Showing posts with label Salah. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Salah. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Sudan: The last days of Bashir in the palace

  • On 30 August 2019 during the third trial session of Sudan's former president Omar al-Bashir, the court in Khartoum indicted Bashir on charges of suspicious enrichment and illegal dealing with foreign exchange.  This follows charges in May with incitement and involvement in the killing of protestors during the demonstrations that led to his overthrow in April. 
  • According to the spokesperson of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Bashir’s 2009 arrest warrant for crimes against humanity under the ICC remains valid.  
  • “The court has and will continue seeking the compliance of Sudan with its obligation under international law and in relation to the resolution 1539 of the United Nations Security Council,” ICC Spokesperson Fadi el Abdallah told Ayin.
  • Bashir’s trial will resume tomorrow [07 Sep 2019] while a future trial at the Hague may become a reality if Sudan’s justice system cannot demonstrate a genuine national investigation and prosecution will take place, Abdallah added.  Full story:
Article from and by Ayin Network.com
Dated 06 September 2019 
The last days of Bashir in the palace, new days in court
The moment millions of Sudanese entered into the vicinity of the General Command of the Army Headquarters on 6 April [2019], the deposed former President al-Bashir was sitting on a chair with another set of empty chairs around him in the courtyard of his residence. Outside his presidential palace overlooking the Nile, protests against his rule intensified, eventually ousting him five days later.

Ayin conducted an exclusive interview with close confidants of the former president that worked within the presidential palace. The sources described to Ayin the scene they saw of the former president just days prior to his arrest. The names of these sources remain confidential for their security.

To curb stress, former president Bashir pulled tattered strings off his Muslim skull cap while three of his presidential aides entered the room. The conversation was stilted and everyone sat in awkward silence. To cut the tension, according to a witness, one of the two aides attempted to make small talk about Bashir’s cap, noting the colour and how it was the first time to see the former president wearing such a hat. Bashir responded by noting the skull cap was the “fashion of the day” and were worn among young people. Gaining access to the presidential palace and then Al-Bashir’s residence was challenging for the three presidential aides –loud protests calling for Bashir to step down could be heard all around them.

They were convinced that they must meet and console the former president in the palace at this difficult time, according to one of the aides. While driving tinted-window cars through the alleyways of central Khartoum to reach al-Bashir’s residence, the three aides could see the multitude of protestors and realised their days of employment were numbered. None of them could have predicted the turnout against the former president. The short distance from the presidential palace to the guest house where Bashir resided seemed longer than ever, the aide told Ayin. The short road appeared to represent the end of Bashir’s 30-year regime. 

The aides entered the former president’s residence at around 5 pm on 6 April where Bashir and his guards sat on full alert, covering the entrances, fearing an attack. A tear gas grenade could be heard outside from security forces in a futile attempt to disperse a crowd of millions in front of the army command post. Bashir could clearly hear the crowds chanting outside, calling for his ouster, according to the inside sources. 

Abdallah al-Bashir, the President’s brother, appeared with a number of Bashir’s bodyguards, and after the salute, he whispered in the president’s ear and called on the guards accompanying him to return to the palace. It turned out that he was accompanying them to the roof of the new palace building inside the general command of the army, where he was monitoring the masses outside and relaying what he saw to his brother. According to one of the former president’s aides, he had never seen Bashir appear so weak and distraught.

Another witness Ayin spoke to claims he saw the former head of security, Salah Gosh, speak to Bashir, allegedly promising to clear the area of the protestors outside his residence. But this never took place.
The break up that did not break
On 7 April, the security committee told President Bashir of their decision to break up the sit-in in front of the army headquarters. Bashir gathered his family and informed them of the decision and asked his relatives who were with him in the guest house to leave the palace and ordered his younger brother, Musaab, to stay with him, according to the two confidential sources that spoke to Ayin.

While waiting for the commencement of the security operation to break up the sit-in, Musaab and others went up to the roof of the palace to see the operation and how it was being carried out. Musab was accompanied by a number of the former president’s guards and security officers. Bullets could be heard. The source of bullets was not known to them before they learned moments later that an army force sided with the revolutionaries and exchanged fire with the security forces and even repulsed them to keep the sit-in going.

This was a difficult reality for those who planned to break up the sit-in and waited for the hour of victory to return directly from the top of their building to inform the former president that the operation had been successful. Instead, no genuine counter-attack against the protestors took place and Bashir would eventually find himself re-accommodated from a palace to a prison where he is currently facing trial. 

Sudan's Bashir 'took $90m from Saudi crown prince', corruption trial hears
[See tweet by Middle East Eye here:

On trial at home, possibly abroad
On 30 August during Bashir’s third trial session, the court indicted Bashir on charges of suspicious enrichment and illegal dealing with foreign exchange. This follows charges in May with incitement and involvement in the killing [https://3ayin.com/june-3-massacre/] of protestors during the demonstrations that led to his overthrow in April. 

Far from the glittery walls of the palace, the former president now sits in a cage in front of Justice Al Sadiq Abdul Rahman who refused a bail request, citing the law preventing such a measure for crimes that involve prison sentences that potentially exceed 10 years. 

But Bashir may face further trials in a different setting. According to the spokesperson of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Bashir’s 2009 arrest [https://www.icc-cpi.int/darfur/albashir] warrant for crimes against humanity under the ICC remains valid. “The court has and will continue seeking the compliance of Sudan with its obligation under international law and in relation to the resolution 1539 of the United Nations Security Council,” ICC Spokesperson Fadi el Abdallah told Ayin. Bashir’s trial will resume tomorrow [07 Sep 2019] while a future trial at the Hague may become a reality if Sudan’s justice system cannot demonstrate a genuine national investigation and prosecution will take place, Abdallah added.

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Sunday, June 23, 2019

TMC VP Hemeti's Janjaweed killed and burned in Darfur, Sudan. Now Darfur has come to Khartoum

NOTE from Sudan Watch Editor: Here is another interesting article from The New York Times by Declan Walsh 16 June 2019. Yellow highlighting is mine, for future reference.

Sudan Ousted a Brutal Dictator. His Successor Was His Enforcer.

Photo: Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, also known as Hemeti, the leader of the Rapid Support Forces paramilitaries that carried out the violent dispersal of protesters on June 3. Credit Declan Walsh/The New York Times

KHARTOUM, Sudan — Once a camel trader who led a militia accused of genocidal violence in Darfur, Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan now sits at the pinnacle of power in Sudan, overlooking the scorched streets from his wood-paneled office high up in the military’s towering headquarters.

From his office in the capital, Khartoum, he can see the site where his unit, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, cleared thousands of pro-democracy protesters in a storm of violence that began on June 3.

The heavily armed troops burned tents, raped women and killed dozens of people, some dumped in the Nile, according to numerous accounts from protesters and witnesses.

The blood bath consolidated the vertiginous rise of General Hamdan, widely known as Hemeti, who by most reckonings is now the de facto ruler of Sudan. To many Sudanese he is proof of a depressing reality: Although they ousted one dictator in April, the brutal system he left behind is determined to guard its power.

“We thought this might happen,” said Alaa Salah, 22, the woman dressed in white who led chants from atop a car and brought the world’s attention to Sudan’s revolution. “For years Hemeti killed and burned in Darfur. Now Darfur has come to Khartoum.”
Photo: Alaa Salah during a protest against then-President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan in April. Credit Lana H. Haroun

For years, General Hamdan was an enforcer for President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the brutal dictator who led Sudan for 30 years. When protesters filled the streets in April, roaring for Mr. al-Bashir’s ouster, the military toppled him.

General Hamdan, claiming to support the revolution, abandoned his patron.

But when the protesters refused to disperse, demanding an immediate transition to civilian rule, the generals refused to budge. With power-sharing talks stalled on June 3, the Rapid Support Forces began their crackdown.

Sudanese doctors put the toll at 118 dead.

With international pressure building, General Hamdan, 45, wants to present himself as Sudan’s savior, not its destroyer.

“If I did not come to this position, the country would be lost,” he told The New York Times in a rare interview with a Western journalist.

But he declined to answer direct questions about accusations that his troops committed atrocities, citing a continuing investigation that, he said, will publicize its findings in the coming days.

“I’m not escaping the questions,” he said. “I’m just waiting for the investigation.”

As he spoke on Thursday, a newly appointed American envoy to Sudan was arriving in Khartoum to press the military to stop attacking civilians.

A day earlier, the United Nations Security Council formally condemned the violence.

The American envoy, Donald Booth, a former ambassador to Sudan, also called for an independent investigation into the June 3 killings, a military withdrawal from Khartoum and an end to the internet blackout that has severed Sudan’s links to the outside world.

General Hamdan, for his part, said his troops had been goaded into action by what he called “unspeakable provocations.”

“One protester pulled out this,” he said, pointing to his crotch, “and waved it at our soldiers. Our vehicle was torn apart in front of us, and they filmed it live. There were many provocations.”

A lanky man with a primary school education, four wives and no formal military training, General Hamdan is enjoying the trappings of his new position.
Photo: Most of the Sudanese fighters in Yemen belong to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, a tribal militia previously known as the Janjaweed. Credit Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

At his office in the military headquarters, courtiers, advisers and waiters swarmed around him. Golden swords and military medals, awarded to past military leaders, filled the cabinet outside his door.

His fighters lounged in khaki-colored battle wagons at the gates, showing off the weaponry that underpins his authority. Some cleared piles of paving stones from the deserted streets outside, effacing the traces of the exuberant protest that a few short weeks ago enraptured the country.

Sudan is formally under the rule of Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, an older army officer who heads the Military Transitional Council that seized power from Mr. al-Bashir on April 11. But few doubt that, with Khartoum in his grip, General Hamdan is the true power.

Since the rampage on June 3, angry residents have started to refer to General Hamdan’s men as “the Janjaweed,” after the notorious Arab militias that terrorized ethnic African communities in Darfur in the 2000s. The term offends General Hamdan, who rose to prominence by commanding one such militia.

“Janjaweed means a bandit who robs you on the road,” he said. “It’s just propaganda from the opposition.”

It’s certainly true that, under his control, the Rapid Support Forces has evolved into far more than a gun-toting rabble.

With 50,000 fighters by some estimates, the force has been deployed to quash insurgencies across Sudan and to fight for pay in Yemen as part of the Saudi-led coalition.

War has made General Hamdan rich, with interests in gold mining, construction and even a limousine hire company. His patrons include Mohammed bin Salman, the hawkish crown prince of Saudi Arabia.
Photo: An activist speaking to a crowd at the site of the sit-in in front of Sudan’s military headquarters in April. Credit Bryan Denton for The New York Times

Longstanding fears about the dominance of his group, which Mr. al-Bashir groomed for years as a sort of praetorian force, are being realized.

“Army generals and Darfur Arab leaders had repeatedly warned the Bashir regime that the militias were a time bomb,” said Jérôme Tubiana, a researcher and journalist who has covered conflicts in Chad and Sudan for more than 20 years. “Now here we are, and it may be too late to step back.”

For now, the Rapid Support Forces watch over Khartoum like hawks. 

Armed pickup trucks sit on intersections and bridges, or snarl the sandy streets with long convoys manned by fighters brandishing sniper rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

Others work from offices. At a five-story villa in the upscale neighborhood of al-Manshiya on the banks of the Blue Nile, uniformed officers sit in air-conditioned offices with computers and printers.

On every floor, the elevator opens to large posters that show a smiling General Hamdan embracing the poor, opening schools or meeting tribal leaders. Surveillance cameras dot the ceilings.

Faced with a barrage of international condemnation, those officers are trying to shape an explanation for the violence on June 3, portraying the raid as a moral crusade against degenerate, armed pro-democracy protesters.

In one office, Gen. Nooreldeen Ahmed, a former Sudanese diplomat, heads the force’s human rights unit. A timetable of lectures on human rights for soldiers sat on his desk. A sign on the office next door read: “Child Protection Unit.”

In the past, the Rapid Support Forces have faced accusations of recruiting child soldiers to fight in Yemen. General Ahmed dismissed such claims and accounts of atrocities by soldiers during the June 3 operation as “fake news.”
Photo: A soldier passes by revolutionary graffiti at the now-empty protest site. Credit Declan Walsh/The New York Times

Their purported proof was available downstairs, where an intelligence officer piled items that he said were confiscated from protesters onto a table: a sword, an old pistol, batons, half-empty bottles of Sudanese moonshine, hashish and a fistful of condoms.

He then summoned five barefoot men in dirty clothes and with downcast eyes to the room — a few of the 300 people they said they had arrested. He did not permit questions.

Sudanese news channels, now under strict military control, pump out a stream of such propaganda every day. Protesters, who relied on the internet to mobilize opinion against Mr. al-Bashir, say they have videos and images that document army killings and beatings. But with the internet shut down, they cannot distribute them.

Dr. Sulaima Sharif, head of the Ahfad Trauma Center in Khartoum, said her staff has treated dozens of traumatized women who were beaten or abused by the Support Forces this month. At least 15 said they had been raped, she said, and many more had been beaten on the genitals by stick-wielding soldiers while in military detention.

The true number of rape victims is likely much higher, she added, because of stigma and cultural sensitivities.

Like many strongmen, General Hamdan claims his ominous reputation is overblown. “People say Hemeti is too powerful and evil,” he said. “But it’s just scaremongering. My power comes from the Sudanese people.”

Still, there are signs that his dominance of Khartoum has stoked resentment and anger inside the regular army, where some officers view him as an impudent upstart.

Those tensions exploded into the open on Thursday, when a spokesman for the Transitional Military Council said it had foiled an apparent takeover plot led by army officers this past week. But dislodging General Hamdan would be difficult, requiring the army to start a civil war on the streets of Khartoum, said a Western official in Khartoum who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the military situation. That seems unlikely for now, he said.

At the top ranks, generals of all stripes are joined by powerful, shared economic interests.

Under Mr. al-Bashir, General Hamdan and the army generals became business tycoons who cornered entire sections of the economy, said Suliman Baldo of the Enough Project, which seeks to end atrocities in African conflict zones.

“This is not just about power; it’s about money,” he said. “Army commanders and Hemeti are up to their necks in corrupt proceeds — that’s why they have zero tolerance for civilian rule in Sudan.”

- - -

VIDEO: RSF leader and TMC VP, Hemeti threatens dismissal of anyone who participates in a general strike and civil disobedience

 HERE is a tweet, posted with a film clip, by Sudanese Translators for Change STC at its Twitter page @SudaneseTc [ https://twitter.com/SudaneseTc ]. If the film footage is genuine, it shows how Hemeti speaks and dictates to crowds. Note, Hemeti is also known as Hemedti or Himedti.
SOURCE: "Sudanese Translators for Change STC @SudaneseTc [ https://twitter.com/SudaneseTc ] "A body of professional activists on the ground and in the diaspora dedicated to transmitting the latest updates on Sudan. Email us at: sudanesetc@gmail.com"
- - -

VIDEO: Himetti, leader of Janjaweed militia -  
HERE is a copy of a tweet, posted with a film clip with English subtitles of a speech showing, quote:
Himetti, leader of janjaweed militia: 
-Thanking countries Saudi, UAE and Egypt
-Has 30K soldiers in Yemen (Using children /reports) 
-"Protecting" europe, arresting millions of illegal migrants in Sudan (referring to Kh process)
 
The tweet, date stamped 23 June 2019, claims to be by Ali Salih @00AliSalah [ https://twitter.com/00AliSalah ] whose Twitter page bio says: Through chaos as it swirls.. | part-time freedom fighter amid the meaninglessness. حرية | سلام | عدالة
Location Khartoum
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ali.salah.ds
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