War Crimes, Assassination Attempts & Arrest Warrants: Sudan & Hamas Peace Talk Similarities
By Jehron Muhammad, @JehronMuhammad
Washington lobbyists and law firms hired by the United Arab Emirates are enabling atrocities in Darfur.
Last week the International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Karim Khan, while addressing the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), spoke of prosecuting atrocities committed against the people of Darfur.
“[T]o those on the ground today in Darfur—I am addressing both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF)—to those that are aiding and abetting them, that are encouraging them, that are funding them, that are supplying them with weapons, that are giving orders, that are gaining certain advantages, I want to be crystal clear that we are investigating.”
Speaking of the investigation that will encompass the conflicts from its April 2023 beginning, Khan added, “We are using our resources as effectively as we can to make sure that the events also since April of last year are subjected to the principle of international humanitarian law.”
During the same time frame Khan addressed the UNSC, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Chairman of the Sovereign Council and Commander of SAF, has made on-and-off-again decisions about whether he will attend peace talks scheduled on August 14 in Switzerland.
The BBC reported that Burhan had survived an assassination attempt, the army spokesman Nabil Abdallah told the UK-owned news network. Abdallah blamed the paramilitary RSF and its commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, which the army has been battling for the last 16 months for control of the country.
Some have compared Hemedti’s alleged assassination attempt of Burhan as similar to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assassinating Hamas leader and principal peace negotiator Ismail Haniyeh in Iran. Both were attempts on the lives of their negotiation partners. In Burhan’s case, according to Abdallah, two drones struck an army graduation ceremony, where the Sudanese leader was attending, killing five people at a base in Jabait under military control. This resulted in Burhan cancelling participation in peace talks.
Another similarity is the ICC chief prosecutor Khan submitting applications for possible arrest warrants for both Sudanese and Israeli government officials. Khan explained, This is being done “on the reasonable grounds to believe that Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel and Yoav Gallant, the Minister of Defense… bear criminal responsibility for… war crimes… on the territory of the State of Palestine (in the Gaza Strip),” according to the May 20 statement on the ICC website.
Khan said during his UNSC report that he expressed confidence and optimism that his next report will include a request for arrest warrants for several key individuals involved in the ongoing Sudan-based atrocities.
“The ICC is not a talk shop. …. People are scarred, or are buried, or are desperate for the international community to hear their cries, to see their blood, to see and feel their agony and come up with solutions, not polemics,” Khan concluded.
Several days after the assassination attempt, the Sudan Tribune reported Sudan’s army chief Burhan demanded the United States address the government’s concerns before any peace negotiations with rival paramilitary forces.
“U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Burhan by phone … and stressed the need for the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) to participate in ceasefire talks in Switzerland scheduled for August 14.”
Burhan’s response, posted on the social media platform X, was that he had told Secretary of State Blinken in a phone call that the government’s concerns must be addressed first.
“I spoke with him about the need to address the government’s concerns before any negotiations,” Burhan said, adding that he had informed Blinken that the RSF was “attacking and besieging El Fasher [the capital city of North Darfur, Sudan] and preventing the passage of food to the displaced people of the Zamzam camp [in the conflict-torn Darfur region].”
Predating ICC prosecutor Khan’s appearance at the UNSC and Blinken’s phone call to Burhan is United Arab Emirates (UAE) June 27, 2024, statement addressed to the UN Security Council responding that “spurious allegations” made against it by Burhan’s SAF were “false.”
In the statement the UAE, which is scheduled to attend upcoming peace talks in Switzerland, claims its efforts are for “a ceasefire and advance negotiations leading to the restoration of a legitimate government that is representative of all Sudanese people.”
But if you do a Google search as this writer has done, you discover a laundry list of global news outlets, and U.S. Congresswoman Sara Jacobs (CA-51st.), Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, condemning UAE involvement in “prolonging the war” in Sudan.
The UAE has become one of the Zionist state of Israel’s main Arab supporters, “in pursuit of strategic benefits,” since signing the Abraham Accords in 2020. According to the London-based Guardian, “The UAE’s strategy in Africa and the Middle East [is] aimed at achieving political and economic hegemony while curbing democratic aspirations.”
The UAE supports Hemedti and his RSF, reported the AtlanticCouncil.org, “by providing military and financial assistance disguised as humanitarian aid. Abu Dhabi [the capital city of the United Arab Emirates] serves as a financial haven for Hemedti’s gold business, hosting RSF front companies and bank accounts. Despite being part of peace efforts, the UAE has directed its influence toward assisting Hemedti’s diplomatic efforts rather than fostering negations.”
In the July 31, 2024, edition of Foreign Affairs, in a piece titled “The UAE’s Secret War in Sudan: How International Pressure Can Stop the Genocidal Violence,” the authors take the Middle East country to task, encouraging U.S. congressmen, journalists, and human rights advocates to call out the “American firms that Abu Dhabi has hired to influence U.S. policy and shape public opinion to its liking.”
“For example, the strategic advisory group FGS Global has two contracts with the Emirati government totaling $5.6 million, plus expenses, for 2024–25. Likewise, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, a prominent Washington law firm, subcontracted a D.C.- based lobbying firm to advise the UAE on military sales in 2023 and itself collected $3.8 million in fees from the UAE over six months the same year. As long as the UAE aids and abets the RSF [no matter what is implied by the State Department], Washington lobbyists and law firms that do work for the UAE government are helping enable atrocities.”
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