After 5 Months Of Protest President Omar al Bashir Of Sudan Is Overthrown & Placed Under Arrest

Protests in Sudan have been happening almost daily since December 19th of 2018. The unrest has left over 70 civilians dead and hundreds more injured. This week mainstream media suddenly decided to start covering the revolt happening in Sudan as if this violence didn't start five months ago. Early on Thursday morning, the news broke that Omar al Bashir had been ousted in military coup after five months of protest against his 30-year long dictatorship.

Sudan's Defense Minister Defense Awad Ibn Ouf announced later that day that president Omar al Bashir was placed under arrest and brought to a "safe location." Awad Ibn Ouf thanked the protesters for their peaceful demonstrations and stated Sudan would enter a two-year transitional period that he would oversee as Sudan's Defense Minister followed by elections, he also declared a state of emergency. The state of emergency declaration involves suspending Sudan's Constitution and closing the country's borders which has only angered protesters.

The situation in Sudan intensified earlier this week as demonstrators organized a sit-in Sudan's biggest city Khartoum. They were then engaged by NISS government forces loyal to Omar al Bashir only to have Sudan's Army stand up and protect the peaceful protesters against their own government forces, the clash resulted in five army personnel being killed and dozens of protesters were also killed in the clash. 

The unrest in Sudan has been mischaracterized as only being about rising bread prices by mainstream media and the State Department when it is about much than that. Protesters in Sudan, have been very clear, they wanted Omar al Bashir to step down, and now they want widespread reforms to laws in Sudan like the Public Order law which has led to over 40,000 women being sentenced to lashings since the law was enacted in 2014. 

The NISS in Sudan is commonly referred to as 'government forces' in media reports. NISS forces have allegedly killed over 70 protesters and Salah Gosh is the head of the NISS. The NISS also clashed with troops in Sudan's Army who were trying to protect protesters from NISS forces, five soldiers were killed. Recently there have been multiple media reports published alleging that Salah Gosh Sudan's Intel Chief met with the head of Israeli Mossad Yossi Cohen at the Munich Security Conference in mid-February of this year. 

It is becoming evident that Salah Gosh is the Israeli's, the Egyptians and the American's choice to replace Omar al-Bashir if the protests in Sudan are not brought under control. So if you are Israel or the United States, and you want Salah Gosh to replace Omar al-Bashir, aren't you are going to try to incite more protest? And what are the United States and Israel going to do now that Omar al Bashir has been ousted? The young people protesting in Sudan are genuine peaceful protesters and seems bad actors are infiltrating their peaceful protest and inciting violence similar to what we saw in Syria back in 2012.

I have covered these protest since they erupted on December 19th of last year and it has been hard to decipher if these are legitimate protest or protest being hijacked by bad actors. One of the main groups organizing protests is a shadowy organization named the Sudan Professionals Association. SPA has no offices, or a director to contact, they do have a Twitter account that they organize and launch protests from, but the person behind that account is not located in Sudan they are from France.

Regardless if foreign actors are inciting protests in Sudan, the people of Sudan should choose their next leader through their own upcoming elections. Isreal or the United States should not be choosing Sudan's next leader. Sudan is one of the seven countries on the infamous neocon- regime-change-wars-list that General Wesley Clark told the world about back in 2007. People can make all the arguments they wish to spew about the infamous seven countries and five years list, like how there is a different administration in power and they don't have the same plans as previous administrations and whatnot, but history doesn't lie. 

The following is a transcript of Amy Goodman from Democracy Now interviewing General Wesley Clark back in 2007. It starts with General Wesley Clark describing a conversation he had with an unnamed military official about a memo that describes how the United States planned to take out seven countries in five years. 

“This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.” General Wesley Clark told Amy Goodman.

General Wesley Clark continues and states: "I said, Is it classified?”

"He said. Yes, sir.” 

Amy Goodman then ask General Wesley Clark, "I'm sorry what did you say his name was?" And General Wesley Clark replied: "I'm not going to give you his name."

Amy Goodman pushes back and asked Wesley Clark to go to the countries again, and General Wesley Clark states:

"Well, starting with Iraq, then Syria and Lebanon, then Libya, then Somalia and Sudan, and back to Iran. So when you look at Iran, you say, “Is it a replay?” General Wesley Clark answers his own question and states: 

"It’s not exactly a replay. But here’s the truth: that Iran, from the beginning, has seen that the presence of the United States in Iraq was a threat."

In the last week, Sudan's army has clashed with NISS government forces loyal to Omar al-Bashir and the United States declared Iran's Revolutionary Guard international sponsors of terrorism. We are seeing the infamous seven countries in five years list, playout in real time before our eyes. 

The United States invaded Iraq on a lie and left nearly one million people dead, In Somalia, the French and the United States have been conducting airstrikes and ground operations in Somalia for the last decade. The world stood as solemn witnesses and watched what happened to Libya and Syria we even saw military actions in Lebanon— each nation on the list revealed by General Wesley Clark has been negatively affected by the United States military, yet the seven countries in five years list considered to be a "conspiracy theory."

It's important that we as journalist stand up and speak out when innocent protesters are being killed in the streets of Sudan, but it is also our journalistic duty to be meticulous reporters of history in the hopes that it won't repeat itself. Mainstream media is consistently on the wrong side of history when it comes to war and the masses still stay glued to their shows on major networks or articles in major publications, why? 

When has mainstream media ever spoken the truth about war? If you can't find an instance in which mainstream media and talking heads on the left or the right were anti-war then I ask why mainstream media continues to be anyone's source for any information involving the wars we are active in? If your doctor consistently tried to convince you that your leg was broken, and you knew for a fact that your leg was indeed not broken, would you still continue to see the same doctor? 

Written by Joziah Thayer - You can read more of my articles on wedacoalition.org - Follow me on Twitter @ Dapeaple