Since gaining independence in 1991, Ukraine's political and trade dialogue with Sudan over the years has been episodic and lacked consistency. Although diplomatic relations commenced in June 1992, Sudan opened an embassy only two years ago, and Kyiv still covers Khartoum with a consulate office branched off of its higher diplomatic level embassy in Egypt.
Currently, bilateral relations are undergoing a lapse stemming from Sudan being among 11 countries that in March 2014 voted against a United Nations resolution declaring a referendum in Crimea as invalid, said Oleksandr Mishyn, co-founder of the Center for African Studies.
During Leonid Kuchma’s two terms as president in 1994-2005, Ukraine mostly exported arms, armor and tanks to Africa’s third biggest nation. Overall trade turnover has intensified over the years rising to nearly $80 million last year from $69 million in 2009 when Viktor Yushchenko was president.
Many Sudanese are familiar with Ukraine. The majority of students who enrolled in foreign universities in the 1960s-1980s studied in Ukraine. There are currently 291 Sudanese university students in Ukraine, according to the Foreign Ministry. In turn, what few industrial sites are located in Africa’s third biggest nation, were built by Ukrainian engineers and manufacturing technicians. Antonov maintenance technicians are also employed there.
Ukraine’s consulate also runs a cultural center in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, which provides educational information to women married to Sudanese men. It also provides information to aspiring students wishing to enroll in Ukrainian universities.
“The majority study medicine and engineering,” Ruslan Harbar, vice president of the Ukrainian African Research Center told the Kyiv Post.
Yet protracted civil war and conflict dating to the 1950s, including a U.N. trade embargo and economic sanctions by the U.S. and European Union have made doing business with the Islamic-oriented government “highly risky,” Ukraine’s foreign ministry told the Kyiv Post in an emailed comment.
Ethnic and religious differences as well as over water and oil resources have fueled conflict in the east African country. This has led to the International Criminal Court issuing a warrant for the arrest of Sudanese President Hassan Ahmad Al Bashir for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.
Kyiv has participated in U.N. peacekeeping missions there as well. In 2005, Yushchenko signed a decree to deploy 40 Ukrainian troops to Sudan to join more than 10,700 U.N. troops that were stationed there.
Since 2012, Ukraine has sent six peacekeepers to the Abyei area that attempted to break away from the Khartoum government by holding a referendum in October 2013. Four Ukrainian peacekeepers are also stationed in South Sedan, according to Ukraine’s Defense Ministry.
Sanctions have been gradually lifted since the government in Khartoum recognized the independence of South Sudan in 2011 when it became the world’s newest country and where some 80 percent of the country’s former oil fields were located.
During this period, two high-level delegations visited in 2012-2013 to speak with representatives of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych’s administration. They explored the purchase of five Antonov aircraft worth about $100 million and the launching of a satellite that parliament didn’t ratify, according to Harbar. There were also talks for Ukraine to upgrade pipelines and deliver new rail carriages. None of the deals were completed.
Human rights watchdog Amnesty International also accused Ukraine during this period of aggravating the Sudanese conflict by supplying military weapons to both South Sudanese Armed Forces and opposition groups in 2012.
Earlier, investigative reports by the BBC and New York Times discovered that Ukraine in 2008 had sent a freighter with 32 Soviet-era battle tanks and other weapons intended for South Sudan. It was captured by Somali pirates who released documents indicating South Sudan, not yet an independent state, as the ultimate recipient. Kenya, which was allegedly supposed to be the recipient and re-exporter of the cache, as well as the Ukrainian government, denied the arrangement.
As recent as last year, Ukraine delivered 830 light and 62 heavy machine guns to the Republic of Sudan, according the annual U.N. Register of Conventional Arms.
Apart from sharing conflict as a common trait, Ukraine and Sudan both act as geographical bridges. Bordering seven countries, Sudan ships oil from the Red Sea produced in the Unity Oil Field largely run by its new southern neighbor via pipelines. Transit price disputes persist with South Sudan.
Still, Sudan wants stable and peaceful relations with its neighbor.
“It is very much in the interest of Sudan to have thriving neighbors, especially South Sudan, because it would be translated into good progress for Sudan as well,” Anas Eltayeb Elgailani Mustafa, the Sudanese ambassador to Ukraine, said in an emailed comment. “That is why Sudan supports the cause of peace in South Sudan wholeheartedly, urging persistently to divert our meager resources from warfare to welfare.”
A testament for the potential of political and trade dialogue making headway is the opening of the Sudanese embassy in Kyiv two years ago, the ambassador added.
The Ukrainian experts on Africa with whom the Kyiv Post spoke, including Harbar and Mishyn, said Ukraine should do more in the continent politically. If it wants to open up more export markets for its industries, setting up trade offices and free-trade deals would be a good start.
Kyiv Post editor Mark Rachkevych can be reached at [email protected].
