A SENIOR figure in the political wing of an African paramilitary accused of genocide is attending an official UK Government event in Britain, it has emerged.
Nasredeen Abdulbari, who is linked to the brutal Sudanese Rapid Support Forces (RSF), will speak at a “discreet” event at Wilton Park, a Foreign Office venue for international talks in England.
He is a “core” member of the leadership council of Tasis, a rival government to the official Sudanese administration, which is a coalition between the RSF and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North.
The event, which runs from Wednesday to Friday this week, was described by a Foreign Office source as an opportunity to “bring political actors across the scene” together to promote dialogue about the future of the war-torn African country.
His inclusion has sparked outrage from those who have accused the RSF of committing genocide in Sudan, specifically the 18-month siege at El-Fasher against the non-Arab population.
Amgad Fareid Eltayeb, an adviser to Sudan’s army-backed Transitional Sovereignty Council, told Middle East Eye – which first reported Abdulbari’s presence – accused the UK Government of “hiding something” by keeping details of the event under wraps.
Middle East Eye uncovered the event despite it not being advertised on Wilton Park’s public channels and sources told the site it was intended to be a “discreet” meeting.
Fareid Eltayeb said: “We saw a lot of statements from the US and UK governments showing concern about what the RSF would do if they took El-Fasher.
“It's the same rhetoric we still hear, the same talk … But while the British government is echoing concern about possible crimes committed by the RSF, a possible genocide committed by the RSF, they have invited RSF affiliates to England to discuss the future of Sudan.
"Anything that needs to be discreet is hiding something that makes it necessary for it to be discreet.”
The UK Government has been accused of prioritising its relationship with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – thought to back the RSF – over upholding human rights in Sudan.
The National understands that representatives from the UAE were not invited to the event.
However, Sudan’s army-backed government told the Middle East Eye that it had no representatives at the conference.
Nathaniel Raymond, an American human rights investigator at Yale University, claimed last month that the UK received intelligence that Ethiopia was supporting the RSF in the civil war but did not go public with the news for fear of upsetting the emirates.
A UN fact-finding mission reported in February that the siege of El-Fasher bore “the hallmarks of genocide” as it described how non-Arabs were targeted as the RSF imposed starvation on the population, blocked aid and perpetrated mass killings, rape and torture.
Abdulbari is a former Sudanese justice minister who later joined Tasis.
Anette Hoffmann, an expert on Sudan at the Clingendale Institute think tank in the Netherlands, previously told Al-Jazeera that Tasis was “the RSF’s latest desperate attempt to rebrand itself as a state authority rather than a militia”.
She added: “Yet all their actions have continued to prove the opposite. While announcing their government […] RSF forces and their allies were besieging entire state capitals and starving innocent civilians.”
Abdulbari also serves as a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Project for Middle East Integration.
British arms have been found on the killing fields of Sudan, and the value of UK arms exports to the UAE in the last three years is £422 million, according to Middle East Eye.
The Atlantic Council was approached for comment. The National has attempted to contact Abdulbari for comment.
