Showing posts with label Elbagir. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elbagir. Show all posts

Saturday, July 30, 2022

Russia cuts its gas supply to Germany & Latvia and plunders gold in Sudan to boost Putin's war in Ukraine

NOTE from Sudan Watch Editor: According to these two reports by BBC News 27 July and 30 July gas prices are soaring as Russia cuts its supply to Germany, Gazprom has stopped Latvia's gas in latest Russian cut to EU. 

Read more followed by CNN's exclusive report, video and images entitled "Russia is plundering gold in Sudan to boost Putin's war effort in Ukraine".
From BBC News - excerpts from the first version published Wed 27 July 2022 entitled:
Gas prices soar as Russia cuts German supply
Gas prices have soared after Russia further cut gas supplies to Germany and other central European countries after threatening to earlier this week.
European gas prices are up almost 2% trading above an earlier all-time high after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Russian energy firm Gazprom has sought to justify the latest cut by saying it was needed to allow maintenance work on a turbine.
The German government, however, said there was no technical reason for it to limit the supply.
Ukraine has accused Moscow of waging a "gas war" against Europe and cutting supplies to inflict "terror" on people.
Meanwhile, Poland has said it will be fully independent from Russian gas by the end of the year.
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said: "Even now, Russia is no longer able to blackmail us in the way it blackmails Germany for example."
The UK would not be directly impacted by gas supply disruption, as it imports less than 5% of its gas from Russia. However, it would be affected by prices rising in the global markets as demand in Europe increases.
UK gas prices rose 7% on Wednesday so the price is now more than six times higher than a year ago. However, it is still well below the peak seen in the aftermath of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
UK energy bills increased by an unprecedented £700 in April, and are expected to rise again with one management consultancy warning a typical energy bill could hit £3,850 a year by January, much higher than forecasts earlier this month.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February the price of wholesale gas has already soared, with a knock-on impact on consumer energy bills across the globe.
The Kremlin blames the price hike on Western sanctions, insisting it is a reliable energy partner and not responsible for the recent disruption to gas supplies.

View the original story and map here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62318376
Note, the highest rated comment (1594 thumbs up, 109 thumbs down) posted by reader Muumipeikko at the report says:
"Why are people up in arms about this, Russia and Europe are at war with each other even if its through the Proxy of Ukraine. Of cause Russia is going to remove gas supplies, the same way as if you broke up with your partner you would stop them using your car! You can't expect to go to war with someone but they still supply you with the things you need, life doesn't work that way."
- - -
From BBC News - excerpts from the first version published Sat 30 July 2022 entitled:
Gazprom stops Latvia's gas in latest Russian cut to EU
Russian energy giant Gazprom says it has suspended gas supplies to Latvia - the latest EU country to experience such action amid tensions over Ukraine.
Gazprom accused Latvia of violating conditions of purchase but gave no details of that alleged violation.
Latvia relies on neighbouring Russia for natural gas imports, but gas forms only 26% of its energy consumption.
Nato has bolstered forces in Latvia and its Baltic neighbours Estonia and Lithuania, as the region has long been seen as a potential flashpoint with Russia.
Ethnic Russians form large minorities in the Baltic states. Those states - formerly part of the Soviet Union - plan to stop importing Russian gas next year.
The EU rejects Russia's demand that member states pay for Gazprom gas in roubles, not euros. The EU says there is no contractual condition for rouble payments.
On Thursday the Latvian gas utility Latvijas Gaze said it was buying Russian gas but paying in euros.
Since Russia's February invasion of Ukraine and the tightening of Western sanctions Gazprom has suspended gas deliveries to Bulgaria, Finland, Poland, Denmark and the Netherlands over non-payment in roubles. Russia has also halted gas sales to Shell Energy Europe in Germany.
The EU is now striving to boost gas imports from elsewhere, including liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Norway, Qatar and the US.





















View the original story and map here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62359890
__________________________________________________________________________

From: CNN - full copy

Exclusive by Nima Elbagir, Barbara Arvanitidis, Tamara Qiblawi, Gianluca Mezzofiore, Mohammed Abo Al Gheit and Darya Tarasova

Video by Alex Platt and Mark Baron

Graphics by Sarah-Grace Mankarious, Marco Chacón, Natalie Croker and Henrik Pettersson

Dated 1607 GMT (0007 HKT) July 29, 2022

Russia is plundering gold in Sudan to boost Putin's war effort in Ukraine

IMAGE A Soviet flag flies over the processing plant deep in the Sudanese desert, a facility known to locals as the "Russian company."

Khartoum, Sudan (CNN) Days after Moscow launched its bloody war on Ukraine, a Russian cargo plane stood on a Khartoum runway, a strip of tarmac surrounded by red-orange sand. The aircraft's manifest stated it was loaded with cookies. Sudan rarely, if ever, exports cookies. 

A heated debate transpired between officials in a back office of Khartoum International Airport. They feared that inspecting the plane would vex the country's increasingly pro-Russian military leadership. 

Multiple previous attempts to intercept suspicious Russian carriers had been stopped. Ultimately, however, the officials decided to board the plane. 

Inside the hold, colorful boxes of cookies stretched out before them. Hidden just beneath were wooden crates of Sudan's most precious resource. Gold. Roughly one ton of it. 

This incident in February -- recounted by multiple official Sudanese sources to CNN -- is one of at least 16 known Russian gold smuggling flights out of Sudan, Africa's third largest producer of the precious metal, over the last year and a half.

Multiple interviews with high-level Sudanese and US officials and troves of documents reviewed by CNN paint a picture of an elaborate Russian scheme to plunder Sudan's riches in a bid to fortify Russia against increasingly robust Western sanctions and to buttress Moscow's war effort in Ukraine. 

The evidence also suggests that Russia has colluded with Sudan's beleaguered military leadership, enabling billions of dollars in gold to bypass the Sudanese state and to deprive the poverty-stricken country of hundreds of millions in state revenue. 

In exchange, Russia has lent powerful political and military backing to Sudan's increasingly unpopular military leadership as it violently quashes the country's pro-democracy movement.

Former and current US officials told CNN that Russia actively supported Sudan's 2021 military coup which overthrew a transitional civilian government, dealing a devastating blow to the Sudanese pro-democracy movement that had toppled President Omar al-Bashir two years earlier. 

"We've long known Russia is exploiting Sudan's natural resources," one former US official familiar with the matter told CNN. "In order to maintain access to those resources Russia encouraged the military coup." 

"As the rest of the world closed in on [Russia], they have a lot to gain from this relationship with Sudan's generals and from helping the generals remain in power," the former official added. "That 'help' runs the gamut from training and intelligence support to jointly benefiting from Sudan's stolen gold." 

At the heart of this quid pro quo between Moscow and Sudan's military junta is Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian oligarch and key ally of President Vladimir Putin.

The heavily sanctioned 61-year-old controls a shadowy network of companies that includes Wagner, a paramilitary group linked to alleged torture, mass killings and looting in several war-torn countries including Syria and the Central African Republic (CAR). Prigozhin denies links to Wagner. 

In Sudan, Prigozhin's main vehicle is a US-sanctioned company called Meroe Gold -- a subsidiary of Prigozhin owned M-invest -- which extracts gold while providing weapons and training to the country's army and paramilitaries, according to invoices seen by CNN. 

"Through Meroe Gold, or other companies associated with Prigozhin employees, he has developed a strategy to loot the economic resources of the African countries where he intervenes, as a counterpart to his support to the governments in place," said Denis Korotkov, investigator at the London-based Dossier Center, which tracks the criminal activity of various people associated with the Kremlin. The center was started by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once the richest man in Russia, now living in exile in London.

CNN, in collaboration with the Dossier Center, can also reveal that at least one high-level Wagner operative -- Alexander Sergeyevich Kuznetsov -- has overseen operations in Sudan's key gold mining, processing and transit sites in recent years. 

Kuznetsov -- also known by his call signs "Ratibor" and "Radimir" -- is a convicted kidnapper who fought in neighboring Libya and commanded Wagner's first attack and reconnaissance company in 2014. He is a four-time recipient of Russia's Order of Courage award and was pictured alongside Putin and Dmitri Utkin -- Wagner's founder -- in 2017. The European Union sanctioned Kuznetsov in 2021. 

The growing bond between Sudan's military rulers and Moscow has spawned an intricate gold smuggling network. According to Sudanese official sources as well as flight data reviewed by CNN in collaboration with flight tracker Twitter account Gerjon, at least 16 of the flights intercepted by Sudanese officials last year were operated by military plane that came to and from the Syrian port city of Latakia where Russia has a major airbase. 

Gold shipments also follow a land route to the CAR, where Wagner has propped up a repressive regime and is reported to have meted out some of its cruelest tactics on the country's population, according to multiple Sudanese official sources and the Dossier Center. 

CNN has reached out to the Russian foreign ministry, the Russian defense ministry and the parent organization for the group of companies run by Prigozhin for comment. None has responded.

Responding to the findings of CNN's investigation, a US State Department spokesperson said: "We are monitoring this issue closely, including the reported activities of Meroe Gold, the Kremlin-backed Wagner Group, and other sanctioned actors in Sudan, the region, and throughout the gold trade.

"We support the Sudanese people in their pursuit of a democratic and prosperous Sudan that respects human rights," the spokesperson added. "We will continue to make clear our concerns to Sudanese military officials about the malign impact of Wagner, Meroe Gold, and other actors."

Receding into the shadows 

Russia's meddling in Sudan's gold began in earnest in 2014 after its invasion of Crimea prompted a slew of Western sanctions. Gold shipments proved an effective way of accumulating and transferring wealth, bolstering Russia's state coffers while sidestepping international financial monitoring systems.

"The downside of gold is that it's physical and a lot more cumbersome to use than international wire transfers but the flip side is that it's much harder if not impossible to freeze or seize," said Daniel McDowell, sanctions specialist and associate professor of Political Science at Syracuse University. 

The hub of Russia's gold extraction operation lies deep in the desert of northeast Sudan, a bleached landscape peppered with gaping chasms where miners toil in searing heat, with only tents fashioned from scraps of tarpaulin and sandbags providing any respite.

Miners from those remote artisanal mines converge on al-Ibaidiya -- known as 'gold town' -- every morning, lugging sacks of gold in carts hauled by donkeys along the town's unpaved roads. The highest bidders for their goods, many of them say, are almost invariably merchants dispatched from a nearby processing plant known by locals as 'the Russian company.' 

It's a helter-skelter selling process that sources tell CNN is the nerve center of Russia's gold siphoning. Some 85% of the gold in Sudan is sold this way, according to official statistics seen by CNN. The transactions are mostly off-the-books, and Russia dominates this market, according to multiple sources, including mining whistleblowers and security sources. 

For at least a decade, Russia has hidden its Sudanese gold dealings from the official record. Sudan's official Foreign Trade Statistics since 2011 consistently list Russia's total gold exports from the country at zero, despite copious evidence of Moscow's extensive dealings in this sector. 

Because Russia has benefited from considerable government blind spots, it is difficult to ascertain the exact amount of gold it has removed from Sudan. But at least seven sources familiar with events accuse Russia of driving the lion's share of Sudan's gold smuggling operations -- which is where most of Sudan's gold has ended up in recent years, according to official statistics.

A whistleblower from inside the Sudanese Central Bank showed CNN a photo of a spreadsheet showing that 32.7 tons was unaccounted for in 2021. Using current prices, this amounts to $1.9 billion worth of missing gold, at $60 million a ton. 

But multiple former and current officials say that the amount of missing gold is even larger, arguing that the Sudanese government vastly underestimates the gold produced at informal artisanal mines, distorting the real number. 

Most of CNN's insider sources claim that around 90% of Sudan's gold production is being smuggled out. If true, that would amount to roughly $13.4 billion worth of gold that has circumvented customs and regulations, with potentially hundreds of millions of dollars lost in government revenue. CNN cannot independently verify those figures. 

An anti-corruption Sudanese investigator who has tracked Russia's gold dealings in Sudan for years provided CNN with the coordinates of a key Russian processing plant. When CNN arrived at the site, some five miles from al-Ibaidiya, a Soviet flag fluttered above the compound. A Russian fuel truck was parked outside.

A casual encounter with the guard -- who confirmed that the facility belonged to the so-called "Russian company" -- quickly turned into a tense confrontation. 

The guard spoke through a walkie talkie, conveying CNN's request to speak to "the Russian manager." A group of Sudanese men then rushed to the scene and ordered the CNN crew to leave, before the CNN car was tailed by the security detail. 

"You need to go," another Sudanese employee at the plant told CNN. "This isn't a Russian company. It is a Sudanese company called al-Solag."

Al-Solag is a Sudanese front company for Meroe Gold, the US-sanctioned Russian mining business, according to five official Sudanese sources and company registration documents reviewed by CNN. 

Al-Solag's formation over the last year has marked a key turning point for Russia's presence in Sudan. Under the new model, Russia's dealings have receded into the shadows, making the arrangements more reliant on Sudan's military leadership and further enabling Russian actors to circumvent state institutions, including regulations pertaining to foreign companies, under the guise of a local business. 

CNN has reached out to Sudan's military leadership for comment, and received no reply.

'Too much US scrutiny' 

In 2021, Russia's Sudan envoy, Vladimir Zheltov, called for an impromptu meeting with Sudanese mining officials. 

Appearing visibly nervous, Zheltov demanded that Meroe Gold be "obscured" after becoming subject to "too much US scrutiny," according to a whistleblower from Sudan's Ministry of Mining who had first-hand knowledge of the meeting. 

By June of this year, Zheltov's demands had materialized. The transfer of Meroe Gold's assets to the Sudanese-owned al-Solag appeared to have been completed. An analysis of the registration documents of the two companies revealed striking similarities, including two identical lists of legal penalties. 

Under Sudanese law, a company wishing to transfer their holdings must also transfer judgments against it. It is illegal to have an undeclared foreign partner. 

Sudan's anti-corruption committee, a watchdog set up to assist Sudan's transition to democracy, then blocked the attempted subterfuge, according to a former civilian official with direct knowledge of the events. The anti-corruption committee sent a detailed report to the armed forces in September 2021 with evidence of the Meroe Gold transfer to al-Solag, urging them to stop what they dubbed a "crime against the state."

The watchdog also accused the military of complicity in Russia's dealings, drawing the ire of the military leadership who lambasted the committee for "harming the armed forces," according to the former civilian official. 

"The Russians and Sudanese officers saw the civilians in the government as an obstacle to their plans," the former official added. 

In October 2021, a month after the anti-corruption committee stopped the transfer of holdings from Meroe Gold to al-Solag, Sudan's military staged a coup -- which US official and former official sources accuse Russia of backing -- and the junta immediately dismantled the committee. 

"Russia is a parasite," the former official told CNN. "It pillaged Sudan. And it has exacted a very large political penalty by terminating a democratic project that could have turned Sudan into a great nation." 

Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, leader of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary unit, is a key beneficiary from Russian support, as the primary recipient of Moscow's weapons and training. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan -- the country's military ruler -- is also believed by CNN's Sudanese sources to be backed by Russia. 

Human rights groups have implicated both Burhan and Dagalo (known as Hemedti) in alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during Sudan's Darfur conflict that started in 2003. 

On the same day that Russia launched its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Hemedti was heading a Sudanese delegation in Moscow to "advance relations" between the two countries.

Wagner boots on the ground 

On a dusty border-crossing between the CAR and Sudan in March 2019, a bespectacled 34-year-old Russian frantically sent his boss -- Meroe Gold owner Mikhail Potepkin -- a plea for help. 

"Radimir is pissed that no one was warned," wrote Aleksei Pankov in a Telegram conversation which the Dossier Center shared with CNN. He was referring to Kuznetsov, the menacing high-level Wagner operative, depicted as manning the border alongside Sudanese intelligence operatives. 

"Tell Radimir that it was a 'closed' operation. That's why we didn't warn him about it," came Potepkin's reply. 

"F**k, Radimir is scary. I almost s**t my pants," Pankov wrote back. 

This exchange is part of a string of evidence collected by CNN that establishes Kuznetsov as a key Wagner enforcer across key locations in Sudan. 

CNN has also seen official Sudanese communiques referencing Kuznetsov as a "problematic" armed Russian who was overseeing security at the Russian gold processing plant near al-Ibaidiya. A source familiar with Meroe Gold's activities in Sudan told CNN that Kuznetsov also frequented the company's offices in Khartoum.

Wagner operatives deploy to Sudan on a rotational basis, the Dossier Center told CNN, and Kuznetsov may be one of several Wagner men in the country. These are strategically dispatched to protect Russia's smuggling scheme that has grown in importance since Russia launched its war on Ukraine. 

Those Wagner operatives appear to be part of a growing climate of fear as Moscow tightens its grip on Sudan's gold pipeline, sources say. 

Several local journalism networks whose work CNN has drawn on for this report -- such as Mujo Press, al-Bahshoum and activist journalist Hisham Ali's Facebook page -- have been targeted in recent months, driven into exile under the threat of assassination. Ten protesters were gunned down in demonstrations in June alone, three of whom were prominent pro-democracy activists. CNN security sources believe they were deliberately targeted. 

High-level Sudanese officials repeatedly urged CNN's Nima Elbagir to steer clear of protest sites. Since CNN began this investigation, Elbagir has been put on the military junta's hit list, according to multiple Sudanese security sources. 

As images of Russian tanks encircling Kyiv were flashing on TV screens at Khartoum International Airport, employees watched as the plane laden with cookies and gold took off last February. Senior army brass had intervened and a sense of foreboding set in. 

Some of the officials who uncovered the haul were reassigned, some to regional duty stations, and others were sent to army reserves, according to a source with direct knowledge of the incident.

"They paid for doing their jobs," the source told CNN.

CNN's Jennifer Hansler contributed to this report.

Monday, August 12, 2019

Film: MEET THE JANJAWEED - Hemedti is positioning himself as paramilitary ruler of Darfur (Alex de Waal)

Note from Sudan Watch Editor:  Here is another great essay by Africa and Sudan expert Dr Alex de Waal.  It is a profile of Mohamed Hamdam Dagolo 'Hemedti' who is positioning himself as paramilitary ruler of Darfur. Yellow highlighting is mine for future reference.  At the end I have posted a link to a film entitled "MEET THE JANJAWEED" referred to by Alex in his essay as a 'television documentary'.  It is a must-see.

Article by Dr Alex de Waal
Dated 03 July 2019
General Mohamed Hamdan Dagolo ‘Hemedti’
General Mohamed Hamdan Dagolo “Hemedti” is the face of Sudan’s violent, political marketplace. 

Hemedti’s career is an object lesson in political entrepreneurship by a specialist in violence; his conduct and (as of now) impunity are the surest indicator that mercenarised politics that have long defined the Sudanese periphery, have been brought home to the capital city. Hemedti’s Rapid Support Force (RSF), a paramilitary led by Darfurian Arabs—and commonly decried as “Janjaweed”—are today the dominant power in Khartoum.

During the peaceful democracy protests in Khartoum, demonstrators chanted “we are all Darfur” as a rebuttal to regime propaganda, trying to portray them as rebels from the far periphery. During the crackdown of June 3, in which well over 100 protesters were killed, armed men wearing RSF uniforms chanted “You used to chant the whole country is Darfur. Now we brought Darfur to you, to Khartoum.”

“Hemedti” is the diminutive, endearing name for ‘little Mohamed’, which Mohamed Hamdan Dagolo has ironically kept because of his fresh-faced, youthful looks. For a moment, in the days after the April 11 overthrow of President Omar al Bashir, some of the young democracy protesters camped in the streets around the Ministry of Defense embraced him as the army’s new look.

Hemedti’s grandfather, Dagolo, was the head of a subclan of the Mahariya Rizeigat Arab tribe that roamed across the pastures of Chad and Darfur. 

Young men from the camel-herding Mahariya—landless and marginalised in both countries—became a core element of the Arab militia that fought in the vanguard of Khartoum’s counterinsurgency in Darfur. 

Hemedti is from the farthest of Sudan’s far peripheries, an outsider to the Khartoum political establishment.

Hemedti is a school dropout turned trader, without formal education or military staff college—the title ‘General’ was awarded on account of his proficiency in fighting and bargaining. He was a commander in the Janjaweed brigade in Southern Darfur at the height of the 2003-05 war, proving his mettle on the battlefield.

In 2007-08—the year of a widespread but inchoate rebellion by many of the Janjaweed against their patrons, Hemedti was a prominent mutineer

He led his forces into the bush, promising to fight Khartoum “until Judgment Day,” shot down an army helicopter, negotiated for an alliance with the Darfurian rebels, and threatened to storm the city of Nyala. 

Hemedti then cut a deal with the government, settling for a price that included payment of his troops’ unpaid salaries, compensation to the wounded and to the families of those killed, promotion to general, and a handsome cash payment. A television documentary captures his parallel negotiations with the Darfur rebels and his own government, his charm and concern for his troops—and the fact that he enlisted Arabs and non-Arabs alike in his ranks.

After returning to the Khartoum payroll, Hemedti proved his loyalty. Pres. al-Bashir became fond of him, sometimes appearing to treat him like the son he had never had. Al-Bashir reportedly called him “Hamayti”—my protector.

Hemedti has ably used his commercial acumen, military prowess—and the fact that the Sudanese establishment consistently underestimates him—to build his militia into a force more powerful than the waning Sudanese state.

On returning to the government fold, Hemedti’s troops constituted a brigade of the “Border Guards” headed by Musa Hilal, the leader of the Janjaweed. But he soon became a rival to his commander, and al-Bashir constituted his forces as a separate force in 2013, initially to fight the rebels of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army-North in the Nuba Mountains. The new Rapid Support Forces (RSF) came off second best. 


Following the March 2015 Saudi-Emirati military intervention in Yemen, the director of al-Bashir’s office, Taha Hussein, cut a deal with Riyadh to deploy Sudanese troops in Yemen. One of the commanders of the operation as Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan (current chair of the TMC). But most of the fighters were Hemedti’s RSF. This brought hard cash direct into Hemedti’s pocket.

And in November 2017, when his arch-rival Hilal rebelled and was captured, Hemedti’s forces took control of the artisanal gold mines in Jebel Amer in Darfur—Sudan’s single largest source of export revenues. Suddenly, Hemedti had his hands on the country’s two most lucrative sources of hard currency.

Hemedti is adopting a model of state mercenarism familiar to those who follow the politics of the Sahara. 
President Idriss Déby of Chad rents out his special forces for counter-insurgencies on the French or U.S. payroll in much the same manner. Hemedti has recently hired the services of the Canadian lobbying firm Dickens & Madson, which has previous contracts with Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe and Libyan militia commander Khalifa Haftar, with the explicit aim, among other things, of obtaining U.S. recognition and Russian funding. Expect to see RSF troops deployed to Libya any day soon.

Meanwhile, with the routine deployment of paramilitaries to do the actual fighting in Sudan’s wars at home and abroad, the Sudanese army has become akin to a vanity project: the proud owner of extravagant real estate in Khartoum, with impressive tanks, artillery and aircraft, but few battle-hardened infantry units. 

Other forces have stepped into this security arena, including the operational units of the National Intelligence and Security Services, and paramilitaries such as special police units—and the RSF. When the democracy demonstrators surrounded the Ministry of Defense on April 6, demanding that al-Bashir must go, Hemedti was one of the security cabal whom al-Bashir convened to decide how best to break this unarmed siege. Hemedti was caught on video arguing for the use of force, though he later claimed it was his brother speaking, not him. But on the morning of April 11, he joined the army generals in deposing al-Bashir, rather than massacring the protesters. For that he won a moment of celebrity.

Unnoticed by the eyes of the media, which are focused on Khartoum, the RSF has been taking over the camps of the UN-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) as that peacekeeping operation scales down. Hemedti is positioning himself as the de facto paramilitary ruler of Darfur. (That takeover was ordered to be halted after UN protests.) [ http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article67678 ]

Since revolution day, unlike the army generals who have been cautious, even timid, and the leaders of the democracy protests, who have been painstakingly consultative, Hemedti has acted boldly and decisively. He saw that state power was lying in the streets of Khartoum to be seized by whoever had the audacity to take it. Hemedti took it: he realised that after decades of eviscerating political institutions, power in the capital functioned no differently to in lawless Darfur.

As negotiations between the generals and the democracy protesters dragged on, Hemedti repeatedly threatened to clear the streets by force—and several times, his soldiers opened fire, killing or wounding one or two.

Then, after al-Burhan and Hemedti visited Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt, the TMC appears to have decided that it could impose military rule without facing anything more than empty protests from the international community. On June 3, Hemedti’s RSF brought his Janjaweed methods to Khartoum. His forces rampaged through the city, beginning with the camps of the protesters, burning the tents, often with people inside. More than 100 were killed. Many were raped. Many were chased through the streets, hunted down in their neighborhoods. They rampaged through the university campus. The RSF fighters terrorised Khartoum.

Hemedti denies this, and avers that an independent investigation will exonerate him. And indeed, most close observers think that it is possible that he intended a limited attack, and that elements from the ousted intelligence services of the former regime took the opportunity to escalate the violence, tarnish Hemedti’s reputation and divide him from the generals in the Transitional Military Council.

Whatever the true story, Hemedti is a specialist in violence and should have seen it coming; he can’t complain if his own methods are used against him.

On 29 June, the TMC accepted to negotiate on the basis of a power-sharing formula proposed by the Ethiopian mediation. But the same day, the RSF broke up a press conference by the AFC, and the following day—30 June, the African Union deadline for a handover of power to a civilian authority—broke up the democracy forces “millions march” with tear gas and live bullets, killing seven.

But there’s also a twist to the story. Every ruler in Sudan, with one notable exception, has hailed from the “Awlad al Balad”—the heartlands of Khartoum and the neighboring towns on the Nile. The exception is deputy and successor to the Mahdi, the Khalifa Abdullahi “al-Ta’aishi” who was a Darfurian Arab, whose armies provided the majority of the force that conquered Khartoum in 1885. The riverian elites remember the Khalifa’s rule (1885-98) as a tyranny. They are terrified it may return. Hemedti is the face of that nightmare, the first non-establishment ruler in Sudan for 120 years.

The other side of this coin is that Hemedti has opened negotiations with the armed rebels in Darfur and the Nuba Mountains, and he may have the clout and the credibility to cut a deal with them. Despite the grievances against Hemedti’s paramilitaries, the Darfur rebels still recognise that he is a Darfurian, and they have something in common with this outsider to the Sudanese establishment.

When the Sudanese regime sowed the wind of the Janjaweed in Darfur in 2003, they did not expect to reap the whirlwind in their own capital city. In fact the seeds had been sown much earlier, when previous governments adopted the war strategy in southern Sudan and southern Kordofan of setting local people against one another, rather than sending units of the regular army—manned by the sons of the riverain establishment—into peril. Hemedti is that whirlwind. Immediately, he is the boomerang of Janjaweedism that has returned to strike Khartoum. But his ascendancy is also, indirectly, the revenge of the historically marginalised. The slogan “we are all Darfur” must be more than an expression of solidarity with the victims of the Janjaweed, but also a far-reaching restructuring of Sudan to address the causes of the recurrent wars in the peripheries.

The tragedy of the Sudanese marginalised is that the man who is posing as their champion is the ruthless leader of a band of vagabonds, who has been supremely skillful in playing the transnational military marketplace.

“Hemedti” is employee of the month as the representative of that inhuman logic of paramilitary mercenary politics.

Note: The CRP blogs gives the views of the author, not the position of the Conflict Research Programme, the London School of Economics and Political Science, or the UK Government.

This blog post was originally published by the World Peace Foundation; our partners on the Conflict Research Programme.

About the author
Alex de Waal is the Research Programme Director for the Conflict Research Programme and Director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University.

VIDEO 
Title: Sudan: Meet the Janjaweed
7 years ago 7.3K views
This report comes from Darfur, where the team secured unprecedented access to a key Arab armed group accused of being part of the infamous Janjaweed militia  
SUDAN WATCH UPDATE - Tue 13 Aug 2019 11:09:  This film report made at least seven years ago comes from Darfur where the UK TV Channel 4 News team secured unprecedented access to a key Arab armed group accused of being part of the infamous Janjaweed militia.
Title: Sudan: Meet the Janjaweed 
Producer: Channel 4, Unreported World, Andrew Carter, Nima Elbagir – reporter Nima Elbagir meets an Arab militia accused of being an important element of the Janjaweed, blamed for the atrocities in Darfur. Note, Nima Elbagir is a sister of Yousra Elbagir @YousraElbagir, another great journalist. An amazing pair.

Verified account@YousraElbagir

To visit the film click here: https://dai.ly/xtxd8n


Further Reading

1,000 of Sudan RSF fighters deployed to warlord Haftar's Libya offensive
REPORTEDLY, four thousand members of Sudan’s notorious RSF militia are thought to be deployed to protect Haftar’s oil resources during the offensive on Libya's capital Tripoli.
Sudan Watch - Thursday, August 01, 2019

Sudan militia chief Hemeti hires Canadian lobbying group for $6m to influence US, Russia, Saudia Arabia, UN, AU, Libya in favour of TMC
Article from The Financial Times.com
Sudan Watch - Tuesday, July 02, 2019

Sunday, April 21, 2019

History of coups in Khartoum Sudan (Alex de Waal)

HERE below is a funny and fascinating potted history of 14 coups in Sudan, including the latest, written by Africa specialist Dr. Alex de Waal. It's a must-read. The essay is full of interesting details bringing its readers up to date with what is happening in Sudan right now: Sudan “is poised between an inspirational transformation and dangerous disorder. Sudan’s democratic moment is still desperately fragile”. 

After reading the essay, and going by the last 16 years here at Sudan Watch and miles of reports, I’ll be surprised if Sudan suddenly becomes a stable democracy, I fear there are too many violent opportunistic factions involved, all vying for power (click here to read UN Security Council briefing on Sudan 07 Feb 2019)

Also, South Sudan is still in turmoil, parts of its border still being negotiated, poor people in South Sudan still suffering much grief and hardship, not a lot has changed for the better since the country gained independence from Sudan in 2011 (click here to read UN Security Council briefing on South Sudan 14 Mar 2019).

While reading today's news about Sudanese protestors staging a sit-in in Khartoum to demand civilian rule, I thought of the violence gripping Libya ever since its strongman leader Muammer Gaddafi (07 Jun 1942 - 20 Oct 2011) was horrifically murdered in Libya by his people (click here to read UN Security Council briefing on Libya 05 Apr 2019).

And the violence continuing in Iraq ever since its strongman leader Saddam Hussein (28 Apr 1937 - 30 Dec 2006) was returned to Iraq by the US and hanged by his people (click here to read UN Security Council briefing on Iraq 03 Dec 2019)

Maybe that is why Sudan's strongman leader Omar al-Bashir is now, reportedly, being held in a high security prison in Sudan's capital of Khartoum, to save him from facing the same fate as Messrs Gaddafi and Hussein.

On a lighter note, while reading the essay, I laughed at the coupists commandeering a train to storm Khartoum only to find themselves shunted into a siding by an unwitting signalman. Also, the story of a failed coup launched mid-afternoon while government officials were asleep during a customary nap. And a failed coupist who left Sudan for Ireland and shortly after having a great idea to write a cartoon history of coups in Sudan was hit and killed by a car in London’s Euston Road while rushing to join an opposition meeting! Note that the 1989 Islamist coup was notable in part because Omar al-Bashir and his fellow rebels were stone cold sober.

Sorry for laughing at such deadly matters. Over the years I've noticed that the Sudanese know how to party and have a good time. They’ll start a party from nothing, over anything. I find them endearing, they make me smile. Ugandans, Kenyans, Egyptians and Indians too. Their humour is so British, like it’s woven into their culture. Here’s the story of 14 coups in Sudan by Alex de Waal, and my postscript about Hergé’s famously funny Tintin. Enjoy! (Thanks Alex!)

Sudan after Bashir
From London Review of Books blog
By Alex de Waal
Thursday 18 April 2019

On the morning of Thursday 11 April, the Sudanese army announced that they would shortly be making an announcement. Radio and TV were already broadcasting ominous martial music. Tens of thousands of protesters, massed outside the Ministry of Defence, waited patiently. For months they had been calling for President Omar al Bashir to step down. Six hours later, the somewhat strained figure of General Awad Ibn Auf, the defence minister and vice president – and in that capacity heir apparent to Bashir – appeared on TV to say that the army had taken over and a further announcement would come before long. He looked unwell and sounded indecisive.

On Friday 12 April, Ibn Auf quit and another senior general, Abdel Fattah Burhan, took the presidential oath of office. No one had a clue about his character or politics; commentators speculated that his relative obscurity must mean he was an apolitical figure ready to preside over a compromise. An hour later he made an overture to the protesters, a vast crowd whose discipline and fortitude compares impressively with the disarray of the security chiefs: it was obvious that the generals’ pact was unravelling once Salah Abdallah Gosh, the head of the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS), announced his resignation too.

Sudan saw 14 coups between independence in 1956 and the Islamist putsch in 1989 that brought Brigadier Omar al-Bashir to power. Khalid el Kid, who tried to seize power as a young colonel in the 1970s and later became a lecturer in English literature in Ireland, had the idea in 1990 of writing a cartoon history of them. He was killed shortly afterwards, hit by a car on the Euston Road while dashing to join an opposition meeting. One of the books in his library was a 1975 graphic novel by Hergé, the creator of Tintin, portraying Jaafar Nimeiri’s putsch of 1969, and his dramatic escape from an attempted counter coup two years later.

Most of the coups took place in the middle of the night – the officers involved having boosted their courage with a drinking session – and the population woke either to martial music and the voice of a new military man on the radio, or the announcement that a treacherous subversion had been repressed. In one of the failed attempts, military units commandeered a train to storm Khartoum, but a railway signalman who wasn’t in on the deal switched the points and sent the insurgents into a siding. In 1971, communists caught the government off guard by launching their coup in the middle of the afternoon, during the siesta hour when most people were asleep. (It was reversed after three days, with Nimeiri’s escape from detention, much relished by Hergé.) The 1989 Islamist coup was notable in part because Bashir and his fellow officers were stone cold sober.

Ba‘athist officers tried to overthrow Bashir during Ramadan the following year. The Islamist security services summarily executed 28 of them. For almost thirty years there were no further coup attempts. By chance or design, Bashir created an apparently coup-proof system of rule. As well as a proficient spy network, he used two tools, one obvious to all, the other more subtle.

The overt coup-proofing method was to divide and rule the security forces. The NISS, with tanks and helicopters at its disposal, could put up a formidable resistance to any army units. Soon after taking power, Bashir also created the Popular Defence Forces, an umbrella term for various paramilitary outfits, including some which were loyal to the Islamist party. There are also oilfield security units, Border Intelligence (former Darfurian Janjaweed), Central Reserve Police and, the biggest of the lot, the Rapid Support Force, which also grew out of Darfurian Arab militia. Seven thousand RSF troops are deployed in Yemen on Saudi Arabia’s payroll, and the RSF commander, Mohamed Hamdan Hemeti, became one of the main powerbrokers at military HQ in Khartoum.

Without a unified military capable of taking control of the capital, it looked as if Bashir would be immune to the fate of his predecessor Nimeiri, who lost power in April 1985 when the army command decided to ‘stand with the people’ during a civilian uprising – the path followed by the Egyptian army when it deposed Hosni Mubarak during the Arab Spring. The leaders of the different forces only had to get together with the army chiefs, however, and Bashir would be out. This is what happened on the morning of 11 April.

Bashir’s other, less conspicuous kind of armour was loyalty and reciprocal trust. After the killing of the 28 ‘Ramadan martyrs’, the president made sure that no officer was executed or extradited. In 1995, when a group of officers were caught red-handed trying to assassinate Mubarak at a summit in Ethiopia, Bashir demoted them or cycled them out of power but made sure they were not handed over to the Egyptians or Ethiopians.

He was a generous, sociable patron. Twice a week he held open house for army officers at his residence in the vast military HQ compound in Khartoum. Any soldier with the rank of captain or above could drop by. Bashir was friendly, solicitous and helpful. He was also accommodating to the provincial aristocracy of tribal chiefs, who served as militia commanders, and to paramilitary leaders. The result was a prodigious level of personal intelligence about what was going on. While Gosh and the NISS spied on people – NISS and Gosh’s own private companies have a stake in Sudan’s mobile phone networks – and broke up opposition cells using detention, torture and agents provocateurs, Bashir was like an uncle to every man in the sprawling security apparatus. Everyone trusted him to stick to the unwritten rules.

Bashir customised the system of government and security as a show which only he could run, as his successors are quickly discovering. When international human rights activists condemn Bashir for his brutality and call for him to face trial at the International Criminal Court, they misunderstand the social norms that have kept his regime together. When the ICC indicted his subordinates, Bashir stood by them, and so far they have insisted that they will not extradite him to The Hague. On Wednesday, he was transferred from house arrest to Kober prison, where generations of political prisoners have been jailed, including the elected parliamentarians he overthrew thirty years ago. It’s also where the prison service protects its professional ethos: Bashir won’t be mistreated there. Kober is a symbolic humiliation but not an ejection from the elite.

The civility of the Sudanese elite crosses political divides, to the astonishment – and perplexity – of foreign mediators dispatched by the UN or Western governments to try to resolve Sudan’s wars. When they meet in a Kenyan hotel for talks, the leaders of warring groups, whose fighters are killing one another in rural Sudan, will embrace, exchange greetings and inquire after one another’s families. Political rivals in Khartoum celebrate at each others’ family weddings. Political assassinations or executions have always been rare and in the last 25 years they were almost unheard of. These norms helped Bashir to hold onto the presidency, but they also ultimately broke him.

During his last years in office, he used his formidable political talents simply to stay in power, and did nothing for the country. Anti-government protests erupted last December, first against the high prices of bread and fuel, and then against Bashir’s endless rule and the corruption that accompanied it. Despite weekly demonstrations in Khartoum and other cities, Bashir imagined he could outlast the protesters. He thought they lacked leadership and would be easily divided, bought off or demoralised. He was wrong. On 6 April – the anniversary of the popular uprising that brought down Nimeiri in 1985 – the biggest ever crowds surrounded the Ministry of Defence and military HQ, and refused to disperse.

By then about fifty people had died in the protests. Given the size of the demonstrations, it is a relatively low figure – more than 200 were killed in two weeks of protests in 2013. Army officers would not order their units to fire on the crowds. Among the demonstrators were the sons and daughters of their friends, colleagues and family members; sometimes their own children. One brigadier said his daughter came home from the protests asking him not to shoot her friends. The violence since last December – live ammunition, high concentrations of tear gas, beatings and torture – was perpetrated by the NISS and militia groups. When Bashir’s security chiefs met in their besieged HQ on 6 and 7 April and gave orders to disperse the crowds, the paramilitaries were ready to do it, but the regular army wasn’t. On two successive nights, army units opened fire on the paramilitaries in defence of the protesters.

Bashir knew all the political intrigue among the middle and senior ranks of the military, but failed to anticipate the doggedness of the protesters and had no idea how to respond to their demands. There had been opportunities to democratise the country – the Sudanese were willing to put up with him until the elections scheduled for April 2020, provided he opened up the political scene in a credible way. He began a ‘national dialogue’, which looked promising until he insisted on chairing it; he announced a new constitutional convention, but too late for the opposition parties to take it seriously. He was too cautious to venture any meaningful concessions.

The Alliance for Freedom and Change consists of 22 opposition organisations, including the Sudan Professionals Association, coalitions of political parties, Girifna (‘we have had enough,’ a movement of young people), the Forum of Sudanese Tweeters and the families of the Ramadan martyrs. They and the demonstrators outside the walls of the military HQ have been more disciplined and cohesive than the generals within. They issued a declaration on 1 January, the anniversary of Sudan’s independence, calling for Bashir to be replaced by a transitional civilian council, to govern for four years and prepare the way for a genuine democracy.

When General Burhan offered to talk on 13 April, some opposition leaders said the alliance should simply present its demands and refuse to negotiate; others said it would be better to enter into a dual authority arrangement with the army. The Sudan Revolutionary Forces – a coalition of armed insurgents in Darfur and the ‘two areas’ of Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile, who have been fighting for years – said it was too early to enter talks. This made the civic opposition leaders’ hearts sink: the southern rebel leader John Garang refused to join the civilian government in 1985, in nearly identical circumstances, arguing that he could get more by continuing to fight (and went on to do so for another twenty years).

If the civic opposition can seize the day, they could well set the agenda in their talks with a disoriented soldiery. If they cannot, the situation could quickly deteriorate. Gosh’s resignation is a warning. He is a merciless operator and no one expects him to go quietly into retirement. The security bosses all have foreign ties: the Islamists (currently sidelined by the coup) have backers in Qatar and Turkey; Ibn Auf may be gone but others in the high command are close to Egypt; Burhan and Hemeti have led troop deployments in Yemen on the Saudi payroll; Gosh is close to the United Arab Emirates. The security hydra – multitudinous, avaricious, with each faction backed by a rivalrous foreign patron – poses an ominous threat.

Eleven years ago, Hemeti and his Darfur Arab militia mutinied to demand a better deal from the government that had armed them and dispatched them to fight. The Channel 4 journalist Nima Elbagir filmed Hemeti as he negotiated his return to Bashir’s fold. In a dusty clearing in the bush, Hemeti held a meeting to sound out the views of his men and secure their backing, and then demanded a financial package from Khartoum. He switched back to fighting for the government when he got what he wanted. It’s a rare and compelling insight into a how a true specialist in violence operates in Sudan’s political marketplace.

Sudan, in other words, is poised between an inspirational transformation and dangerous disorder. It is still a beneficiary of the social codes that limit violence within the elite and in the cities. Sudan’s democratic moment is still desperately fragile.

Source: London Review Books blog 
Profile: Dr. Alex de Waal, Executive Director of the World Peace Foundation
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Postscript from Sudan Watch editor
In the essay above, the author, Alex de Waal, mentions the name Tintin. I had forgotten all about Tintin. My late father, who had a great sense of humour, often used the word “Tintin” to describe something or someone or other. Now, thanks to the Internet and Wikipedia, I know what he meant. Here are some snippets.

The Adventures of Tintin is a series of 24 comic albums created by Belgian cartoonist Georges Remi, who wrote under the pen name Hergé. The series was one of the most popular European comics of the 20th century. By 2007, a century after Hergé's birth in 1907, Tintin had been published in more than 70 languages with sales of more than 200 million copies, and had been adapted for radio, television, theatre, and film.

The series is set during a largely realistic 20th century. Its hero is Tintin, a courageous young Belgian reporter and adventurer. He is aided by his faithful dog Snowy. Other protagonists include the brash and cynical Captain Haddock and the intelligent but hearing-impaired Professor Calculus, as well as the incompetent detectives Thomson and Thomson and the opera diva Bianca Catafiore.

The series has been admired for its clean, expressive drawings in Hergé's signature "clear line" style. Its well-researched plots straddle a variety of genres: swashbuckling adventures with elements of fantasy, action, mysteries, political thrillers, and science fiction. The stories feature slapstick humour, offset by dashes of sophisticated satire and political or cultural commentary.

Tintin
Tintin is neither a surname nor a first name, it is much more than that Tintin is a totally unique world, a myth or a saga. Tintin is created from Hergé’s subconscious desire to be perfect, to be a hero. The hero who everyone between 7 and 77 years old wants to be, or become while reading the Adventures of Tintin.

Hergé said
"The idea for the character of Tintin and the sort of adventures that would befall him came to me, I believe, in five minutes, the moment I first made a sketch of the figure of this hero: that is to say, he had not haunted my youth nor even my dreams. Although it's possible that as a child I imagined myself in the role of a sort of Tintin."
—Hergé, 15 November 1966.
Tintin is me wanting to be heroic and perfect …”  “Tintin is me… my eyes, my feelings, my lungs, my guts!… I believe I am the only person able to animate him, the only person to give him a soul.

Further Reading
Oct 17, 2008 - Sudan Watch 
TRANSCRIPT: UK Channel 4 News Lindsey Hilsum’s interview on 09 Oct 2008 with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir at the Presidential Palace in Khartoum, Sudan. Throughout the interview Mr Bashir spoke English.

(Note: Front page and posts at this site Sudan Watch - www.sudanwatch.blogspot.com - take several minutes to load. After a 5-year hiatus the blog is undergoing maintenance to enable new and old posts to appear quickly)  
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Tweet of the Week

Above image: Screenshot of a tweet by long-time Africa correspondent Rob Crilly @robcrilly, author of SAVING DARFUR - Everyone's Favourite African War (see image here below - and more at Rob's website robcrilly.com)
Tweet caption: "The prison where it all began... Hassan al-Turabi famously plotted the 1989 coup while being "held" here #Sudan
Image caption: BBC NEWS 
Sudan ex-leader Bashir moved to prison
Eyewitnesses say former President Omar al-Bashir has been taken to Kobar maximum security prison.
6:25 am - 17 Apr 2019