The Darfur war crimes court or Special Court for Darfur is a planned court to be created in Sudan for trying suspects of war crimes and crimes against humanity carried out during the War in Darfur. [1] [2]
On 21 January 2020, in the Darfur track of the 2019–2020 component of Sudanese peace process negotiations, the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF) and Sovereignty Council representatives agreed on the creation of a special court for trying suspects of war crimes and crimes against humanity carried out during the War in Darfur. The SRF and the Sovereignty Council agreed to create a commission that would establish the court. [1] [2]
The foreign relations of Sudan are generally in line with the Muslim Arab world, but are also based on Sudan's economic ties with the People's Republic of China and Russia.
Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir is a Sudanese former military officer and politician who served as the seventh head of state of Sudan under various titles from 1989 until 2019, when he was deposed in a coup d'état. He was subsequently incarcerated, tried and convicted on multiple corruption charges. He came to power in 1989 when, as a brigadier general 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. He was elected three times as president in elections that have been under scrutiny for electoral fraud. In 1992, al-Bashir founded the National Congress Party, which remained the dominant political party in the country until 2019. In March 2009, al-Bashir became the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), for allegedly directing a campaign of mass killing, rape, and pillage against civilians in Darfur. On 11 February 2020, the Sudanese government announced that it had agreed to hand over al-Bashir to the ICC for trial.
The Justice and Equality Movement is an opposition group in Sudan founded by Khalil Ibrahim. Gibril Ibrahim has led the group since January 2012 after the death of Khalil, his brother, in December 2011. JEM's political agenda includes issues such as: radical and comprehensive constitutional reform to grant Sudan's regions a greater share of power in ruling the country, the replacement of social injustice and political tyranny with justice and equality, and basic services for every Sudanese.
The Sudan Liberation Movement/Army is a Sudanese rebel group active in Darfur, Sudan. It was founded as the Darfur Liberation Front by members of three indigenous ethnic groups in Darfur: the Fur, the Zaghawa, and the Masalit, among whom were the leaders Abdul Wahid al Nur of the Fur and Minni Minnawi of the Zaghawa.
This article covers the period of the history of Sudan between 1985 and 2019 when the Sudanese Defense Minister Abdel Rahman Swar al-Dahab seized power from Sudanese President Jaafar Nimeiry in the 1985 Sudanese coup d'état. Not long after, Lieutenant General Omar al-Bashir, backed by an Islamist political party, the National Islamic Front, overthrew the short lived government in a coup in 1989 where he ruled as President until his fall in April 2019. During Bashir's rule, also referred to as Bashirist Sudan, he was re-elected three times while overseeing the independence of South Sudan in 2011. His regime was criticized for human rights abuses, atrocities and genocide in Darfur and allegations of harboring and supporting terrorist groups in the region while being subjected to United Nations sanctions beginning in 1995, resulting in Sudan's isolation as an international pariah.
The War in Darfur, also nicknamed the Land Cruiser War, was a major armed conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan that began in February 2003 when the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebel groups began fighting against the government of Sudan, which they accused of oppressing Darfur's non-Arab population. The government responded to attacks by carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Darfur's non-Arabs. This resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians and the indictment of Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.
While there is a consensus in the international community that ethnic groups have been targeted in Darfur and that crimes against humanity have therefore occurred, there has been debate in some quarters about whether genocide has taken place there. In May 2006, the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur organized by United Nations "concluded that the Government of the Sudan has not pursued a policy of genocide ... [though] international offences such as the crimes against humanity and war crimes that have been committed in Darfur may be more serious and heinous than genocide." Eric Reeves, a researcher and frequent commentator on Darfur, has questioned the methodology of the commission's report.
Ahmed Mohammed Haroun is one of five Sudanese men wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. Despite international pressure on the government of Sudan to surrender him to the ICC, Haroun served as Sudan's Minister of State for Humanitarian Affairs until May 2009 when he was appointed to the governorship of South Kordofan. In September 2007, he was appointed to lead an investigation into human rights violations in Darfur. In July 2013 he resigned as Governor of South Kordofan, and was reappointed by Omar al-Bashir as Governor of North Kordofan. On 1 March 2019, President Omar al-Bashir handed over the running of the country's leading political party, the National Congress, to him. He was arrested in April 2019 by local authorities in Sudan following a coup which overthrew al-Bashir.
The International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur was established pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1564 (2004), adopted on 18 September 2004. The resolution, passed under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, urged the Secretary-General to set up an international commission to investigate human rights violations committed in Darfur. The following month, the Secretary-General appointed a five-member panel of highly regarded legal experts: chairperson Antonio Cassese, Mohammed Fayek, Hina Jilani, Dumisa Ntsebeza and Thérèse Striggner Scott.
Luis Moreno Ocampo is an Argentine lawyer who served as the first Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) from 2003 to 2012. Previously, he played a major role in Argentina's democratic transition (1983–1991).
The Sudanese conflict in South Kordofan and Blue Nile was an armed conflict in the Sudanese southern states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile between the Sudanese Army (SAF) and Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), a northern affiliate of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) in South Sudan. After some years of relative calm following the 2005 agreement which ended the second Sudanese civil war between the Sudanese government and SPLM rebels, fighting broke out again in the lead-up to South Sudan independence on 9 July 2011, starting in South Kordofan on 5 June and spreading to the neighboring Blue Nile state in September. SPLM-N, splitting from newly independent SPLM, took up arms against the inclusion of the two southern states in Sudan with no popular consultation and against the lack of democratic elections. The conflict is intertwined with the War in Darfur, since in November 2011 SPLM-N established a loose alliance with Darfuri rebels, called Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF).
The International Criminal Court investigation in Darfur or the situation in Darfur is an ongoing investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) into criminal acts committed during the War in Darfur. Although Sudan is not a state party to the Rome Statute, the treaty which created the ICC, the situation in Darfur was referred to the ICC's Prosecutor by the United Nations Security Council in 2005. As of June 2019, five suspects remained under indictment by the court: Ahmed Haroun, Ali Kushayb, Omar al-Bashir, Abdallah Banda and Abdel Rahim Mohammed Hussein. Charges against Bahar Abu Garda were dropped on the basis of insufficient evidence in 2010 and those against Saleh Jerbo were dropped following his death in 2013. In mid-April 2019, Haroun, al-Bashir and Hussein were imprisoned in Sudan as a result of the 2019 Sudanese coup d'état. In early November 2019, the Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC) and Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok stated that al-Bashir would be transferred to the ICC. One of the demands of the displaced people of Darfur visited by Hamdok prior to Hamdok's statement was that "Omar Al Bashir and the other wanted persons" had to be surrendered to the ICC.
The Sudan Revolutionary Front, or the Sudanese Revolutionary Front (SRF), is an alliance between Sudanese factions that was created in opposition to the government of President Omar al-Bashir. It was declared on 12 November 2011, following several months of support by Darfuri rebel groups for the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North in the conflict in South Kordofan and Blue Nile.
The Darfur genocide is the systematic killing of ethnic Darfuri people which has occurred during the ongoing conflict in Western Sudan. It has become known as the first genocide of the 21st century. The genocide, which is being carried out against the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups, has led the International Criminal Court (ICC) to indict several people for crimes against humanity, rape, forced transfer and torture. According to Eric Reeves, more than one million children have been "killed, raped, wounded, displaced, traumatized, or endured the loss of parents and families".
Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, generally referred to as Hemetti, Hemedti, Hemeti or Hemitte, is a Sudanese general from the Rizeigat tribe of Darfur, who was the Deputy Chairman of the Transitional Military Council (TMC) following the 2019 Sudanese coup d'état. On 21 August 2019, the TMC transferred power to the civilian–military Transitional Sovereignty Council, of which Hemetti is a member. Under Article 19 of the August 2019 Draft Constitutional Declaration, Hemetti and the other Sovereignty Council members were to be ineligible to run in the 2022 Sudanese general election.
The Sudanese transition to democracy is a series of political agreements among Sudanese political and military forces for a democratic transition in Sudan that began in July 2019.
The Sudanese peace process consists of meetings, written agreements and actions that aim to resolve the War in Darfur, the Sudanese conflict in South Kordofan and Blue Nile, and armed conflicts in central, northern and eastern Sudan.
The 2019–2022 Sudanese protests were street protests in Sudan which began in mid-September 2019, during Sudan's transition to democracy, about issues which included the nomination of a new Chief Justice and Attorney General, the killing of civilians by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the toxic effects of cyanide and mercury from gold mining in Northern state and South Kordofan, opposition to a state governor in el-Gadarif and to show trials of Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA) coordinators, and advocating the dismissal of previous-government officials in Red Sea, White Nile, and South Darfur. The protests follow the Sudanese Revolution's street protests and civil disobedience of the early September 2019 transfer of executive power to the country's Sovereignty Council, civilian prime minister Abdalla Hamdok, and his cabinet of ministers. Hamdok described the 39-month transition period as defined by the aims of the revolution.
Events in the year 2020 in Sudan.
This is the military history of the 2020s.