GOP Blocks Bill to Ban Arms Sales to UAE Until It Stops Arming Sudan Genocidaires
On Thursday, Senate Republican Joni Ernst (Iowa) blocked an attempt to pass a bill aimed at using U.S.’s leverage to bring an end to the genocide in Sudan by suspending arms shipments to the United Arab Emirates.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) called for unanimous consent on his bill, the Stand Up for Sudan Act, to bar the U.S. from selling or issuing a license for weapons until the White House certifies that the UAE is “not providing materiel support to the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan.”
The move comes three weeks after the Rapid Support Forces, known as the RSF, took over the Sudanese military’s last major outpost in North Darfur, the capital city of el-Fasher. The paramilitary group swept through the city searching for civilians to kill, conducting field executions and invading a hospital, killing everyone inside.
UN officials estimate that 2,000 people were killed, though other estimates have been far higher, with Darfur’s governor Minni Arko Minnawi saying that 27,000 people were killed in three days following the siege. Pools of blood and piles of bodies were so vast that they could be seen from space, researchers found. RSF forces then moved to dig mass graves to dump the bodies in, Yale University experts said, based on satellite imagery.
“They turned the city into a killing field, going house to house rounding up people to torture and murder because of their ethnicity,” said Van Hollen in remarks on the Senate floor.
“This could have been prevented. We had warning, and we could have done more to stop it — and we can still do more now to stop the ongoing genocide,” the senator went on. “We have not effectively used our leverage and influence to end the war. Because throughout this conflict, we, the United States, have continued to send weapons to the United Arab Emirates, the UAE, who we know are arming the murderous RSF.”
Ernst objected to the bill. In remarks, Ernst suggested that the potential threat from Iran that would spawn out of suspending weapons to the UAE was more pressing than the ongoing genocide in Sudan.
“Applying a blanket ban on the export of U.S. defense articles to the UAE leaves our partners in the region unequipped to deter any act of aggression and sends a message of weakness to our adversaries, like Iran and its terrorist proxies,” Enrst said, calling instead for diplomatic solutions for “stabilizing Sudan.”
Stories out of Sudan have been horrific. Survivors of the el-Fasher takeover say that they are being hunted down by the RSF after fleeing the city — with tens of thousands fleeing, but only a small fraction of them making it to the next town over, humanitarian officials have reported.
UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher said this week that Sudan is “now the epicenter of human suffering in the world,” and an “absolute horror show” as a result of the siege.
Van Hollen condemned Ernst’s move as “shameful.” “If the UAE is telling us the truth when they say that they’re not sending any of their weapons to the RSF to help fuel the genocide in Sudan, why do my colleagues protest so loudly against this measure?” he asked, pointing out that arms transfers wouldn’t be affected if the UAE were not actually backing the RSF.
“I’m very disappointed that our colleagues cannot join together in a bipartisan manner to just use a little bit of American influence to try to stop a genocide in Darfur,” he said.
Ernst’s objection comes despite widespread consensus that the RSF is committing genocide in Sudan. The State Department, under the Biden administration, declared a genocide in January. The Biden administration also confirmed that the UAE is supplying weapons to the RSF, a finding that has been supported by numerous reports and evidence from weapons found within the country.
The Trump administration has also called for withholding arms in attempts to cut off the RSF.
“Something needs to be done to cut off the weapons and the support that the RSF is getting as they continue with their advances,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio last week, per Reuters.
Rubio suggested that this would include the UAE. “We know who the parties are that are involved … that’s why they’re part of the Quad, along with other countries involved,” he said, likely referring to the U.S., Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.
President Donald Trump has also signaled interest in ending the slaughter.
“Tremendous atrocities are taking place in Sudan. It has become the most violent place on Earth and, likewise, the single biggest Humanitarian Crisis,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Wednesday, after his meeting with Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. “We will work with Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and other Middle Eastern partners to get these atrocities to end, while at the same time stabilizing Sudan.”
Trump ignores the fact that his administration has put millions of peoples’ lives at risk with his dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which last year provided 44 percent of Sudan’s humanitarian aid budget.