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The UAE’s Secret War in Sudan
How International Pressure Can Stop the Genocidal Violence
In the next four months, two and a half million Sudanese could die of hunger-related causes. That’s twice as many as Pol Pot’s regime starved in Cambodia over four years, and two and a half times as many as died in the 1983–85 famine in Ethiopia that inspired the charity recording “We are the World.” As Martin Griffith, the United Nations’ top humanitarian official, recently put it: “I don’t think we’ve ever had this kind of number at risk of famine.”
The explosive expansion of graveyards in Sudan’s Darfur region and the genocidal violence marking the battles for its main cities are the visible tip of a mountain of human suffering. Even as wars rage elsewhere in the world, there is no parallel to the intensity and scope of conflict in Sudan. Since civil war erupted in April 2023, ten million Sudanese have fled their homes. One out of every eight internally displaced persons in the world is Sudanese, and more children have been displaced from their homes in Sudan than anywhere else.
And yet the world seems to hardly notice the agony of Sudan and its people. Donors have contributed only 31 percent of the $2.7 billion the UN has requested for Sudan—a shortfall that is worsening the hunger crisis. Occasionally governments will announce sanctions or world leaders and international organizations will make statements expressing concern. For the most part, however, they are not taking meaningful action to stanch the bloodshed.
No country is doing enough to end the suffering, but some countries are actively fueling and benefiting from Sudan’s civil war. Egypt, Iran, and Turkey have provided military support to Khartoum, despite evidence that the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) engages in indiscriminate bombing and torture, and that it uses starvation as a weapon of war. Russia initially backed the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the other party to the conflict, which has roots in the Janjaweed militias that committed genocide in Darfur two decades ago. But Moscow is now playing both sides; in May, it entered an agreement with the SAF to establish a Russian logistical support base on the Red Sea in exchange for weapons and equipment. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, which has historical links to the SAF leadership, spent months undercutting efforts to restart negotiations between the warring parties that had stalled in late 2023. It took until this July for the United States to gain Saudi agreement to restart the talks, which will take place in August in Geneva.
The outside actor that bears the most responsibility for the starvation and ethnic cleansing, however, is the United Arab Emirates. As the RSF perpetrates genocidal attacks on civilians in Darfur and other regions, Abu Dhabi is delivering arms to the militia. Meanwhile, unscrupulous companies smuggle Sudanese gold into Emirati markets, fueling the conflict. The UAE has been able to act with impunity, as its oil reserves, its strategic importance as a counterweight to Iran, and its role in diplomatic efforts to end the war in the Gaza Strip make Western leaders hesitant to lean too hard on Abu Dhabi.
Given the UAE’s large role in stoking the crisis in Sudan, it is imperative that outside actors compel the Emirati leadership to change course. Even if the United States and its partners remain unwilling to take bold action, such as by imposing sweeping network sanctions or investing in new peacekeeping forces in Darfur, public and private actors can make use of other points of leverage over the Emirati leadership, including its trade in conflict gold, its financial interests in sports teams and leagues, its purchase of U.S. weapons, and its reliance on Washington lobbyists. If it faces sufficient pressure, Abu Dhabi might conclude that its support for the RSF is more trouble than it’s worth.
CONFLICT GOLD
Gold has been a major driver of the war in Sudan. The RSF is more deeply involved in the gold trade, but both sides have smuggled and sold large volumes of gold to fuel their war machines. The UAE currently benefits from this trade. Statistics for 2023 are not yet available, but in 2022, the UAE imported 39 tons of gold from Sudan, valued at more than $2 billion, and direct shipments of Sudanese gold continue today. Bad actors also smuggle Sudanese gold into Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, South Sudan, and Uganda—all of which end up selling much of it to the UAE. According to UN trade data, over 60 tons reached the UAE through these routes in 2022. In a May 2023 business risk advisory, the U.S. State Department noted that the UAE receives “nearly all” the gold exported from Sudan.
The UAE is a global hub for gold laundering and by far the biggest destination for gold trafficked from Africa. A recent report from the Swiss nongovernmental organization Swissaid estimated that 405 tons were smuggled from sub-Saharan Africa to the UAE in 2022, making the UAE the biggest importer of illicit African gold that year. Industry experts say that large volumes of smuggled gold that are never declared in their countries of origin suddenly become legal when transmitted through the UAE, solidifying the nation’s leading role in gold laundering.
The UAE benefits from the conflict gold trade, a major driver of the war in Sudan.
Between 2020 and 2022, the London Bullion Market Association, an influential global gold-trading organization, and the Financial Action Task Force, an intergovernmental body that combats money laundering, pressured Abu Dhabi to address gold and money laundering. In response, the Emirati leadership took some steps toward reform, requiring refiners to be audited according to international standards. But important loopholes remain, particularly in the country’s gold souks, where gold is traded for cash.
Tougher action against the illicit gold trade would make it more difficult for the UAE and Emirati companies to profit from the war. The London Bullion Market Association should coordinate with other governments to push the UAE to allow independent monitoring of its gold souks—similar to the independent review missions that disrupt the trade of blood diamonds in what is known as the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme. Without independent monitoring of the gold souks, local reforms will do little to dent the trade in conflict gold.
Finally, the United States and the European Union should sanction more of the firms that buy and sell conflict gold from Sudan. In June, the U.S. Treasury Department blocked seven Emirati-based companies’ access to the U.S. financial system on the suspicion that they violated U.S. sanctions on Sudan. This is a good step, but to sway Emirati leaders’ thinking, the United States and the EU must ramp up existing sanctions, targeting the entire network of companies and individuals in the UAE involved in smuggling gold from Sudan. Because the owners frequently change the names of companies and use fake corporate directors to stand in for the individuals actually in charge, sanctions must be far-reaching to work.
FULL-COURT PRESS
Disrupting the trade in Sudanese conflict gold may be a particularly effective way for outside actors to peel the UAE away from backing the RSF, but it is not the only method at their disposal. Like Saudi Arabia, the Emirati government has invested heavily in sportswashing—laundering its reputation by financing, either directly or through private companies, sports leagues and teams around the world. Some of the biggest European soccer clubs, such as AC Milan, Arsenal, Manchester City, and Real Madrid, have received Emirati backing. So has Formula One, the international car racing league; Baseball United, a Dubai-based league whose ownership group includes former U.S. Major League Baseball players; and a number of U.S.-based sporting organizations, including the National Basketball Association, Ultimate Fighting Championship, and the U.S. Open Tennis Championships. Fans would be rightly dismayed to learn that the sponsors of their favorite athletes are also underwriting genocidal violence. If even a few sports teams, leagues, players, and fans were to use social media to call out the UAE’s contributions to Sudan’s crisis, the public embarrassment could make the UAE think twice about its policies.
The United States should also reconsider the billions of dollars in arms it sells to the UAE each year. Members of Congress and civil society groups, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have raised alarms about the UAE arming the RSF and urged countries that provide weapons to the UAE to do extra due diligence to make sure those shipments do not end up in Darfur. Representative Sara Jacobs, Democrat from California and the ranking member on the Africa Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced a bill in May 2024 that would prohibit U.S. weapons sales to the UAE until the U.S. president certifies that Abu Dhabi has stopped arming the RSF. The ban would affect both U.S. government and private sales and would include firearms, artillery, ammunition, missiles, bombs, explosives, military vehicles, and aircraft, among other types of equipment. If momentum builds behind the bill, the signal that Washington is making this problem a priority could send a useful warning to the UAE.
Finally, U.S. congressmen, journalists, and human rights advocates should call out 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, Washington lobbyists and law firms that do work for the UAE government are helping enable atrocities.
DIAL UP THE PRESSURE
Nearly two decades ago, amid the genocide in Darfur, the global activist coalition Save Darfur set its sights on influencing policy in China, which at the time was by far the largest investor in Sudan. Save Darfur accused China of ignoring the atrocities in Darfur and launched a campaign criticizing Beijing’s lack of action as it was preparing to host the 2008 Olympic Games. In early February 2008, Steven Spielberg, who had been hired as an artistic director for the games’ opening and closing ceremonies, resigned in protest of China’s links to the genocide. Rising international condemnation had an effect: by late February, Beijing joined the international chorus pressing Khartoum to allow humanitarian aid into camps for internally displaced civilians, which prevented hundreds of thousands of deaths by starvation.
As the Spielberg episode showed two decades ago, pressure from unexpected sources can make a difference. Today, advocacy groups, companies, sports teams, athletes, policymakers, and anyone with a public platform should use all the tools available to them to prevent an escalating famine and genocide in Sudan. The UAE is deeply entangled with the RSF and bears heavy responsibility for the crisis, but this means it also has enormous leverage—if Abu Dhabi is induced to use it—to shape RSF decisions. On the other side, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which have influence over the SAF, can help press for a cease-fire and an end to these forces’ obstruction of life-saving aid.
Without a lot more pressure on the warring parties and their benefactors in the region, an already dire humanitarian crisis in Sudan will only get worse. It should not take images of starving Sudanese babies filling the news for companies, athletic groups, and governments to put principle above profit or expediency.
(c) 2024, Foreign Affairs
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