Bashir’s iron fist loses its grip
This week, after four months of protests by tumultuous crowds, Sudan’s despised leader Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir was removed from power — just as he seized it 30 years ago
Even by the standards of the world’s tyrants, Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir was a particularly nasty piece of work. The only active leader of a nation to be wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes, Bashir started wielding his iron fist from the moment he seized power in a military coup in 1989. Labour unions were liquidated and dissenters detained without trial and tortured.
Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik wrote that the persecution of middle-class professionals who were not aligned with the government was so intense that entire families fled Sudan at short notice. “Every few weeks I would go to school and another face in the class was gone, their desk empty, without warning or a goodbye.”
When he took power, Bashir appeared at a rally with a Koran in one hand and an AK-47 in the other, promising “to purge … the enemies of the people and of the armed forces”.
In the first years of his rule, Sudan’s Coptic community, part of the country’s fabric for centuries, all but disappeared with the draconian enforcement of sharia law. Churches were left abandoned and Christians fled.
Life got even worse after South Sudan, home to the majority of Christians, seceded in 2011. Churches were bulldozed and burnt. In 2012 Bashir warned non-Muslims: “Nothing will preserve your rights except for Islamic sharia.”
Sudan turned into a playground for Islamic terrorist groups. It harboured Osama bin Laden in the early years of his jihadi movement that led to the creation of al-Qaeda, landing Sudan a spot on the US list of countries backing terrorism. In 1998, an American cruise missile struck a factory in Khartoum for its alleged links to al-Qaeda.
Bashir exploited ethnic and tribal tensions to consolidate power, with bloody ethnically targeted wars in Darfur and other parts of the
country earning him an ICC indictment for war crimes and genocide in 2009, and making Sudan’s name synonymous with ethnic cleansing.
Refugees described the horror of racially targeted atrocities. Attackers would shout “Kill the slaves, kill the slaves!” and “We have orders to kill all the blacks”. One refugee reported a militia member boasting, “We kill all blacks and even kill cattle when they have black calves.”
When it suited him, Bashir could demonstrate pragmatism. He allowed French secret services to capture the infamous terrorist Carlos the Jackal in 1994. As economic sanctions and international isolation hit, Bashir dumped hardline Islamists and began to craft a security state instead.
The Janjaweed militia, responsible for atrocities in Darfur in the early 2000s, were renamed the Rapid Support Forces and tasked with stopping migrants heading to Europe.
In a bizarre demonstration of their power, the former fighters were reported to be shaving off Afros in the poorer areas of Khartoum. The hairstyle was apparently associated in conservative circles with “deviance”.
The economy floundered under Bashir’s misrule. This was worsened by the secession of the south, which took three-quarters of the country’s oil with it.
By the time protesters took to the streets in December, citizens were unable to withdraw basic salaries from banks or buy bread.
This week, after four months of protests, the despised leader was removed from power just as he had seized it 30 years ago.
After the initial jubilation on the streets of Khartoum, the euphoria soured when the protesters realised one of his key allies had replaced him.
“We do not replace a thief with a thief,” some chanted.
“We don’t want the same guy!” shouted others. Within hours, another taunt at the regime was circulating online: “It fell once, it can fall again!”