Omar al-Bashir

Omar al-Bashir   (politician)
Born	1 January 1944
President of Sudan for 3 decades.  President of Sudan In office 30 June 1989 - 11 April 2019

Omar al-Bashir is a Sudanese politician who was the seventh President of Sudan from 1989 to 2019 and founder of the National Congress Party. He came to power in 1989 when, as a brigadier in the Sudanese Army, he led a group of officers in a military coup that ousted the democratically elected government of prime minister Sadiq al-Mahdi after it began negotiations with rebels in the south. Since then, he has been elected three times as President in elections that have been under scrutiny for electoral fraud. In March 2009, al-Bashir became the first sitting president to be indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), for allegedly directing a campaign of mass killing, rape, and pillage against civilians in Darfur.

Civil war

In October 2005, Omar al-Bashir's government negotiated an end to the Second Sudanese Civil War, leading to a referendum in the South, resulting in the separation of the south as the country of South Sudan. In the Darfur region, he oversaw the war in Darfur that has resulted in death tolls that are about 10,000 according to the Sudanese Government, but most sources suggest between 200,000 and 400,000. During his presidency, there have been several violent struggles between the Janjaweed militia and rebel groups such as the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) in the form of guerrilla warfare in the Darfur region. The civil war has displaced over 2.5 million people out of a total population of 6.2 million in Darfur and has created a crisis in the diplomatic relations between Sudan and Chad. The rebels in Darfur lost the support from Libya after the death of Muammar Gaddafi and the collapse of his regime in 2011.

War crimes

In July 2008, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno Ocampo, accused al-Bashir of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in Darfur. The court issued an arrest warrant for al-Bashir on 4 March 2009 on counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, but ruled that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute him for genocide. However, on 12 July 2010, the Court issued a second warrant containing three separate counts of genocide. The new warrant, like the first, was delivered to the Sudanese government, which did not recognize either the warrant or the ICC. The indictments do not allege that Bashir personally took part in such activities; instead, they say that he is "suspected of being criminally responsible, as an indirect co-perpetrator". Some international experts think it is unlikely that Ocampo has enough evidence to prove the allegations. The court's decision is opposed by the African Union, League of Arab States and Non-Aligned Movement as well as the governments of Russia and China.

Military coup

From December 2018 onwards, Bashir faced large-scale protests which demanded his removal from power. On 11 April 2019, Bashir was ousted in a military coup d'état. This was confirmed by the Sudanese Armed Forces in an "important announcement" on state television.

 

Related Document

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:A Brief History of the CIA’s Dirty War in South Sudan	Article	31 July 2019	Ryan Dawson	The CIA are now almost completely out of the picture in South Sudan though one should never underestimate the Agency’s capacity for evil. It's in the US national interest to deny China access to African oil so it will always continue to be US vs China in South Sudan, as part of Pax Americana’s designs for Africa as a whole.

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References

This page imported content from Wikipedia on 6 August 2019.
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