In a new op-ed in TIME, The Sentry’s Co-Founders George Clooney and John Prendergast write of the current conflict in Sudan: “Most significant is the failure by the international community to appreciate how stacked the incentives are in favor of those using control of the state to violently loot and repress.”
Of the two men vying for control of the country—Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan—Clooney and Prendergast add that their factions are “certainly driving Sudan into an existential death spiral over the economic spoils of state control that has been years in the making.”
Recommendations for how to address the crisis are included: “Ultimately, for peace and democracy to have a chance, international efforts should focus on making it financially painful to benefit from human suffering through war, repression, and corruption. Unless that fundamental calculus favoring violent kleptocracy is altered significantly, the Sudanese conflict will bleed on for as long as there are resources to loot.”
