Biden won’t point to the real culprit in the Sudanese genocide

A crowd of Sudanese refugees from the Darfur region jostle in line to receive food during an impromptu aid distribution on the outskirts of Adre refugee camp, Chad, July 8, 2024. The United States just formally declared that genocide has taken place in the northeast African nation, but has refused to hold the United Arab Emirates accountable for its role in the slaughter, columnist Nicholas Kristof writes. (Ivor Prickett/The New York Times)

By Nicholas Kristof

It’s good news that the Biden administration has formally determined that genocide has been committed in Sudan. But the move raises the question: Why are President Joe Biden and his aides reluctant to hold a crucial culprit accountable?

Secretary of State Antony Blinken made the welcome announcement about the genocide determination on Tuesday, asserting that a militia called the Rapid Support Forces has targeted women for rape and slaughtered children and infants, all based on the ethnicity of the victims. The atrocities are indisputable. In September, I reported from the Chad-Sudan border on this campaign of mass murder and rape, in which the Rapid Support Forces attacked villages of non-Arab tribes and went door to door, killing men and boys and raping women and girls. Other journalists and human rights groups have found the same patterns.

Blinken announced that the United States would impose sanctions on the leader of the Rapid Support Forces and seven companies the militia owns in the United Arab Emirates. “The United States is committed to holding accountable those responsible for these atrocities,” Blinken said.

Yet the announcement refused to hold accountable the UAE itself. There is overwhelming evidence, including in reporting by my newsroom colleagues at The New York Times, that the UAE has provided the Rapid Support Forces with the weaponry that enables its mass slaughter and mass rape.

Biden’s failure to call out the UAE in strong terms for fueling these mass atrocities seems a reflection of his belief in quiet diplomacy, and it matches his efforts to restrain Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in the Gaza Strip. Mass suffering continues in Sudan and Gaza alike because leaders appear to have learned that they can ignore Biden when all he offers is carrots and no sticks.

The UAE is not a rogue state. It is a major player in the world that cares about its image. International criticism led it to pull out of a disastrous war in Yemen, and it will weigh the benefits it gets from supporting a genocidal militia in Sudan — income from gold smuggling and influence in postwar Sudan — against the cost to its global reputation. Biden’s failure to speak up about the UAE seems likely to leave more ordinary Sudanese dying in the atrocities his administration rightly condemns.