Haha. NYT blurb headline used past tense and article title uses present tense: completely opposite to the rules of the English language.
Isn't this the guy who owns a unit in one of Trump's NY buildings?
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You can be sure Putin’s thugs are there as we speak managing the transition of dictatorship. From one thug to another. Another fine example of Russian foreign policy.
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Now MBS owns Sudan. No better outcome for the Sudanese people.
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I believe there will be a much greater chance of peace and internal progress if NATO keeps out. Libya is still reeling from civil war and anarchy, triggered by the 2011 intervention. Its people once had free electricity, water and subsidised healthcare. Previously, most of the people crossing the Mediterranean by boat were from sub-Saharan Africa. Now, many Libyans have joined them too given the sorry state of their country post-2011. NATO should think long-term. Whoever knew that destabilising another country would cause a refugee influx.
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Absolutely general rule of Third World uprisings: until the revolution destroys the power of the army, and dismantles it, setting up its own defense guard, militia, or other armed power, nothing will change.
Today's uniformed heroes will become tomorrow's uniformed tyrants.
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Rich mineral resources are available in Sudan including asbestos, chromite, cobalt, copper, gold, granite, gypsum, iron, kaolin, lead, manganese, mica, natural gas, nickel, petroleum, silver, tin, uranium and zinc
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"where his forces pushed barrel bombs from planes onto remote villages, and in Darfur and the Nuba Mountains, where hundreds of thousands died"
More high tech bombs on remote villages would make it okay?
Hundreds of thousands died for lies, lies told for reasons of power. Is that better than whatever this guy killed them for?
Let's bring our justice home, and do something about the log in our own eye.
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Chances are Sudan could now very well come under the protective wing of Saudi Arabia and remain what it has been all these years.No dramatic changes.
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An empty pedestal is always a source of hope until the reality of what to put on it sets in. The true secret to happiness must therefore be having no pedestals in the first place.
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From the article:
“He has been such a burden for us,” said one 25-year-old protester...!
Now, Americans can understand this, in a way we would have never been able to, just a few years ago.
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A bloodthirsty 20th-century dictator was sent to the junkyard of history.
Rest is all about Mr. Bashir how criminal was he been.
A good day for Sudan, even though it is a military coup.
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A 'C I N A'--coup in name only. I doubt that it's really party time in Khartoum just yet.
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Peace, democracy, sweetness and light to follow in short order. Stay tuned.
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@John, someone more cynical than I? Hard to believe.
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Everything will be fine in Sudan as soon as we fix this climate change issue.
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The International Criminal Court had identified that Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir presided over war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in the western region of Darfur.
The following article states:
“He has two arrest warrants, one issued on March 4, 2009, and another on July 12, 2010, for alleged involvement in attacks on civilians and pillaging and three counts of genocide.
“The crimes against humanity left over 300,000 people dead and more than two million displaced in the Darfur region between 2003 and 2008.”
https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2019-04-11-will-bashir-now-be-arrested-on-icc-warrants/
Omar al-Bashir should be delivered to the International Criminal Court in the Hague in the Netherlands ASAP. While this would not bring relief to the families and friends of the dead, the World would be relieved to be rid of this monstrous killer.
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'Ousted by the military', is the 2019 PC approved way of saying a military coup removed the president.
Civil war in Uganda, live on CNN tonite
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Swift trip to The Hague?
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the Muslims of Sudan had no problem with Bashir and his Islamic militias murdering hundreds of thousands of nonMuslims. Raise the price of their bread and they get mad. Bashir represented his people well.
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The best possible thing to happen to Sudan is for some international agency or developed country to make it a colony llong enough for Sudan to have a decent democacy, a solid justice system, and some sort of currency.
I'm sure China would love to own them but the Sudan would just become another set of gulags like the Uyghurs suffer in now.
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@The ObserverSadly, there are no Muslim majority countries with functional democracies. The few that remain, Turkey and Indonesia, have crossed the line into Islamic quasi police states, complete with political repression of minorities.
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Darfur was just a way for the Western nations to steal oil. So now we have Sudan and South Sudan. And now they managed to topple Sudan. so that country is down. Oil is now made available. Oil oligarchs will get richer and all kinds of investors will gleefully count their dollars. All of this enabled by US agencies.using American taxpayer dollars to make money for profiteers.
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Good news. And very many good wishes to the people of Sudan who face an uncertain future in moving to a democracy in the same ay that Libya did after their longtime serving dictator was disposed of and democracy quickly crumbled because nobody had any sense of what a civil democratic society felt like since they only participated in dictatorship for 40 years and the country fractured into pieces as greedy individuals and group played the game of ultimate survivor. Or their other neighbor Egypt whose Arab Spring bloomed one flower that was quickly stepped on once it bloomed. Or Syria, Qatar....
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It's nice that al-Bashir is out of power, but it's probably not going to make a lot of difference. The military is in control, and at some point one guy is going to get enough support to declare himself president, or king, or whatever. He will aim to hold onto complete control of the country for life.
And of course, Sudan is still hamstrung by its archaic and misogynistic religion, and this development doesn't change that in the slightest. Democracy and fundamentalist religion are always entirely opposed, thus so long as there are a lot of fundamentalists in Sudan, it will not have democracy.
Lastly, all of this is just rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, because climate change is turning Sudan into an uninhabitable desert, and nobody is doing anything about that. This is probably part of why bread was getting expensive enough to hold massive protests. No matter who rules the nation, it's hard to see how it will manage to exist until the end of this century.
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This was a real revolution that was stolen by members of Bashir's Islamist ruling party including his VP who is the coup leader. New ruler himself is wanter by the International Criminal Court for war atrocities in Darfur. I hope no Western media focus on Sudan to prevent further blood shed that might happen soon. People took to the streets immediately after announcing the coup leader to continue their protests. The US should not recognize the new government.
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@ME
Meant to say Western Media should focus on Sudan.
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It is good news that finally this monster, called Omar al-Bashir has been removed. Unfortunately, it is no time to celebrate. As shown with other Arab countries run by autocrats, as in Egypt, the replacement is often worse than the removed autocrat...especially when a military rule takes over under the guise of being temporary. Case in point, Egyp'ts el-Assisi.
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For Sudan it could be from frying pan into the fire !Yet this development is a significant event in the politics of the region.
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I hope this leads to the removal of Sudan from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism and to a trial in the Hague for Mr. Bashir.
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Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. The people take to the streets, eventually a ruler steps down, and eventually the military takes over and another dictator arrives on the scene. Behind every Arab government is the military keeping it secure, and often controlling major parts of the economy. No military with power is going to let democracy shine on their control.
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Regime change. I’ve been told it’s always a bad idea. Now where did I read that?
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As a PR professional that heavily reads news from a wide range of outlets - Why have these protests finally come to light? Why have I not been aware protests have been occurring for months?
To the US media, do better, please.
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I am not a PR professional and I was aware of these protests that started in December 2018. Al Jazeera has stories about it. Maybe it wasn’t covered much in western media amidst the domestic noise but it was out there and easily found with a Google search.
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@Kandy There are but so many minutes a day. There are plenty of outlets outside of US cable news that have been covering this story. Both the NYT and WSJ have covered it but as you maybe aware they have limited resources and often one crew covers a large region of Africa.
For me Al Jazeera on Youtube has been a great source of world news. I stream clips from them everyday when I come home.
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@Ed I definitely should add Al Jazeera to my daily personal news consumption list. Qatar is generally headed in the right direction. Thank you
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This is quite substantial. The International Court had indicted al-Bashir for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. However, there were legal questions as to whether the ICC could actually indict a sitting head of state.
It will be interesting to see if al-Bashir will have to appear in front of the ICC or a different ad hoc tribunal now that he is no longer president. We may look to the Augusto Pinochet case as precedent, and perhaps al-Bashir won't be immune from his acts while in office.
Will Sudan look to prosecute al-Bashir themselves? That seems unlikely at the moment. In the past African countries had not arrested al-Bashir, despite being members to the ICC, because he was a sitting head of state. I am eager to see if this changes now that he has been removed. Nevertheless, I hope this is good news for the non-Arab ethnic groups in Sudan.
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@Jack I for one hope they don't turn him over. I'm really uneasy about Western justice determining who is guilty or innocent in affairs of state. It's quite subjective. I watched the Frontline episode on Milosevic's trial and I came away rather conflicted and would not have convicted.
Also the court seems rather aggressive with African leaders but mute on leaders elsewhere.
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“If the Sudan military’s important announcement is that Pres Bashir will finally step down, it should demonstrate its commitment to the rule of law and an end to mass atrocities by delivering him to the International Criminal Court to face charges,”
Yes, al-Bashir should be handed over to the International Criminal court, as soon as feasible. Then only justice will be done. It would then be a lesson to other brutal dictators, with a modicum of deterrence to others.
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Though it was needed to remove a dictator, but I fear a bigger mess in the region. The rival factions will fight again for power and military will continue to cling to power.
I don’t know who will break this vicious cycle of deprivation in Sudan!!!
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Good news I hope for the people of Sudan. I'm sure Trump is watching Fox News this morning to see if he should Tweet about it.
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@Turgid Likely figuring that this is actually good news for him since it took Sudan 30 years to get rid of him, so he figures he has 28 left...
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Sudan and Algeria now have both deposed their despotic leaders. Let's hope they don't relapse like Egypt.
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@Will You mean like electing a group of people the military don't like and therefore ousting them? Algeria elected Islamists and poof they were gone. Ditto with Egypt. Tunisia is hanging on by a thread, yet sent more people to join ISIS than almost any other Arab country.
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This is very good news for Sudan! Let’s hope they can create a new form of government that will finally help its people.
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@Cameron Bryce
What about America?
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Sorry Cameron Bryce, there is nearly no chance of that. The military leaders are in control, one of them will get enough support to be the new dictator, and that will be that. There is no conceivable way the military will just hand over power to a budding democracy in a nation which has never had democracy.
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Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. I worked with a medical aid organization in Darfur in the mid 2000s and saw first hand some of the evil this man has wrought. I just hope whatever the transition period brings it is as peaceful as possible. The Sudanese people have seen enough war and atrocities.
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This is very good news. However, let’s hope Sudan doesn’t go the way of Egypt. Only time will tell.
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@Zareen
Hope Sudan does not go the way of America.
Sudan did not invade and occupy Afghanistan and Iraq. Sudan did not push for coups in Libya, Syria and Yemen. Sudan did not hack and meddle in the American election in order to get Donald Trump elected POTUS. Sudan does not have 25% of the world's prisoners. Sudan does not have 47.5 % of nukes.
The nations with the most Muslims aka Indonesia, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh have/had female heads of state and/or government.
How many women heads of state/government has America had?
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@Blackmamba
I hear you. But it also must be noted that the female prime ministers of both India and Pakistan (Benazir Bhutto and Indira Gandhi, respectively) were assassinated.
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There aren't many examples of where a coup has resulted in an improvement rather than just a replacement of one form of tyranny for another. The people of Sudan will need a great deal of support to rebuild their economy and institutions but it probably won't be forthcoming. Most countries are focused on themselves rather than doing what is good for the world as a whole. As if we didn't all live on the same planet.
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My hope for the Sudanese is that they are eventually successful in bringing about a civil government. They will be more successful if they allow women to also play a significant role. As history shows, men have a bad tendency to let their egos overrule good intentions and create bad outcomes.
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Dear KaneSugar,
Sorry but there is no reason to hope for any of that. Fundamentalist Islam is strong in Sudan, so women will be subjugated, no matter what. The military is in complete control and there is no force within Sudan great enough to remove them. Soon a new dictator will announce his pre-eminence, and things will go back to normal.
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Al-Bashir's ousting will surely bring great hope to the Sudanese people starving from lack of food and extreme inflation. He will face his day at the ICC. However, the U.S and the EU need to ensure that this transition of power happens free of Sudananese miitary intervention. South Sudan is in even worse condition than Sudan, but with its large oil holdings and its pipelines going through Sudan, its stability could bring both countries out of economic crisis. This transition needs to focus on helping both countries end the chaos so economic growth can finally take place.
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@Chris Having resources doesn't always result in good things for the average people. Hopefully Sudan can find a way to a democratic culture. They've been through so much.
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@Chris China has already provided infrastructure in terms of hydroelectric dams and roads. I presume under the same sort of loan arrangements that are negatively affecting Ecuador and Sri Lanka.
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Omar al-Bashir should be sent to the Hague for war crimes for the Darfur and South Sudan conflicts. Maybe even send George W. Bush and Dick Cheney there as well for what they did to Iraq. I have no sympathy to anyone who uses war to help themselves. It is good for the Sudanese people to say enough is enough.
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@Gregory Ziegler
I military coup, government dissolved, constitution suspended, military in charge for two years. How is this better for the Sudanese than what they had already? It's just a new set of thugs who step up and need to fill their pockets and crack down on opposition. There will be an interim of terror, and then it will go back to the same kind of dictatorship Omar al-Bashir provided.
'The protests will continue “until there is a complete step down of the whole regime,” [Abdelgalil] said. “We insist on a civil government, and we don’t support any coup.”' These poor protesters will learn very quickly that the recently emptied political prisons will be filled again in short order.
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