South African President Cyril Ramaphosa meets with Rapid Support Force (RSF) Commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo in Pretoria, South Africa, on January 4, 2024. (Photo courtesy of South African President/Handout/Anadolu, via Getty Images)
On January 4, a beaming Cyril Ramaphosa shook hands with Sudanese militia leader General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commonly known as Hemedi.
The talks took place amid an escalating civil war in Sudan, with both sides accused of human rights abuses. In one case, Hemediti militia killed as many as 15,000 people, many of them members of the Masalit ethnic group, in an advance on El Geneina in western Darfur last year. He has also been implicated in the genocide in Darfur in the early 2000s.
Hemedi's stay in Pretoria was part of a transcontinental journey to shore up support and gain legitimacy. Sudan is still technically led by military commander General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, a former ally and current enemy.
Backlash against the conference included accusations that it was hypocritical and inconsistent with post-apartheid South Africa's values of equality and justice. It was also the same month that South Africa filed a lawsuit with the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza.
President Ramaphosa's spokesperson Vincent Mugwenya said it was not a “meeting between two heads of state” but rather a show of courtesy.
The African Center for Constructive Conflict Resolution, a non-profit organization that helped organize the conference, supported and defended Nelson Mandela. Its executive director, Vas Gounden, said: continent: “Mr. Mandela said that you can't build peace by talking to your friends.”
Mr Goonden attended the meeting and said South Africa would meet with all parties to African conflicts. “If Burhan gets on a plane and comes to see Ramaphosa tomorrow, Ramaphosa will meet him.”
Hemediti army continent It was previously reported that it is backed by the United Arab Emirates and is now gaining the upper hand in the war, controlling key parts of the capital Khartoum. Wad Madani, a major city southeast of the capital. and most of Darfur.
Hemedi's tour also took him to Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya, Djibouti, and Rwanda. But the South African region was particularly important, according to Sudanese political analyst Khoroud Keir.
Shaking hands with leaders of stable democracies showed Hemedi was “not just going to meet with tyrants,” Keir said. He said the receptions in Pretoria and other capitals showed presidents “considered Mr. Hemedi presidential material, even if he is not actually president.”
She pointed out that a tweet in which the South African government referred to Hemedi as Sudan's president was quickly deleted. These measures will also weaken Al-Burhan's position.
Cameron Hudson, an analyst and director of African affairs on the US White House National Security Council, said that mediation would require a meeting with Hemedi, but that Ramaphosa was “particularly interested in being involved in ending this issue”. He doesn't seem to be interested.” “Conflict”.
Others argue that Hemediti's reception across Africa was aided by the UAE's considerable influence on the continent. The UAE has denied accusations that it secretly sends weapons to Hemedi's forces through Chad. However, the relationship exists. In other words, the militias provided troops to the UAE and its partners in the devastating war in Yemen, and South Africa supported them with weapons.
Gounden denied that the UAE was involved in the group's actions and said it had been participating in high-level conflict mediation efforts in Sudan since 2019.
More than 10.7 million people have been displaced since the war began, and there are reports that a victorious Hemediti could face revolution at home and diplomatic isolation abroad.
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