While the US administration is pushing for the involvement of Sudanese civilians in the political process, Egypt remains opposed to this approach and insists on excluding any civilian representation in the future settlement of the Sudanese crisis.
The question that begs itself is:
Why does Egypt insist on excluding civilians from the equation of governance in Sudan?
The answer is simple:
Because it is the biggest beneficiary of the continuation of war and chaos. The Egyptian intelligence officer’s mindset sees a stable, secure, and democratic Sudan as a strategic threat to Cairo’s interests and even a potential source of inspiration for neighboring peoples, foremost among them the Egyptian people.
This logic was clearly evident in Egypt’s handling of the Renaissance Dam issue, when Cairo adopted three successive scenarios to stop the project:
1. Direct military strike: aimed at destroying the dam but failed due to Ethiopian defenses and international opposition.
2. Creating chaos in Ethiopia: This involved supporting the Tigray Front with weapons and training via Khartoum, with the aim of overthrowing the regime of Abiy Ahmed, but it collapsed after the failure of the rebellion and the cohesion of the Ethiopian government.
3. Transferring the battle to Sudan: By turning it into a permanent arena of regional conflict and disrupting any democratic transition within it.
The third scenario began with the weakening of Abdullah Hamdok’s government and support for the Islamist movement, leading to the coup of October 25, 2021, which came with a statement almost identical to that of Sisi in his coup against the Egyptian revolution of January 25.
Then Cairo moved within a well-thought-out plan:
It opened highways and desert roads to connect northern Sudan, rich in raw materials, with Egyptian factories that continued to export products to Europe and the Gulf. It supported the Kizan army with airstrikes that destroyed bridges and factories in Khartoum and Bahri, under the pretext of “eliminating the rebellion.”
It built new ports on the Red Sea near Port Sudan to paralyze Sudanese ports and divert national trade across the border under the eyes of criminal militia army officers, making it faster and cheaper to transport containers through Egyptian ports and re-enter them by land than to import them through Sudanese ports.
The results:
Huge gains for Egypt at the expense of Sudanese blood:
Egypt obtained Sudan’s share of Nile water without being affected by the filling and operation of the Renaissance Dam, contrary to all international warnings. The Egyptian pound stabilized temporarily, thanks to Sudanese gold smuggled across the open border with the help of the Kizan military.
The number of displaced persons from the war in Egypt exceeded seven million. Egypt receives $10,000 from the United Nations for each displaced person for medicine, food, treatment, and shelter. There is not a single refugee camp in Egypt.
Instead, all Sudanese live and receive treatment at their own expense and face humiliation and abuse at the hands of the Egyptian authorities and the Sudanese embassy in Cairo.
As a result of the transfer of financial wealth and the plundering of Sudan’s resources to the northern state, Egypt has seen a boom in real estate, small industries, trade, services, medical tourism, and education, to the extent that government tuition fees in some colleges have risen from $300 to $8,000 per academic year.
Exports of smuggled gold jumped with open mining within Sudanese territory, making Egypt one of the largest exporters of the precious metal in Africa, despite its lack of gold mines.
Thus, the war in Sudan was not merely an internal conflict, but a geopolitical card that Egypt played to achieve its strategic interests, amid international silence and regional collusion.
Will the Sudanese people alone pay the price of death, hunger, and displacement for Cairo’s imperialist ambitions?
