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Sudan, Former President Bashir Will be Handed Over to the International Criminal Court

The decision arrived today against all early predictions and statements: Omar al-Bashir, the dictatorial president who oppressed the people of Sudan for over 30 years, will be extradited and handed over to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague to stand trial on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide committed in Darfur.

Ousted by a coup d’état on 11 April 2019, Bashir armed the militia that has caused at least 300 thousand victims since 2003 in the Sudanese region demanding independence.

The go-ahead by the Sovereign Council of Sudan is a reminder of what was declared in the aftermath of the coup d’état that took place after four months of protests. Causing an uproar, the then ruling military told the protesters that they would never extradite al-Bashir despite the serious charge of genocide in the campaign against rebel groups in Darfur, one of the nine provinces in Sudan that have always been discriminated against by Khartoum and against which the former dictator used an iron fist repression that cost hundreds of thousands of lives and the displacement of 2.7 million people.

Extraditing Bashir immediately after the coup d’état, as requested by the opposition, would have been “an ugly mark on Sudan” according to General Omar Zein Abedeen, a high-ranking official in the military junta responsible for the political aspects of the transition. Abedeen ruled out the extradition of rebels, too,  envisaging that the handover to the ICC in The Hague could be decided by a future civilian government.

And instead, there has been a change of pace. This isn’t the only signal launched by a country that, through a series of moves, seems to want to rid itself of its recent history.

Yesterday, the Secretary-General of the UN, Antonio Guterres, opened the annual African Union (AU) heads of State and Government Summit, held in Addis Ababa, stating that it was time to remove Sudan from the list of states sponsored by terrorism. A black list on which the African country was placed after giving shelter to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

The decision arrived shortly after a meeting held at the beginning of February in Uganda between General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Chairman of the Sovereignty Council in Sudan, and Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu who tweeted, in Hebrew, that he was ready to start cooperation to normalize relations between the two countries. When al-Bashir was leading Sudan, it was considered a sworn enemy of Israel that accused its government of arming Hamas.

For Sudan, a country that aims to be part of the international forum, establishing new contacts with Europe and the United States, it is irreconcilable to protect a man accused of such heinous crimes like genocide. Omar al-Bashir can be sacrificed. What truly matters is that justice isn’t just a mirage anymore for the people of Darfur, the victims and their families, who for 17 years have been asking that the man responsible for the atrocities committed by the “devils on horseback”, the Janjawee, be put on trial.

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