What’s happening in Sudan?

Sudan

President Omar Bashir has fallen, but the military establishment has refused to give up power despite continuing protests

Omar al-Bashir, who ruled Sudan with an iron grip for three decades, was deposed by the Army on April 11 amid growing public protests. The military council has taken over the government ever since and announced that it will be in charge for at least two years till elections are held. But protesters continue to occupy streets of Khartoum and elsewhere, demanding an immediate handover of power to a civilian government.

Who’s Bashir?

A paratrooper in Sudan’s army, Bashir captured power in 1989 through a bloodless coup. Bashir and Hassan al-Turabi, a popular Islamist politician with pan-Arabist appeal, started islamising Sudanese state and society with a host of laws. He banned opposition parties, restricted media and eventually anointed himself the president of Sudan. In his early years, the Bashir- Turabi alliance would attract transnational jihadists to Sudan, including Osama bin Laden. But after falling out with Turabi, Bashir would shift his focus to end Sudan’s international isolation. He signed a peace agreement with South Sudanese rebels in early 2000s and tried to warm up to the West. But when protests broke out in Darfur, a region in western Sudan, he unleashed militias against them, who killed hundreds of thousands of people. The campaign in Darfur would lead to Bashir’s conviction of war crimes in the International Criminal Court.

Why there are protests?

The breakaway of South Sudan with three-fourths of the country’s oil wealth broke the back of the Sudanese economy. In recent years, the country fell into an economic downturn. Inflation rose to over 70 percent. The country is also reeling under cash and fuel shortages. Long queues before ATMs and fuel stations became a daily sight. The massive rise in inflation also brought down the living standard of millions of people. The middle classes were particularly agitated. Protests first broke out in December in southeastern part of the country over rising prices of bread. Bashir immediately shrugged them off. He called the protesters “rats” and asked them to “go back to your holes”. But he, like many dictators elsewhere in the past, underestimated the resolve and strength of protesters. Protests spread to other cities, including Khartoum. When the protestors started demanding his resignation, Bashir tried several other tactics—he used limited force to scare them, and then declared a state of emergency, dismissed first the health minister and then the entire cabinet and finally promised reforms. Nothing worked. When protests reached his home in the army headquarters in Khartoum, the army smelled danger. The general stepped in, removing Bashir and taking the reigns of power in their hands.

What’s next?

Bashir is fallen, but the crisis is far from over. The Army is now in the driving seat. It has declared a two year transition period before elections are held. But the protesters are not happy with the turn of events. They want a regime change, not just the change of the President. They demand the army hand over power immediately to a civilian transitional government which can hold elections in four years. The protesters do not want another Egypt to repeat in Sudan. In Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, the dictator, fell in February 2011 but the military remained powerful and returned to power through a coup in two years. So the Sudanese protesters keep up the pressure on the army. The Army has realised that it’s a major challenge to its hegemony. It has conceded to the protesters. The military council chief stepped down in two days of his appointment. The feared intelligence chief was fired. A curfew declared a few days earlier was lifted and political prisoners were released. But still the army remains the centre of the power, which the protesters oppose. This has taken the country into a stalemate. The Army has support from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt. These countries want stability over revolution. It’s to be seen whether the protesters have the resolve to sustain the momentum till they achieve what they demand—a total break with the past.  

 

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