Sudanese President Al Bashir accused of genocide: what does it mean?

Sudan’s President  Omar Hassan Ahmed al Bashir is now accused also of genocide, following last year’s International Criminal Court (ICC) charge for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

After the arrest warrant for crimes against humanity and war crimes in March 2009, the ICC has admitted the claim of prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo for a new arrest warrant, for the slaughter of three non-Arab ethnic groups in the Darfur region. The warrant states that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the accused is responsible for three counts of genocide against the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups.

Al Bashir now risks being arrested. It will be that more difficult for him to travel from one country to another. The accusation of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide obliges the member states of the Statute of the ICC to cooperate do arrest Al Bashir in case of travel in their territory. The African Union and other African states have refused however to cooperate with the Hague court. The Sudanese president has challenged the first warrant , travelling to Egypt, Qatar and Nigeria without being arrested.

Our defender from Sudan, whom we call Anonymous,  is involved in the fight for human rights  in his country since 1989, when al Bashir came to power.

“I became involved in human rights because of the political situation in Sudan., when I lost my job in 1989 along with ten thousand others. The government wanted to ensure that those not affiliated with the official agenda were marginalized. I felt that we who were lucky and who had an education needed to help those with the greatest need.  People who lost their basic rights and who were arrested on a nearly daily basis. We were able to extend our activities in refugee areas and around some parts of the country.”

But what does genocide mean? And crimes against humanity and war crimes? What do they entail? The concepts seem clear, but the difficulty lies in defining them, as happens with issues related to human rights.
To help you understand the accusations against Al Bashir and other human rights related issues, we have prepared a Glossary.
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