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The Uninvited To The US-Africa Leaders Summit: Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir

The Uninvited To The US-Africa Leaders Summit: Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir

Crimes against humanity including murder, extermination, forcible transfer, torture and rape. War crimes including intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking part in hostilities. Genocide including genocide by killing, genocide by causing serious bodily or mental harm and genocide by deliberately inflicting on each target group conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction.

These are the crimes that the International Criminal Court has seen fit to indict sitting Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir for due to his unending violence against his own countrymen. Al-Bashir is alleged to have conducted a campaign of incessant violence against a number of ethnic groups both located in the Darfur region in Sudan’s west.

Due to this ongoing campaign of violence and the resulting international sanctions, al-Bashir is on the list of “The Uninvited,” a group of African leaders who did not receive invitations to the upcoming US-African Leaders Summit in Washington. Joining al-Bashir are the leaders of Eritrea, the Western Sahara and Zimbabwe.

In this ongoing AFK Insider series we are profiling the leaders who have not received invitations.

Tensions between al-Bashir and the West go back well beyond his alleged war crimes. The Sudanese President rose to power in a coup in 1989. Since ascending to the country’s highest office he has ruled with an iron fist, systematically violating human rights and suppressing dissent, all while conducting a brutal campaign against what was once the country’s South and is now South Sudan and the Darfur region.

Al-Bashir’s alleged crimes in Darfur center around backing Arab “Janjaweed” militias. While he has denied that he backs the groups, the international community remains convinced otherwise.

Literally translating to “a man with a gun on a horse,” the Janjaweed have long conducted raids on the country’s Black African populations. While the groups have long been known as raiders, stealing cattle and using violence to wrestle control of other resources from Black African tribes, in 2003 the groups became considerably more aggressive, after two large rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement, took up arms against the government.

Rather than the old Arab raiders, these newly aggressive Janjaweed militias enjoy tremendous arms and what Slate has referred to as “overt government support.”

“There are numerous reports from international aid workers maintaining that Janjaweed raids are preceded by aerial bombardments by the Sudanese air force, that Janjaweed commanders are living in government garrison towns, and that Janjaweed militiamen wear combat fatigues identical to those of the regular army.”

The Janjaweed militias

While the support for such attacks is what lead to the Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes charges, the genocide charges stem from the intent of the Janjaweed militias.

According to the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court, in order for crimes to rise to genocide, there must be “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group…”

While the initial arrest warrant against the Sudanese leader would reject such charges, the International Criminal Court, in its second arrest warrant against al-Bashir includes the charge that he, through the Janjaweed militias, the Sudanese Armed Forces and forces of the Government of Sudan, was attempting to rid the planet of the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups in Darfur.

Despite these heinous charges and the ICC arrest warrants, al-Bashir was reelected in 2010.

Among other groups, the Carter Center, an America non-governmental organization founded by former President Jimmy Carter, observed and found a virtual laundry list of democratic deficiencies, noting that “intimidation and violence in some areas of Sudan undercut inclusiveness, civic education was insufficient, the inaccuracy of the final voter registry prevented full participation in the process, insufficient materials were provided to many polling stations, the environment in Darfur did not support the holding of democratic elections and vote tabulation throughout the country lacked important safeguards for accuracy and and transparency…”

The Center concluded that “the failure by the central government to advance democratic conditions sufficiently and guarantee political rights and freedoms at the start of the elections, coupled with the opposition boycott, resulted in an atmosphere of distrust among the major political parties and an election in the North that was not very competitive.”

Despite the heinous crimes he is alleged to have committed, Omar al-Bashir remains the President of Sudan, a country he rules with an iron fist. Like the previously discussed Eritrea, Sudan is a mainstay on Freedom House’s “Worst of the Worst” list for flagrant and systemic violations of human rights in addition to the culture of violence cultivated by al-Bashir and his administration.

Despite the arrest warrants, al-Bashir has frequently traveled to non-ICC member countries (ICC member countries would be treaty bound to arrest him and send him to The Hague to face trial). While the United States is not a party to the ICC, thanks to his immense tyranny, Omar al-Bashir will not be welcomed to Washington for the biggest high-level Africa-United States summit in history.

Andrew Friedman is a human rights attorney and consultant who works and writes on legal reform and constitutional law with an emphasis on Africa. He can be reached via email at afriedm2@gmail.com or via twitter @AndrewBFriedman.