British Foreign Secretary David Lammy railed against Russia at the UNSC on Monday following the latter’s veto of a draft ceasefire resolution in Sudan, which Russian First Deputy Permanent Representative Dmitry Polyanskiy responded to right afterwards. His words can be read in full here and will be summarized in the present piece, but before doing so, here are five background briefings for readers to review if they forgot about the origins of this conflict or weren’t aware of them to begin with:
* 16 April 2023: “Sudan’s ‘Deep State’ War Could Have Far-Reaching Geostrategic Consequences If It Continues”
* 21 April 2023: “Here’s Why The US Is Trying To Pin The Blame For Sudan’s ‘Deep State’ War On Russia”
* 27 April 2023: “Russia Is Right: ‘Political Engineering’ From Abroad Is Responsible For The Sudanese Crisis”
* 4 May 2023: “The Mainstream Media’s Admissions That American Meddling Ruined Sudan Are Misleading”
* 15 July 2023: “Sudan’s Neighbors Signaled That They’re Disinterested In Fighting A Divide-And-Rule Proxy War”
To oversimplify, the rivalry between Commander-in-Chief of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and leader of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (“Hemedti”) exploded in spring 2023, exacerbated as it was by foreign pressure to complete the political transition. Burhan didn’t believe the rumors that the RSF was backed by Wagner, which were spread to pressure him into scrapping Sudan’s plans to host a Russian naval facility in exchange for Western support.
The military dimension of the conflict has since stalemated even though the humanitarian consequences continue to worsen. An estimated 24.8 million people out of the country’s nearly 50 million total population are now in need of humanitarian assistance, there are over 8 million internally displaced people, and 3 million fled abroad as refugees. These startling facts are the reason why the UNSC tabled the latest draft resolution for a ceasefire, but as could have been expected, the West sought to exploit it.
Polyanskiy began his response to Lammy by condemning the UK’s attempt to impose a ceasefire on Sudan as a way to “score points” with its British-based diaspora after London co-authored the document. He then explained that Russia’s primary objection is that the draft resolution doesn’t confirm that it’s the Sudanese authorities led by Burhan, who’s Chairman of the Transitional Sovereignty Council (TSC), that have the sole responsibility for protecting civilians, defending the borders, and inviting foreign forces.
He then delivered his knockout punch: “We have to qualify such a position of our colleagues as nothing but an attempt to give themselves an opportunity to meddle in the affairs of Sudan and facilitate their further engagement in political and social engineering in the country. Precisely that was the case in the spring of 2023, when the attempts to impose decisions that did not enjoy the support of the country’s population laid the groundwork for the tragedy that unfolded in Sudan.”
Polyanskiy followed up by implying that the UK tacitly supports the RSF after the draft text was changed to remove earlier calls for that group to end its siege of Al-Fasher and other towns. The “new distorted language” that replaced the original essentially encourages the RSF to continue hostilities so long as civilians are no longer targeted. The external mechanisms that were proposed to ensure accountability, namely the “International Criminal Court” (ICC), are “totally inept” and erode Sudan’s sovereignty too.
Moving along, he then mentioned how premature it is to consider a possible peacekeeping force when Sudan hasn’t yet suggested such and the UN Secretary General’s own report to the UNSC that was shared upon their request “clearly states that conditions are still unripe” for this. Moreover, the conflict is still in its active phase and spread across a large area, so deploying peacekeepers in those circumstances “could spell total disaster”.
Polyanskiy’s other point of criticism was that the draft ceasefire resolution inappropriately demands that “Sudan open all its borders to humanitarian access while not using the numerous border crossings provided by state authorities to deliver aid. It is not without reason that Port Sudan is imposing restrictions; thus, it has been flagging the threat of arms being sent across the border to feed the rebels.” He then ended by calling for an end to double standards towards Sudan and Israel.
“Certain countries are vociferously crying for a ceasefire” in Sudan “while in the case of Gaza those very countries give ‘carte blanche’ to Israel so that it continues the escalation, overlooking the blatant violations of IHL by the Israeli army. Likewise, they prioritize Israel’s right to self-defense and protection of its citizens, but when it comes to Sudan, they somehow deny the same right to its government and accuse the Sudanese army of all ills.” This was a powerful way to end his response to Lammy.
The reason why Russia vetoed the resolution was because it wanted to save Sudan from a neocolonialist plot to exploit its people’s suffering in order to turn it into a vassal state. The text was ambiguous about the authorities’ legitimacy even though they represent their country at the UN, didn’t call for the RSF to cease its attacks against the SAF, could have led to more arms smuggling to the group under the cover of aid, eroded Sudan’s sovereignty via the ICC, and could have led to a disastrous military intervention.
What’s most interesting about all of this is that Russia’s close Chinese partner voted in support of the resolution for the reasons that its Permanent Representative explained here. They lent some legitimacy to Russia’s concerns but insisted that the draft would have led to a ceasefire which would have in turn protected civilians. As can be seen, Russia and China sometimes have polar opposite views on sensitive issues, which readers can learn more about here, but they responsibly manage these differences.
It’s absurd to imagine that China is part of the UK’s neocolonialist plot to subjugate Sudan as a Western vassal state by exploiting its people’s suffering to that end, however, so observers should simply accept that it and Russia sometimes don’t always see eye on everything. This objective fact debunks the claim that pushed by the Mainstream Media and the Alt-Media Community alike that they’re “allies”, each in pursuit of their own ideological-narrative agenda, and clarifies the real state of relations between them.
Russia and China have excellent relations as proven by them jointly accelerating multipolar processes, but their national interests sometimes diverge on sensitive issues like Sudan, Kashmir, and the Ukrainian Conflict, et al. That’s normal and taking the other side doesn’t mean that they’re doing so to spite their partner or as part of a secret alliance with the West. In this case, all that it shows is that China is either more trusting of or naïve about the West than Russia is, which is an interesting observation to reflect on.
