URGENT MESSAGE TO ICC: Sudan’s Dagalo, Burhan, Bashir must be tried for alleged war crimes - Ethiopia’s war triggers fears in Kenya, South Sudan

NOTE from Sudan Watch Editor: After 18 years of gathering news on Sudan and South Sudan for documenting at this site, the below copied report by Al Jazeera.com is, to me, the last straw. I'm shocked that on Fri, 26 Nov. 2021 Al Jazeera decided to publish the report containing its exclusive interview with Gen Dagalo aka Hemeti, deputy of military coup leader Gen Burhan.

Something seems to have changed at Al Jazeera. A recent news report at its website showed a video of a man talking (probably Sudanese Prime Minister Hamdok, I can't recall). The video's audio consisted of a male narrator seemingly providing, in English, an interpretation of what was being said by the man on film. There were no subtitles showing what the man on film was saying. Also, in that report (or another video report on Sudan) Al Jazeera used sinister, anxiety provoking music in the background, like the beating of an electronic war drum. To my ears the music and beat sounded Arabic.

My point is, after 18 years - and after seeing Aljazeera's interview with Hemeti (see link below) and noting its date - I believe the time has now come for Messrs Dagalo, Burhan and Bashir to be put on trial by the International Criminal Court (ICC) as soon as humanly possible. There is no time to waste.

In the interview, Hemeti shows his true colours for all to see by wearing civilian clothing: a dark navy blue suit and tie, white shirt, black footwear, a small enamel Sudanese flag on his lapel in an effort to appear worldly and presidential. Surely, the interview is evidence of Hemeti's intention to preside over Sudan even if it's not what the people want or in the best interest of the country. The people of Sudan want civilian, not military rule. If memory serves, former Sudanese President Bashir fondly nicknamed Dagalo "Hemeti" his little boy, the son he never had. Hemeti is Bashir's heir. 

Reportedly, an editor at Al Jazeera was recently arrested by the junta and released soon after. Who knows whether Al Jazeera was forced into doing the interview to include in a news report at its website as a condition of the editors’s safety and release. I wonder how the interview came about and when and where it took place. I have not seen much publicity about the film.

I have no doubt that Al Jazeera accurately quoted Hemeti in its report and that the timing of its publication and interview is an attempt by Hemeti to reduce the power, support and popularity of PM Hamdok in order to justify the coup and frame Hamdok as a complicit participant in it for personal gain.

Here at Sudan Watch there is a copy of a recent news report by AP featuring one of PM Hamdok's former colleagues recently released from detention who said they felt a coup could happen but didn't know when. 

This is the exact quote: "Faisal Saleh, an advisor to Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok, told The Associated Press that security forces took him blindfolded from his home in the early hours of Oct. 25. “We were expecting that there was a military coup coming," said Saleh, who also served as minister of information from 2019 until earlier this year. ”We just didn't know how or when it would take place." 

Aljazeera's interview with Hemeti catches him red handed on film working against Sudan blatantly risking its destabilisation and causing suffering to its people again. He's poorly educated, dim witted and doesn't understand English. He's so ruthless and cruel he could be a psychopath. For him to be in charge of Sudan would be a disaster. It'd plunge the country back into the dark ages upending millions of Sudanese lives.

Nowadays, wars like the current one between the US and China need not be conducted in the old ways of the past. They can be a war of words and cyber attacks. The pen is mightier than the sword. Note the tags at the end of this post and the one labelled '51 names for ICC’. 

Right now, the world is in a precarious state. Russia is agitating to undermine the west. Ethiopia is suffering war (see maps below). France and others and the UN have advised their people in Ethiopia to leave. 

I've waited 18 years for the time to be right for Messrs Bashir, Burhan, Dagalo to be tried by the ICC. The people of Sudan deserve to see justice served and to know that anyone suspected of a crime can be apprehended and tried fairly in a court and treated as innocent until proven guilty.

If a suspected criminal is innocent, they’d have nothing to fear. They'd be fairly treated and released if found innocent. The people of Sudan need to know that criminals and war criminals cannot walk freely with impunity. 

Only by holding Messrs Dagalo, Burhan, Bashir to account will young Sudanese people understand that what is happening now, and why, is the culmination of a 30+ year story filled with death, destruction and unspeakable horrors inflicted on millions of Sudanese civilians, forcing survivors to flee for their lives with just the clothes they were wearing.

I'm writing this in haste. Time is of the essence. If there are any errors in this urgent open message to the ICC, it doesn't matter. What matters is that Dagalo, Burhan and Bashir are questioned under oath, asap.

I’ll leave this note with a link to Aljazeera's report and its must-see video interview at the top of this page before I go on strike in protest of the wicked claims made by Hemeti in his power-grab for the presidency.

I shan't return until the ICC issues a statement explaining its findings and intentions regarding Messrs Bashir, Burhan, Dagalo. Sad to say, Darfur is under attack again. God help the Sudanese people. Peace and love, Ingrid x

Here is a copy of an exclusive report at Al Jazeera.com

Written by Al Jazeera.com English - reprinted online by MSN.com

Published at Al Jazeera.com dated Friday 26 November 2021 c.11am GMT

Title: Sudan’s PM Hamdok backed military takeover, says general

Deputy head of Sudan’s sovereign council, General Dagalo, tells Al Jazeera that reinstated Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok was part of discussions leading to the military takeover in October.

Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok was deposed by the military on October 25 but reinstated as interim premier November 21 [File: Ashraf Shazly/AFP]

The deputy head of Sudan’s governing sovereign council, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, has said that Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok was aware of last month’s military takeover before it happened and was “completely agreeable” to it.

Hamdok was deposed by the military on October 25 but reinstated as interim premier after signing a deal on Sunday with Sudan’s top general to restore the transition to civilian rule.

“What happened on October 25 was the ultimate outcome of a long process. Many discussions were made, and many initiatives proposed,” Dagalo, also known as Hemeti, told Al Jazeera in an exclusive interview released on Friday.

“The prime minister himself proposed two initiatives during the meetings. We were left with three options, the best of which was the move we took, and it was completely agreeable to the prime minister himself,” said Dagalo. “We did not make such a move on our own.”

Reporting from Khartoum, Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar said that the claims were a “bold allegation” since many Sudanese people have been asking whether Hamdok was part of the military takeover or had been aware it would happen.

“When I asked him, he said he didn’t know that the military coup was coming,” said Atas, referring to a recent interview with the prime minister after he was reinstated this week.

“Now the deputy chairman says they had actually discussed it with Hamdok and he knew of the military takeover before it took place,” said Atas.

“People were already questioning his independence. After this allegation, people will question his legitimacy even more,” he added.

On October 25, top General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan dissolved the government, arrested the civilian leadership, and declared a state of emergency – drawing widespread international condemnation and triggering widespread anti-coup protests.

Hamdok was placed under house arrest after the military seized power.

On November 11, al-Burhan issued a decree creating a new 14-member ruling sovereign council, with himself at the head.

The coup, more than two years after a popular uprising forced the removal of longtime strongman Omar al-Bashir, derailed a transition towards democratic elections and drew international criticism.

The 14-point deal between Hamdok and the military, signed in the presidential palace in Khartoum on Sunday, provided for the release of all political prisoners detained during the coup and stipulated that a 2019 constitutional declaration be the basis for a political transition, according to details read out on state television.

Following the deal, the reinstated premier told Al Jazeera that he would form a “technocratic government” made up of qualified professionals to lead the country to elections by June 2023.

The deal was largely welcomed by the international community, but Sudanese pro-democracy activists have rejected it as an “attempt to legitimise the coup”.

They demand that the military should not be part of any future Sudanese government and Sudanese people have continued to protest against the military’s involvement in politics since the agreement was signed.

“Tens of thousands of people have been back to the streets, insisting on their demands,” said Serdar, who added that the formation of a new cabinet and the release of political prisoners are the two main issues yet to be resolved.

Twelve cabinet ministers also submitted their resignation to Hamdok in protest against the deal between the prime minister and the military.

At least 41 people have been killed during confrontations with security forces since the coup, as security forces have at times used live rounds to disperse anti-coup demonstrators.

View reprint at MSN: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/sudan-e2-80-99s-pm-hamdok-backed-military-takeover-says-general/ar-AAR9JCg

View original report and Aljazeera's 26-minute video interview with Hemeti entitled Sudan's General Dagalo: Military takeover was the 'best option': https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/26/sudan-pm-hamdok-backed-military-takeover-general-dagalo

________________________________________________________________________________

Ethiopia’s war triggers fears in Kenya, South Sudan

NOTE from Sudan Watch Editor: Here are two maps showing Ethiopia's proximity to Sudan, South Sudan, Kenya, Eritrea, Somalia.

______________________________________________________________________________

From the website of The International Criminal Court (ICC) 

Trying individuals for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and aggression

The Court is participating in a global fight to end impunity, and through international criminal justice, the Court aims to hold those responsible accountable for their crimes and to help prevent these crimes from happening again. 

​​The Court cannot reach these goals alone. As a court of last resort, it seeks to complement, not replace, national Courts. Governed by an international treaty called the Rome Statute, the ICC is the world’s first permanent international criminal court. 

Towards stability and lastin​g peace

Justice is a key prerequisite for lasting peace. International justice can contribute to long‐term peace, stability and equitable development in post‐conflict societies. These elements are foundational for building a future free ​of violence. ​​

Read more: https://www.icc-cpi.int/about

Omar Hassan Ahmad Al Bashir

President of the Republic of Sudan since 16 October 1993 at time of warrants. Arrest warrants: 4 March 2009 and 12 July 2010

Charges: five counts of crimes against humanity: murder, extermination, forcible transfer, torture, and rape; two counts of war crimes: intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking part in hostilities, and pillaging; three counts of genocide: by killing, by causing serious bodily or mental harm, and by deliberately inflicting on each target group conditions of life calculated to bring about the group's physical destruction, allegedly committed at least between 2003 and 2008 in Darfur, Sudan

Read more: https://www.icc-cpi.int/darfur/albashir

See the other defendants at large including Abdel Raheem Muhammad Hussein, Ahmad Muhammad Harun ("Ahmad Harun"), Abdallah Banda Abakaer Nourain here: 

https://www.icc-cpi.int/defendants?k=At%20large

RSF's Hemeti Dagalo is blackmailing the international community into recognising his control of Sudan

The man who did so much to contribute to the flight of more than 350,000 Darfuri refugees to Chad is now attempting to blackmail the international community into recognizing his illegitimate, coup-born military control of Sudan. He cares nothing for the people he threatens to use pic.twitter.com/G3xhOFDhJp

— Eric Reeves (@sudanreeves) December 1, 2021

Sudan: Chairman Burhan commends Dagalo's efforts in political agreement and praises efforts of the Sufis

Here is a full copy of a news report at Sudan News Agency (SUNA)

Dated Sunday 21 November 2021

Al-Burhan commends Abdel Rahim Dagalo's efforts in political agreement

© Provided by Sudan News Agency (SUNA)

Khartoum, Nov. 21 (SUNA) - The Chairman of the Transitional Sovereignty Council, Lieutenant-General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, has commended the efforts and stances of the second commander of the Rapid Support Forces Lieutenant-General Abdel Rahim Daglao.

During his address to the signing ceremony of the political agreement with Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdouk, Al- Burhan noted that Abdul Rahim Dagalo has been playing a pivotal national role in the past period and exerted great efforts in maintaining security and stability, extending thanks all the national efforts that played roles in making the situations calm.

He also praised the efforts of the Sufis to bring the ranks and unity of the word to preserve stability. (ta)

View original: https://www.msn.com/en-xl/africa/other/al-burhan-commends-abdel-rahim-dagalos-efforts-in-political-agreement/ar-AAQZGEr

Sudan: Inquiry by PHR finds that authorities armed and orchestrated security forces that killed more than 200 pro-democracy protesters

An inquiry by the New York-based advocacy organisation Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) finds that authorities armed and orchestrated security forces that killed more than 200 pro-democracy protesters in June 2019. 

PHR is calling on UN member states to sanction the Sudanese officials responsible for the human rights abuses and for Sudan’s civilian-military government to include human rights, rule of law and accountability protections in the nation’s new constitution. Full story:

Sudan accused of masterminding lethal attacks on Khartoum protesters

Inquiry finds that authorities armed and orchestrated security forces that killed more than 200 pro-democracy protesters

Report from The Guardian.com 

Global development

By Kate Hodal @katehodal

Dated Thursday 05 March 2020 13.03 GMT, Last modified 8.07 GMT - here is a copy in full:

Photo: Demonstrators hold a banner bearing images of protesters allegedly killed in unrest in Khartoum in June 2019. Photograph: Marwan Ali/EPA

Sudanese security forces systematically planned and coordinated a series of deadly attacks that killed up to 241 pro-democracy protesters and injured hundreds more at a Khartoum sit-in last year, an inquiry has found.

Authorities “purposefully pre-positioned” state security forces armed with tear gas, whips and assault rifles in the month before the protests began, and “intentionally targeted” medical personnel and facilities during and after the protests, according to the New York-based advocacy organisation Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), which led an investigation into the violence.

The findings were based on interviews with 30 survivors of the 3 June massacre, eyewitness accounts, and analysis of thousands of still and video images of the protests, among other sources of information. They contradict previous theories that the attacks on the protest camp were spontaneous, or the work of “rogue” military personnel, as a government-led inquiry indicated.

“The June 3 massacre against Sudanese civilians at the hands of government security forces is an egregious violation of human rights,” said Phelim Kine, PHR’s director of research and investigations.

“Security forces’ horrific tactics – sexual violence, including rape, use of tear gas, whips, batons, and live ammunition – killed and critically injured hundreds of civilians. To support the national commission charged with investigating these crimes, the Sudanese legal and human rights community, as well as international bodies such as the United Nations and the African Union, must conduct further investigation into the full scope of government-perpetrated violence on June 3.”

Photo: Sudanese forces deployed to disperse the Khartoum sit-in are seen around army headquarters on 3 June, 2019. Photograph: Ashraf Shazly/AFP/Getty Images

Grassroots pro-democracy protests began in December 2018 [ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/25/sudan-clashes-between-security-forces-and-anti-bashir-protesters-prompt-concern ] in the centre of Khartoum in opposition to three decades of autocratic rule by Omar al-Bashir. The unrest continued after the president was ousted by military generals in April 2019 as protesters called for power to be ceded to civilians.

On 3 June, armed men in military uniform – many of whom declared themselves to be members of the Rapid Support Forces – stormed the peaceful sit-in that had been camped for months outside the military headquarters, shooting, stabbing, beating, raping and humiliating protestors.

Interviewees told PHR how security forces taunted them while beating, burning, and cutting them. One witness described an attempt by armed men to sexually assault him after they detained and tortured him, cutting open a healed wound and putting out cigarettes in it. Several interviewees said they had seen women gang-raped in broad daylight. 

Others described being shot at, beaten with whips and batons, and suffering severe post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety.

PHR said some survivors would suffer from a lifetime of chronic pain and disability as a result of their injuries.

One interviewee, Muna, recounted how she had been wearing skinny jeans during the protests. She reported that a soldier from the Rapid Support Forces – a paramilitary force heavily armed by Bashir – grabbed her and said: “How do we get her pants off her? Give me a blade so we can tear it off her.”

A doctor interviewed by PHR said he was directly targeted by soldiers, who pointed automatic weapons at him as they yelled: “You’re the reason for all this chaos and this whole mess … You’re the reason why the country’s like this. You’re the reason why we kill people. You’re the reason why people die.”

The attacks were used to “intimidate and silence those demanding civilian rule and major reforms in Sudan”, said PHR’s director of policy, Susannah Sirkin, who contributed to the report.

“As doctors and their organisations were at the forefront of calls for change in Sudan, they were a target. As those who treated injured protesters, or received bodies in the morgues, they were doubly targeted. As credible witnesses to gross human rights violations and their physical and psychological impacts, they were triply targeted.”

The report echoed similar findings, published by Human Rights Watch [ https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/11/17/they-were-shouting-kill-them/sudans-violent-crackdown-protesters-khartoum ] in November, which concluded that “the number of forces deployed in the operation against the sit-in – estimated in the thousands – suggests official operational planning”.

Medical expert Rohini Haar, who serves as research and investigations adviser at PHR, said: “This pattern of targeted attacks on healthcare is a recurring weapon used by Sudanese security forces that violates the obligation and rights of medical personnel to treat those in need, threatens the lives of medical workers, and has a devastating impact on civilians.”

PHR is calling on UN member states to sanction the Sudanese officials responsible for the human rights abuses and for Sudan’s civilian-military government to include human rights, rule of law and accountability protections in the nation’s new constitution.

Global development is supported by BILL & MELINDA GATES foundation

View Original: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/mar/05/sudan-accused-of-masterminding-lethal-attacks-on-khartoum-protesters

END

Sudan: In Darfur Hemeti has victims by the millions

In Darfur Sudan Hemeti has victims by the millions - He's positioning to be paramilitary ruler of Darfur 

Note from Sudan Watch Editor: Who knows what the Canadian lobbying firm Dickens and Madson is doing to earn the $6 million it is being paid by Messrs Hemeti and al-Burhan? When I see news about Hemeti I read it carefully to check that he is not being turned into a hero after the atrocities he was responsible for in Darfur and for the 03 June 2019 massacre of innocent civilian protestors in Khartoum. So much grief.

The following article by AP has an interesting title.  People who've paid close attention to Sudan and South Sudan over the past 16+ years know Hemeti is a wicked monster.  He dropped out of primary school to become a camel herder.  Can he read and write?  After he initialled the constitutional declaration, he was photographed showing off its gold emblazoned folder.  In this photo he is holding it upside down.  Idiot.

Article by Associated Press

Written by JOSEPH KRAUSS and SAMY MAGDY 

Dated Tuesday, 06 August 2019 6:59 am

A new strongman in Sudan? Experts aren't so sure

CAIRO — When Sudan's protest leaders signed a preliminary power-sharing agreement with the ruling military council in early July, they had no choice but to shake hands with the man many of them accuse of ordering a massacre just a month earlier.

Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, a paramilitary commander from Darfur who is widely known as Hemedti, has emerged as Sudan's main power broker in the months since the military overthrew President Omar al-Bashir.

He boasts tens of thousands of paramilitary forces who have spent years battling insurgents across Sudan as well as rebels in Yemen on behalf of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Experts say he can draw on his family's vast livestock and gold mining operations in Darfur, as well as funding from Gulf Arab countries, to buy the support of tribal leaders and other local elites. That could be the recipe for a new patronage system like the one that kept al-Bashir in power for three decades.

But he also faces considerable headwinds: from the pro-democracy movement that has brought tens of thousands into the streets; from rival tribes and rebel groups that have battled his forces; and from elites in Khartoum, who view the onetime camel trader from distant Darfur as an outsider.

This week the protesters and the military announced a new breakthrough in their efforts to form a joint government that would pave the way to civilian rule. But the democratic transition remains fragile, and Hemedti's rise — along with the growing resistance to it — could plunge the country into further chaos.

A NEW PATRON

Hemedti leads the Rapid Support Forces, which grew out of the feared Janjaweed militias mobilized to put down a rebellion in Darfur in the early 2000s. The International Criminal Court, which charged al-Bashir and other top officials with genocide and crimes against humanity, has not brought charges against Hemedti. But rights groups say his forces burned villages and raped and killed civilians during a series of counterinsurgency campaigns over the last decade.

Spokesmen for the military and the RSF did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Hemedti's past actions or present ambitions.

His forces have won a number of military victories against both rebels and rival Arab tribes, allowing his family to expand its livestock business and branch into the mining of gold, which emerged as Sudan's biggest export after the secession of oil-rich South Sudan in 2011. He can also count on financial aid from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which have contracted his forces to battle Iran-aligned rebels in Yemen.

There are few if any publicly available figures for the wealth at the disposal of Hemedti and the RSF. But in recent months he has boasted of depositing $1 billion in the Central Bank and paying the salaries of teachers and police.

"There are all the signs of someone who is trying to be the next military dictator of Sudan," said Suliman Baldo, a senior researcher with the Enough Project. But he doubts Hemedti can sustain a patronage system like the one that kept al-Bashir in power.

"Sudan is totally exhausted, the national economy is in total collapse because of all of this, and there is no way Hemedti can sustain a national economy," Baldo said.

DISTRUST IN KHARTOUM

In the months since al-Bashir's ouster, Hemedti has worked out of an office in the presidential residence, receiving foreign envoys and other officials. But in the capital he is still seen as an outsider.

"The Khartoum elites are unanimous that Hemedti cannot be the ruler of Sudan, because as an uneducated Darfurian he is from the wrong class and the wrong place, and lacks the formal qualifications of education or staff college," said Alex de Waal, a Sudan expert at Tufts University.

The protesters blame the RSF for the clearing of their main sit-in outside the military headquarters in Khartoum on June 3, when security forces killed scores of people. Sudanese prosecutors have charged eight RSF officers, including a major general, with crimes against humanity but say the ruling generals did not order the crackdown.

Some protest leaders have called for the RSF to be disbanded, and both the Sudanese Professionals' Association, which spearheaded the protests against al-Bashir, and the Communist Party have said Hemedti should be tried for alleged crimes in Darfur.

In the end, however, under international pressure , the protesters returned to talks with the military over a power-sharing deal. The two sides signed a preliminary document last month. While Hemedti is technically the deputy head of the military council, it was he who attended the signing ceremony.

The follow-up constitutional document signed Sunday would place the RSF under the command of the military. The protesters said it would also allow for the prosecution of military or civilian leaders if there is evidence of involvement in violence against protesters. Hemedti hailed the deal as a "win-win."

RESISTANCE IN THE PROVINCES

Another route to power for Hemedti could run through the provinces, where neglect and marginalization by the central government have spawned rebellions going back decades.

"The most intriguing possibility today is that Hemedti will cash in on his credentials as a man of the far periphery, and build a support base that includes making agreements with the armed groups," de Waal said. He says Hemedti knows the price of loyalty from personal experience, and that the RSF can more readily integrate the armed groups.

An activist from Hemedti's Rizeigat tribe confirmed that he has paid "lots of money to tribal leaders" and provided jobs and other services to buy their loyalty.

"The opposition against him is silent because they fear the crackdown," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

Hemedti has also met with the leaders of various rebel groups — including those he has fought against — in Chad, South Sudan and the United Arab Emirates. But experts say he may still have too many enemies from his past campaigns.

Jerome Tubiana, another Sudan researcher, said Hemedti has "already failed to secure a strong base in the center, and his bet to represent all the peripheries, or even the whole Darfur, will be uneasy given his violent past."

Baldo is also skeptical.

"In Darfur, he has victims by the millions and I don't think they will rally behind him," he said.

SOURCE: https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900082821/a-new-strongman-in-sudan-experts-arent-so-sure.html

Related News

Eid in Sudan: 9 killed, several injured after RSF launched assault on Shangal Toubaya, North Darfur

Sudan Watch - Sunday, 11 August 2019

https://sudanwatch.blogspot.com/2019/08/eid-in-sudan-9-killed-several-injured.html

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

Sudan Watch - Tuesday, 13 August 2019

https://sudanwatch.blogspot.com/2019/08/film-meet-janjaweed-hemedti-is.html

Flooring Hemeti Dagalo the monster from Darfur Sudan may require more than unarmed protesters

• The interim vice president, Mohamed Hamdan “Hemeti” Dagalo, was in charge of the brutal janjaweed militias. Now he is calling the shots in Khartoum
• By creating the janjaweed and relentlessly empowering them under Hemeti, the Sudanese regime has created a monster it cannot control
• In 2006, armed with new equipment, he led several hundred men on a raid across the rebel-held area of North Darfur. The janjaweed rammed non-Arab men with their pickup trucks and raped women in the name of jihad—according to witnesses I met at the time
• When Sudanese troops joined the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen, Hemeti’s RSF played a key role alongside a Sudanese army contingent
• Even those who used to laugh at his blunt speeches stopped seeing him as a joke and now saw him as a threat to their democratic hopes
• Given that the Bashir regime repeatedly failed to abide by its international commitments to disarm the janjaweed, it seems even less likely now

Full story below.

From Foreign Policy

By JÉRÔME TUBIANA 

Dated 14 May 2019, 2:34 PM

The Man Who Terrorized Darfur Is Leading Sudan’s Supposed Transition

The interim vice president, Mohamed Hamdan “Hemeti” Dagalo, was in charge of the brutal janjaweed militias. Now he is calling the shots in Khartoum.

Gen. Mohamed Hamdan “Hemeti” Dagalo, the deputy head of Sudan’s military council, speaks at a news conference in Khartoum on April 30. ASSOCIATED PRESS

After Omar al-Bashir was deposed on April 11, Western diplomats made no mistake about who was in charge. Ambassadors from the United States, Britain, and the European Union did not shake hands with the transitional military council’s president, the little known army general Abdel Fattah al-Burhan; they met with his younger deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known by the nickname “Hemeti.” 

The story of how an uneducated 40-something chief of the janjaweed—the Arab militias that brought death and destruction to Darfur 16 years ago—became more powerful than his seasoned mentors in the Sudanese junta is, to many, a mystery. 

In fact, Hemeti is the main legacy of Bashir’s 30-year rule. Bashir himself was a product of an alliance of the army and the Muslim Brotherhood, unseen elsewhere in the Arab world, but the army grew tired of the wars it had to fight in Sudan’s south, and the Islamists fragmented. When a new war began in Darfur in 2003, Bashir was convinced by Darfuri Arab hard-liners that turning their youths to militias would allow him to win. But by creating the janjaweed and relentlessly empowering them under Hemeti, the Sudanese regime has created a monster it cannot control and who represents a security threat not only for Sudan but also for its neighbors.

It seems that for a few days after Bashir’s ousting Khartoum’s civilian opposition trusted that it could negotiate a civilian transition with Burhan and Hemeti. Darfuris were more skeptical, given that they were more intimately familiar with the new men in charge. Burhan was a military intelligence colonel coordinating army and militia attacks against civilians in West Darfur state from 2003 to 2005, at a time when Hemeti was already a known warlord, who would gradually become the janjaweed’s primary leader. 

During its first, most intense years, the war in Darfur led to the deaths of several hundred thousand non-Arab civilians and displaced about 2 million people, earning Bashir an arrest warrant for genocide from the International Criminal Court. 

I met Hemeti a couple of times in 2009, first in a vaguely Orientalist furniture shop he owned in South Darfur’s state capital of Nyala (one of his early business efforts), from which I was driven to a more private office setting. He was a tall man with the sarcastic smile of a naughty child—yet he was then the newly appointed security advisor to South Darfur’s governor, his first official government position, obtained through blackmail and threats of rebellion.

Hemeti hails from a small Chadian Arab clan that fled wars and drought in Chad to take refuge in Darfur in the 1980s. As he told me, his uncle Juma Dagalo failed to be recognized as a tribal leader in North Darfur state, but South Darfur authorities welcomed the newcomers and allowed them to settle on land belonging to the Fur tribe, Darfur’s main indigenous non-Arab group. The place, called Dogi in the Fur language, was rebranded Um-el-Gura, “the mother of the villages” in Arabic, an old name for Mecca. The authorities also armed Dagalo’s followers, who, as early as the 1990s, began attacking their Fur neighbors.

Hemeti was then a teenager who, as he told me, dropped out of primary school in the third grade to trade camels across the borders in Libya and Egypt. When the Darfur rebellion began in 2003, he became a janjaweed amir (war chief) in his area, leading attacks against neighboring Fur villages. To justify joining the government-backed militias, he said the rebels had attacked a caravan of fellow camel traders on their way to Libya, allegedly killing 75 men and looting 3,000 camels. That fell short of his own brutal record as a militia leader. 

In 2006, armed with new equipment, he led several hundred men on a raid across the rebel-held area of North Darfur. The janjaweed rammed non-Arab men with their pickup trucks and raped women in the name of jihad—according to witnesses I met at the time.  His violent methods even created tensions with accompanying army officers. 

At the same time, Chad and Sudan began a proxy war through their respective rebel groups. The Chadian government used its own Arab officials to push the janjaweed to betray Khartoum. Bichara Issa Jadallah, a cousin to Hemeti, was then the defense minister in Chad. In 2006, he invited the janjaweed leader to the Chadian capital, N’Djamena, and had him sign a secret nonaggression pact with the Darfur rebel Justice and Equality Movement, behind the back of Khartoum. 

Shortly afterward, Hemeti announced that he had become a rebel. He then received a visit from a TV crew working for Britain’s Channel 4, which shot a documentary in his camp—his first exposure to TV—a medium to which he has become addicted since. But the journalists reportedly came late, and, as they were filming, government negotiators were also in the camp, bargaining over the price to bring Hemeti back into the government fold.

He remained a rebel for only six months before going back to Khartoum’s side. “We didn’t really become rebels,” he told me in 2009, sitting in his governor advisor’s chair. “We just wanted to attract the government’s attention, tell them we’re here, in order to get our rights: military ranks, political positions, and development in our area.” 

Other janjaweed leaders were increasingly critical of the government, including the most powerful among them, Musa Hilal, who in 2013 quit his post as presidential advisor in Khartoum and began forming his own movement. At the same time, some janjaweed were openly fighting the Sudanese intelligence service in downtown Nyala. Hemeti was one of the few janjaweed leaders to remain loyal to Bashir’s government. 

Consequently, Hemeti was picked to lead the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), an enhanced paramilitary force—initially in an effort to retake control of the janjaweed, but it didn’t work out as planned. The RSF became uncontrollable and engaged in looting, killing, and rape in Darfur, as well as in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states.

The RSF also began exporting Darfur’s violence to central Sudan, ransoming civilians at highway roadblocks north of Khartoum and taking part in repressing demonstrations in the capital in September 2013, when at least 200 protesters were killed. First under the intelligence service, then under the direct control of the presidency, the force became Bashir’s praetorian guard, whose role was to protect the president from protests or from any coup attempt by the army—it turned into a third pole of power within Sudan’s security apparatus, rival to both army and intelligence. Hemeti was appointed brigadier general.

Then, in 2016, as Europe began cooperating with Sudan to curb migration flows, Hemeti’s men began to intercept migrants, from Sudan itself as well as other parts of the Horn of Africa, on their way to Libya, exhibiting them on local and foreign TV stations to demonstrate to the European Union that they were the right people for the job. In fact, the RSF played a double game and filled their cars with migrants whom they sold to Libyan traffickers, who would then often jail them in torture houses. Since Muammar al-Qaddafi’s fall in 2011, migrants in Libya are commonly tortured until they call relatives and convince them to pay a ransom to set them free; those who cannot pay are turned into slaves. But on Sudanese national TV, Hemeti claimed to be acting on behalf of the EU, which he also threatened with reopening the border if he was not paid a ransom for his “hard work.”

When Sudanese troops joined the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen, Hemeti’s RSF played a key role alongside a Sudanese army contingent led by Burhan, then the ground forces chief of staff. The two men got along well. They reportedly had meetings with Emirati and Saudi officials, discussing the post-Bashir era and telling them that they were the men the Emirati, Saudi, and Egyptian regimes were looking for: Arab military leaders who were not Islamists friendly with Qatar, Iran, or the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. 

The RSF reportedly received Saudi and Emirati support, including money and weapons. Recently, at a press conference, Hemeti claimed to have set aside some $350 million to save Sudan’s finances and explained that he obtained this money for his role in Yemen and mining gold in Sudan. (He had competed with Hilal for gold concessions and eventually managed to have his rival arrested in 2017.)

In another recent TV appearance, Hemeti described how, in April, Bashir asked him and other military leaders to open fire on protesters, quoting an Islamic law supposedly allowing a ruler to kill 30-50 percent of a population in order to save the rest. He said he then decided “not to resist the change” and not oppose the protesters. 

The first head of the transitional military council, Gen. Awad Ibn Auf, resigned after 24 hours, reportedly disagreeing with Hemeti, who preferred Burhan. In the following days, Hemeti continued his public relations campaign, visiting a wounded protester in the hospital. But at a press conference on April 30, he made clear who he was, accusing the protesters of being drug addicts and stating he could not tolerate them continuously “blocking the streets.” Even those who used to laugh at his blunt speeches stopped seeing him as a joke and now saw him as a threat to their democratic hopes. 

Indeed Hemeti positioned his troops—reportedly 9,000 soldiers who were already in Khartoum and 4,000 who came recently from Darfur—at strategic locations all over the city, ready to fight protesters, the army, or anyone else. (On Monday, protest leaders blamed the RSF when five demonstrators and an army major were shot.) 

Hemeti is reportedly backed by some of the same Darfuri Arab politicians who created the janjaweed 16 years ago. If they rise to power, it would threaten to “steal the revolution from the people,” as one protest slogan put it, transform Sudan from a military regime into a militia state, and replace Islamism with Arab supremacism. 

While the West seems passive, other countries are more worried, especially Chad. In recent years, in spite of his cousin still being a close advisor to Chad’s president, Idriss Déby, Hemeti has appeared more hostile to the Chadian regime and may be supportive of an Arab takeover in N’Djamena. Chad’s president took power a year after Bashir in Sudan, and Bashir’s fall might legitimately worry him. While relying largely on his own non-Arab Zaghawa tribe, Déby also accommodated other groups, not least Arab politicians who held key positions such as the defense and foreign ministries. 

Even so, ambitious Chadian Arab politicians might not refuse Hemeti’s armed support. The RSF’s ranks include hundreds of Chadian Arab youths and ex-rebels against Déby who took refuge in Sudan. Such combatants may well be more interested in regime change in Chad than in Sudan, risking an unprecedented exportation to Chad of Darfur’s racist violence. 

Given that the Bashir regime repeatedly failed to abide by its international commitments to disarm the janjaweed, it seems even less likely now.

Even in the most optimistic scenario—whereby a new civilian government in Sudan tries to disarm the janjaweed—at least some of them will inevitably get involved in armed activities across Sudan’s borders, in countries where they have already been active, including Chad, Libya, and the Central African Republic. There are also reports that janjaweed were among Sudanese who joined jihadi groups in Mali. 

The janjaweed’s strength is now comparable to that of the Sudanese regular forces or other armies in the region. Opposing them by force could trigger bloodshed, making the stakes of the ongoing negotiations higher than ever before. 

Flooring the monster may require more than unarmed protesters.

Jérôme Tubiana is a researcher and journalist who has covered conflicts in Chad and Sudan for more than 20 years and the author of Guantánamo Kid: The True Story of Mohammed El-Gharani.

SOURCE: https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/14/man-who-terrorized-darfur-is-leading-sudans-supposed-transition-hemeti-rsf-janjaweed-bashir-khartoum/

Sudan: Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan to be appointed 1st President of Sovereign Council, Hemedti Deputy

Article from Aawsat.com

By Sawsan Abu Hussein and Ahmed Younes - Cairo, Khartoum

Dated Saturday, 10 August, 2019 - 08:00

Sudan: Burhan to Be Appointed 1st President of Sovereign Council, Hemedti Deputy

A senior Sudanese military commander announced on Friday that Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, who currently presides over Sudan’s Transitional Military Council (TMC), would be appointed the head of the future Sovereign Council.

“The Sovereign Council will chair the first transitional period under the leadership of Abdel Fattah Burhan, and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo will be his deputy,” Gen. Salah Abdelkhalig, a TMC member, told Sputnik news agency.

The TMC and the forces of the Declaration of Freedom and Change agreed on Saturday on a constitutional declaration to govern the transitional period following months of political instability.

The declaration stipulated that the presidency of the Transitional Sovereign Council shall be assumed by the military for the first period of 21 months. It shall be composed of five representatives of the military and five representatives of the civil community, in addition to one other member who will be appointed by a collective vote.

The civilian-picked prime minister will appoint a cabinet where the defense and home ministry seats have been reserved by the military.

Abdelkhalig stressed that the constitutional agreement was “one of the most important strategic achievements, as it has saved the country from the civil war disaster.”

Meanwhile, Cairo is expected to witness important talks between representatives of the Sudanese Revolutionary Front and the coalition of Forces of the Declaration of Freedom and Change, to negotiate controversial issues between the two parties related to achieving peace and ending war with the armed movements.

The armed movements - operating under the Revolutionary Front – expressed reservations over the constitutional document signed with the TMC, noting that it failed to include the “peace paper” that was approved in Addis Ababa.

SOURCE: https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/1851861/sudan-burhan-be-appointed-1st-president-sovereign-council-hemedti-deputy