The Dictators: Omar Al Bashir

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Video originally published on June 27, 2024.

This analysis examines The Dictators: Omar Al Bashir in historical and strategic context. It traces how the core developments unfolded, which institutions and actors shaped outcomes, and what those decisions changed on the ground. Rather than repeating headline-level claims, it focuses on concrete mechanisms, constraints, and tradeoffs that explain the trajectory of events. The discussion moves from Key Developments through Strategic Implications to Risk and Uncertainty, then evaluates wider consequences. The goal is to clarify not only what happened, but why these developments still matter for current planning, risk assessment, and policy decisions.

Key Takeaways

This analysis examines The Dictators: Omar Al Bashir in historical and strategic context.
Well unfortunately, as we shall see today, the case of Sudan shows that the result of such a rupture can be just as bad as life under the dictator, as brutal as that may already have been.
Before the South split off in 2011, Sudan was the largest country in Africa and one of the largest in the entire world at a gargantuan 2.5 million square kilometres.
Omar Al-Bashir - the Butcher of Darfur Unlike some other modern dictators, whose origins are deliberately shrouded in an element of mist, Al Bashir’s humble origins in northern Sudan are not only quite well-documented,.
He would remain President for over a quarter of a century before finally being toppled in 2019.

Key Developments

Well unfortunately, as we shall see today, the case of Sudan shows that the result of such a rupture can be just as bad as life under the dictator, as brutal as that may already have been. In fact, the Sudanese case may be considered a cautionary tale for what may happen when an unpopular yet stabilising dictator is removed from power, and a political vacuum remains in its place. So today on Warographics, we turn our attention once again towards Sudan, focusing on all that preceded the horrific ongoing conflict and the conditions laid out by its long-term dictator Omar Hassan Al-Bashir. In doing so, we will look into the story of Al-Bashir - who he is, what did he do, and what has become of both him and Sudan since the end of his reign in 2019. Introduction - Sudan Before getting into all that, it is important to understand that Sudan is a very complex country even by comparison to other countries with similarly difficult recent histories. For one thing, Sudan is an absolutely immense country in its size. For one thing, Sudan is an absolutely immense country in its size. Before the South split off in 2011, Sudan was the largest country in Africa and one of the largest in the entire world at a gargantuan 2.5 million square kilometres. Even after South Sudan seceded, it remains the third-largest country in Africa and the 16th-largest country in the world, and it is also incredibly diverse in terms of its population. It is estimated that around six hundred distinct ethnic groups inhabit Sudan, with around four hundred languages being spoken between them. Yet, in some ways, Sudan’s problems are commonly boiled down to simmering divisions and rival interests between two groups of people - the predominantly Muslim Arab tribes of the north and the Black African populations in the west and south, a diverse mix of faiths featuring adherents of Christianity and African traditional religions, as well as large Muslim populations also. The relationship between these communities, and the way in which they were influenced by Sudan’s leadership, are factors which go some way to explain the massive instability which has dogged Sudan for much of its recent history - both during the reign of Omar Al Bashir and after.

Strategic Implications

Before the South split off in 2011, Sudan was the largest country in Africa and one of the largest in the entire world at a gargantuan 2.5 million square kilometres. Even after South Sudan seceded, it remains the third-largest country in Africa and the 16th-largest country in the world, and it is also incredibly diverse in terms of its population. It is estimated that around six hundred distinct ethnic groups inhabit Sudan, with around four hundred languages being spoken between them. Yet, in some ways, Sudan’s problems are commonly boiled down to simmering divisions and rival interests between two groups of people - the predominantly Muslim Arab tribes of the north and the Black African populations in the west and south, a diverse mix of faiths featuring adherents of Christianity and African traditional religions, as well as large Muslim populations also. The relationship between these communities, and the way in which they were influenced by Sudan’s leadership, are factors which go some way to explain the massive instability which has dogged Sudan for much of its recent history - both during the reign of Omar Al Bashir and after. So now we turn to just who exactly Omar Al-Bashir is, and why has his removal from power left such a bloody void in its place. So now we turn to just who exactly Omar Al-Bashir is, and why has his removal from power left such a bloody void in its place. Omar Al-Bashir - the Butcher of Darfur Unlike some other modern dictators, whose origins are deliberately shrouded in an element of mist, Al Bashir’s humble origins in northern Sudan are not only quite well-documented, but are essential in understanding his support base and the power system in the country as a whole. Born to a peasant family in northern Sudan, close to the capital Khartoum, Al-Bashir is a member of the al-Bedairya al-Dahmashiya, a Bedouin Arab tribe belonging to the Ja'alin coalition, one of the most important tribal confederations in Sudan. He received secondary education in Khartoum and then joined the Sudanese army, going on to attend a military training college in Cairo and fighting alongside the Egyptian army in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

Risk and Uncertainty

Omar Al-Bashir - the Butcher of Darfur Unlike some other modern dictators, whose origins are deliberately shrouded in an element of mist, Al Bashir’s humble origins in northern Sudan are not only quite well-documented, but are essential in understanding his support base and the power system in the country as a whole. Born to a peasant family in northern Sudan, close to the capital Khartoum, Al-Bashir is a member of the al-Bedairya al-Dahmashiya, a Bedouin Arab tribe belonging to the Ja'alin coalition, one of the most important tribal confederations in Sudan. He received secondary education in Khartoum and then joined the Sudanese army, going on to attend a military training college in Cairo and fighting alongside the Egyptian army in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. Al-Bashir had a successful career in the military, becoming his country’s military attaché to the United Arab Emirates in 1975 before returning to Sudan and playing a leading role in the government’s civil war campaign against rebels in the south in the 1980s. In 1989, he led a coup to topple the government of Sadiq Al-Mahdi, the democratically-elected Prime Minster of Sudan, who’d been in office since 1986. In its place, Al-Bashir and his allies introduced the so-called Revolutionary Command Centre for National Salvation (RCC), a transitional government which he led for four years before abolishing it and proclaiming himself President of Sudan under military rule. Al-Bashir had a successful career in the military, becoming his country’s military attaché to the United Arab Emirates in 1975 before returning to Sudan and playing a leading role in the government’s civil war campaign against rebels in the south in the 1980s. In 1989, he led a coup to topple the government of Sadiq Al-Mahdi, the democratically-elected Prime Minster of Sudan, who’d been in office since 1986. In its place, Al-Bashir and his allies introduced the so-called Revolutionary Command Centre for National Salvation (RCC), a transitional government which he led for four years before abolishing it and proclaiming himself President of Sudan under military rule. He would remain President for over a quarter of a century before finally being toppled in 2019. Al Bashir’s rule over Sudan was punctuated by a stranglehold over the political system, the suppression of political opposition, and the introduction of a conservative Islamic political order.

Outlook

He would remain President for over a quarter of a century before finally being toppled in 2019. Al Bashir’s rule over Sudan was punctuated by a stranglehold over the political system, the suppression of political opposition, and the introduction of a conservative Islamic political order. Only a few months after taking power and with the backing of his tribal allies, he banned political parties and clamped down harshly upon the press. Before long, Al-Bashir reintroduced Islamic Sharia Law as the legal code for Sudan. The use of Sharia in Sudan was not an Al-Bashir invention - it had first been introduced in Sudan in 1983, but had been suspended by the government of Sadiq Al-Mahdi, himself an Imam and Islamic scholar of the Sufi tradition, who’d labelled it a ‘travesty of Islam’. But within two years after Al-Bashir’s coup had brought Al-Mahdi’s government down, Sharia law was reinstalled in all but the three regions of southern Sudan, alongside a penal system closely resembling one drawn up by Hasan Al-Turabi, an influential hardline scholar who’d been a close ally to Al-Bashir during the coup. Only a few months after taking power and with the backing of his tribal allies, he banned political parties and clamped down harshly upon the press. Before long, Al-Bashir reintroduced Islamic Sharia Law as the legal code for Sudan. The use of Sharia in Sudan was not an Al-Bashir invention - it had first been introduced in Sudan in 1983, but had been suspended by the government of Sadiq Al-Mahdi, himself an Imam and Islamic scholar of the Sufi tradition, who’d labelled it a ‘travesty of Islam’. But within two years after Al-Bashir’s coup had brought Al-Mahdi’s government down, Sharia law was reinstalled in all but the three regions of southern Sudan, alongside a penal system closely resembling one drawn up by Hasan Al-Turabi, an influential hardline scholar who’d been a close ally to Al-Bashir during the coup. Moreover, Al-Bashir also led Sudan into becoming known as a state sympathiser with terrorist activity. Department of State officially listed Sudan as a sponsor of terrorism due to evidence of its support for groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, and al Qaeda. But despite this, Al-Bashir’s rule of Sudan did not scale down its intense suppression of personal freedoms or the depravity faced by some Sudanese. This would be especially true for inhabitants of the arid western region of Darfur. Even as the decade-long conflict in southern Sudan began to wane, a new, and arguably more severe form of barbarism was taking in Darfur under Al-Bashir’s watch. Darfur, or ‘land of the Fur people’, is home to a population predominantly composed of Black Africans - chiefly the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups - who had begun to seek emancipation of their own, citing underinvestment, underrepresentation in the Sudanese political system, poor economic conditions, and instability resulting from land disputes with local nomadic Arab tribes. Unlike the South Sudanese, the Darfuris were predominantly Muslim or Animist and may not, therefore, have fallen under the same magnifying glass shone by the US administration on the longtime conflict occurring in southern Sudan at the time. They would soon be met with the total and unmitigated force of Al-Bashir’s brutality. In 2003, the Darfur conflict began when two rebel groups - the Sudan Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement - rose up against the Sudanese government. At the time, Sudan’s military was mostly tied up either in south Sudan or protecting oil pipeline projects along the northwestern Red Sea, which were under threat from attacks by Eritrean rebel groups.

Rise to Power and Early Authoritarianism

Residing in Sudan for five years during the nineteen-nineties was Osama Bin Ladin, who was only several years away from orchestrating the World Trade Center attacks and who had already, by this time, both founded Al Qaeda and earned a reputation as a high-profile sponsor of Jihadist activity across the globe. Bin Laden resided in Sudan at the invitation of Al-Bashir, and this would have negative consequences for Sudan’s world standing, as progressive US sanctions would soon be leveraged against Sudan with the roll-out of President Bill Clinton’s tough anti-terror policies in the late nineteen-nineties. This would continue in the early 2000s, as new US President George W Bush would not only follow the tough line on terror pursued by the Clinton administration but would incorporate an Evangelical Christian element to his foreign policy priorities. As some analysts concluded, this probably had some bearing on Sudan, with some Bush advisors having framed the ongoing conflict in southern Sudan as a fight for emancipation and self-determination by an oppressed Christian community in a highly Islamised society. As such, the resulting US pressure exerted on Al-Bashir likely contributed to the eventual end of the conflict and the successful secession of South Sudan in 2011. Whether this was the case or not, Al-Bashir certainly did wisen up to the need to tread carefully as regards the United States’ changing objectives at the turn of the century. This was especially true in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks - something which, as a reminder, had been committed by a man who had spent a large part of the previous few years living and investing heavily in Sudan. Al-Bashir may have also been buoyed by the vicious US response in its War on Terror, including its invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Recognising the changing winds, he dialled down his Islamist programmes and soon signed a deal which ended the decades-long civil war with the South. Al-Bashir also fell out with - and imprisoned - his former ally Hasan Al-Turabi, the cleric who’d been the chief ideologue behind the introduction of Islamic Sharia law at the beginning of Al-Bashir’s presidency.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who removed Omar al-Bashir?

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Who was the leader of the Sudanese mutiny?

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Is Sudan a democracy or dictatorship?

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What happened in Sudan in 1989?

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When was Omar al-Bashir overthrown?

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Jackson Reed

Jackson Reed creates and presents analysis focused on military doctrine, strategic competition, and conflict dynamics.

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