Friday, June 14, 2024

VIDEO: Massacre in Khartoum, Sudan on 3 June 2019 was one of the first in the world to be live streamed

NOTE from Sudan Watch Editor: This 5-year-old report contains historic footage showing young unarmed Sudanese civilians at a sit-in protest for the Sudanese Revolution. More than 100 of the protestors were massacred by the RSF. The report is followed by a 16-year-old video 'Sudan: Meet the Janjaweed', plus news of an urgent appeal by the ICC's chief prosecutor for information and evidence of atrocities perpetrated in Darfur, Sudan from 2003 onwards. To add further information, here is a snippet from Wikipedia:

"The Khartoum massacre occurred on 3 June 2019, when the armed forces of the Sudanese Transitional Military Council, headed by the Lieutenant-General Abdel Fattah al Burhan of the Sudan Armed Forces and his deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the immediate successor organisation to the Janjaweed militia, used heavy gunfire and tear gas to disperse a sit-in by protestors in Khartoum, killing over 100 people, with difficulties in estimating the actual numbers. At least forty of the bodies had been thrown in the River NileHundreds of unarmed civilians were injured, hundreds of unarmed citizens were arrested, many families were terrorised in their home estates across Sudan, and the RSF raped more than 70 women and men. The Internet was almost completely blocked in Sudan in the days following the massacre, making it difficult to estimate the number of victims."
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Report from BBC News
By ALEX DE WAAL
Dated 20 July 2019. Here is a full copy:

Sudan crisis: The ruthless mercenaries who run the country for gold

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been accused of widespread abuses in Sudan, including the 3 June 2019 massacre in which more than 120 people were reportedly killed, with many of the dead dumped in the River Nile. 


Sudan expert Alex de Waal charts their rise.

Image source, AFP

The RSF are now the real ruling power in Sudan. They are a new kind of regime: a hybrid of ethnic militia and business enterprise, a transnational mercenary force that has captured a state.


Their commander is General Mohamed Hamdan "Hemedti" Dagalo, and he and his fighters have come a long way since their early days as a rag-tag Arab militia widely denigrated as the "Janjaweed".


The RSF was formally established by decree of then-President Omar al-Bashir in 2013. But their core of 5,000 militiamen had been armed and active long before then.


Their story begins in 2003, when Mr Bashir's government mobilised Arab herders to fight against black African insurgents in Darfur.


'Meet the Janjaweed'


The core of the Janjaweed were camel-herding nomads from the Mahamid and Mahariya branches of the Rizeigat ethnic group of northern Darfur and adjoining areas of Chad - they ranged across the desert edge long before the border was drawn.


During the 2003-2005 Darfur war and massacres, the most infamous Janjaweed leader was Musa Hilal, chief of the Mahamid.

Image source, AFP. Image caption, Human rights groups accuse Musa Hilal of leading a brutal campaign in Darfur


As these fighters proved their bloody efficacy, Mr Bashir formalised them into a paramilitary force called the Border Intelligence Units.


One brigade, active in southern Darfur, included a particularly dynamic young fighter, Mohamed Dagalo, known as "Hemedti" because of his baby-faced looks - Hemedti being a mother's endearing term for "Little Mohamed".


A school dropout turned small-time trader, he was a member of the Mahariya clan of the Rizeigat. Some say that his grandfather was a junior chief when they resided in Chad.


A crucial interlude in Hemedti's career occurred in 2007, when his troops became discontented over the government's failure to pay them.


They felt they had been exploited - sent to the frontline, blamed for atrocities, and then abandoned.


Hemedti and his fighters mutinied, promising to fight Khartoum "until judgement day", and tried to cut a deal with the Darfur rebels.


A documentary shot during this time, called Meet the Janjaweed, shows him recruiting volunteers from Darfur's black African Fur ethnic group into his army, to fight alongside his Arabs, their former enemies.


Although Hemedti's commanders are all from his own Mahariya clan, he has been ready to enlist men of all ethnic groups. On one recent occasion the RSF absorbed a breakaway faction of the rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) - led by Mohamedein Ismail "Orgajor", an ethnic Zaghawa - another Darfur community which had been linked to the rebels.


Consolidating power


Hemedti went back to Khartoum when he was offered a sweet deal: back pay for his troops, ranks for his officers (he became a brigadier general - to the chagrin of army officers who had gone to staff college and climbed the ranks), and a handsome cash payment.


His troops were put under the command of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS), at that time organising a proxy war with Chad.

Some of Hemedti's fighters, serving under the banner of the Chadian opposition, fought their way as far as the Chadian capital, N'Djamena, in 2008.


Meanwhile, Hemedti fell out with his former master, Hilal - their feud was to be a feature of Darfur for 10 years. Hilal was a serial mutineer, and Mr Bashir's generals found Hemedti more dependable.


In 2013, a new paramilitary force was formed under Hemedti and called the RSF.


The army chief of staff did not like it - he wanted the money to go to strengthening the regular forces - and Mr Bashir was worried about putting too much power in the hands of NISS, having just fired its director for allegedly conspiring against him.


So the RSF was made answerable to Mr Bashir himself - the president gave Hemedti the nickname "Himayti", meaning "My Protector".


Training camps were set up near the capital, Khartoum. Hundreds of Land Cruiser pick-up trucks were imported and fitted out with machine guns.


RSF troops fought against rebels in South Kordofan - they were undisciplined and did not do well - and against rebels in Darfur, where they did better.


Gold rush


Hemedti's rivalry with Hilal intensified when gold was discovered at Jebel Amir in North Darfur state in 2012.


Coming at just the moment when Sudan was facing an economic crisis because South Sudan had broken away, taking with it 75% of the country's oil, this seemed like a godsend.

Image source, AFP. Image caption, Sudan is one of Africa's biggest gold producers


But it was more of a curse. Tens of thousands of young men flocked to a remote corner of Darfur in a latter-day gold rush to try their luck in shallow mines with rudimentary equipment.


Some struck gold and became rich, others were crushed in collapsing shafts or poisoned by the mercury and arsenic used to process the nuggets.


Hilal's militiamen forcibly took over the area, killing more than 800 people from the local Beni Hussein ethnic group, and began to get rich by mining and selling the gold.


Some gold was sold to the government, which paid above the market price in Sudanese money because it was so desperate to get its hands on gold that it could sell on in Dubai for hard currency.


Meanwhile some gold was smuggled across the border to Chad, where it was profitably exchanged in a racket involving buying stolen vehicles and smuggling them back into Sudan.

Image source, REUTERS

Image caption, Hemedti has loyal supporters outside the capital


In the desert markets of Tibesti in northern Chad, a 1.5kg (3.3lb) of unwrought gold was bartered for a 2015 model Land Cruiser, probably stolen from an aid agency in Darfur, which was then driven back to Darfur, fitted out with hand-painted licence plates and resold.


By 2017, gold sales accounted for 40% of Sudan's exports. And Hemedti was keen to control them.


He already owned some mines and had set up a trading company known as al-Junaid. But when Hilal challenged Mr Bashir one more time, denying the government access to Jebel Amir's mines, Hemedti's RSF went on the counter-attack.


In November 2017, his forces arrested Hilal, and the RSF took over Sudan's most lucrative gold mines.


Regional muscle


Hemedti overnight became the country's biggest gold trader and - by controlling the border with Chad and Libya - its biggest border guard. Hilal remains in prison. 


Under the Khartoum Process, the European Union funded the Sudanese government to control migration across the Sahara to Libya.


Although the EU consistently denies it, many Sudanese believe that this gave license to the RSF to police the border, extracting bribes, levies and ransoms - and doing its share of trafficking too.

Image source, GETTY IMAGES. Image caption, RSF fighters have fought for Yemen's government in the civil war which is devastating the country


Dubai is the destination for almost all of Sudan's gold, official or smuggled. But Hemedti's contacts with the UAE soon became more than just commercial.


In 2015, the Sudanese government agreed to send a battalion of regular forces to serve with the Saudi-Emirati coalition forces in Yemen - its commander was Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, now chair of the ruling Transitional Military Council.


But a few months later, the UAE struck a parallel deal with Hemedti to send a much larger force of RSF fighters, for combat in south Yemen and along the Tahama plain - which includes the port city of Hudaydah, the scene of fierce fighting last year.


Hemedti also provided units to help guard the Saudi Arabian border with Yemen.


By this time, the RSF's strength had grown tenfold. Its command structure didn't change: all are Darfurian Arabs, its generals sharing the Dagalo name.


With 70,000 men and more than 10,000 armed pick-up trucks, the RSF became Sudan's de facto infantry, the one force capable of controlling the streets of the capital, Khartoum, and other cities.


Cash handouts and PR polish


Through gold and officially sanctioned mercenary activity, Hemedti came to control Sudan's largest "political budget" - money that can be spent on private security, or any activity, without needing to give an account.

Image source, AFP

"Since April, Hemedti has moved fast, politically and commercially -Alex de Waal, Sudan expert"

Run by his relatives, the Al-Junaid company had become a vast conglomerate covering investment, mining, transport, car rental, and iron and steel.


By the time Mr Bashir was ousted in April, Hemedti was one of the richest men in Sudan - probably with more ready cash than any other politician - and was at the centre of a web of patronage, secret security deals, and political payoffs. It is no surprise that he moved swiftly to take the place of his fallen patron.


Hemedti has moved fast, politically and commercially.


Every week he is seen in the news, handing cash to the police to get them back on the streets, to electric workers to restore services, or to teachers to have them return to the classrooms. He handed out cars to tribal chiefs.


VIDEO [18 minutes] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-48987901

What happened during the 3 June massacre?


As the UN-African Union peacekeeping force drew down in Darfur, the RSF took over their camps - until the UN put a halt to the withdrawal.


Hemedti says he has increased his RSF contingent in Yemen and has despatched a brigade to Libya to fight alongside the rogue general Khalifa Haftar, presumably on the UAE payroll, but also thereby currying favour with Egypt which also backs Gen Haftar's self-styled Libyan National Army.


Hemedti has also signed a deal with a Canadian public relations firm to polish his image and gain him political access in Russia and the US.


Hemedti and the RSF are in some ways familiar figures from the history of the Nile Valley. In the 19th Century, mercenary freebooters ranged across what are now Sudan, South Sudan, Chad, and the Central African Republic, publicly swearing allegiance to the Khedive of Egypt but also setting up and ruling their own private empires.


Yet in other ways Hemedti is a wholly 21st Century phenomenon: a military-political entrepreneur, whose paramilitary business empire transgresses territorial and legal boundaries.


Today, this semi-lettered market trader and militiaman is more powerful than any army general or civilian leader in Sudan. The political marketplace he commands is more dynamic than any fragile institutions of civilian government.


Alex de Waal is the executive director of the World Peace Foundation at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.


You may also be interested in:

View original: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-48987901

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Further Reading


HERE is a documentary, first aired by Channel 4 on 23 May 2008 as part of its series Unreported World.


Sudan: Meet The Janjaweed

"After a hazardous journey reporter Nima Elbagir and producer Andrew Carter gain unprecedented access to the Janjaweed, the Arab militia blamed for the atrocities in Darfur. 


After finding a pilot willing to land his plane on a makeshift airstrip in southern Darfur, the team travelled for three days along back routes and donkey-cart tracks to reach Commander Muhammad Hamdan and his garrison of heavily armed militia. It's the first time he and his fighters have sat down with foreigners. Contrary to denials by the Sudanese Government, Hamdan tells her that his men were a regiment of the Sudanese Army, receiving orders from President Omar al-Bashir. His men were armed with weapons - many of them Chinese made - by the Sudanese government up until October 2007 in what appears to be a clear violation of the UN arms embargo. 


Credits: Producer Director Andrew Carter, Reporter Nima Elbagir, Executive Producer Eamonn Matthews" 

Source: Quicksilver Media https://www.quicksilvermedia.tv/productions/sudan-meet-the-janjaweed


WATCH the video (24 minutes) here:



Source: DAILYMOTION https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xtxd8n


Postscript by Sudan Watch Editor: Ms Nima Elbagir is a Sudanese journalist and an award-winning international television correspondent. She was born in Khartoum, Sudan on 20 July 1978 and educated at The London School of Economics (BSc).

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Sudan Watch - June 11, 2024

ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan KC appeals for information on international crimes in Darfur, Sudan


END

Tuesday, June 11, 2024

ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan KC appeals for information on international crimes in Darfur, Sudan

THE International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor Mr Karim Khan KC issued an urgent appeal today (Tuesday, 11 June 2024) in The Hague for information and evidence of atrocities in Darfur, Sudan, saying his ongoing investigation “seems to disclose an organised, systematic and a profound attack on human dignity.” Mr Khan called on international organisations, partners and national authorities to collect evidence and information and hand it over to him. View the appeal on video and two reports here below. 

Provide evidence and information to the ICC here: https://otplink.icc-cpi.int



Note, Subtitles for this video can be viewed in different languages: click on above video, click on wheel "Settings", click on "Subtitles", click on "Auto translate", scroll "list of languages", click on language, desired Subtitles will appear at bottom of video. Size of font for Subtitles can be adjusted: click on wheel "Settings", click on "Subtitles", click on "Options" in top right corner. Playback speed for audio and Subtitles can be adjusted: click on wheel "Settings", click on "Playback speed", select speed.


Also, follow along using a Transcript here: https://youtu.be/2D2DYptFW8st

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Report from The Washington Post

By MIKE CORDER, AP (The Associated Press)

Dated Tuesday, 11 June 2024 5:08 am EDT. Here is a full copy:


ICC prosecutor appeals for evidence of atrocities in Sudan after rebels attack hospital in Darfur


The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor is appealing for information and evidence of atrocities in Sudan’s western Darfur region


THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor appealed Tuesday for information and evidence of atrocities in Sudan, saying his ongoing investigation “seems to disclose an organized, systematic and a profound attack on human dignity.”


ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan released a video statement in the aftermath of an attack Sunday by the notorious Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group that forced the closure of a main hospital in the western Darfur region. The group fired shots and looted the hospital in al-Fasher, aid group Doctors Without Borders reported.


The attack came as the RSF, which has been fighting the Sudanese army for a year, intensified its offensive seeking to wrest control of the city, the military’s last stronghold in the sprawling Darfur region. Two weeks of fighting last month in and around al-Fasher has killed more than 120 people.


“The terrible events in West Darfur, including El-Geneina, in 2023 are among our key investigative priorities,” Khan said. “In addition, I am extremely concerned about allegations of widespread international crimes being committed in al-Fasher and its surrounding areas as I speak.”


A long-running conflict


Sudan’s conflict began in April last year when soaring tensions between the leaders of the military and the RSF erupted into fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere in the country.


The war has killed more than 14,000 people and wounded thousands more, while pushing its population to the brink of famine. The U.N. food agency warned the warring parties last month that there is a serious risk of widespread starvation and death in Darfur and elsewhere in Sudan if they don’t allow humanitarian aid into the region.


The war also created the world’s largest displacement crisis as more than 10 million people have been forced to flee their homes, including over 2 million people who crossed into neighboring countries, the U.N. migration agency told The Associated Press Monday.


Khan said he is urgently investigating in Sudan.


“The evidence my office has collected to date seems to show credible, repeated, expanding, continuous allegations of attacks against the civilian population, in particular, attacks directed against camps for internally displaced persons,” he said.


“It seems to show the widespread, prevalent use of rape and other forms of sexual violence. It seems to disclose consistently the shelling of civilian areas, the looting of properties and attacks against hospitals,” he added, stressing that he was “particularly concerned by the ethnically motivated nature of these attacks against the Masalit and other communities.”


The ICC already has an ongoing investigation in Sudan


The ICC has long been investigating atrocities in Sudan, dating back to a previous devastating conflict in Darfur. The court has issued arrest warrants for former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on charges including genocide allegedly committed in Darfur between 2003-2008.


The RSF was born out of Arab militias, commonly known as Janjaweed, mobilized by al-Bashir against non-Arab tribes in Darfur. At the time, they were accused of mass killings, rapes and other atrocities, and Darfur became synonymous with genocide.


Khan referred back to the previous conflict in his message Tuesday.


“It is an outrage that we are allowing history to repeat itself once again in Darfur,” he said. “We cannot and we must not allow Darfur to become the world’s forgotten atrocity, once again.”


Photo [not shown here] caption: FILE - Sudanese soldiers from the Rapid Support Forces unit, led by Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, the deputy head of the military council, secure the area where Dagalo attends a military-backed tribe’s rally, in the East Nile province, Sudan, on June 22, 2019. The RSF, attacked the South Hospital in al-Fasher, the capital city of North Darfur province on Sunday, June 9, 2024 opening fire on medical staff and patients, Doctors Without Borders said in a statement. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)


View original: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/06/11/sudan-icc-investigation-khan-rsf-darfur/2e3324a8-27d2-11ef-835a-2a6acac1f8a6_story.html


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Further Reading

From International Organisation for Migration (IOM) 11 June 2024:

DTM Sudan Mobility Update (02). IOM, Sudan

This report provides an overview of the total population of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Sudan, including those displaced both before and after the onset of conflict on 15 April 2023.  

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UPDATE by Sudan Watch Editor 

On Wednesday, 12 June 2024 at 15:26 GMT:


The above video can be viewed at X in post by ICC 8:45AM June 11, 2024.

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Monday, June 10, 2024

Calls for the international community to act and restart Saudi-US Jeddah process is a total abdication by Africa. AU & IGAD are ignoring starving Sudanese

FAMINE has arrived in Sudan. 5 million Sudanese are a step away from famine. Some experts predict 2.5 million could die within weeks. Millions of civilians in Sudan who fled for their lives ended up in such bad situations in South Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt some had to return to Sudan while others were so hungry they ate leaves and ants. 800,000 lives are at stake in Al Fasher, North Darfur a place the UN calls "Hell on Earth" and where Hemeti plans to build his dream city. The continent of Africa comprising 54 countries is huge and rich. The leaders of the AU and IGAD are either bone idle lazy or corrupt barbarians or both. Here is a shocking Statement by the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, H.E. Moussa Faki Mahamat, 7 June 2024. It shows that millions of Sudanese people are being left to die.

Photo: The Chairperson of the Commission, H.E. Moussa Faki Mahamat (Credit AUC)

END

Friday, June 07, 2024

Tensions are soaring between Russia and the West. Confident Putin warns Europe is ‘defenceless’

TENSIONS are soaring between Russia and the West. Russian President Vladimir Putin sounds increasingly confident and determined not to back down. He seems to believe that in the current standoff between Russia and the West, it is the West that will blink first. Read more.


From BBC News
By STEVE ROSENBERG
Russia editor
Reporting from St Petersburg
Friday, 7 June 2024 - here is a full copy:

Confident Putin warns Europe is ‘defenceless’
Image source: EPA. Image caption: 
The Russian president's speech capped a surreal week in St Petersburg


Ever since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has been engaged in nuclear sabre-rattling, dropping a series of not-so-subtle hints that trying to defeat a nuclear power like Russia could have disastrous consequences for those who try.


Today President Putin claimed that Russia wouldn’t need to use a nuclear weapon to achieve victory in Ukraine.


He was being interviewed at a panel discussion at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum: the annual event often described as ‘Russia’s Davos’.


There are few occasions when Mr Putin looks dovish compared to the person asking him the questions.


But when the person asking the questions is Sergei Karaganov it would be hard not to. Mr Karaganov is a hawkish Russian foreign policy expert. Last year he called for a pre-emptive nuclear strike. Today he suggested holding a “nuclear pistol” to the temple of the West over Ukraine.


President Putin wasn’t so extreme in his language.


But he is no dove.


The Kremlin leader said he did not rule out changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine: the document which sets out the conditions under which Russia would use nuclear weapons.


“This doctrine is a living tool and we are carefully watching what is happening in the world around us and do not exclude making changes to this doctrine. This is also related to the testing of nuclear weapons.”


And he delivered a warning to those European countries who’ve been supporting Ukraine: Russia’s has “many more [tactical nuclear weapons] than there are on the European continent, even if the United States brings theirs over.”


“Europe does not have a developed [early warning system],” he added. “In this sense they are more or less defenceless.”


Tactical nuclear weapons are smaller warheads designed to destroy targets without widespread radioactive fallout.


This has been a surreal week in St Petersburg. On the one hand, a huge international economic forum has been taking place, sending the message that Russia is ready for cooperation and that, despite everything, it’s business as usual.


Clearly, though, it is not business as usual. Russia is waging war in Ukraine, a war which is now in its third year; as a result, Russia is the most heavily sanctioned country in the world.


And, right now, tensions are soaring between Russia and the West.


Earlier this week, at a meeting with international news agency chiefs in St Petersburg, President Putin suggested that Russia might supply advanced conventional long-range weapons to others to strike Western targets.


This was his response to Nato allies allowing Ukraine to strike Russian territory with Western-supplied weapons.


He repeated the idea again today.


“We are not supplying those weapons yet, but we reserve the right to do so to those states or legal entities which are under certain pressure, including military pressure, from the countries that supply weapons to Ukraine and encourage their use on Russian territory.”


There were no details. No names.


So, to which parts of the world might Russia deploy its missiles?


“Wherever we think it is necessary, we’re definitely going to put them. As President Putin made clear, we’ll investigate this question,” Vladimir Solovyov, one of Russian state TV’s most prominent hosts, tells me.


“If you are trying to harm us you have to be pretty sure we have enough opportunities and chances to harm you.”


“In the West some will say we’ve heard this sabre-rattling before,” I respond, “and that it’s a bluff.”


“It’s always a bluff. Until the time when it is not,” Mr Solovyov replies. “You can keep thinking that Russia is bluffing and then, one day, there is no more Great Britain to laugh at. Don’t you ever try to push the Russian bear thinking that ‘Oh, it’s a kitten, we can play with it.”


CEOs from Europe and America used to flock to the St Petersburg International Economic Forum. Not any more. Instead I saw delegations from Asia, Africa, the Middle East and South America. Russia has been using this year’s event to try to show that, despite Western sanctions, there are plenty of countries in the world who are ready to do business with Russia.


And what have we learnt in St Petersburg about Vladimir Putin?


That he sounds increasingly confident and determined not to back down. He seems to believe that in the current standoff between Russia and the West, it is the West that will blink first.


View original: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn00e422yr2o


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