US Congress denounces RSF ‘genocide’ in Sudan

The African Report

Lawmakers are putting pressure on the executive branch to take stronger action against the Rapid Support Forces militia as President Donald Trump prepares to take office.
The House of Representatives is set to vote today 20 November on a resolution condemning “atrocities, including those that amount to genocide” being committed by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and “allied militias” against the Masalit people and other non-Arab ethnic groups in Darfur, Sudan.
The resolution is sponsored by Michigan Republican John James, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs panel on Africa.

Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of lawmakers on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week introduced a “Sudan Accountability Act” that would require the Secretary of State to determine whether the actions of the Sudanese Armed Forces, the RSF, associated military forces, or associated armed actors constitute genocide, war crimes, or crimes against humanity. The bill is led by Delaware Democrat Chris Coons and Idaho Republican Jim Risch, who is in line to take control of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January after Republicans won the 5 November elections.

“It deserves a lot more attention in Congress,” Coons tells The Africa Report.

The flurry of legislative activity comes as the Joe Biden administration is launching a last-ditch diplomatic effort to restart stalled peace talks. US special envoy Tom Perriello visited Sudan on 18 November for talks with the country’s army chief and de facto leader, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, on a “roadmap for how to stop the war and deliver humanitarian aid.”

The congressional campaign could help overcome bureaucratic inertia, says Simon Billenness, director of No Business With Genocide, a pressure group in Washington, DC.

“This is significant because it will put Congress on the record that the Rapid Support Forces in Darfur have committed genocide,” Billenness tells The Africa Report. “That puts pressure on the administration to issue a genocide determination.”

It deserves a lot more attention in Congress

As a party to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the US would then have a duty to hold the perpetrators accountable, as well as a duty to educate people about what’s happening and to prevent further atrocities, Billenness says.

“If Congress is saying a genocide is occurring,” he says, “then that puts the onus on both Congress and the administration to follow through on that determination and take measures to stop the RSF from committing this genocide, and also to support efforts to hold them accountable for that genocide in international or national courts.”

The UAE in the hot seat
The bills also create pressure on foreign actors involved in the Sudanese conflict, particularly the United Arab Emirates (UAE).