Is Omar Hassan al-Bashir Up to Genocide Again?

By SAMUEL TOTTEN

Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the president of Sudan, is a genocide extraordinaire. If medals were given out for such activity, he’d be going for the gold.

In the early to mid 1990s, under Bashir’s leadership, the Government of Sudan (GoS) perpetrated genocidal actions in the Nuba Mountains, largely by starving people to death and preventing humanitarian aid from reaching the victims. Not a decade later, Bashir and his henchmen committed genocide in Darfur, carrying out a scorched earth policy that resulted in an estimated 400,000 plus deaths, over two million internally displaced persons, and another 275,000 plus refugees. More recently, just over the past two weeks, Bashir’s soldiers and militia carried out at least crimes against humanity, if not genocidal actions, in the Nuba Mountains.

Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity for the atrocities perpetrated in Darfur, is purportedly furious that the people of South Kordafan refuse to acknowledge the recent election of Ahmed Haroun as governor. Not only do many in the state (which borders the new nation of South Sudan) perceive the election as having been rigged, and thus stolen from the highly popular Abdul Aziz, a former commander of the Sudan Peoples Army, but they are outraged that a man wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on over 40 charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes for atrocities perpetrated in Darfur is still free and allowed to run for office. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>