United States takes leading role to end violence in Sudan but faces limited leverage

The United States has taken the lead in attempting to put a stop to a wave of bloodshed in Sudan, but it still has a difficult road ahead due to its limited ability to restrain fighting generals. A three-day truce, which began on Tuesday and has generally been held in Khartoum, was mediated by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, however isolated confrontations continued in other parts of Africa’s third-largest nation. Previous cease-fires, which pitched paramilitary groups against the army, into which the potent unit was meant to be absorbed, soon fell apart after ten days of nonstop warfare. According to Vedant Patel, a spokesman for the State Department, US diplomats are still “deeply engaged” with all parties in an effort to extend and make permanent the ceasefire in the hopes of paving the way for the civilian government. John Godfrey, the US ambassador to Sudan who was evacuated on Saturday, and Molly Phee, the top US diplomat for Africa, have been engaged in extensive negotiations with the two generals in coordination with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, two regional powers that have significant investments in Sudan. Historic US role The United States for decades has been the key diplomatic player in Sudan, negotiating a 2005 agreement that ended the civil war and brought independence to South Sudan and later taking the forefront in efforts to stop a scorched-earth campaign in Darfur. But Washington, seeking to preserve bridges, had hesitated in the run-up to the violence to take direct action against the duelling generals. US diplomats are also now reduced to coordinating by telephone after President Joe Biden ordered an evacuation of the embassy out of safety concerns. “Whether or not we have the leverage, we are looked upon as having the leverage” due to the history, said Cameron Hudson, an Africa expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The United States can still build diplomatic coalitions but its leverage in Sudan has “substantially declined,” Hudson said. Hudson said she was pessimistic that the ceasefire would hold and pointed to anecdotal reports that the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have used the lull to bring in supplies from their Darfur stronghold. Army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Daglo both still hope for military victory but had an interest in a pause in fighting, which also served to please international interlocutors, Hudson said. “These guys have been fighting for 10 days, 24 hours a day, flat out. They’re tired. They need a break. They need to regroup. They need to resupply,” he said. “So I think that this ceasefire has the potential to backfire.” Waning pressure The United States had loosened pressure on Sudan since 2019 when a coup d’etat ousted dictator Omar al-Bashir, a nemesis of the United States for much of his three decades in power which included welcoming Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden in the 1990s. In late 2020, then-president Donald Trump removed Sudan from a blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism after leaders tentatively agreed to recognize Israel and to compensate US victims of Al-Qaeda terrorism. The Biden administration froze a $700 million aid package a year later after another military coup thwarted a transition to civilian rule. But some lawmakers had pressed for further action. Senator Chris Coons, a Democrat close to Biden, ahead of the latest violence had called for targeted sanctions against coup leaders to disrupt their streams of revenue – seen as a key reason why they were clinging to power. Susan Stigant, Africa director at the US Institute of Peace, said that greater instability in Sudan held major risks due to the country’s strategic location between North and sub-Saharan Africa and on the Red Sea, a major artery for global trade. She said it was crucial that any US strategy not involve just the two generals but the broad range of Sudanese society that has clamoured for change. “We have to be very careful we don’t create a false binary choice between the two generals,” she said. “There has to be a third way.” Read all the Latest News , Trending News ,  Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.