After a tense energy battle erupted into violence in Sudan final week, world leaders and rights teams known as for the military and the scary paramilitary Speedy Assist Forces to train restraint and spare civilians.
The Twitter and Fb pages of the RSF – and people of its chief Mohamad Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo – at the moment are echoing these calls. On Tuesday, the group used its accounts to accuse the military of violently attacking civilians.
Conveniently, the RSF didn’t point out its personal position in harming civilians, as witnesses and rights teams are reporting.
“The Speedy Assist Forces condemns the aggressive behaviour by the [Sudanese Armed Forces] and calls on the worldwide group to take motion to stop additional violations of worldwide humanitarian legislation,” learn one of many RSF’s Twitter posts from Tuesday.
The RSF’s affect operations are only one cog in a broader public relations marketing campaign that goals to persuade Western observers it’s a skilled pressure defending civilians. Central to its narrative is portraying Hemedti as a benevolent man who’s rescuing his nation from spiritual hardliners within the military.
The military’s high brass is tied to Sudan’s political Islamic motion, which got here to energy behind the coup of former authoritarian chief Omar al-Bashir greater than three many years in the past.
For years, the navy and RSF cooperated to commit grave human rights abuses throughout Sudan. However now, high navy officers have grown to despise the paramilitary pressure as a result of they – regardless of ideological leanings – concern Hemedti may cut back their energy and standing if he will get stronger.
Whereas neither pressure has proven any regard for civilians, RSF is cleverly weaponising human rights language to distract consideration from its personal atrocities, say rights teams and consultants.
“I believe there’s a clear try [from Hemedti] to disassociate himself from a legacy of his crimes and to differentiate between the RSF and [Sudanese Armed Forces]. I discover it hanging that he makes use of worldwide legislation language to do that,” mentioned Emma DiNapoli, a authorized skilled specialising in Sudan.
Co-opting human rights
RSF emerged from the “Janjaweed” militias that spearheaded mass killings in Darfur between 2003-2009.
These militias had been armed and recruited by the navy authorities of al-Bashir to place down a rise up by largely non-Arab insurgent teams, which had been protesting the neglect and exploitation of Darfur by Khartoum elites.
4 years later, al-Bashir formally repackaged these militias into the RSF. Early on, the group was seeking to garner legitimacy by promoting itself as a dependable companion for the European Union to counter migration.
Flushed with energy and cash – due to capturing profitable gold mines and leasing out mercenaries to battle for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen – the group stepped up efforts to rehabilitate its fame after a well-liked rebellion compelled al-Bashir from energy in April 2019.
The already steep process turned much more troublesome after RSF spearheaded an assault on a protest web site, killing a minimum of 120 folks on June 3, 2019. The worldwide group condemned the violence, but Hemedti nonetheless ascended to a excessive place in Sudan’s military-civilian authorities fashioned two months later.
Within the following weeks, RSF promised to pay high greenback to human rights activists who would work with him as advisers, in line with Hafiz Mohamed, director of Justice Africa, a analysis institute in Sudan that campaigns for human rights.
“Within the fall of 2019, some advisers from [Hemedti’s] community got here to us and mentioned that we’re all from Sudan and that we must always work with Hemedti. However I instructed them that we have now little interest in partaking with him,” Mohamed instructed Al Jazeera.
“Hemedti was at all times planning to construct his personal empire. He already had the funds and his personal navy, so he was engaged on his public relations and different civic engagement.”
Hemedti was additionally wanting to cooperate with worldwide organisations in hopes of presenting himself as a palpable companion for the West. In December 2021, the RSF obtained human rights coaching from the Worldwide Committee of the Pink Cross (ICRC), producing a backlash from analysts and activists.
A part of ICRC’s mandate is to supply coaching in worldwide legislation to all armed actors. However except they’re coupled with extra efforts to guard civilians, then it dangers giving figures akin to Hemedti a veneer of legitimacy as his forces proceed to hurt civilians, in line with Kholood Khair, founding director of Confluence Advisory.
“Fairly frankly, those that polished his picture – in addition to those that enriched him financially and politically – are a part of the creation of the Hemedti that we all know at present,” she instructed Al Jazeera.
‘A loopy character’
The RSF has additionally employed quite a few public relations companies to foyer on its behalf in overseas capitals.
In 2019, Hemedti turned to the Canadian lobbying agency Dickens and Madson, which is run by an ex-Israeli spy Ari Ben-Menashe, a person who stands accused of violating sanctions in Libya.
“Hemedti is a little bit of a loopy character, however that is the place we differ from everybody else: With out Hemedti, there wouldn’t have been any [democratic] change in Sudan,” Ben-Menashe mentioned in 2021, in reference to the then civilian-military authorities nonetheless in place earlier than the navy coup that October.
Based on the contract that Dickens and Madson signed, it was paid $6m to rearrange a public assembly between Hemedti after which US President Donald Trump, in addition to quite a few non-public conferences between Hemedti and officers in Russia – a rustic that enjoys robust enterprise and safety ties with the RSF and the Sudanese military.
Al Jazeera is not sure when the 2 sides terminated their contract. However final 12 months, Hemedti approached French PR agency Suppose Physician with a view to assist handle RSF’s Wikipedia pages, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram accounts, in addition to to supply media coaching, in line with Africa Intelligence, a number one supply of intel on the continent.
The French company, which relies in Paris, reportedly met Dagalo in Dubai on a number of events to debate a possible partnership, Africa Intelligence reported.
Al Jazeera known as Suppose Physician to ask if it has an workplace in Dubai and a working relationship with Hemedti.
“I utterly don’t know what you’re speaking about,” mentioned a consultant from the agency who recognized himself as Charles. “I’m not and I’m not authorised to talk.”
The impact of Hemedti’s lobbyists on Western policymaking is unknown, but those that suffered and witnessed RSF’s brutality say they by no means believed he was a real reformer.
Sulima Ishaq, a survivor of the violent assault on the June 2019 demonstration, mentioned Hemedti at all times had political ambitions. After the violent dispersal, she knew most individuals would by no means forgive him.
“There isn’t a denying that [Hemedti] at all times needed us to neglect the previous. He needed us to neglect what occurred, however there is no such thing as a means we may,” Ishaq mentioned.