Activists call for UAE boycott over its backing for the RSF in Sudan
As the United Arab Emirates’ involvement in the war in Sudan is increasingly scrutinised, Sudanese diaspora-led groups are calling for consumer boycotts against the Gulf state, accusing it of fuelling the conflict and complicity in genocide.
Journalists, human rights groups and UN experts have increasingly uncovered the role of the UAE in materially backing the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group that has a record of sexual violence, war crimes and ethnically motivated killings.
Experts and human rights organisations have also uncovered the UAE’s widespread access to land, minerals and livestock in Sudan, enabled by its relationship with the RSF.
The United States has accused the RSF of committing genocide in the western region of Darfur and sanctioned its leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemeti.
Earlier this month, the Sudanese government took the UAE to the International Court of Justice, accusing it of violating the Genocide Convention. The UAE denies it provides the RSF with weapons and other means of support.
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Nas Al Sudan, an organisation that leads advocacy work and mutual aid campaigns, notes that the UAE’s involvement in the war and its extraction of resources in Sudan is an issue that has plagued the country and region in recent years.
“I think that it’s one that’s very much played out throughout Africa. Sudan and Sudanese people in general have known for years that their resources are not kept within the nation,” an activist from the group, who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons, told Middle East Eye.
However, the activist added that the boycott strategy has become more prominent as the conflict has worsened, emerging at “grassroots and ad hoc” bases.
Much of this, they explained, has to do with the fact that at the beginning of the war in April 2023, when the RSF and Sudanese army began fighting over plans to merge the paramilitaries into the military, Sudanese diaspora groups were more occupied with questions like “how do I get my family out? How do I make sure that people are safe?”
Two years into the conflict, which has killed thousands and displaced over 12.5 million Sudanese, boycott calls are mounting, although activists face ongoing challenges.
Tasneem and Rania, activists who asked for their surnames to not be mentioned for safety reasons, work with London for Sudan and Madaniya, youth-led groups leading advocacy and community support for Sudanese communities in the UK.
'Sudan and Sudanese people in general have known for years that their resources are not kept within the nation'
- Nas Al Sudan activist
One notable campaign they work on is Action for Sudan, which calls for Arsenal Football Club to end its sponsorship deal with Emirates, the Dubai airline.
Their work includes going to football matches and talking to people who have purchased season tickets for years, “but may not know the implications of what their money is going to”.
Activists have also called for the UAE’s gold exports to be targeted.
The UAE is the world’s second-largest exporter of gold, much of which is believed to have been extracted from Sudan, where several mines are controlled by the RSF.
“That’s the trade-off of being supplied the weapons,” Rania told MEE.
The campaigners also focus on travel, calling for boycotts of Emirati airlines such as Fly Dubai, Emirates and Etihad.
The Macklemore effect
Ghaida Hamdun, a founder of the Instagram-based For Sudanese Liberation, recently co-founded the Defund the UAE (DFUAE) initiative. She told MEE a major target of the campaign is making sure that people are “just not going” to the UAE, a popular tourism and business destination.
Hamdun was amongst the activists who campaigned extensively on social media to pressure rapper Macklemore to cancel his Dubai show last year.
The American musician, who has been vocal in his support for Palestine since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, cancelled his concert in August “in solidarity with the people of Sudan and to boycott doing business in the UAE”.
His widely read social media statement was edited by Sudanese activists, including Hamdun.
“At the moment there was a lot of hype,” Hamdun said.
However, despite what she described as a “domino effect” of increased awareness on social media, she added that “with things like this, it’s like people kind of forget and move on”.
'Luxury hub' of the Middle East
Part of what makes the boycott campaign work so challenging, Hamdun explained, has to do with the perception of the UAE as the “luxury hub of the Middle East”.
“It’s become quite a big thing for people to put Dubai on a pedestal,” Tasneem added.
She said that people are unwilling to engage with “the tangible effects of allowing the UAE to build its stature in that way”.
This image, Rania noted, is met with a sense of “denialism” and an uneasiness around boycotting a non-western country, which is why “people feel really uncomfortable when I bring up what the UAE is doing”.
On 10 April, Sudan laid out its oral arguments in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), formally accusing the UAE of complicity in genocide.
Tasneem described the move as a “step in the right direction” but pointed to the limitations of international law.
In January 2024, the ICJ ruled that Israel was plausibly conducting genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and issued several orders aimed at limiting its onslaught on the enclave.
And in July, the world’s top court also ruled that occupation of Palestinian territories was unlawful and that its “near-complete separation” of people in the occupied West Bank breached international laws concerning “racial segregation” and “apartheid”.
“What has been the tangible effect for the Palestinians who are in Gaza, who are in the West Bank?” Tasneem asked.
Despite this, Rania said that she hoped that the awareness generated by the ICJ case can have an effect on normal people, as their understanding of the UAE’s role in the war increases.
A 'proxy war'
Ultimately, activists say that one of the primary hurdles to gaining sufficient support comes down to the framing of the issue.
Hamdun said Sudan is ignored is because it is “painted as a civil war” by the media and public eye.
“This is a proxy war. This is a war that is funded by outside forces and that would not be able to continue to this extent without those forces,” she said.
Sudanese are also affected by racist attitudes in the West.
“There’s unfortunately some sort of ‘this is Africa’ mentality, that this is ‘just poor African people dying’,” Rania said.
According to the the activist with Nas Al Sudan, a “mindset shift” is needed for the call for boycotts to work.
“If people don’t care about the level of death and destruction, they are never going to care about what their level of complicity is.”
They added that Sudanese people are largely left to organise for themselves, risking retaliation and a lack of support.
“Maybe if you were to see other groups of people who are not Sudanese advocating alongside Sudanese people, you’d probably see a much stronger reaction to the boycott movement,” they said.
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