 Sudan is at a crossroads. On Monday, October 25th, the military led by Lieutenant General Abdul Fateh al-Burhan organized the coup against the transitional government which Burhan himself was heading. What the coup has achieved is remove all civilian authorities from power, including Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdoq. The coup has been widely condemned, but the people of Sudan are resisting on the streets. There are huge protests being carried out, including one that is coming up on October 30th. To discuss both the situation there and the regional implications, we'll be looking at this issue in Mapping Fault Lines. We have with us Prabir Prakash. Prabir, so the coup in Sudan, the culmination of the past two years actually because we know that the protests started in Sudan in December 2018. The long-time ruler Omar al-Bashir was deposed in April 2019. And in August due to a compromise struck by political parties in the military, this transitional government came into being, which was a hybrid of the military and the civilian structures. So on the one hand, we had sections of the protesters always unhappy with the role of the military. On the other hand, the military trying to sort of prevent the civilians from doing anything. And this is all culminated in this coup where the military is now completely taken over. So how exactly do you, if you could quickly do some quick analysis of the internal situation before we talk about the regional situation? You know, as we know, Sudan has earlier seen a civil war in which southern Sudan is separated. And northern Sudan has been a long-term military dictatorship of Bashir who was forced out due to struggles that broke out. Now, for what we see that the struggles never really accepted that the military could have the role they still have even before the coup. And what would be the expansion of the civilian forces in Sudan and what is the role they would have in governing the country was still very much a matter of dispute. What has happened is the limited concessions the military had given when Burhan and the civilian groups, protesters reached an agreement that has been completely now overturned. So we are back where we were before this agreement was reached in which there were at least some space given to other forces as well, not just simply military running the country as they have done for 30 years. Of course, this is a part of a much larger regional issue that where does Africa go and particularly after the African Union has been weakened in Africa, the fact that the colonial powers seem to be re-entering under the US umbrella in a big way in Africa again. And particularly with the kind of military conflicts coming up, we see their re-emergence again of both the military forces, military takeovers, but also of external interventions that take place in the name of trying to control civilian distress, in the name of humanitarian interventions. So in a larger sense, if we see what we saw in Afghanistan in Iraq, there are very similar things that's happening in Africa as well, except that the world doesn't know as much about Africa that we know about West Asia or we know about Afghanistan because those conflicts have taken a bigger military dimension than apparently these ones have. But if we see the actual destruction that is taking place in Africa today and attempt to control the mineral wealth of Africa in different parts, I think that's a very, very significant toll it's taking on the African people. And Sudan itself, as we know, the Southern Sudan separated as a long drawn out civil war that took place. And it does seem that there were imperialist powers, forces, who played both sides against each other and made it possible for them to intervene. Absolutely. In this context, of course, important to note that Sudan's role over the past couple of, especially after the Burhan came to power, it has been in the news also for the fact that it signed the Abraham Accords with Israel, which caused a lot of controversy. In fact, the civilian sections were very much opposed to it. It was a military decision. And we also know that there have been reports saying that Israel is actually quite positive about this coup because it believes that relations could be further strengthened with Sudan. Whereas while the Western powers have declared that they've condemned the coup and all that, the fact remains that their closest ally Israel is very happy with this. Sudan also part of the coalition in Yemen, the Saudi led coalition, which has caused a lot of harm. So in that way, the coming back of the military to full power actually probably cements its alliance in this network in West Asia. That's a very important point to note because Sudan was also part of overthrow of Gaddafi's rule in Libya. In fact, the military in Sudan was a conduit for a lot of arms ammunitions, which went to finally to Libya. Now, this is the role that the Sudanese military has played. And in the case of what you talk about is Yemen. There are two parts to it. One is, of course, acting as mercenaries and getting paid for it. Because frankly speaking, United Arab Emirates was also behind the intervention, armed intervention, or Saudi Arabia. They are not known to be good fighters. They don't have stomach for fighting. And the numbers anyway, United Arab Emirates has a lot of money, but it really doesn't have ground forces, which is what you require at the end of the day. And they have military strength in terms of air force and missiles. So Sudan was providing a lot of the foot soldiers that they required to fight in that in this war in Yemen and particularly considering Houthis are really good and doubty fighters. So they actually have held back a lot of the forces, including once upon a time Egypt itself, which had also intervened on the side of the democratic south in Yemen. So given that history, I think the forces which wanted to overthrow the Houthis in Yemen, they were banking up on Sudanese to provide the forces. And Sudan was doing it both for what you argue that its relationship with Israel and the United States. And in this particular case, they were the ones backing the Yemeni intervention. But also because it was easy money for the military in Sudan. So I think they had both monitored monetary interests, as well as political interest. And as you have said, the Abraham Accords, when Sudan signs into it, this is one African state, which is not in that sense of an Arab state, signing out of Abraham Accords seems to give it a larger imprimatur of Muslim populations or Muslim countries in Africa. So that is not the identity they seem for themselves. So I think that those are also the subtext of the why they sided with the Americans and the Israelis. And as you know, Americans can always play two sides, make nice noises on one side, and the military and intelligence agencies play the other side. So this is an old game the Americans are quite happy to play. Right. And probably in this context, of course, we've talked about this before, but the situation Sudan sort of brings back memories of a common general Wesley Clark of the United States makes, in which he says that post Afghanistan post September 11 attacks, he met with a senior source in the military who said that there were a number of countries that the US was targeting. And the first is of course Iraq. But then there was a list of other Muslim dominated countries, Syria, Lebanon. Interestingly, Sudan also a part of the list of countries that were supposedly being targeted by the United States. So, you know, many, many years down the line, on the one hand, we recognize that the democracy movement is very strong, they're fighting for their rights. But nonetheless, the role of the military that has been taking place, the role of the military has taken basically, and its alliances actually indicate that Sudan really remains a target for the United States as well. It's interesting why the African countries that you see on the map here, that you have one hand, of course, Libya, we knew why you Sudan and Somalia, it's not clear why these were also targeted, unless you look at the history of Africa itself. And what is the role different countries are playing at the time, and particularly different governments and military forces in this region was playing. So in all of this, of course, we also can add Ethiopia, which was used in order to attack. So for instance, Somalia. What you see is an interesting issue that long before the fall of, you know, the United States in Afghanistan, or what happens in Iraq, when they're in the process of withdrawal, that this map that Wesley Clark had talked about, we didn't really think it was that serious. But when you look at it today, 20 years down the line, you see that Lebanon is facing a kind of civil war situation. We have talked about it earlier. You have attacks on Syria and Iraq, which have passed to very serious civil war conditions. Of course, Iraq, United States intervened militarily. It also intervened partially, militarily in Syria, not directly to overthrow Assad, but certainly to support various insurgent forces over there and give cover to them. And it still is doing that with Israel, attacking Syrian forces. And then, of course, you have Lebanon, as we have seen recently. The interesting part is when you look at the African continent, then you see the target, which was their target, which I think strategically was very important for them, was Libya. Why? Because Libya is one of the countries which had oil wealth and was willing, Radhafi was willing to bankroll the African Union. Now, that was a very important element in Africa because it used to really mediate between various sections and it had an authority. After Libya's fall, African Union does not have the veruthal to be able to conduct its policy, though it still has moral authority. It does not have the physical resources to do any of these things, which under Gaddafi did. And that's why we now understand in spite of the fact that Gaddafi had made up with the United States and the Western powers that they never forgave him and therefore the need to get rid of Gaddafi so that they could, if it destroys Libya, that was not the issue for them. Destruction of Libya was a cost, quote unquote, they were willing to pay for the fact to remove Gaddafi as a player in African Union and also therefore weaken the African Union itself. And that's what we see that today, whenever the various other wars are taking, African Union seems to be more of a bystander and giving some moral, has some moral authority, but very little intervention capacity. So if you look at Leslie Clark's name of states, you see that yes, Libya, Sudan and Somalia are all on the list and they have had, they have become failed states. They have become failed states in different ways. Sudan not completely, but with all of this, I'm afraid Sudan could also be traveling in the same direction. Somalia, remember, long back the intervention, black hog down, military intervention of the US forces, their humanitarian, militarized human, humanitarian interventions. And the important part, which has come from Afghanistan as well was consistent, even from that time in Somalia is 90% of the money they spend on this humanitarian intervention is spent on the US military. It is not spent on even the local military forces that they support. So that is consistent, whether it's Afghanistan or whether it is in Somalia, that figure has been consistent. The only thing is that Afghanistan, there is a fear that the world will pay a price and therefore there's a much more awareness of what can happen because Afghanistan did provide the base for attack on, on the United States. The Afghan government, Taliban government may not have been involved. But the question is for others, the world doesn't seem to care because those kind of effect it doesn't seem to have. So we are there, it seems the world and the NATO powers because they considered themselves the arbiters of the world are quite happy as long as the the oceans are not disturbed. Somalia pirates disturbing the the traffic in those in those regions on the sea. That is the problem that they have. As long as they can control that they seem to not bother what happens to rest of the continent and particularly these three countries are examples of what we are seeing. Absolutely. And probably finally actually if you look at the region and the kind of conflicts that are going on now. Of course a wide range of conflicts. We have say coups that took place in the recent past in countries like Guinea and Chad for instance, where the role of western powers, especially France and the United States has been talked about a lot. We have seen instances like Ethiopia where a civil war is on. And the fact is the United States is very clearly taking a position against the Ethiopian government and in favor of the Tigray People's Liberation Front. Of course we have other kinds of insurgencies. So what exactly seems to be the general strategy of the western powers, especially the US and France which seem to be the biggest players in this region? I think their issue is very simple. How long can we continue to extract the wealth of Africa and use it for our industries, our purposes, our companies. And to do that, if it means a destruction of these countries and the increasing emergence of most regressive forces, including the Islamic forces, for instance, in Nigeria, that's OK. Nigerian people will pay a price. As long as we get Nigerian oil today, that's OK with us. So I think this is, this seems to be the rule book with which we can understand this. Otherwise, why would they be interested in really fomenting instability in Africa is not clear. And if you see this, this is something that we have the map of the American bases in Africa. We have, as you can see, the number of bases they have. They have also what are called pods by which they can shift quickly. Military forces one place another, small mobile forces which can be deployed very quickly. So they are interested in not looking at African states and how they can be made stable, how they can be economically sustaining. How do you really let these countries develop a civil society within a government within of all the people? This is a very difficult task post colonialism, but it seems to be control of the resources for how long and fighting China, that China does not get access to these resources because let's put it, Africa is hugely resource rich and it's a control over the resources that seems to bother the France and in this case the United States and that I think is a limited aim that they have. And if that means destruction of that lot of these African states they're willing to limit it. That seems to be the short term goal that they have. I don't think capital has a long term goal and this is where we are today. Thank you so much for being. The people of Sudan are set for some major protests like I mentioned on October 30th, there's going to be the March of the millions, whether they'll be able to resist the coup what is going to happen in the future. We'll be covering all of this on news click and mapping fault lines. Keep watching.