Ahmed Haroun (58 years), who worked as an assistant to Al-Bashir and before that as a minister and governor, is considered the most prominent leader of the Sudanese Islamic Movement that orchestrated the military coup in 1989 AD.
In the last years of the rule of the Islamist organization in Sudan, Haroun appeared as one of the members of the narrow circle around the ousted president. At that time, Haroun gained the confidence of Omar al-Bashir, who used him to save the boat of his rule that was about to sink amidst the roaring revolutionary flood. In February 2019, that is, less than two months before his fall, Al-Bashir was forced, under the weight of the mass tide, to transfer his powers in the presidency of the ruling National Congress Party to Harun, and it was not long until Al-Bashir issued a new decision in March 2019 appointing Harun as his assistant. Before that, Ahmed Haroun held ministerial portfolios, and he also assumed the position of governor of South Kordofan and North Kordofan.
Ahmed Haroun is one of the leaders responsible for the humanitarian disaster in Darfur that shook the human conscience, and was described as the worst humanitarian disaster in the twenty-first century.
His criminal record did not stop there, but rather extended to Khartoum during the revolution against the Al-Bashir regime, where he revealed their plans to disperse the sit-in in front of the General Command by force, according to Imam Sadiq Al-Mahdi in his testimony: “Ahmed Harun told us that he had taken the decision to disperse the sit-in by force.”
Later, Haroun was arrested after the fall of the former regime and remained hidden behind the walls of Kober prison in Khartoum North until his escape a few days ago with the rest of the leaders of the Islamist organization, before he came to the fore with a controversial audio clip.
Ahmed Haroun and Al-Bashir
Appearance of Ahmed Haroun!
Many consider that his first remarkable appearance was when he assumed the seat of Minister of State in the Ministry of the Interior, at which time the Darfur crisis began as a spark of fire before it was too late for it to be borrowed in a tragic way, whose horrific results were evident, when citizens fell into the crossfire of the government forces, the Janjaweed militia and the armed movements, and burned The villages were destroyed, the crops were destroyed, and the udders withered, so he entrusted the man, within the tasks of the Ministry of the Interior, to deal directly with the complications of the crisis, whose scorching heat began to scorch the faces of everyone, until it reached outside the borders when defenseless citizens began fleeing to the remote wasteland in displacement camps, in Chad and Central Africa to escape from Hellfire.
Who is Ahmed Haroun?!
Ahmed Muhammad Haroun received his primary and intermediate education at Al-Abyad National School, then secondary at Khor Taqat Secondary School, where during secondary school his strong personality emerged as one of the student leaders, which qualified him to assume the presidency of the interior. During his secondary studies, he joined the Islamic Trend Organization, and continued his organizational work when he joined. During university studies in Egypt, during this period, Ahmed Haroun emerged as an oratorical cadre and student leader, as he assumed the presidency of the Sudanese Students Union in Egypt.
Haroun graduated from the Faculty of Law / Cairo University in 1987. He returned to Sudan to join the judiciary, where he worked as a judge for a short period, before being chosen to serve as Minister of Social Affairs in the state of South Kordofan.
At that time, Ahmed Haroun emerged in his mission as a loyal minister to the authority, and accordingly he was promoted to a higher position, as he was appointed general coordinator of the People’s Police, which is a paramilitary force affiliated with the Ministry of Interior and used to extend security.
Humanitarian disaster in Darfur!
In 2003, Ahmed Haroun was appointed Minister of State in the Ministry of Interior, and responsible for the Darfur Security Office, during the period that witnessed the intensification of the bloody conflict in the Darfur region, and the exacerbation of the humanitarian crisis in an unprecedented manner in Sudan.
He was credited with mobilizing the Central Reserve Forces and turning them from a mere police to disperse demonstrations and riot control into a small army, to be used as a stick to discipline those he describes as “rebels in Darfur”. Which was said by Mona Arko Minawi, head of the Sudan Liberation Army Movement, and he was at that time the position of senior assistant to Al-Bashir.
During a memorial ceremony for the victims of what is known as the “Omdurman events” who were killed in bloody clashes between his forces and the police in 2007, the dissolution of the suspected police and their removal from the region was at the top of their list of demands during negotiations with the Khartoum government at the time.
Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court
The fox, who was entrusted with the care of the chickens!
After the signing of the Naivasha Peace Agreement that ended the longest civil war between north and south Sudan in 2005, Harun was relieved of his position as Minister of State in the Interior, to become Minister of State in the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs in September 2005 AD in the government that was formed under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. It was then that Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, made his famous comment, describing Harun’s appointment as Minister of Humanitarian Affairs as “a fox entrusted with the care of chickens.”
On April 27, 2007, it remains engraved in the memory of Harun and behind him the leaders of the Islamic organization in Sudan, and on that day, the Argentine Luis Moreno Ocampo, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, submitted a request to the judges of the Hague Court to obtain an international arrest warrant to arrest him on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. In response to Ocampo’s argument, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against Ahmed Haroun on May 2, 2007, along with one of the leaders of the Janjaweed militia in Sudan, Ali Kushayb – who is currently being tried in The Hague – on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
And when Ocampo recited the famous indictment against him, it happened that Ahmed Haroun was in Jordan receiving treatment. However, the publication of the memorandum prompted the man to quickly cut off the treatment trip and go to Alia International Airport, to throw himself into the hollow of a plane that took him to Khartoum before sunset on that difficult and critical day in his life.
The “password” of the Khartoum regime with the international community!
Later, the man turned into something like a password or the common denominator in all Khartoum talks with the international community, led by the United States of America and major Western countries, which adopted open hostility to the Khartoum regime, accusing it of carrying out bloody attacks against defenseless civilians in Darfur that amounted to a war of extermination.
Many previous experiences with death!
As is the case with the cadres of the Islamic organization in Sudan, Harun adopted the formula of complete denial and denial of his horrific crimes against civilians in the Darfur region, stressing that “the Sudanese view him as a national hero, and that Ocampo has no proof that his hands are stained with the blood of the innocent victims in Darfur.”
Haroun said in an interview, “He had many previous experiences with death that led to the emergence of intimacy between them.”
