Showing posts with label Tintin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tintin. Show all posts

Thursday, May 04, 2023

Darfur war leader Abdul Wahid Nur is in South Sudan

NOTE from Sudan Watch Editor: A day after I mentioned Abdul Wahid Nur's name here, I go to sleep and wake up to find him in this news report by AFP.

He’s 55. 20 years ago he and his gormless gang along with a more intelligent and ruthless JEM gang started the Darfur war. Tintin springs to mind here. 

AFP's report says he is now based in Juba, South Sudan but doesn't say how he funds his work-free life, travel, hotel rooms, fancy clothes, family if any.

France & Germany host Darfur rebels. Maybe supporters pay for him to laze around Paris, save his skin, drink beer, visit Israel. He makes my foot itch. 


The report is copied here in full to show the standard of his chat. Note that he states the obvious saying Sudanese people want a civilian government. 


He rarely visits Darfur as support for him has dwindled. He has delusions of becoming president of Sudan or Darfur or anywhere that'll have him. 

________________________________________________________________________________


Report from Yahoo News

By Agence France-Presse (AFP)

Dated Thursday 4 May 2023, 11:24 am BST - full copy:


'No winner' in Sudan war: exiled Darfur rebel leader


Sudanese exiled rebel leader Abdel Wahid Nur -- a veteran of decades of fighting in the troubled Darfur region -- says there can be "no winner" in the war now raging between two rival generals.


"The Sudanese people want neither of them," Nur, now based in neighbouring South Sudan, told AFP. "They want a civilian government."


Battles have flared for weeks between Sudan's army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).


"What's happening in Sudan is a disaster," Nur, 55, said in an interview in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, where he lives after spending years in Paris.


"There is no winner in this war," said the leader of a faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) whose members, he said, have not joined the fighting.


The battles have turned Khartoum into a war zone and also killed scores in Darfur, which Nur said once more suffers "war crimes and crimes against humanity".


Nur was a leader of the Darfur rebellion from 2003 when African minority groups rose up against Arab elites they accused of monopolising Sudan's political power and wealth.


The Islamist-backed strongman then in power, Omar al-Bashir, unleashed the notorious Janjaweed militias, the forerunners of the RSF, whose atrocities shocked the world.


The unrest killed at least 300,000 people and displaced 2.5 million, according to the UN. The bloodshed led to international charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes against Bashir and others.


Although Darfur's conflict subsided over the years, the region remains awash with weapons and sporadic violence erupts, often over access to water, land and resources.


- 'Hands of oppression' -


Sudan's military ousted Bashir in April 2019 following mass pro-democracy protests, and Burhan has been the de facto leader since then.


Daglo, from Darfur's pastoralist camel-herding Arab Rizeigat people, rose to prominence with the Janjaweed, which made up the bulk of the RSF formed in 2013.


In October 2021, Burhan and his then number-two Daglo jointly staged another coup that upended the country's fragile transition to civilian rule.


The two generals then engaged in a power struggle, most recently over the RSF's integration into the regular army, which has now flared into bloody violence.


"The two bodies fighting now once acted as Bashir's hands of oppression," said Nur.


"The army and Burhan personally supervised the making of the Janjaweed," he said, adding that his own movement opposes both and only fights "oppression".


Nur described the conflict as the expected outcome of a "political struggle that became militarised".


The current fighting has killed more than 550 people, wounded thousands and sent more than 100,000 fleeing abroad.


In West Darfur state, the UN says, the hostilities "have triggered intercommunal violence", which have seen many deaths and accounts of rampant looting and burning of property.


- Ambition to rule -


Nur's SLM faction refused to sign a 2020 peace deal with Sudan's short-lived transitional government installed following Bashir's ouster.


It charged that the accord, signed by other rebel groups, failed to address the root causes of Sudan's conflicts.


Nur said his movement had however observed "a unilateral ceasefire since Bashir's ouster and have since committed to it" to give a chance to the planned transition to civilian rule.


Nur belongs to the ethnic Fur tribe in Darfur, and analysts believe his faction still maintains considerable support.


A report last year by UN experts said Nur's faction was among Darfuri armed groups "receiving payments and logistical support" in exchange for sending mercenaries to strife-torn Libya.


The UN experts, in 2020, also said Nur's group had strengthened its miliary capability following the discovery of gold in its area.


Nur rejects the allegations and says he does not support either side in the current war, stressing that his fighters play no role in it.


Nur said the conflict reflects the two generals' ambitions to rule Sudan but is only "increasing the suffering" of the people, especially in Darfur.


In a country with a history of military coups, Burhan and Daglo have each touted themselves as champions of democracy seeking to restore the transition to civilian rule.


Nur, recalling the mass youth-led protests that led to Bashir's overthrow, said the Sudanese people reject both of them.


"I don't think they will ever accept military rule," he said.


bur/it/fz


View original: https://uk.news.yahoo.com/no-winner-sudan-war-exiled-102413405.html?guccounter=1


[Ends]

Sunday, November 21, 2021

Sudan: Darfur war leader Abdelwahid El Nur calls for revolution to overthrow Burhan's military coup

NOTE from Sudan Watch Editor:  It is difficult to imagine where Sudan and South Sudan would be without Mr Abdelwahid El Nur (pictured below). Putting a complicated situation simply, he and other armed rebels including JEM started the Darfur war in 2003. They have much blood on their hands. 

The photo caption does not indicate where or when the photo was taken. Since shortly after starting the Darfur war he has been living in luxury in Paris and travels widely even as far as Israel. Once in a while he pops up in Sudan on rare occasions when the security situation is unusually calm. 

In the photo he is wearing an expensive jacket. His face still doesn't show any worry lines, guilt, angst, suffering, poverty or malnutrition. He is from Darfur. Years ago he used to brag about the people from Darfur being his people. Until fifteen years ago he had the support of many Sudanese people in and from Darfur. I suspect most of them gave up on him while he sat enjoying himself in Parisian bars and hotels. Maybe he's too shy to visit Darfur incase the world will see how little support he has nowadays. 

He once said he aims to be the president of Sudan. As stated many times here at Sudan Watch, I believe he is too cowardly and not intelligent or skilled enough to preside over Sudan or anything else. In the report below by Netherlands-based Radio Dabanga one can see how he states the obvious and uses the words and ideas other people have already thought of and publicised for years. He's an opportunist, not a leader. 

When he uses his brain and his own words and ideas he sounds like an idiot. I can't recall reading news that explains how he is funded and manages to travel abroad while living safely in Paris. He directed the Darfur war using a satellite phone while sitting in a comfortable armchair in a Parisian hotel. 

If he made sense and was a genuinely brave freedom fighter with realistic and good intentions not only for the people of Darfur but for all Sudanese people, he could be someone to respect and admire. Frankly speaking, seeing his face makes me feel sick. I've observed how much death and destruction his idiotic thinking and actions have caused. Deep down he must know he's responsible for the suffering of millions of Sudanese people. I find it odd that journalists fail to explain how he lives and how he is funded.

The following report respectfully gives him a platform from which to pontificate his nonsense, none of which he deserves. In my view, he's a dodgy character and a deluded chancer. He reminds me of Tintin.

Copy of news report at and by Radio Dabanga.org
Dated 4 November 2021 - KHARTOUM
Sudan rebel leader Abdelwahid El Nur calls for ‘comprehensive popular revolution to overthrow coup’
Photo: The head of the mainstream Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM-AW), Abdelwahid El Nur (File photo)

The head of the mainstream Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM-AW), Abdelwahid El Nur, has called for “a comprehensive popular revolution in order to overthrow the coup and restore Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdok”, and calling on the resistance committees “not to accept any compromise”.

In an interview with Radio Dabanga broadcast today, El Nur asserts that “the salvation of Sudan lies in the restructuring of the military institution,” and called for the reintegration of all military and paramilitary forces into a single unified army, with a combat doctrine aimed at defending the citizens and protecting the land and the constitution, and non-interference in politics.

‘The army’s intervention to suppress the demonstrations is an attempt to turn the peaceful uprising into a bloody one…’

He considers the army’s intervention to suppress the demonstrations as “an attempt to turn the peaceful uprising into a bloody one,” stressing the need to adhere to peace. He stressed that the people’s will is stronger than all weapons.

El Nur accused the military institution of committing crimes in the south, Darfur, the Nuba Mountains, the Blue Nile and the East since 56, and said that it had committed genocide, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity and caused the displacement of millions, and created militias and mujahideen.

‘Sudan possesses the human and economic resources that can rescue it from the current situation…’

On the Sudanese-Sudanese dialogue initiative adopted by the movement, the rebel leader said that the initiative aims to reach the state of institutions and form a unified national army. He stressed the need to adhere to PM Abdallah Hamdok’s government “to move from a state of obstruction to future horizons”, explaining that Sudan possesses the human and economic resources that can rescue it from the current situation through a national project. He called for giving priority to the interests of the Sudanese people, dealing with foreign countries according to their positions, and helping Sudan to get out of the crisis in order to reach a civil state and a civil government.

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