What’s Going On In Sudan?

 

Happy Friday, I hope everyone had a good week.
 
The NFL draft was certainly interesting last night, especially for any fellow Colts fans. As with just about anything else in life, let’s just hope for the best.
 
Now onto something I was eager to learn more about.

Zero to 100

 
If you’re like me, you may be wondering what’s going on in Sudan. A week ago, I could barely remember it existed, and now it’s suddenly central to any conversation around geopolitics and international affairs.
 
Turns out the country is on the brink of a civil war… kinda.
 
Over 500 people have died, most of whom are civilians, and Secretary of State Blinken (and other foreign SOS) had to intervene just to get a cease fire while countries try to evacuate their embassies and get their citizens out.
 
The cease fire started on the 24^th and it seems that just about every country is sending helicopters, planes, and boats to get people out before the shooting resumes. The US even sent SEAL Team 6 in to help.
 
The cease fire is to last 3 days, AKA it ends today. So, we’ll see what happens.
 
Personally, I was more interested in the history of these conflicts.

There’s Some History

 
Up until 2019, Sudan’s government was a dictatorship run by President Omar al-Bashir. A military coup brought an end to this as civilians, almost unanimously, wanted a democracy.
 
And there were two heroes.
 
Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mahamed Hamdan Dagalo pretty much orchestrated the coup and have been running the country since.

 
Now, both want more power, have grown to hate each other, and have assembled armies to get it. To me they kind of resemble a blend of “park ranger” and an “actor from Jurassic Park”
 
But maybe behaving like these guys. Only IRL with thousands of lives at stake.

Why It Could Matter

Eh, it’s all the way in Sudan, right? Well, there’s a new twist: Russia just got involved. And when Russia gets involved with anything it’s kinda important to know about.
 
Russia has been boosting Mahamed Hamdan Dagalo’s missile supplies and satellite support.
 
To be honest, it was hard for me to even decipher who’s side I was on before reading that, but for the time being I guess I’ll be on the non-Russia side.
 
Also, economically speaking, Sudan’s biggest exports are gold and cotton. So, if this truly becomes a national issue, then I would expect gold prices to increase (especially with the existing global inflationary pressures) and, uh…. maybe Gildan’s stock price to decrease haha, not sure.
 
For now, I guess we hold tight since everyone is still just working to get innocent expats out.
 

 

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Also, This Happens All Of The Time

 
I’m not sure whether this was just the first time I’ve noticed, but in my head, I was thinking “nobody saw this coming? We waited until the last minute. To the point where SEAL Team 6 had to go in?”
 
But it turns out things like this flare up all the time. Nearly every year.
 
 
Most of them escalate from rioting or protesting at the US embassy. The Molotov cocktails, pipe bombs, etc. Believe it or not, there isn’t too much of an armed presence at the embassies outside of some CIA agents and local police, so it doesn’t really take much to trigger evacuations.
 
Some of the recent ones have of course been:

• Benghazi: coordinated attack by militants. 4 deaths.
• Baghdad: Thousands of protesters show up leading to evacuations.
• The US evacuating Afghanistan didn’t exactly go as planned last year when we left the region.
• And of course, Tehran, which is what the entire movie Argo (great movie) was based on.

After learning about how frequently this kind of stuff happens, I can assure you that I will not be becoming an ambassador anytime soon. Unless it’s in Italy.