Sudanese Winnipeggers celebrate end of dictator's reign despite uncertain future

Members of Winnipeg's Sudanese community are cautiously celebrating the coup that brought down the man who has ruled Sudan for the past three decades and who is accused committing crimes against humanity during country's civil war.

"We are all celebrating in one way or another," said David Atem, who fled Sudan and came to Winnipeg in 2001.

The Sudanese military announced Thursday it had removed President Omar al-Bashir from power after months of expanding protests. Defence Minister Awad Mohammed Ibn Auf is being sworn in as head of a new military council that will run the country for two years.

"Everybody is happy, but I am better cautious," said Atem, who pointed out that similar celebrations followed the end of autocratic regimes in Libya, Iraq and Haiti, only to have hopes for a brighter future dashed when new regimes followed similar patterns as the old ones.

In the wake of the coup, international human rights groups urged Sudanese military authorities to hand over the 75-year-old Bashir to the International Criminal Court, where he faces charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide for his deadly campaign against insurgents in the country's Darfur region.

Yousef Abdul Karim is from Darfur and came to Canada in 2004. He said his family was targeted because his uncle was trying to run against Bashir.

Karim is skeptical that Sudan's new leadership will make real changes, because of their links to the same atrocities Bashir is accused of.

Ibn Auf is under U.S. sanctions for links to atrocities in Darfur. After state media announced Ibn Auf would take over leadership of the country, many protesters chanted angrily, "The first one fell, the second will, too!"

"The one, right now, announced that he's going to take over for two years, it won't [change] anything for Sudan and it won't be no change," said Atem. "That's why people [are] still staying in the headquarters until he's going to go too."

For nearly a week, tens of thousands of demonstrators have held a sit-in outside the military's headquarters in central Khartoum, the capital.

Despite his skepticism, Karim feels that the removal of Bashir is a step in the right direction.

"I feel it is good. It's a beginning for us to unite," he said. "Because as happened [in the] genocide in Darfur, it was just [a] regional problem, but today it's [all of] Sudan's problem. And when we come together I we'll get to the solution."