“We are here to call out the evil perpetrators of war crimes against innocent civilians,” said Mustafa Alijaylee, one of the organisers of the Stand With Sudan rally on November 15.
“The terrorist militia, Rapid Support Forces [RSF], is responsible for the ethnic cleansing and systematic slaughter in Darfur, Kordofan and all over Sudan. And all of this because the UAE [United Arab Emirates], a US ally, arms, protects and funds them. This beyond a shadow of doubt.
“Since October 26, in Darfur, 99,128 individuals have been displaced from El Fasher and surrounding villages. Thousands have been murdered in cold blood.”
The RSF has been waging war against the Sudanese Armed Forces since 2023. However, previously it was used by former Sudanese military dictator Omar al-Bashir to ruthlessly suppress uprisings in the Darfur region, killing an estimated 300,000 people, according to the International Criminal Court.
RSF leader Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti, has enriched himself from the RSF’s control of gold mines in Darfur and gold exports through the United Arab Emirates.
“We stand with civilians”, said Abdelah Alfaith, from the Sudanese Cultural Forum, “and we refuse to be thrown into any political alignment with any armed actor”.
“We will not be silenced and we will not be broken,” said Dr Ekhlas Nasser from the Sudanese Australian Health and Wellbeing Association. “We seek justice for Darfur, we seek justice for Sudan and we must be a voice for the voiceless.
A member of the Zaghawa community, one of the non-Arab communities especially targeted by the RSF’s genocidal massacres, said in an emotional speech: “We need a just peace, not a peace over our corpses.”
The rally, which was organised by a broad coalition of Sudanese community groups, urged the Labor government to call for an immediate ceasefire and the opening of a humanitarian corridor to allow those fleeing the genocide to get to safety.
It also called on Labor to raise its humanitarian support to Sudan and welcome more Sudanese refugees.
Peter Boyle, from the Socialist Alliance, told the rally: “It is not enough for the Australian government to speak out against genocide; it must stop arming the genocide.”
He explained that the Australian government had granted more than 257 military export licences to the UAE in the last eight years, as part of its drive to become one of the world’s top 10 arms exporters.