Bulletins and News Discussion from February 26th to March 3rd, 2024 - Breaking The Siege Of Omdurman - COTW: Sudan
Bulletins and News Discussion from February 26th to March 3rd, 2024 - Breaking The Siege Of Omdurman - COTW: Sudan
The war in Sudan has so far been marked by a lot of incompetency and mismanagement by government forces (the SAF). After months of bitter fighting, in late 2023, the opposing Rapid Support Forces suddenly expanded their control towards the southeast of Khartoum after not a lot of resistance, most notably taking the city of Wad Madani. This led the SAF supporters and officials to panic and point fingers at each other about what the hell the army is even doing, while RSF soldiers looted the city.
These victories led to a short period in late December and early January where diplomacy and peace talks were considered, but such attempts fell apart. The leader of the RSF visited various African countries, including meeting Paul Kagame in Rwanda, to boost his legitimacy. Then, the RSF attacked into South Kordofan and consolidated their hold on other areas.
The Sudanese capital of Khartoum sits on a river which divides it from the city to its west, Omdurman (see the post image). The SAF and RSF have been fighting over this grand urban area for the whole war, with the RSF holding most of Khartoum (with an entirely cut-off SAF force holding on in the center), with a similarly cut-off SAF force also in eastern Omdurman, up against the river. For 10 months, this force has been under siege - but no longer. In perhaps the first actual W of the war for the SAF, they finally managed to break the siege a week ago, pouring supplies in. This leaves a section of the RSF now cut off, though Omdurman is still not under full SAF control (and, who knows, the whole situation could once again go badly for the SAF).
Meanwhile, the Sudanese socioeconomic situation has completely collapsed, with potentially a 20% fall in GDP and 8 million people displaced, with 2 million from Khartoum alone. 18 million Sudanese, or about a third of the population, is in acute hunger, and 20 million children are out in school. The refugees streaming out of the country are causing knock-on effects in neighorboring countries like Chad. Nobody is even really counting the dead anymore.
Red is the government forces, the SAF. Blue is the RSF opposition. Other colours are various factions.
The Country of the Week is Sudan! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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Last week's thread is here.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
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Happening today: https://skwawkbox.org/2024/03/01/starmer-challenger-calls-for-new-left-mass-movement-outside-labour-party/
Starmer challenger calls for new left mass movement outside Labour Party
Former ANC MP and arms trade campaigner will address activists from around UK tomorrow at Collective launch – and poses real threat to friend-of-genocide ‘Labour’ leader
spoiler
Andrew Feinstein, former ANC MP under Nelson Mandela and leading critic of the global arms trade, will use a speech this weekend to endorse a new political alliance billed as the foundation of the first organised mass movement of the left outside of the Labour Party.
Feinstein’s speech will be the centrepiece of a conference called by dozens of former Labour councillors and other independent candidates. The event will take place in ‘Labour’ leader Keir Starmer’s home constituency of Holborn and St Pancras in London.
Feinstein, who has lived in the constituency for more than two decades since moving to the UK, has already signalled his willingness to stand against Starmer as an independent candidate and has been selected as candidate by the OCISA anti-Starmer group, attracting a groundswell of support both locally and nationally.
Local campaigners say there is real vulnerability in Starmer’s majority, established under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the party, especially given the controversies embroiling Labour over the war in Gaza. Starmer looks even more vulnerable after yesterday’s landslide victory for Workers Party GB leader George Galloway in Rochdale and the collapse of Labour’s vote from over 50% to less than 8%, with Starmer’s support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza a major driver.
The new movement – dubbed ‘Collective’ – has been established following months of deliberation amongst grassroots campaign groups and prospective independent candidates for both council and parliamentary elections. Though it is not establishing a new party in time to contest this year’s election, it intends to do so onceit has grown a mass membership base.
Feinstein said:
It’s not just Labour Party members who were the victims of Starmer’s entirely fictitious campaign for leadership of the party. The people of Holborn and St Pancras also elected him twice on a socialist platform under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. Having lived in the constituency for over 20 years, I’ve been overwhelmed by the support and strength of feeling amongst local communities – and across the country – who are crying out for a response to the deeply corrupt, anti-democratic and out of touch Labour Party under Starmer. Under his leadership, the party has now completely abandoned working people and marginalised communities in an escalating effort to out-Tory the Tories.
But this election must do more than just provide an alternative to the pro-genocide, pro-austerity Sunak-Starmer circus. It must also mark the beginnings of a new mass movement of working people that can challenge the Westminster bubble once and for all. That’s why I’m proud to be joining Collective which is uniting sections of the left and will eventually transform into a new political party backed by an organised and democratic movement.
Collective spokesperson Pamela Fitzpatrick, independent candidate for Harrow West:
Our political system – and now the Labour Party itself – is fundamentally anti-democratic and rigged against new parties, especially on the left. The only way to address this is to build a mass movement outside of the Labour Party as a foundation for a new political party that is truly free of vested interests and which can offer a real alternative to the pro-austerity and pro-war two party system. All around the country, independent candidates have and are coming forward to fight this election on a common platform calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, a real pay rise and decent housing for all, higher taxes for the rich, an end to privatisation of the NHS, and an end to unnecessary and unjust war. That is the foundation which Collective will build on, and eventually transform into a political party that will change the face of British politics.
Peter Oborne also wrote a glowing profile of Feinstein a couple of weeks ago, which was interesting. It seems they know each other.
Mmm I'm not saying I trust this one. Just a developing effort that we should keep an eye on.
I have my suspicions that this is a liberal effort to create a whole new bourgeoise party as a rescue project, competing with any socialist projects that aim to destroy labour. The goal would be to essential create a new labour party altogether under a different name but with exactly the same outcomes.
We'll see though. I know nothing about it at the moment. Judgement reserved.
I wasn't suggesting that seemingly having Peter Oborne's admiration was necessarily sinister, since despite being a small-C-conservative one-nation Tory type he is undeniably good (for the UK and the press) on the issues of Islamophobia, Israel, foreign policy, and the escalating fascism in British politics.
I can't vouch for Feinstein. I've not met him and don't know enough about his personal politics beyond anti-aparthied efforts. And you're almost certainly right about a new bourgeois Labour party likely being far from revolutionary, if one can even come into any significance. But I do find it interesting that there's some cross-traditional party support there, at least from some of the (now) outsiders of the increasingly narrow and dangeroud establishment consensus. It makes me more optimistic that there is room for th Tories/Labour to be flanked from multiple angles in order to try and break that establishment consensus.
Perhaps it's a dark sign of how bad it's gotten that the former political editor of the Telegraph is now supporting an attempt to unseat the leader of the Labour Party from the left(?) and that I'd be willing to do a little electoralism even if just to probe for weaknesses in the system and out of hatred for the Labour Party.
Perhaps it's a dark sign of how bad it's gotten that the former political editor of the Telegraph is now supporting an attempt to unseat the leader of the Labour Party from the left(?) and that I'd be willing to do a little electoralism even if just to probe for weaknesses in the system and out of hatred for the Labour Party.
I think the a certain faction of the right is well aware of how dangerous the situation is for capitalism if the left successfully makes a breakaway under the current conditions. They're scared because the conditions are unstable and unpredictable.
This "steer the ship" faction are likely trying to recreate stable and controlled conditions. The left looks weak electorally right now but on the ground we have enormous clout due to Palestine and cost of living. They will be very concerned that this could turn into something.