"Sudan human rights atrocities"

This is an unpublished story which I wrote for an in-class exercise about human rights violations in Sudan.  This is written in tabloid style.

THE International Criminal Court (ICC) has requested an arrest warrant for Sudan’s president following serious accusations of genocide.

The Human Rights Watch is today applauding moves to crack down on Sudan’s government-backed “Janjaweed” militias that have terrorised the black African population.

“Charging President al-Bashir for the hideous crimes in Darfur shows that no one is above the law,” said Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch’s International Justice Program.

Since 2003, the Sudanese government has reportedly engaged in numerous acts of humanitarian- and war crimes against civilians - including executions, rape, torture, and pillaging of property.

“It is hardly news that senior leaders in Khartoum are implicated in the devastation in Darfur, but it is noteworthy that the request for criminal charges has been brought against the person at the top,” said Dicker.

The developments will undoubtedly have implications for the Irish forces stationed in neighbouring Chad.

It is highly likely that tensions in the area are likely to increase as a result of the arrest warrant, and that many non-Arab Sudanese will attempt to flee the country and avoid possible repercussions.

The Security Council’s original referral to the ICC stemmed from a 2005 UN International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur report to the UN secretary-general.

The commission created a sealed list of 51 suspects bearing further investigation, including a number of senior government officials and military commanders. The list was handed over to the UN secretary-general with the recommendation that it be disclosed to the ICC prosecutor.

Following this, in 2008 the ICC prosecutor Moreno Ocampo, announced in a briefing to the Security Council that he had collected damning evidence of planned human rights violations.

Moreno described a “criminal plan based on the mobilisation of the whole state apparatus, including the armed forces, the intelligence services, the diplomatic and public information bureaucracies, and the justice system.”