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18-05-2023
KHARTUM: Warring rivals continue to spar in Sudan in a conflict where its citizenry is bearing the brunt of the crisis trying new moves as they wrestle for power.
Sudan’s military chief on Sunday ordered the freezing of all bank accounts belonging to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), amid continuing peace talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Analysts say General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan’s move is to undercut both the RSF’s leader’s independence and to squash the force itself as the talks seem to move away from the army’s favorable outcome but it may not end up having much of an effect.
RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo amassed wealth and built up his forces in multiple ways, which will help shield him from the cutoff, said Sami Hamdi, the managing director of International Interest, a political risk firm focusing on the Middle East.
Hemedti’s wealth and power have come from his gradual acquisition of Sudanese financial institutions, control of a significant portion of the country’s gold reserves, and deployment of his RSF troops to fight with allies in places like Yemen and Libya, he said.
Eric Reeves, a professor at Smith College in the United States whose research on Sudan spans more than two decades, agrees that most of the RSF’s wealth will not be affected.
“Much RSF wealth is offshore, especially (in) the UAE, and is not going to be affected by the freeze,” he told media.
The RSF’s wealth in gold, he added, is neither controlled by the Central Bank of Sudan nor subject to the “horrific inflation ravaging Sudan as a whole”.
Much of the country’s banking system has in turn collapsed, said Reeves, the fighting damaging much of the infrastructure.
The RSF’s gold mines and deployment of forces abroad, in particular, have helped Hemedti build his paramilitary’s power.
“It’s important to stress that it’s only over the past five years in which the (RSF) has become this formidable organization able to take on the army,” Hamdi said, referring to deposed former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
