Sudan remains in limbo since the revolution is a mockery

Those who live by the sword will die by the sword. Martin Meredith recalls the time in 1989 when Omar Hassan El Bashir took the oath of office as President of Sudan. Riding on the wave of a military coup by the National Salvation Revolution, Bashir held the Koran in one hand and a Russian Kalashnikov in the other. In the volume titled The State of Africa: A History of Fifty Years Independence, Meredith remembers how Bashir said: “I vow to purge from our midst the renegades, the hirelings, enemies of the people and enemies of the armed forces.” The self-styled revolutionary went on: “Anyone who betrays the nation does not deserve the honour of living.”

The Spiderman of Sudan arrived brandishing the two symbols of the power he would ruthlessly exercise for the next 30 years. His drunkenness with power would push him to the fringes of the International Criminal Court at The Hague, where he remains an outlaw – a veritable wanted criminal. This defiant fugitive was deposed this week, in the same way he deposed those who went before him.