On the Absence of Sudan on Cable News This weekend
As "World War Putin" moved onto the African continent, the cable news networks went "America First."
Pope Francis recently scolded the world to keep its hands off of Africa, but the mineral wealth is far too attractive. And the world’s citizens, quite frankly, are barely paying any attention to the value of the human life lost in Sudan.
Is sub-Saharan Africa news “homework,” as the fundamentally broken Shiv Logan described it on the media-obsessives media fix, HBO’s Succession? I ask this because the conspicuous absence of news on the Sudan coup over the weekend in America was nothing short of remarkable. BBC, France24 and Al Jazeera all did a good job picking up the slack, but none of these internationally-based news sources have a large foothold in America. So, in essence, the lack of Sudan news on the cable news network was a huge missed opportunity at informing American voters of a important possible expansion of the Ukraine War.
I am not entirely naïve about the deficiencies of American media, having covered it for decades. There is a reason why “America First” is an ascendant anti-political philosophy in this country and not, say, liberal internationalism. As early as 2012 — during the Obama administration(!) — interest in foreign news was in decline, according to Pew polling. And if interest in foreign news was declining ten years ago, you can imagine what further descent it underwent under the white supremacist successor to the first President of African-American descent. Further, there is the matter of the lack of a national civics curriculum, the decimation of international news bureaus attendant to the decline of both newspapers and the evening news. Finally, add the shrinking of international news with the shrinking of media freedom to the mix and you get our present, unfortunate predicament.
The feeling, apparently, is mutual. Foreign interest in America is also dropping. “According to data from the Press Gallery, the number of foreign journalists accredited to cover Congress decreased slightly, by 2%, between 2009 and 2014, to a total of 328,” a 2015 Pew Poll on foreign news organizations found. “Foreign journalists working for organizations such as Agence France-Presse, Asahi Shumbun and Saudi Press Agency now account for 18% of all journalists, domestic or foreign, accredited to the Press Gallery.” Charmed, I’m sure. (Averted Gaze)
Why the Sudan Coup is Important
Why should we care about a Sudanese Civil War? Sudan, minus South Sudan, is Africa's third-largest country and the world's 15th largest. Darfur, where the shadows of the civil war are stretching at present, is about the size of Spain. Sudan shares its border with seven countries: Libya, Egypt, Chad, the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Ethiopia, and Eritrea. Instability in Sudan, if allowed to proliferate, could spread to all of these countries. The region already is not the most stable in the world. The Second Sudanese Civil War, largely a continuation of the First Sudanese Civil War, was Africa's longest lasting Civil War, lasting 22 years. From 1983 until 2005, the Sudanese civil wars killed and displaced millions of people.
Sudan is clearly trapped between two Generals: Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who leads the Sudanese Army, and Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the leader of the Rapid Support Forces. Last Tuesday, the two generals were supposed to hand over the reins of power to the people, to a democratic vote after the ouster — four years ago — of wanted international criminal and former dictator Omar Hassan al-Bashir. But, as I said earlier, the mineral wealth on the table is far too attractive; and the value of human life in Sudan is far too cheap, as far as the West is concerned.
Then there is also the question of Russia’s influence on the Sudanese coup. Control of Sudan’s mineral wealth is a very lucrative proposition indeed to existentially greasy warlords like Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. Putin has uses for men such as these. There have been at least 16 instances of Russian gold smuggling flights out of Sudan between 2020 and July 2022, curiously enough. “Multiple interviews with high-level Sudanese and US officials and troves of documents reviewed by CNN paint a picture of an elaborate Russian scheme to plunder Sudan’s riches in a bid to fortify Russia against increasingly robust Western sanctions and to buttress Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine,” wrote Nima Elbagir, Barbara Arvanitidis, Tamara Qiblawi, Gianluca Mezzofiore, Mohammed Abo Al Gheit and Darya Tarasova on CNN.com.
The New York Times also weighed in on Putin’s shadow on the continent in general, and Sudan in particular. From Declan Walsh and Abdi Latif Dahir:
The fighting in Darfur added another combustible element to the conflict. Darfur is home to several rebel groups that could get sucked into the fight, and it has also been a base for Russia’s Wagner private military company, which mines gold there and is allied with General Hamdan.
DW, a German news organization did an incredible job this morning, mapping the Wagner Group’s malevolent influence of the African continent:
In 2017, al-Bashir and (Vladimir) Putin met up in the Black Sear resort of Sochi to ring in a "new phase" of cooperation. There, al-Bashir promised Putin that Sudan could serve Russia as the "key to Africa," and received military help in return — which ultimately failed to prevent his ouster in April 2019.
Even while the country is struggling to return to some semblance of constitutional order, Wagner mercenaries are still in the country and have even been able to boost their influence on the Sudanese military. The military government wants to maintain control over Sudan at all costs, and is apparently receiving active help from the Russian Wagner troops. In exchange, the Kremlin is being given rights to further lucrative gold mines.
According to various media reports, observers are saying that Russia is mostly concerned with securing access to Sudan's valuable resources, which include manganese and silicon, alongside gold. Russia is also particularly interested in the uranium deposits, with which Africa's hunger for energy is also to be assuaged.
Throw in Canadian lobbyists into the mix — because, Canada and: Mining — and you get an inkling of how complex the situation in Sudan is. It involves multiple players, including the United Arab Emirates, a large consumer of Sudanese gold that recently signed a port deal on the Red Sea. In the first half of 2022, for example, the UAE purchased all of Sudan’s gold exports. How woefully underequipped the average American voter is to deal with this war’s international complexity in an age of shrinking of international news and the shrinking of media freedom.
All of that having been said, look to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zimbabwe and Namibia — three critical mineral producers in Africa with weak governments — as possible targets of the Wagner Group’s ambitions and the (possible) spread of World War Putin.
More than mercenaries: Russia's Wagner Group in Africa (DW)
African journalists are dying. They need the world’s help to hold power to account (Anas Aremeyaw Anas/CJR)
"The video game adaptation continues to defy all expectations as it races toward the $1 billion mark at the global box office" (THR)
“(Senator) Scott’s team believes his inspiring background is just one of the ways he’ll find a lane, however. They also believe he’s the most traditionally conservative Republican in the 2024 race and backed up by the interest groups that matter most. Gun Owners of America gave him an ‘A’ in the 2022 congressional ratings and he’s earned both a 100% by the National Right to Life and an ‘A’ from the Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America group.” (Shelby Talcott/SEMAFOR)
"The high-profile trial, expected to start Monday, was postponed a day, a development that the Judge called ‘not unusual’ but has nevertheless prompted buzz about a last-minute settlement. " (Charlotte Klein/VF)
Don’t Settle, Dominion! Drag Fox News Across the Hot Coals (Michael Tomasky/TNR)