Complicit in War Crimes: The US Response to the War in Sudan

By: Emma Kim

The US is complicit in the suffering currently taking place in Sudan. 

Since April of 2023, Sudan has been engulfed in a brutal civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Reports of mass violence and genocide have long been present in the conversation surrounding this conflict, and the RSF’s recent overtaking of Darfur’s only remaining city center, el-Fasher, is no exception. 

United Nations officials have been investigating claims of war crimes and genocide in Sudan since the onset of the war, repeatedly warning of escalating atrocities against civilians. Reports are circulating of rapes, mass killings, and attempts by the RSF to conceal these crimes following their hostile takeover of el-Fasher. However, a deep history of similar crimes is embedded throughout this conflict.

While both forces involved in this war have been accused of war crimes and human rights violations, the most recent violence taking place in el-Fasher is being perpetrated by the RSF. Multiple investigations have signaled that the RSF has been receiving covert financial support from the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While the UAE has repeatedly denied its involvement, evidence against them is mounting, and many Western powers are growing suspicious.

The US is a long-time trading partner of the UAE. The US recently invested $200 billion in this relationship in sectors including technology, aerospace, and oil. The US has a long history of supplying the UAE with weaponry, including fighter jets and helicopters, both prior to and during the current civil war. 

After US intelligence confirmed that the UAE had been supplying the RSF with Chinese-made weaponry including drones, many in the US government questioned whether the US should lessen its economic involvement with the UAE and its export of weaponry to the Gulf state. Despite mounting evidence of the RSF’s cruelty in Darfur, US engagement with the UAE has not stopped. 

By refusing to put pressure on the UAE to halt its support of the RSF, the US has failed the Sudanese people. Reports of war crimes and other atrocities in the region are not new, with involvement from the RSF and other groups. International organizations such as the UN are calling for intervention from nations party to this war. While the RSF has agreed to a temporary humanitarian ceasefire, this conflict should never have been allowed to reach the point it has now. 

In addition to the current violent crimes Sudanese civilians are facing, cities such as el-Fasher have been under siege for many months, resulting in mass-displacement and famine. Famine has plagued Sudan since the onset of the war, and the instability and lack of access to resources which Sudanese people had to cope with was exacerbated when the US announced drastic cuts to its international aid agency, USAID.

USAID previously provided 44% of funding for Sudan’s humanitarian response in 2024. Following the withdrawal of USAID support, over 80% of Sudanese emergency kitchens were shuttered, and many in dire medical conditions forced to go without lifesaving treatment. The removal of US support for Sudanese people in the most dangerous of humanitarian situations has resulted in great amounts of suffering which could have been prevented, or at least lessened, had the US continued to provide assistance.

This combination of cuts to USAID programs which Sudanese civilians were dependent upon for survival and the trade partnerships the US maintains with the UAE implicate the US in the horrors currently unfolding in Sudan. It is the responsibility of the US government to utilize their significant economic and political leverage among the key players in this conflict to put a stop to the suffering and cruelty facing Sudanese civilians.

America’s Foreign Aid to Other Countries Benefits Us

By: Saira Uttamchandani

During the time that President Trump has been in office for his second presidential term, his administration has paused all U.S. foreign aid, resulting in a multi-billion-dollar cut to U.S. assistance overseas. The administration has dedicated itself to “maximiz[ing] governmental efficiency and productivity,” cutting spending that it feels is unnecessary via the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

This is a shortsighted decision. 

America’s foreign aid greatly benefits other nations, as well as the American economy, security, and health. Cutting foreign aid is a mistake that harms national interests – something that all Americans should be concerned with, regardless of political affiliations.

Over the course of the 2023 fiscal year, the United States government spent 71.9 billion dollars on foreign aid, a little over 1% of the year’s total government spending. There are multiple agencies through which the United States dispenses funds, most notably the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the State Department. Since USAID’s establishment under the Kennedy administration, it has provided emergency food assistance, facilitated transitions to democracy, and helped with economic aid and stabilization in numerous countries. These causes have helped the United States economically, both directly and indirectly.

American foreign aid creates trade relationships that help grow the American economy. Over 95% of the world’s population lives outside the United States, meaning that 3 trillion dollars of U.S. GDP comes largely from American businesses selling to customers abroad. Reaching this large of a customer base requires strong relationships with other nations—relationships predicated on mutual understanding and cooperation, of which foreign aid is a big part. In fact, the vast majority of our country’s top trading partners are nations to which the United States has provided foreign aid. 

To stop fostering existing economic relationships and prevent the formation of potential new ones through distribution of foreign aid would devastate the economy. 

Additionally, cutting foreign aid allows our enemies to strengthen their relationships with other countries and gain the economic benefits that foreign aid once gave the United States. The US is the largest provider of foreign assistance, and stepping down from that role allows a competing hegemon such as China to fulfill that position and reap the economic and diplomatic benefits we once did. 

Currently, American foreign aid has a better reputation with recipient nations than Chinese and Russian foreign aid–this has happened over time due to the transparency of American aid. Thus, continuing to provide foreign assistance is an effective way for the US to maintain its image as more trustworthy than its enemies, a valuable asset in the global fight for power.

Furthermore, the American economy is heavily reliant on foreign trade. Millions of American jobs are involved. The President’s move to remove ourselves from the international practice of providing foreign aid poses a significant risk to these millions of Americans.

The relationships that foreign aid creates are also valuable beyond the economic sphere. Countries like China and Russia are not democracies. American foreign aid has helped with the democratization of the world, with practices such as fair judicial processes and media independence making other countries less vulnerable to foreign interference. This creates a safer world, as democracies are far less likely to engage in conflict with one another, and therefore more reliable allies for the United States in the fight against authoritarian regimes.

Foreign aid also contributes to disease eradication. Foreign aid has played a significant role in reducing the presence and spread of diseases such as HIV and tuberculosis through programs like the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and USAID. Spending money on foreign aid to combat diseases helps ensure they won’t reach American shores. To stop funding these efforts is to put millions of people who rely on US foreign aid for anti-viral treatment, vaccines, and other preventative measures at risk, as well as millions more due to the invigorated spread of disease. 

Therefore, rather than cutting foreign aid, President Trump should be utilizing it to increase our global competitiveness and protect American citizens and interests. Investing in foreign aid provides numerous benefits to the United States, and cutting it is a harmful mistake.

Reassessing Strategies for Foreign Aid, Lessons from Lesotho

By: Aidan Stern

In 1975, the World Bank published a report about Lesotho, a land-locked, enclave nation completely surrounded by South Africa. The bank called the country a traditional subsistence economy, devoid of modern economic development. Rapid population growth, deteriorating agricultural production, and underdeveloped industries in Lesotho forced most laborers to migrate to South Africa for work in mines to support their families. 

Fitting traditional justifications for economic intervention, development agencies working in Lesotho gained $64 million in official assistance to address the plight of the Basotho people, aLesotho ethnic group. At the time, the money amounted to $49 for every person – man, woman, or child – living in Lesotho. Development initiatives rushed to establish a cash economy and build infrastructures like roads, fenced areas, and administrative hubs in rural communities to develop a cattle industry and accumulate credit. 

Despite what seemed to be the case on paper, three years into the project, a development office had been burned down and the Canadian Officer in charge of the program was fearing for his life. In the end, the aid organizations’ projects, co-opted by the ruling Basotho National Party, were used as propaganda and manipulated to centralize the state, exerting increased control over rural areas of the country. So, what went wrong?

The aid agencies failed to articulate actual conditions in Lesotho, instead focusing on a crisis narrative. The World Bank report ran contrary to many historical conditions and practices in Lesotho. They had a long history of stockpiling and exporting crops and livestock to South Africa. Further, labor migration was not an indicator of economic stress, but rather a long-established practice, where the Basotho acted as a labor reservoir for South African mines, farms, and industry. In turn, Basothos used earnings to purchase livestock to rear and sell when they could no longer work in the physically intensive South African industries. A farming economy didn’t materialize in the area because earlier encroachments of white settlers drove Basotho people into less productive land, creating dependence on a migratory economy. 

However, Ferguson and Lohmann debunked this narrative in their book The Anti-Politics Machine. In their terms, the international development apparatus, including the World Bank and aid agencies, “[rearranged] reality” to address problems that fit into a narrative of modern development. In doing so, the apparatus ignored the context of Lesotho’s economy and politics by shifting the problem to a purely technical standpoint. Problems became centered around solutions like developing an export based livestock economy, which clashed with long-term local conceptions of livestock as a measure of wealth and investment. The mass production of livestock and privatization of public lands would lead to overgrazing and the degradation of the land that hurts pastoralists in the long run. 

Additionally, development agencies failed to realize the political context of their development efforts by solely focusing on the government as a tool for the administration of their projects. This failure led to the expansion of a bureaucratic government equipped with better infrastructure and more resources that enabled them to prevent democratic activism and gain control over local functions. 

It is important to note that foreign aid has come a long way since the 1970s, but still has a long way to go. Solutions rely on community involvement and empowerment. Initiatives like Africa’s Great Green Wall, a massive water fixation project spanning from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea to combat the expansion of the Sahara Desert, are great examples of projects which show improvements and lingering challenges with aid implementation. The project is highly ambitious, under-financed, diluted with government grift, and plagued with conflicts that prevent communities from working to replenish their land against desertification. However, there are plenty of agents facilitating conflict resolution, negotiating deals on grazing rights for pastoralists and protections for farmers among project sites. Furthermore, the UN has worked alongside the government of Chad, a partner nation in the project, to solve refugee crises by integrating refugees and host communities through joint efforts to build water harvesting structures. By focusing on the smaller project sites within the massive scale of the Great Green Wall, workers have found success enabling local communities. Luckily, the development community has been moving in the right direction, and stories of community empowerment are becoming more mainstream.

In the future, the UN and other development agencies must focus on stories of problem-solving, trust-building, and communal facilitation. True success in these initiatives originates in the people who become empowered to change their homes on their terms. As students at the University of Virginia, or anyone that reads the Virginia Journal, we have the opportunity to demand more of the organizations that work to better our and others’ lives. The first step in this is educating yourself about effective action and holding the organizations you help to a greater standard.