THERE is a proxy war taking place in Sudan and, from the recent rhetoric from the warmongering United States, another about to begin in Nigeria.

The result of these proxy wars is that Africans are being murdered in massive numbers and in double quick time for the much-sought-after minerals that they walk on.

In truth, the rare earth minerals craved by the West and their client Middle East and African regimes are being removed and African bodies buried in their place.

In Sudan, in the red corner we have the country’s military, backed by Egypt and Saudi Arabia, both completely in the pocket of the US. Of course both Egypt and the Saudis deny any involvement.

In the blue corner of the so-called civil war that began in April 2023, we have the Rapid Support Forces supported by the United Arab Emirates.

Again, both the RSF and the UAE deny the latter’s being involved in the fighting. But the evidence of UAE involvement is overwhelming.

The recent condemnation by the US of UAE involvement in Sudan rings extremely hollow — as if they have nothing to do with it or knew nothing about it. Neither of these scenarios is credible.

Earlier this year the UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan welcomed US President Donald Trump to the UAE where the two sides agreed to establish the “US-UAE AI Acceleration Partnership” framework to further bolster co-operation around critical technologies.

The UAE, for good measure, also announced plans to invest $1.4 trillion (£1.07trn) in the US over the next 10 years.

Business deals of such magnitude far outweigh any concerns that the US might have about the deaths of Africans in Sudan.

Meanwhile, analysis of satellite images by the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Laboratory appears to reveal mass graves being dug by the RSF.

The dramatic images mean that the level of bloodshed carried out could be witnessed from space. The RSF has, not surprisingly, denied the accusations.

But this article is not about taking sides. As far as I’m concerned the two direct participants in the proxy war are two cheeks of the same arse.

They were both responsible for halting the 2019 people’s revolution in Sudan that ousted the far-too-long-serving president Omar al-Bashir.

Huge popular street protests sparked a coup by the army to remove Bashir. But the joint military-civilian government was itself overthrown by another coup in October 2021, led by the two men at the centre of the current proxy war, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of the armed forces, and RSF leader General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.

The two generals soon fell out, plunging Sudan into what the UN is calling the world’s biggest humanitarian disaster.

There is famine in West Darfur, to add to the evidence of genocide in el-Fasher after it was recently captured by the RSF.

At least 150,000 people have died in the proxy war and around 12 million people have been forced to flee from their homes.

Those homes in the areas occupied by the UAE proxy RSF sit on top of huge amounts of gold.

Sudan is Africa’s third-largest gold producer. At the heart of this trade is gold-smuggling and the need for both sides to find buyers for gold and determine gold export routes.

Sudan also has deposits of natural gas, silver, chromite, manganese, gypsum, mica, zinc, uranium, and other rare earth elements.

The need to secure fresh and more stable sources of rare earth elements has been brought into stark relief after the Chinese stood up to the US in the trade war unleashed by the Trump administration against the rest of the world.

China leads the world with around 60 per cent of global rare earth elements (REE) production and nearly 90 per cent of its refining capability.

This has forced the US to look for alternative sources of REEs.

Nigeria is already known for its vast oil and gas reserves, something that will always interest the energy-hungry US. But it has also become a nation of interest for its equally important REEs.

The REEs are critical for everything from the powerful magnets in electric vehicles and wind turbines to the intricate components in smartphones, advanced medical devices, and, particularly important for the warmongering US, for sophisticated defence systems.

While Nigeria’s rare earth industry is still in its early stages, the country’s diverse geological landscape marks it out as a place of immense interest.

Securing a stable supply of these elements is a geopolitical imperative for the US.

So on November 1, US President Donald Trump threatened military action against Nigeria as he alleged the west African nation was allowing persecution of Christians and that it needed to do far more to wipe out Islamist terrorism in the country.

There is, of course, no evidence to suggest that Nigeria is persecuting Christians.

Nigeria’s population of 220 million is split almost equally between Christians and Muslims. The country has long faced insecurity from groups such as the Boko Haram terrorist group.

There are religiously motivated attacks targeting both Christians and Muslims as well as clashes between farmers and herders over dwindling resources.

While Christians are among those targeted, analysts have shown that the majority of victims of armed groups are Muslims in Nigeria’s Muslim-majority north, where most attacks occur.

But why let details like that get in the way of a grab for resources and securing the geopolitical interests of the US?

We shouldn’t take this as a new US interest. Back in 1974, a now declassified policy paper was drafted that shaped decades of US engagement with Nigeria.

National Security Study Memorandum 200 (NSSM 200), commissioned by then secretary of state and war criminal Henry Kissinger, identified Nigeria as one of 13 key countries whose growing population and resource wealth could have an impact on US economic and security interests.

At the time, Nigeria’s population, now more than 200 million, was just over 60 million. The report projected the rapid population growth and warned of possible instability diverting resources toward domestic needs and reducing the flow of vital commodities, mainly oil at the time, to the US.

The solution proposed was to use foreign aid, health programmes, and development partnerships to promote fertility reduction and slow population growth in Nigeria.

The plan aimed for a smaller, weaker Nigeria that was easier to influence, easier to bargain with, and less able to challenge foreign control of its oil, minerals and other markets.

There is more I will say about these issues in later features but for now I just make the point that the resources available in Nigeria to grow Western capital have long been on the US radar.

What is also clear is that the lives of Africans are marginal to the interests of Western capitalism led by the US.

Whether it’s condoning a proxy war in Sudan or threatening a military intervention in Nigeria, only profits and the maintenance of the military machine to safeguard their markets matter to them.

The US is clearly at the heart of the proxy wars being promoted in Africa. Our job is to expose and organise against them.