ero.
DR. ERO: Thank you for eliminating me, but you can remove our titles as well. I’m sure Alex wouldn’t mind. [Laughs]
MR. CAPEHART: Okay. But I’m still going to use your titles.
So you know what? In my conversation with Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield, I was struck by something, because we talked about–most of our conversation was about Sudan, and then the last couple of questions I asked her about the conflict between Israel and Hamas and the negotiations over the ceasefire deal. And I was struck by the fact that she said those two parties, Israel and Hamas, are at the negotiating table, and all they’re doing is trying to hash out the final details. You may have answered this question, but it probably bears repeating: Are there lessons that the two sides in Sudan, the SAF and the RSF–are there lessons that they can take from Israel and Hamas, two entities going at it like this, as we speak, but are at the negotiating table? Professor, you go first.
MR. de WAAL: Well, I think where you have sides that are relatively coherent among themselves, facing the prospect or scenario of mutually assured destruction, they will negotiate.
The problem in Sudan is we don’t have that. We don’t have a cohesive leadership on the SAF side. We do have on the RSF side, but no one believes that RSF can actually govern Sudan. It is fundamentally a rabble. It’s a sort of mercenary enterprise that if it wins the war, will put the Sudanese state in its pocket. It will be–Sudan will be, as it were, a wholly owned subsidiary of a transnational mercenary enterprise.
And on the SAF side, we have a group of different factions who simply cannot agree and cannot instruct their mediator–their negotiators to go to Geneva or anywhere else with a coherent platform, and they are not winning the war.
So we don’t have, at the moment, the basic sort of material formula in place for negotiations, which is why I think the discussion about the region is so important, because if the patrons of the different sides were to agree, this race is not worth it. All the riders are going to fall. So let’s not back our favorites. Let’s stand back and corral them into having some sort of negotiated settlement, because the outcome, if we don’t do that, is going to be the worst, not only for the Sudanese, but for the whole region. It’s a very different configuration of actors.
MR. CAPEHART: And, Dr. Ero, I would love your thoughts on this, but just so highlighting that the International Rescue Committee reported wars now last, on average, about twice as long as they did 20 years ago, and four times longer than they did during the Cold War. In your response, I would love to hear what you think the lasting consequences of the war in Sudan on the region and the world might be.
DR. ERO: I mean, sadly, Jonathan, Sudan is the poster country for that very picture that IRC has just painted. More civilian casualties, the human toll, the fact that diplomacy has become harder. We see a crisis of peacemaking because the options today is more militarization. The guardrails, the tools that often you would bring to bear to end a conflict are now missing in action in Sudan.
A few years ago–10 years ago, there would have been space for a more rigorous, focused, dedicated mediation on Sudan. But you heard Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield say it, you heard what Alex was also saying, is that Ukraine, Gaza, and then you start deprioritizing certain conflicts. That’s where we are with Sudan.
And quite frankly, the arena, also, there’s a real contest, real competition as well, and Sudan is caught up on that.
But I want to go back also to the question that you asked me to answer and which Alex started to answer also.
DR. ERO: I think, quite frankly, if you’re going to get a ceasefire in Sudan today, it will require some sort of understanding between the UAE and Burhan, between the UAE and the SAF and its leadership as well, or everyone else with the UAE to sort of define some guarantee that will convince Burhan that he will stop fighting.
Right now, we’re watching Sudan careering off into a very dangerous, wrong direction. We’re seeing the region itself that is very fragile being caught up in that. We are watching an unwinnable war, and I think that is the reality we face today. And until we can convince the SAF and the RSF to come to the negotiating table, that although today one side appears to have ascendancy of the other side, none of them, neither of them has the capability to govern Sudan. That is the reality, and until that reality is squarely understood, even by the mediators, we’ll be able to get ourselves to a more upgraded form of mediation. Let’s see what will happen in Geneva. That is an important step. It could be the last dice for the U.S. It’s a vital one, where we’re going to have all the enablers, all the key actors, all the key influences that are shaping and sustaining and giving fuel to the crisis coming to the table with other key actors. That is the challenge now, that can we get–can we convince all sides to come to the negotiation table? The time is running out. We’re in a countdown mode for Sudan.
MR. CAPEHART: And it’s a challenge we will keep tabs on.
We are out of time. Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation, and Dr. Comfort Ero, president and CEO of the International Crisis Group, thank you both very much for coming to Washington Post Live today.
MR. CAPEHART: And thank you for watching. For more of these important conversations, sign up for a Washington Post subscription. Get a free trial by visiting WashingtonPost.com/live. That’s WashingtonPost.com/live.
I’m Jonathan Capehart. Thank you for watching Washington Post Live.
