US considers wider sanctions on Sudanese army and RSF as ceasefire efforts falter

Original article by Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor

The US is considering a much broader range of sanctions on the belligerents in the war in Sudan, in a tacit acknowledgment of the inability of the US envoy Massad Boulos to persuade the parties to accept a ceasefire.

Last week Donald Trump announced that work had begun to end the war after a personal request for his direct intervention from the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.

But Boulos, the father-in-law of Trump’s daughter Tiffany, has in fact been trying for months to persuade the Sudanese army and its rival, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, to back a ceasefire, to little end.

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, told a cabinet meeting at the White House on Wednesday that Trump was “the only leader in the world capable of resolving the Sudan crisis”.

An Arab diplomat said: “Trump injects momentum into peace processes. It’s what we do with it that matters.”

The Guardian understands that the warring parties have been told it is highly likely that Trump will use a far broader range of punitive sanctions on groups that he regards as standing in the way of a ceasefire.

Norway’s foreign ministry is preparing to invite a broad range of Sudanese society to Oslo in the coming weeks to map out the parameters of how a civilian government could be restored in the event of the conflict ending.

According to the UN, the war has killed 40,000 people – though some rights groups say the death toll is significantly higher – and has created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with more than 14 million people displaced.

Saudi Arabia and Egypt have broadly supported the army, while the RSF has been backed by the United Arab Emirates. The effectiveness of Trump’s intervention may lie in privately persuading the UAE that its position – which it denies, despite evidence compiled by the UN, independent experts and reporters – is counterproductive. It may also require the Saudis to weaken their insistence on the continuance of Sudan’s “legitimate institutions” – diplomatic code for preserving the existing Islamist-influenced army.

The belated move of Sudan up the US agenda came as the UN human rights chief warned that since 25 October, when the RSF captured the city of Bara in North Kordofan, there had been at least 269 civilian deaths from aerial strikes, artillery shelling and summary executions.

After the intervention of the Saudi crown prince, it is likely the US will be willing to broaden sanctions against the warring parties, as well as take steps to enforce and extend the widely abused UN arms embargo on Darfur. So far US sanctions have been confined to the RSF and army leaderships, a small group of Sudanese Islamists linked to the army, and some UAE-based firms.

On 21 September the so-called quad – the US, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Egypt – put forward a plan for a three-month humanitarian truce leading to a nine-month political process and resulting in civilian rule.

The RSF pretended to accept, but continued fighting, and the army angrily rejected the roadmap, accusing the quad of bias and in the process infuriating Boulos. The army said the proposal entailed the disbandment of the army, the cornerstone of its power base.

Norway’s deputy foreign minister, Andreas Motzfeldt Kravik, was in Port Sudan last week meeting the army leadership. “Without a ceasefire, the country will continue to fragment, with serious consequences for the entire region,” Kravik said. “Norway hopes in the coming weeks to bring together civilian society to Oslo to discuss how a civilian government can be prepared.”

At the same time, Trump’s threat to label the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organisation, supported this week by the House foreign relations committee, may weaken the army since it is often accused of having extensive links with the movement.

White House attention on the Sudan crisis will also have been spurred by renewed reports that the army may be willing to provide an extended port lease to Russia, as well as claims that it has denied UN authorities access to evaluate claims it has used chemical weapons.

The UAE, which opposes the influence of Islamism in politics, says rooting out the Muslim Brotherhood must remain the key factor in the west’s approach to the region.

Speaking at the Chatham House thinktank this week, Lana Nusseibeh, the UAE minister of state, said the solution to the conflict laid in returning Sudan to a broad-based civilian government. “We cannot see the political rehabilitation of either warring party,” she said. “Both the RSF and the Port Sudan Authority [her term for the army] have committed grave violations, disgraced themselves, and in the views of the international community neither has a legitimate claim to shape Sudan’s future.”

On Thursday the UN’s human rights chief issued a stark warning about Sudan, saying he feared “a new wave of atrocities” amid a surge in fierce fighting in the Kordofan region. Volker Türk urged “all states with influence over the parties to take immediate action to halt the fighting, and stop the arms flows that are fuelling the conflict”.