Remember, in the 2000s, there was a very deadly conflict between the south and north of Sudan. Appearances were deceptive as US private military companies, notably DynCorp International, fought there disguised as natives. In the end, the self-proclaimed "Friends of Sudan" (US, Norway, UK) imposed the Naivasha Agreement, which led to the secession of South Sudan in 2011, now under a de facto protectorate of the US and Israel.
This war, fuelled by local rivalries but wanted by Israel and financed by the US, created a buffer state to keep Israel’s neighbours at bay. In the 1950s and 1970s, Israel intended to create or annex states in southern Lebanon (south of the Litani River), western Syria (the Golan Heights) and Egypt (Mount Sinai) in the name of its "right to security" (sic). On the contrary, with the generalisation of medium-range missiles, Israel has pursued the same strategy, but seeking to create puppet states capable of taking on their immediate neighbours. Hence the creation of South Sudan in 2011 and the attempt to create a Kurdistan in Iraq in 2017.
What remains of Sudan was revisited when the rebel wing of the Muslim Brotherhood led by Omar al-Bashir was overthrown in April 2019. It soon became clear that power had passed to the Janjaweed militiaman Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as ’Hemidti’. He had become a Saudi Arabian mercenary against the Houthis in Yemen. As he was accused of war crimes during the conflict in Darfur (southwestern Sudan), Hemedti hid behind the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and became his "deputy" [1].
In June 2019, Germany, using the name of the group that created South Sudan, organised another informal group of the same name, the ’Friends of Sudan’, and then a video conference from Berlin. During the conference, the new rules of the game (the ’Democratic Transition’) were pulled out of the hat without it being clear who had written them. They were adopted on July 17th by the Sudanese parties, followed by a draft constitution on August 4th. Note that these documents were not signed by General al-Burhan, but by his ’deputy’ himself, the militiaman Hemedti.
Power was shared between civilians and the military. A government was formed around Abdallah Hamdok, a senior Sudanese UN official.
In February 2020, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with General al-Burhan in Entebbe, Uganda. The two countries quickly normalised their relations. The United States, for its part, arranged for the transitional government to acknowledge the role of Omar al-Beshir’s regime in the 1998 Al Qaeda attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Sudan was then showered with dollars.
In March 2021, the UN Security Council decided to withdraw its 15,000 peacekeepers from Darfur, invited the transitional government to deploy 12,000 troops and created a ’Transition Assistance Mission’ (TAM) of 300 civilians. To everyone’s surprise, UN Secretary General António Guterres appointed the German Volker Perthes to head UNAMSIL. A former director of the German government’s main think-tank, the SWP, Mr Perthes had drafted the plan for the surrender of the Syrian Arab Republic on behalf of Jeffrey Feltman, then the UN’s number 2 [2]. In it, he planned the abolition of Syrian popular sovereignty, the dissolution of all constitutional bodies, the "trial" and execution of the 120 top leaders, and envisaged the partition of the country.
It was then that President Joe Biden played his trump card by appointing Jeffrey Feltman as his special representative in the Horn of Africa, including Sudan. It was now clear that the rules of the ’democratic transition’ had been discreetly written by Volker Perthes in collaboration with his US friends before the Berlin conference.
Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman is a leading figure in the US deep state. He played a role in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and participated in the creation of Iraqi Kurdistan on behalf of the private company "Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq" [3]. He then became ambassador to Beirut where he organised the 2005 colour revolution ("Cedar revolution") and the false accusations of murder against the Lebanese and Syrian presidents, Emile Lahoud and Bashar al-Assad. He also served as an assistant to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the Middle East. He became Director of Political Affairs at the United Nations, where he diverted UN resources to the war against Syria, including support for jihadists. He was forgotten during Donald Trump’s term in office, putting himself at the service of Qatar.
In May 2021, France organised a follow-up to the Berlin video conference in Paris. Financial issues were discussed and it was envisaged that Sudan would be granted $2 billion, including $1.5 billion to enable it to repay its arrears to the IMF [4].
The Sudanese population suffers from poverty and, in some regions, from hunger. Only certain tribes recognise themselves in the civilian government. They hope for a better life with the civilian government, while others see the government as a tribal enemy. The latter have therefore called on the military to defend their interests. For several months now, a civil war has been in progress. The military, supported by Saudi Arabia, has rightly threatened to force the civilian government to resign.
President Joe Biden sent Jeffrey Feltman to Khartoum at the beginning of the month, "anxious to restore civil peace". Then a second time, on October 23rd, to meet both parties. He explained to each that Western financial support would only continue if the Sudanese remained united. General al-Burhan pledged to do everything possible to preserve the unity of the country. Ambassador Feltman stayed in Khartoum for two nights.
As soon as Jeffrey Feltman’s plane took off in the early hours of October 25th, General al-Burhan and his "deputy" Hemidti demanded the resignation of the government, not the Prime Minister, Abdallah Hamdok. As they had told the US envoy, they wanted to force him to form a new team that would be more respectful of tribal balances. But the Prime Minister refused. So, less than an hour after Jeffrey Feltman’s plane left, he was put under house arrest.
The United States, the World Bank and the IMF immediately cried "military coup" and suspended their financial aid. The country, already on the verge of suffocation, plunged into it instantly. The African Union condemned the "coup". But Egypt, while calling on the two Sudanese parties to dialogue, seemed happy with the outcome. General al-Burhan is reportedly a military schoolmate of President al-Sissi.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates said little about the continuation of their valuable financial assistance. Turkey has also been silent: Ankara has leased the island of Suakin in Sudan for 99 years to set up a military base and control the Red Sea, against Saudi Arabia.
Washington has submitted a draft resolution to the Security Council condemning the "military coup" and introducing sanctions. But Russia asked for a few days to verify the information. Moscow, which remembers the lies that made the war against Libya possible, feels that it is being misinformed in order to make it believe that the truth is not true. The media discourse on the bad military crushing the good democrats does not seem very credible. The tone between the representatives of the different countries in the Council rose. Some pointed out that the events were not a "military coup" as such, since half the country had sided with the army and the latter had not dismissed the Prime Minister.
In August, the United States resumed the Rumsfeld/Cebrowski strategy that it had pursued since September 11, 2001 in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen, killing at least one million people [5]. They are not trying to favour one Sudanese side against another. Just to drive them into confrontation until they themselves destroy the state structures and can no longer resist foreign powers.
For a decade, the "Friends of Syria", Volker Perthes and Jeffrey Feltman, kept us on our toes in the Levant, where they eventually lost. The US was forced to leave the region to Russia. Now the "Friends of Sudan", Volker Perthes and Jeffrey Feltman, are trying to destroy the Horn of Africa starting with Ethiopia and Sudan.
