The Daily - A Dictator’s Fall in Sudan

Episode Date: May 1, 2019

After a brutal 30-year reign, President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan has been deposed by his own generals. The story of one of those generals and his son could signal what comes next for the country. Guest: Declan Walsh, the Cairo bureau chief for The New York Times, spoke with Lt. Gen. Salah Abdelkhalig and Abdelkhalig Salah in Khartoum, Sudan. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Background reading: When Sudan’s Air Force chief stepped out to address a crowd calling for the ouster of the president, the chief’s own son was among the protesters — a family split that mirrors broader tensions between the military and civilians.Mr. al-Bashir, who is under indictment by the International Criminal Court for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, was unseated amid sweeping demonstrations that began in December over the price of bread.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today. After a brutal 30-year reign, Sudan's dictator has been deposed by his own generals. What the story of one of those generals and his son could signal about what comes next for Sudan. It's Wednesday, May 1st.

Declan, tell us about what happened outside of Sudan's military headquarters earlier this month. So this story starts on April 10th. For months, protests had been building in Sudan against President Omar Bashir. He's the man, the dictator many would say, who's been ruling Sudan for 32 years. I reached Declan Walsh in Sudan's capital. So while President Bashir is known in the outside world, principally for war crimes, at home in Sudan, his downfall really was coming about because of the economic conditions

in the country. Sudan's economy has been tanking for the last couple of years. And the protest movement that started in December really came about as a result first of fuel prices, food prices, people's living standards plunging at a precipitous rate and really it is the economy that was bringing down President Bashir first and foremost. You had thousands of young Sudanese led by professionals like doctors and lawyers and university professors. And they had camped outside the military's headquarters demanding the ouster of President Bashir. And things had really come to a head. And you had the country's Air Force chief.

He's a man called General Salah Abdel Khaleg. And he had been sitting in his office. He's been listening for days to these protesters standing outside his gate. There have been these armed clashes in the streets outside. There are chants against President Bashir. And he decides he's going to walk out the gate of the military compound and address some of these protesters. He walks out of his office. He goes out through the gate of this huge military compound in the middle of Khartoum,

where this tumultuous scene is unfolding. And he stands up before the people and he says to them, this army is your army. He says, we are not going to fight you. And Declan, why would this general say this? As a leader in Bashir's military, why would he tell these protesters that they have nothing to worry about and that in a way he's on their side? Because this is a sign of the divisions that run right through the middle of Sudanese society and that were exposed by the protests against Bashir. Many of the protesters came from these middle class backgrounds or they were even children of people who were senior figures in the regime who themselves had become so weary with the corruption and the misrule of the Bashir regime

that they had decided to rise against them. A day or two earlier, General Abdel Khaleg had received a text message from his own son. His name is Abdel Khaleg, also Abdel Khaleg Saleh, and he's 28 years old. He is a commercial airline pilot with the private Sudanese airline. And days earlier, when the airline pilots union decided to join the protests, he decided to go along with them. So he had texted his father to say, hey, dad, I'm at the protests. A couple of days later, when the Air Force chief, his own father, walks out the gate of this military compound, surveys the scene in front of him, sees these hundreds, if not thousands of front of him, sees these hundreds,

if not thousands of people before him. He knows and he sees in that crowd among them his own son. And so the father turns on his heel. He walks back inside. He goes into his office. And then much later that night, at about midnight, the army high command, including General Salah, midnight, the army high command, including General Salah, met inside that same compound. And they met effectively to decide the fate of President Bashir. And they met for about one hour. And at the end of that, they decided that he was going to have to go. And then they waited the night out until about 5am, when a small delegation of military officers, about three people, went to President Bashir's residence, which is on the same compound, and they walked in and they woke him up. And they said to him, sir, your time is done. You are now in our detention.

So Bashir is stunned. He's been ruling Sudan for 30 years. He never thought this day would come, it seems, and now it has come to this. So this general and the other military leaders, they have done what his son and the other protesters wanted, but could probably never have done themselves, which is they've turned on their own boss and they have unseated Bashir. That's right. This is an unthinkable moment. If you had asked any Sudanese

three or four months ago whether this was possible, nobody would have believed you. And now these generals who have ousted Bashir, they've done the unthinkable, they now withdraw into conclave to decide what's coming next. Because it seems that even though they've agreed that they should get ridsted Bashir, they've done the unthinkable, they now withdraw into conclave to decide what's coming next. Because it seems that even though they've agreed that they should

get rid of Bashir, they don't quite know who's going to take over, what kind of regime is going to follow him and who's going to be in charge. And so for the next five or six hours, the whole country, and including those people camped outside the military headquarters, are on tenderhooks. They don't know what's coming next. There are rumours flying around everywhere. And then finally at lunchtime, Ahmed Awad Ibn Auf, who's the country's defence minister, he's the vice-president under Bashir. This is the man who goes on TV.

And who makes this statement to the nation to say that President Bashir has been ousted, that he is taking over as the country's interim leader, and that the military is going to be in charge of Sudan for a period of up to two years until democratic elections can be organized and power is handed to a civilian government. So outside the gates again of this military headquarters, you have this very confused reaction.

Bashir is gone. People are writing his political obituary, but the people who've taken over seem to be cut from the same cloth. The mood turns a little sour. And they figure, maybe we have gotten rid of the head, but the body remains. In other words, that Bashir's regime lives on and that maybe very little will have changed. This could be just musical chairs. And in response to that, the following evening, this man, General Ibn Av, goes on TV for a second time and he says, I announce as head of the military council that I am resigning from my position.

Actually, I've decided that I'm going to step down. I'm handing power to another general and I'm going to retire. And it's really at that point that the unfiltered celebrations erupt among the protesters. Days after that, the military starts making other concessions to the protesters who still haven't left their position because they're saying we will only go when there is a full transition to civilian rule. So the military takes Omar Bashir from house arrest and they cast him in a notorious prison just north of the Nile. Late on Tuesday, Sudan's former leader was moved from his residence in Khartoum to solitary confinement in Khobar prison on the north bank of the Blue Nile River.

The military and the authorities, they raid his home, they uncover these huge bundles of cash. And this is all in an effort to show the protesters that they are serious about a real change of regime. But that's not enough, because these protesters say they want the military to hand over power to a civilian government immediately. They don't want to wait two years. And so negotiations start between an alliance of these protesters who've brought down President Bashir and this military junta that is now in charge of the country,

which profess to be sort of born-again Democrats, but are still holding onto power and are not letting go. So in this moment, at least, this father and this son, this father and this son, this general and this protester out in the crowds, they are seemingly on the same page. So it looks like the general and his son,

and more broadly, the military and the protesters, are on the same page. But in reality, there are serious differences between them. We'll be right back. Declan, when did you arrive in Sudan? So I got into the country just over a week after President Bashir had been ousted. I went down to the protest area to get a sense of what was going on on the ground with these people who were still camped outside. And I mean, I gotta say, it was extraordinary scenes that were unfolding when I went down there. Most of the people who took part in these protests were young Sudanese. This is a country where 60% of the population is under the age of 25. So all of these young Sudanese, most of these people had known nothing but President Bashir.

And now he was gone. And there was just this sort of sense of an explosion of joy and release. People were coming up to me and to other journalists all the time. We are a new generation. We can do what we want by our way. Wanting to shake your hand, wanting to speak, wanting to give their ideas, wanting to give their hopes for the country. I met a woman in a wedding dress. I met her when she was on her way to the protest site. And what is your name, ma'am? Samer Mohammed Ahmed Al Noor. Samer, OK. And how old are you, Samer?

So this woman's name was Samer Al Noor. She was 28, and both her legs were in bandages, and she was in crutches. I shot two bullets in my right leg. Wow, OK. In two places, two shots. And it turned out that this was a woman who had been shot during the protests, shot twice in the leg before President Bashir was ousted,

when there was fighting going on outside the gates of the military headquarters. And she was getting married. We will do the marriage contract within the protest place. And she wanted to go back to the site of the protest to share with the protesters her wedding and to have part of the wedding ceremony take place at the protest site. Why is it important for you to do the marriage contract inside the protest area. Because I would like to celebrate,

to share my happiness with all the revolutionists in the place. And then I said to her, who are you getting married to? How did you meet each other? We met in Cairo. We met And then I said to her, who are you getting married to? And it turned out that the man she was marrying was the same person who had picked her up from the gates of the military after she'd been shot and carried her to hospital. That's amazing. We met at 9 April. He's the one who took care of me, handled me.

That's amazing. So you were shot in the leg, and this is the person who picked you up and brought you to the hospital? Yes, and you were shot, and he was the one who took care of you, and he took you to the hospital. Oh. Yes. Fantastic. And they had fallen in love,

and now they had decided to get married just a couple of weeks later. And there were so many stories like that of, you know, young people who were taking advantage of, you know, these new freedoms. Because this is a country that has been under a form of Sharia law since 1983. All of these social strictures had suddenly vanished with the ouster of President Bashir. And, you know, I saw young people, men and women holding hands, walking through the crowd of protesters. To many people, that might seem like a pretty innocuous thing. But in Sudan, that's a pretty radical or certainly was a pretty radical statement until recently because of the danger that you could get arrested for it.

So, Declan, does this seem like this is a moment where real change is possible? You know, there's so much that screams the possibility of change. The greatest change that Sudan has seen in its modern history from the size and the enthusiasm and the possibility of these protests. But there are also reasons to believe that change may not be realized. And so I sought out and found that general and his son from the protests, who in many ways seemed to represent the divisions in the country between generations, between military and civilians, and this stark disagreement, really, over what should happen next.

So one evening, I'm invited to the general's house. My Arabic is very weak, I'm afraid. I'm sorry. When I turned up, he invited me in. He was in his full uniform and in his bare feet in his living room. So I am, as they explained, I'm a journalist with the New York Times. I looked around in the corner. There was a photograph of the general with President Bashir, who it turned out had promoted him to Air Force chief just a couple of months earlier.

So you are an Air Force... I was an Air Force commander. Okay. You were the Air Force commander, or were you the head of the Air Force? I am the head of the Air Force. Okay. And we sit down and get talking. He invites his son in to join us. And I started off with the son and I said, why did you want to overthrow President Bashir?

Because you come from a family that has, you know, flourished under his rule. Your father is now the Air Force chief. And he told me a couple of things. He pointed out that the private airline company that he works for had been really laboring under American sanctions. had been really laboring under American sanctions. But more fundamentally, he started talking about the economic hardship in the country that had even affected someone like him, a relatively well-paid pilot with a private airline. He said that there was just a groundswell of weariness among his own friends with the Bashir rule, and they felt it was time for them to go. And his father, who was sitting beside him, nodded. And he said, yes, he said, in the beginning, I did not support this revolution.

But he said when he listened to his son and to the other young people who were camped outside his office, he said that this is the change that they wanted. it also became clear, you know, he was a straight-talking military man who seemed to have a limited amount of patience for the civilians who were pressing on him and his fellow generals to hand over power. He referred to a lot of the protest leaders as communists. You know, there were people with big mouths who were making these demands and that, you know, the country needed to have a firm, strong military hand to guide it through this next couple of years and that the military was willing to make a lot of concessions to these protesters. It was willing to lock up former President Bashir. It had locked up

a number of his cronies. It had forced the country's intelligence chief to resign. But the one thing that it became clear General Abdul Khaliq was not willing to concede was that the military should hand over power during this coming period. And it became clear to me that his son, even though I think he was a little too polite to say it in front of his father, my sense was that he did not agree with that. And in a sense, there you have it in a nutshell. That is the division between the military and civilians here in Sudan at this moment. Declan, did the general say anything in particular to you

that indicated to you how all of this might play out? There was one thing that really struck me. Towards the end of our interview, I said to him, what do you feel now about Omar al-Bashir, this man who midwifed your career, who you know so well, and you worked under for decades? And he just gave this quiet little smile. The first thing he said was, he said, I am happy because I'm not in his place. And then he added, I don't know what my feeling would be if I was on the streets, but I'm in the palace. He's on the inside.

He's on the inside. He's running the country now. And he knows firmly on which side of this divide he falls. And now we've got to wait and see what happens next. Tehkman, thank you very much. We appreciate it. My pleasure. Here's what else you need to know today. Violent clashes erupted across Venezuela on Tuesday

as the country's opposition leader, Juan Guaido, announced what he called the, quote, final phase of removing the country's president, Nicolas Maduro, from power. Appearing on camera with government soldiers, Guaidó called for the entire military to rise up against Maduro. Within hours, forces loyal to Maduro responded with force,

firing at crowds of protesters and plowing into them with an armored vehicle. In a victory for opponents of Maduro, Leopoldo Ló Lopez, a mentor to Guaido and a popular opposition leader, escaped from house arrest on Tuesday and appeared alongside Guaido. In a tweet, Lopez called for a revolution, saying, quote, It's time to conquer freedom. And Special Counsel Robert Mueller wrote a letter to Attorney General William Barr complaining about the way Barr summarized the conclusions of Mueller's investigation. In his letter, Mueller took issue with Barr's early characterization of those conclusions, which the president relied upon to claim incorrectly that he had been fully exonerated by the investigation.

Later, when the full report was released, it showed that Mueller had found significant evidence that the president had obstructed justice. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.