Sudanese writer and political researcher Awab Azzam Al-Boushi has issued a scathing analysis arguing that the “foreign conspiracy” narrative adopted by Sudan’s Islamists was never just a slogan, but “the biggest deception in Sudan’s history” and “a full project designed to conceal a major crime”.
In an article published in Al-Taghyeer newspaper, Al-Boushi describes how the Islamist movement turned the “conspiracy myth” into a tool for paralysing public awareness since the 1990s. Its purpose, he said, was to turn Sudan into a closed arena where conflicts could be managed and resources exploited while blame was directed outward at the rest of the world.
According to Al-Boushi, the most dangerous part of the story is that the Islamists themselves were the ones provoking crises with neighbouring countries, supporting extremist groups and engaging in destabilising activities, then using the resulting chaos as “proof” that the world was plotting against Sudan.
He argued that the conspiracy narrative served as a cover for major crimes and disastrous policies, including the dismantling of the civil service, the creation of a parallel state, using the army for partisan agendas, forced disappearances, torture, political assassinations, gold smuggling and shadowy foreign financing networks.
Al-Boushi noted that this psychological strategy fed on fear, convincing citizens that criticising the regime was an act of treason. This approach, he said, transformed repression into a patriotic duty, framed the destruction of state institutions as a defence of sovereignty and portrayed the plundering of resources as resistance to colonialism.
He warned that this fear machine is reactivating amid the current war, with the conspiracy narrative being repackaged to undermine serious peace efforts, just as it previously targeted Volker and is now being used against Paulus.
Al-Boushi concluded with a clear message: “If Sudanese people want to know where the disaster began, they do not need to look beyond the country’s borders, they only need to look at the thirty years of lies, entrenchment and ruin carried by one name, the conspiracy myth.”
