Today, Explained - They're calling it a revolution

Episode Date: January 31, 2019

Historic protests threaten to topple Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir. Reporter Reem Abbas speaks to Sean Rameswaram after being tear gassed in Khartoum. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Usually, when we call up journalists on the show, they're making time for us between deadlines. Then there's Reem Abbas. I was out today and I was coming home in a taxi and we were hit by tear gas and it was really bad. So it took me some time to recover. Tear gas is not nice. Reem's a reporter in Khartoum, Sudan, and her country's in a state of turmoil right now. I have a baby actually, so I'm worried about, you know, leaving the house with her because of the tear gas, because of the protest. I'm worried about getting arrested as a journalist, but my worries are minimal compared to other people. I mean, this has been what's happening for the last few weeks,

that there's a protest everywhere. Familiar slogans from the Arab Spring are now echoing across Sudan. Peaceful, peaceful, they cry, their hands raised and empty of weapons. It's like the most significant protest movement in Sudan. The message to all the world that the people were killed in Sudan, they were not killed because they did anything wrong. The people were going out peacefully to say no to this cruel system. It's all over the country.

I mean, there are protests in villages I've never even heard of before in my life. And it's just, it's ongoing, you know, and you feel that so many people are taking part of it. Yes, we've had like big protest movements in 2012 and 2013, but it's not like,

this is nothing like it. You feel that everyone is taking part, everyone is talking about it, is becoming part of the popular culture. I mean, I've seen a number of videos of, like, weddings, where people are actually saying, they're dancing to the music, and they're saying the slogan, the main slogan of the protest, which is, which means,

it should just fall, basically. Like, this government should just fall, it should go. There are so many new songs talking about this revolution, what people are calling a revolution. People are having this slogan on T-shirts. They're having it everywhere. Like in Sudan, we have henna. We do the henna art for women.

They do it on their hands. And people are writing the slogan instead of, you know, flowers or something. And did the protests start in Khartoum and then make their way out or did it start elsewhere? The protests did not start in Khartoum, actually. The protests started in Adbara. It's in River Nile state, about 400 kilometers outside Khartoum. Then it came to the capital in Khartoum. And then it just spread to so many different cities around Sudan. So Sudan has 18 states and 15 states have witnessed protests. How did these protests start? Just the general situation in Sudan. I mean, 2018 was a very tough year.

I mean, you go to the bank, there's no money in the bank. The ATMs are empty. They don't give you your salary or your savings. We've had fuel shortages and bread queues. So sometimes you don't find bread. You also have to queue for hours sometimes. So I think generally life has been very, very difficult. And the government has been saying that, you know, we're going to do this, we're going to do that to

fix the situation. But the government is really not able to do any kind of reform because it's a very corrupt regime. Sudan is a very rich country, but the money is going into their pockets, you know. So people are just frustrated. They're angry. They feel that this government has been ruling for 30 years and Sudan is just constantly at war and people are constantly struggling. But as you say, this has been a situation that's been ongoing for decades with few years, especially since South Sudan separated. The country just split. And it was a big deal politically because, you know, I mean, it's not easy for any country to just split. And people felt really angry.

And then also economically, you know, South Sudan took away 75% of Sudan's revenue. So things just continued to go downhill. And then just corruption scandal after corruption scandal. So it's just an accumulation of grievances that just kind of exploded. Who exactly is protesting? Who are these people? The demography of the protest is very interesting because in Sudan we have, we've had mass migration. Men between the ages of 25 to 40 is not really there. So you see that there's so many women who are joining the protest because I

think women are really bearing the brunt of the repression of this government. Lubna Hussein smiles as she leaves a courtroom in Sudan. Supporters shouted freedom after a judge spared the journalist a whipping for the crime of wearing trousers in public. And they're the ones also suffering economically because, you know, we have a lot of women-headed families, women are really struggling. But you also see, like, older people joining the protests. And how has the government reacted?

Arresting people. More than 40 have been killed. The media has been censored. A number of newspapers have been confiscated on a daily basis or they have been prohibited from printing. Correspondents for international media outlets have been... Their press accreditation has been revoked. They have called the protesters infiltrators, agents. They have really showed a lot of, I would say,

brutality towards the peaceful protesters. Is there any sense that President al-Bashir, who's been around for a long time, might view this as a sign that it's time to go, a popular uprising? Nope. He doesn't. I mean, he said that if anyone wants me gone, they should come and contest with me in the 2020 elections, which doesn't make any sense because, I mean, the last elections and the election in 2010 were rigged, you know, so obviously it's not a fair game. He sees this as, you know, those are just a bunch of infiltrators

and I'm just going to basically crack down on the protest movement and it will stop and they will just go away. How about other countries in the region? Has anyone else weighed in? Well, I feel that, I mean, many people in Sudan feel that they're alone in this, you know, because, I mean, there are a lot of like regional politics involved. The Gulf countries, we feel that they don't really support the protest movement and they would support Bashir, even though he did go to Qatar a few days ago and he did not get any money from them. He wanted a grant, basically, to fix the economic situation. So yeah, we feel that the international community does not mind the status quo in Sudan. They just feel that any protest could lead to instability, and it could lead to a Syria, you know, Libya-like

situation. And we feel that this is a, I mean, I personally feel that this is a very lazy analysis. And this should not be how the international community thinks that things will end up, basically. So what do you think the international community should do? I mean, I think the people have spoken that they don't want this government, that they want a real democracy, that they want justice for the people killed by this government in conflicts in the protest movement and so on. And I think their voices should be heard and that the will of the people is above everything, basically. Reem, you know, you just got tear gassed. You talked about being fearful for your baby daughter. What's it like being a journalist covering all of this in Sudan

right now? Are you afraid at all? I would say it's definitely very draining because you just feel that you're only able to write and say so much when people are really dying and people are suffering from this protest movement. There are people in detention. Even journalists are actually in detention right now. Some of them have been in detention for a few weeks. So you feel a lot of fear. It's very difficult to really speak your mind and not like self-censor when you feel that you're really at risk because you're trying to speak your mind and you're trying to cover what's happening on the ground. Sometimes I personally feel like I don't even want to write about this and I don't want to cover what's happening. But then I just have to remind myself that this is a responsibility and this is what I signed up for.

How's your baby doing? Oh, she's good. Do you need to go tend to your baby? Yeah, okay. Babies come before journalism. Yes, yes, they do. Reem Abbas is a freelance journalist working in Khartoum, Sudan. Coming up, Sudan's long struggle to find peace. Hello? Joe Posner? That's me. Joe, you're in charge of video here at Vox,

and last year you and your team birthed this beautiful Netflix series, Explained. And just recently, like a couple of weeks ago, you and your wife birthed a beautiful actual human baby, right? I feel like a podcast post is telling me my life story right now. Except I don't even know the name of your baby. What's the name of your baby, Joe Posner? Her name is Frances Frankie, and it's the 458th most popular name in the United States. Amazing. There were 739 Frankies. Frances was born last year. This is more information than I expected.

I wanted to tell you about a new podcast called Josie and Johnny are having a baby with you because you seem like the target audience. It's this podcast where these two comedians who are sort of falling into pregnancy, they didn't really plan it or expect it, they call up their comedian and actor friends and ask them for advice on all the funny and serious stuff that's in their near distant future.

This is extremely relevant to my interests right now. Oh, perfect. Great news. You can find Josie and Johnny are having a baby with you wherever you find your podcast. Where do you find your podcast, Joe? You know, mostly Apple Podcasts. You're a traditionalist. I mean, I've heard about the Stitcher thing and I've been meaning to give it a try.

Nice. Adete Akwe, you're a director at Amnesty International based here in Washington, D.C. What do people need to know to fully understand the weight of these protests in Sudan right now. You know, the country has had a long history of instability and authoritarian governments, unfortunately, since independence in 1956. Since Sudan's modern borders were drawn up by the British last century, it has been very much a country of two halves. In the north, you have more of a northern Arabic population. And of course, the language is Arabic, and the religion is predominantly Muslim. And in the southern part of the north, you have more of a northern Arabic population, and of course the language is Arabic, and the religion is predominantly Muslim. And in the southern part of the country, in what is now South Sudan,

you have a more animist and Christian-based population. But the other major factor, I think, is that the country has had conflict and civil war since 1972 with intermittent breaks. How exactly did Omar al-Bashir establish such a chokehold on power in Sudan? So Bashir is a former military general of the Sudanese army. The farmer's son from the Arabic north rose to the rank of colonel. By 1989, he was able to lead a bloodless coup with Sudan swamped in its second civil war.

And he is part of a military coalition that is very much bent on establishing a Sharia Islamic state in Sudan. Bashir began by brandishing a Koran and a Kalashnikov and put Sudan on a path to radical Islamic reform. And General Bashir sort of consolidates his power. And General Bashir is unfortunately also infamous because he oversaw the genocide in Darfur.

In the early 2000s, Darfur was a province or region of the country where you had resistance movements and you had armed resistance groups that were trying also to sort of break free of the control of Khartoum and also try to address economic and political marginalization. The Sudanese government adopted its usual tactics of scorched earth policies. They destroyed villages. They extrajudicially executed people. They deployed informal militias known as the Janjaweed, who were like a shock troop that really were not officially in the command and control lines of the Sudanese government, but were clearly allied and were being supplied in terms of weapons. And so you had the official army doing abuses, and you had this militia doing abuses. And eventually, it created a humanitarian crisis.

An estimated 300,000 people have died in Darfur since conflict erupted. And a further 3 million have been made homeless, who have either fled over the border to refugee camps in Chad, or live in the tens of camps in Darfur itself. And the international community said, what's going on in Darfur? And under the Bush administration, General Colin Powell made the declaration that it was genocide. We concluded, I concluded, that genocide has been committed in Darfur, and that the government of Sudan and the Janjaweed bear responsibility, and that genocide may still be occurring. And that genocide triggered the most comprehensive list of sanctions that were imposed in the Sudanese economy

that contributed to the economic crisis that the economy is in right now. Even though they were eventually lifted? They were eventually lifted in the dying days of the Obama administration. Why were the sanctions lifted then? I think the Obama administration had been frustrated by the very slow implementation of reforms by the Sudanese government. And I think that there were voices inside the administration that said that, you know, there are two ways to encourage behavior.

One is through incentives and the other one is through punitive measures. And they weren't seeing enough, quote-unquote, progress. Perhaps it was time to use incentives. Sudan, though, will remain on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. So as the relationship between the two countries improves, there's still more work to be done. And Bashir is also indicted by the International Criminal Court. The court accuses Omar al-Bashir of masterminding attempts to wipe out African tribes in Darfur

with a campaign of murder, rape, and deportation. We are charging al-Bashir with three counts of genocide, five of crime against humanity, and two of war crimes. And issues as it does when it indicts someone, arrest warrants. If General Bashir travels to a particular country, any country that has signed up to be a party to the International Criminal Court is supposed to turn him over. He has defied these warrants and traveled

to quite a few countries to basically show that the ICC doesn't have the ability to arrest him. How has this genocidal war criminal, who through his acts war, tanked his own economy for over a decade, managed to hold on to power. You know, when I was coming over here, out of curiosity, I looked at the last Department of State Human Rights Report, which is an annual exercise done by the Democracy Human Rights Bureau in-state. And I'm just going to read just a little because this will give you a clearer understanding that this is a totalitarian, vicious, abusive government that is committing abuses. They quote, the most significant abuses included killings, torture, beatings, rape, and other cruel or inhuman treatment or punishment of detainees and prisoners, arbitrary detention by security forces, harsh life-threatening conditions in prisons, and restrictions on freedom of expression,

press, assembly, association, religion, movement, intimidation. It's a fairly bleak and very harsh assessment, and it mirrors the kinds of assessments that groups like Amnesty International, as well as Human Rights Watch Watch and others. This is a regime that has maintained control because it has effectively controlled and intimidated and killed and detained any form of dissent or opposition. And it has been able to do that by virtue of being able to export its oil. It has concessions and contracts with a number of countries, including China, that are more interested in the steady supply of oil and therefore will not allow or will block any kind of international coordinated effort to put pressure on Sudan to reform.

And so what you have is a repressive regime that has all the tools at its disposal of power. And it's basically been able to stay in power because of that. That report from the State Department, this history you've recounted, it makes Sudan sound like such a forgotten, bleak place. And yet there's so much hope right now. There are protests and songs and celebrations in the street. You know, when 2019 began, I don't think anyone would have seen this protest continuing at this level. People do have the resolve to fight for their survival. And maybe we've reached that point in Sudan,

and you never know what incident could trigger something else and perhaps even change the equation and level the playing field. What we do know is that the international community has to re-engage. It has to apply more pressure for restraint and also for accountability. Adotei Akwe is a Deputy Director of Advocacy and Government Relations with Amnesty International USA. I'm Sean Ramos from This Is Today Explained. Thank you.