Biden criticized for not foreseeing Sudan crisis by both parties.

Rival Generals Battle for Supremacy in Sudan

U.S. State Department Caught Flatfooted

Republican and Democratic senators alleged during a May 10 hearing on “options for an effective policy response” to the unfolding catastrophe in Sudan that the only people surprised that rival generals were marshaling forces to battle for supremacy were the U.S. State Department and its Africa desk. As a result, confusion and delay in organizing evacuations of U.S. citizens occurred when fighting exploded on April 15 in Khartoum between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

The chaotic departures of more than 700 Americans on British, French, German, and Saudi aircraft in the days after the violence erupted and the April 28–29 departure of another 600 U.S. citizens in overland convoys to Egypt prompted several lawmakers to reference another recent evacuation many say the Biden administration bungled.

Senators Express Concerns

“It seems to me that the Biden administration was caught flatfooted, similar to the way it was in Afghanistan,” Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) said during the two-hour hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“After seeing what we saw in Afghanistan, I think the American public is shocked,” said Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), a former U.S. ambassador to Japan. “My office is hearing a great deal of concern about American citizens who are left behind.”

State Department Responds

But Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Assistant Administrator Sarah Charles told the committee there is no comparison between the situation that unfolded in Kabul and what is happening in Khartoum. The only Americans they are aware of “left behind” are those who want to remain in the embattled country, Nuland said.

“In total, we evacuated 2,000 people—the majority of whom are our citizens and their family members, along with” more than 70 embassy staff, Nuland said. “So, whether U.S. citizens left aboard a Saudi, Canadian, French, British, or any other flagged carrier, we helped coordinate every transport that included known U.S. citizens.”

Sanctions Questioned

Among those disputed policies was not imposing personal sanctions on the warring generals who had worked together in April 2019 to end the 30-year reign of dictator Omar al-Bashir in a popular revolt, before al-Burhan then deposed a transition government in October 2021. The late 2021 coup set the stage for what proved to be 18 months of fruitless negotiations among the army, the RSF, the United States, the United Nations, and the African Union, as well as regional nations such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates that preceded the eruption of gunfire on April 15.

The administration “fell short of the challenge” and “refused to call a coup a coup” in 2021 by not sanctioning the generals, Menendez said. It was “legitimizing and entrenching those with guns.”

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) agreed, adding that the State Department should have sanctioned both generals in the span between October 2021 and April 2023, especially Hemedti, whom he called “a war criminal” guilty of atrocities in Darfur two decades ago and was allowed “to build his power base in Sudan.”

State Department Responds

Nuland said the focus is now on sustaining the “sixth or seventh” ceasefire and getting aid shipments idling in the Port of Sudan delivered to the 10 million Sudanese in danger of starving while talks between al-Burhan and Hemedti, which began May 6 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, continue. While it’s a good plan, Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho) said, it should have been an actual plan instead of a reaction to “a humanitarian catastrophe in Sudan that was predictable.”

The State Department “should have done more to warn our citizens and position our diplomats” to quickly arrange negotiations, he said. “This was a predictable scenario that we all saw unfolding. We’ve seen this movie before.”

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