Paramilitaries in Khartoum threw dozens of bodies into the Nile to try to hide the number of casualties inflicted during a dawn attack on pro-democracy protesters in the Sudanese capital earlier this week, doctors and activists have said|CRIMSON TAZVINZWA||
At least 100 people are thought to have been killed in the crackdown across #Sudan. Many protesters are still unaccounted for and the death toll is likely to rise further.
Harrowing details of rapes by the paramilitaries were also emerging.
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A large hoard of cash has been found at the home of Sudan’s ousted president Omar al-Bashir and he is now being investigated for money laundering, prosecutors say.
Security services found euros, dollars and Sudanese pounds totalling more than $130m (£100m).
The ex-leader was placed under house arrest after months of protests led to his removal.
Reports say Mr Bashir is now being held at the Kobar high-security prison.
A source in Sudan’s judiciary told Reuters news agency that suitcases loaded with more than $351,000, €6m ($6.7m; £5.2m) and five billion Sudanese pounds ($105m) were found at Mr Bashir’s home.
The source also confirmed Mr Bashir was under investigation, telling Reuters prosecutors would “question the former president in Kobar prison”.
A picture carried by the Netherlands-based media outlet Radio Dabanga shows men in army uniforms standing over what appears to be several sacks full of cash.
The money, which Radio Dabanga says was shown to reporters, was stuffed in bags designed to contain 50kg (110lbs) of grain.
On Saturday, Sudan’s attorney general said a new committee would be set up to oversee anti-corruption investigations.
But despite moves to hold Mr Bashir and others to account, Sudan’s army does not appear to have the confidence of protesters demanding civilian rule, BBC Africa correspondent, Alastair Leithead, says.
Image copyrightAFP
Image captionProtesters fear that the military will continue to pull the strings
‘Protesters want civilian rule’
Alastair Leithead, BBC News, Khartoum
The mass sit-in continues in the centre of Khartoum, amid a lack of trust that the military council is committed to handing over power to a civilian transitional authority.
Each day concessions are announced, but there’s little proof that what’s been promised has been delivered.
There have been no images of the former president in prison, nor any response from the generals over a demand they give up power to a civilian administration.
The general public prosecutor’s announcement that Mr Bashir is being investigated for money laundering after cash was found at his home is news the demonstrators would like to hear.
The Sudanese military toppled Mr Bashir on 11 April but demonstrators, led by The Sudanese Professionals Association, have vowed to stay on the streets until there is a move to civilian rule.
Mr Bashir, who ruled Sudan for almost 30 years, is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes in the country’s western Darfur region.
Sudan’s military, however, says it will not extradite him and will try him in the country instead.
Another African dictator ‘bites the dust’ – not literally, but Bashir told unceremoniously ‘time out’ by the army general’; visibly shocked, the president with flashed trademark huge round eyes; embarrassed, meekly succumbed to the inevitable – life in bleak and blissless political grandeur. Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir has been removed by the military after months of anti-government protests against his three-decade rule. General Ahmed Ibn Auf was sworn in on Thursday evening as chief of a new military council that will rule the country for two years, hours after declaring that Sudan’s long-time ruler had been overthrown and arrested. The coup and installation of the council were rejected by the protesters, who said the moves did not meet their long-standing demands for a civilian-led government. Since December, Sudan has witnessed persistent protests sparked by rising food prices that quickly escalated into wider calls for al-Bashir’s departure. The latest crisis escalated on April 6 when thousands of demonstrators began a sit-in outside the army headquarters in the capital, Khartoum. Dozens of people have been killed in protest-related violence since the start of the demonstrations//Crimson Tazvinzwa
Speaking on state TV, defence minister Awad Ibn Ouf said the army would oversee a two-year transitional period followed by elections.
He also said a three-month state of emergency was being put in place.
Protesters, however, have vowed to stay on the streets despite an overnight curfew being imposed by the military.
Demonstrations against Mr Bashir, who has governed Sudan since 1989, have been taking place for several months.
The protesters are now demanding a civilian council to lead the transition rather than a military one, correspondents say.
Gen. Awad Ibn Auf, Sudan’s defence minister and former vice president, announced al-Bashir’s overthrow on Thursday, telling the country al-Bashir had been arrested and that his regime had been toppled.
“This significant development reinforces the authorities’ obligation to address egregious human rights abuses suffered by so many Sudanese over the last three decades. Al-Bashir’s ouster is a testament to the tenacity of the protesters, who remained in the streets despite the government’s violent repression The release of detainees in Khartoum is a necessary start, but Sudan’s leaders need to ensure that all those wrongfully detained are released and that the rights of the Sudanese people to protest peacefully are fully respected. They should also hand al-Bashir and the others facing ICC international arrest warrants over to the court at once as victims of the gravest crimes in Darfur should not have to wait any longer for justice…” Jehanne Henry, associate Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said that the release of political prisoners following the coup announcement was a necessary start, but that Sudan’s leaders must do more to respect human rights
But the military’s announcement that it plans to retain control has dampened the historic end of al-Bashir’s rule, as protesters fear this is a continuation of the regime, rather than a move toward democracy and a civilian-led government that they have been demanding for months.
Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir deposed by army after 30 years Leader facing allegations of genocide is forced out by military after months of protests
“For many, it’s an in-house handover, or coup, rather than a genuine change that the people have actually been demonstrating for,” Bashair Ahmed, a doctoral researcher at Sussex University and director of Shabaka, an African and Middle Eastern diaspora advocacy group, told me.
And now, as then, both promise and peril lie ahead.
Sudanese protestors finally forced Omar al-Bashir from power
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir (right) during a meeting in Beijing in 2018.
Al-Bashir took power in a military coup in 1989, and his three decades of control has been defined by corruption and brutal violence. He ruled during decades-long civil war against an insurgency in the southern part of the country, which ended in 2005 with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).
But just as the conflict with South Sudan was ending (the region would eventually vote for independence, a provision of the peace agreement, and become its own sovereign country), al-Bashir faced another insurgency, this time in the Darfur region in western Sudan.
To fight that insurgency, he relied on pro-government militias — known collectively as the “Janjaweed” — who carried out heinous atrocities, burning villages, murdering civilians. (UN estimates say about 300,000 people were killed.) Al-Bashir was charged by the ICC for overseeing the genocide in Darfur, effectively making him persona non grata on the international stage.
Not that he wasn’t before. Sudan has been classified as a state sponsor of terror by the US State Department since 1993, after Sudanese government officials were found to have been directly involved in the planning and logistics of the deadly World Trade Center bombing earlier that year.Throughout the early 1990s, the al-Bashir government hosted a who’s who of terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and others.
That has gradually changed, and the al-Bashir government has cooperated with the US on counterterrorism efforts for several years now. In 2017, the Trump administration lifted some sanctions on the country as part of a rapprochement with Sudan’s government that began in the Obama administration.
However, the country remains designated as a state sponsor of terror by the State Department, and sanctions related to the genocide in Darfur remain in place.
A popular uprising put unrelenting pressure on al-Bashir
This most recent uprising erupted in December 2018 after al-Bashir ended government wheat and fuel subsidies, causing a spike in food prices and gas shortages. But the demonstrations quickly turned into an outlet for people’s broader frustration and fury with al-Bashir himself.
And what began as breakout demonstrations became a more organized political movement, led by middle-class professionals, such as doctors and lawyers, and students. The Sudanese Professional Association, a trade organization representing those and other professions, is one of the main forces behind the current protests.
Social media also helped ignite the movement, allowing activists to connect and circumvent the state-controlled media. Access to Facebook, WhatsApp, and Twitterhas brought young people out on the streets in large numbers.
And on Thursday,a major victory:Sudanese military announced al-Bashir’s arrest — and thus the end of his decades of rule. The announcement was met with celebrations, and political detainees and protesters who had been held by the government were released.View image on Twitter
But some of that jubilation was tamped down by the suddenly uncertain future for Sudan — and doubt about whether a change in leader goes far enough.
“What people want on the ground is for the whole system to change,” Amal Muntaser, a student and activist from Khartoum who’s currently in studying in Italy, told me. “Because it’s not just the president that has been part of the problem. It’s the whole regime.”
An incomplete victory, and uncertainty, in Sudan
The Sudanese military told the public it had arrested al-Bashir, and that his regime was over. It pledged it institute a two-year military transition government, with the promise that it would prepare for “free and fair” elections afterwards.
For protesters, the offer of future elections rang hollow — especially as the defense minister announced a curfew and the continuation of the state of the emergency.
Gen. Awad Ibn Auf, the defense minister who is now the de facto leader, is also deeply connected to Bashir’s regime and the Sudanese military. Auf oversaw military intelligence during the conflict in Darfur, and he was sanctioned in 2007 by the US Treasury Department for his role in perpetrating human rights abuses in the region. It alleged that Auf “provided the Janjaweed with logistical support and directed attacks.” Protesters fear Auf’s connection to the conflict in Darfur makes it unlikely he will turn al-Bashir over to face justice in front of the ICC for his war crimes charges.
Ahmed told me videos from the protests show people still in the streets chanting, “From one thief to another thief” in Arabic.
“To them it’s the same people, so I think there’s a symbolism component that Omar al-Bashir is now under arrest and not the president any longer — that’s significant, no one can say that’s not the case. But in terms of structure, what changes are people likely to see?”
That uncertainty means the protests and sit-ins are unlikely to stop, and the Sudanese Professional Association is urging the sit-in to continue outside the military headquarters.
“We shall stand our ground on the public squares and roads that we have liberated with our might, continuing with the popular struggle until state power is reinstated to a civilian transitional government that represents the forces of the revolution,” the group said in a statement Thursday. “That is our clear and irrevocable stance: the streets never betray, and we shall meet there.”
The protests in Sudan also come in the wake of the resignation of the ailing 82-year-old Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika. As the world has worried about the rise of strongmen in places like Brazil and Hungary, the protests in Algeria and Sudan offer a very different narrative.
But the protesters plan to keep fighting for democracy, which is why the military’s announcement this morning overshadowed the victory of al-Bashir’s ouster quickly. The protests offered people of vision of Sudan they wanted to see, and they’re not ready to give that up anytime soon.
As Muntaser, the student and activist, told me, one of the most powerful elements of the Sudanese demonstrations was the reclaiming of public space.
“It was hard for Sudanese people to gather in big groups and participate in public life,” she said. The protests changed that. People gathered, they sang hymns, they gave speeches.
“People feel like they still have strength,” Muntaser said. The regime “fell once, it can fall again.”
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