Hypocrisy and (too much) silence: worse massacres occur in lesser-known places

By: Ricardo Israel - 20/04/2025

It's not Ukraine or the Middle East; it's an area that incorporates Sudan and South Sudan, which were once part of the same country, with huge numbers of displaced people and international involvement from several nations, both African neighbors and powers. The difference lies in the media and political interest.

We're talking about civil war, rival governments in the same territory, a refugee crisis, and peace negotiations, attempted and failed. A video circulating of the massacres in Sudan shows rebels executing defenseless civilians with cries of "Allah is Great!" and FAR fighters surrounded by corpses on the ground in the Zamzam camp for displaced persons. And, of course, the regular army's massacres are no better. All with sexual violence routinely used, one of the worst crimes in this type of war, to which ethnic and religious violence is added.

INFOBAE reported on April 15 that “the civil war has caused the death of tens of thousands of people, displacing 13 million and triggering the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, with no end in sight,” a news interest that unfortunately is not shared or imitated by much of the press, including that coverage is rather marginal in some of the best known, those whose opinions are reproduced throughout the world, setting the editorial line of other media, and probably, even some people who are usually interested in international conflicts, feel today that they find little information in the newspapers, platforms and television they usually consult.

Of course, there is hypocrisy in the insufficient interest shown by the international community, as there are few statements from governments or politicians, which are common in this type of humanitarian crisis, especially if it is described as one of the worst, or perhaps the worst, of today. This is so true that leaders such as the prime ministers of Ireland or Spain, or two Latin American leaders, Boric and Petro, do not appear to be speaking out in Europe.

Perhaps it's because these are situations that are complex enough to not give the impression of moral superiority, which also poses a problem for some human rights NGOs, who feel empowered to point the finger in advance to determine who is guilty or innocent, or who is good and who is bad, as is the case in other cases.

The above is a reality of the contemporary world, also expressed in some cases of massive illegal immigration. This was notable during the Syrian civil war, where there was a lot of interest in migration to Europe, but very little in parallel to Lebanon, despite periods where the numbers were similar in both cases. Today, the double standard is also evident in the issue of the expulsion of undocumented immigrants, where there is a lot of scrutiny of the US, which is very good, but the double standard is evident in the silence toward other countries. For example, in the case of Pakistan, it was reported that it had deported around one million Afghans back to the Taliban from whom they fled in 2023, and that it expects to reach a total of 3 million. Something similar had occurred with the scant coverage of the one million Afghans who fled to Iran in 2021.

Furthermore, the argument that there is less human rights scrutiny when it comes to victims in Muslim countries (in this case, Sunni in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Shia in Iran) does not hold water, since there was also no international information or political action for Myanmar (formerly Burma), where, starting in August 2017, more than 750,000 Rohingya were forced to flee to Bangladesh after suffering violent military action against them, joining those who had done so previously. In this case, we are talking about a Muslim minority in a predominantly Buddhist country (87.9%, according to the 2014 census).

Therefore, the underlying issue is how different the interests are, depending on whether it is a developed or an underdeveloped country, an example of double standards, of hypocrisy, but at the same time, a reality that must be reckoned with, as it simply is.

Perhaps the situation in Sudan and South Sudan is nothing new, since something similar happened in the 1990s. If we compare the response to the massacres of the Yugoslav civil war with the attempted extermination of the Tutsi population in Rwanda, we can't imagine the different ways in which justice for those responsible was served. In both cases, the international community and the global media acted so differently. I can't find a reason for the different ways in which justice was served. It's not just that one took place in Europe and the other in Africa, which is also reflected in the Clinton administration's divergent focus on the United States.

In this African case, there are no demonstrations in the streets of New York or London, nor have some of the world's most prestigious universities been paralyzed. Moreover, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for former Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir on March 4, 2009, on five counts of crimes against humanity, but nothing similar has been done now, especially considering the swiftness with which it acted in Gaza. It is also worth comparing the fact that South Africa has not filed accusations of genocide before the International Court of Justice, nor has there been similarly intense diplomatic activity by Lula or the European Union.

In this regard, the different attitudes toward this conflict, which has already lasted two years in Sudan and which erupted in its current version in April 2023 between the government's military forces and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which has now declared the formation of a rival government, is striking, even though 13 million people have already been displaced.

In the case of neighboring South Sudan, figures show that more than 190,000 civilians have died due to the conflict and massacres, a figure surpassed by the 193,000 deaths recorded by the UN due to hunger and/or disease. In this second conflict, the civil war began on December 14, 2013, when a faction of the People's Liberation Army attempted a failed coup d'état. This confrontation is also an expression of an ethnic conflict between the Dinka and Nuer, with the leaders belonging to different clans and sociocultural groups, both of which are more important in Africa than national origin.

In both countries there are peace agreements signed and violated, but today, the war focus in Sudan is very active while in South Sudan there is less activity, since it is going through a phase of stagnation, despite the existence of international presence from Sudan (although denied), Egypt, Uganda as well as a clandestine presence of the United States and Russia, through the Wagner Group, today a weapon of intervention of the Kremlin, after the death of its founder.

As is typical in both conflicts, in Sudan and neighboring South Sudan, the adversaries declare that they are fighting in search of "peace and unity," seeking a "viable future" and "providing good education, health, and justice services," even though what they have achieved has been to turn cities into battlefields, with corpses in the streets and civilians fleeing, without water, medicine, or food.

It is in this sense that Filippo Grande, the UN official responsible for refugees, referred to the specific case of Sudan as a situation suffering from “the indifference of the world” and at the recent meeting in London of African countries (more specifically those from the east of the continent) and European countries, there were second commitments of 900 million dollars, a goal that has generally not been met on similar occasions in the past. In addition, in this case, none of the warring parties attended the meeting, which contributes to the pessimism, since at least since the Nigerian-Biafran Civil War in the 1960s and the Ogaden War between Ethiopia and Somalia in the 1970s, African wars have used hunger as a weapon of war.

In Sudan, the exact death toll is unknown; estimates are used. Furthermore, the health system has completely collapsed, increasing the suffering of the civilian population. There is no equivalent to journalistic scrutiny in Gaza or a dedicated agency like UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees. The most widely used estimates come from American specialists, and the number is 150,000 dead in this latest round of violence, which began in 2013.

The situation is worsening, as both sides attack civilians and block aid, affecting food security (again, estimates) around 25 million people. Using what is known from other conflicts in Africa as a reference, some 8 million are expected to be at risk of famine. Finally, regarding children, this time we have figures from UNICEF, which indicates that in 2023 and 2024, child mutilation reached 2,776. This figure is based on official records, so the real figure is likely to be higher, given that the institution is more present in cities than in rural areas.

Unlike South Sudan, the current Sudanese civil war began on April 15, 2023, when fighting broke out in the Republic of Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The war is ongoing, and internationally, Egypt, Russia through the Wagner Group, the United Arab Emirates, and mercenaries from various countries, including Colombia, are participating. Even Ukraine has acknowledged its participation, saying it should be concerned about Russia, which would obtain mining revenues through the Wagner Group that would help finance the invasion.

The FAR originated at the beginning of the 21st century in the Darfur region, which is a precedent that explains not only the situation in Sudan but also in South Sudan, as that region experienced a combination of racial and ethnic tensions, as well as significant conflicts over land and water. It was there that a rebellion against dictator Omar al-Bashir erupted in 2003. The repression of this rebellion led to his being charged with war crimes and genocide due to the persecution of the Christian and Black minority by a government that sought to forcibly Islamize and Arabize them, including the application of the religious law known as Sharia.

In 2004, then-US Secretary of State Colin Powell described the Janjaweed militia's campaign of extermination against non-Arab tribes resisting al-Bashir's Islamization in Darfur as genocide. The 7,000 troops sent by the African Union in 2004 failed to deter their attacks, nor did the 8,000 UN contingent that arrived to reinforce them. Ultimately, the combined force grew to more than 22,000 troops without any interruption to Janjaweed activity, adding yet another failure to the long list sponsored by the Security Council.

Without Darfur it is almost impossible to understand what happened next, including the Sudanese civil war and the subsequent independence of the region that became South Sudan, starting on July 9, 2011, following a referendum in January of that year where 98.8% of voters would have supported the separation, with which the country was definitively divided into two national entities, a Muslim and pan-Arab north and a traditionalist, Christian and animist south, each with its own future conflicts that fueled the respective civil wars.

In Darfur, the military conflict was simultaneously ethnic, social, and religious, between the Janjaweed, or Janyawid, militiamen from the Baggara tribe of the Abbala, who were primarily Arab traders and camel breeders, and the non-Arab population of black race, both Christian and animist, non-Baggara, who were primarily farmers. The Janjaweed, in turn, had its origins in the prolonged civil war that ravaged neighboring Chad, which in turn had played a strong role in its beginnings and development in Libya under Muammar Gaddafi.

In this regard, I have always been struck by the relative silence of human rights NGOs, the international press, many Christian churches, and the Vatican regarding the attempt at religious cleansing against these Christian and Black tribes. This brought to mind the religious persecution carried out by political Islam against Christian influence, which in North Africa and the Middle East preceded by centuries the Muslim and Arab invasion of those territories, beginning in the seventh century AD, after Jesus.

The initial phase of the conflict left approximately 300,000 dead and 2.7 million forcibly displaced, and although violence decreased in the years that political solutions such as territorial division were attempted, effective peace was never achieved, since, for example, it was al-Bashir himself who announced in 2013 that the Janjaweed militias that had been used to persecute the non-Arab population and tribes would be reorganized to become the Rapid Support Forces, exactly the militias that today are the rivals of the government armed forces, so it should not be surprising that in the end Omar al-Bashir presided over a conflict that not only resulted in the succession of South Sudan but also in a coup d'état that overthrew him in 2019, so under various titles, he was head of state, since 1989, no less. After the attempted establishment of an Islamic Republic, it was replaced by a Transitional Military Council, which was itself replaced as the state's highest authority by an 11-member Sovereignty Council.

Omar al-Bashir was imprisoned on multiple corruption charges, and on February 11, 2020, the ruling military council decided to hand him over to the ICC in The Hague to face charges for crimes committed in Darfur. Meanwhile, amid an economic crisis, the military decided to hand over the government to civilians, with a formal declaration that it would be made in April 2023. This did not occur due to tensions between military leaders. A significant issue, one that explains why everything is intertwined with what we are experiencing today, was the length of time it would take to integrate the FAR into the formal structure of the armed forces. Unresolved, this explains why the civil war persists and why the attempt at a democratic transition has failed.

To make matters more complicated, it was the same RAF that cracked down on pro-democracy protesters in the massacre that took place in the capital Khartoum on June 3, 2019. And in April 2023, instead of a transition to a genuine civilian government, power struggles escalated between the government and the leaders of the Rapid Support Force (FAR), so that a civil war that had begun with street battles continued with tanks and aircraft with such virulence that five million people were internally displaced, to which must be added more than a million who fled as refugees.

This complicated and concise history shows that, as in other African conflicts, situations and regions are closely linked, as modern states created by colonialism have many artificial borders, and friendly tribes were separated and enemies ended up living together in the same territory.

Entangled? Yes, but no more or less than other African conflicts. In this regard, by the way, European colonialism, especially British colonialism and, to a lesser extent, French colonialism, was responsible for that outcome. However, continuing to blame those empires, especially the majority of the blame that falls on the British in that part of the continent, is abusive and even absurd, given the time that has passed.

What has no justification is the current international hypocrisy, silence, and double standards in the face of humanitarian suffering in that part of the world.

@israelzipper

-Master's and PhD in Political Science (University of Essex), Bachelor of Law (University of Barcelona), Lawyer (University of Chile), former presidential candidate (Chile, 2013)

«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».