by Alexa Huffman

In my recent article, there were a few errors that need to be addressed. The first was when I addressed President Bashir as facing charges that could lead to an arrest warrant; I meant that there have been changes by the International Criminal Court in the case against President Bashir, where now a genocide charge is possible.  There has already been an arrest warrant issued against Bashir but on different charges.

The second point is that although around 200,000 have reportedly died in the conflict in Darfur that is not what Bashir is being challenged for. He is being challenged by the International Criminal Court for instructing his forces to attack 3 ethnic tribes. He is accused of this, but no numbers were mentioned in the appeals ruling.

I mentioned the genocide charge is the first against a head of state. It will actually be the first against an acting head of state. Omar Al-Bashir is currently president of Sudan. In the past, Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav leader, faced genocide charges, but only after he left office. This is a groundbreaking moment as it shows that those in power are answerable to justice.

There is already acknowledgement in the international community that the Sudanese government is responsible for many of the deaths in Darfur. This is an additional step to bringing justice to the guilty.

The message was that a genocide charge is now possible for Sudan’s President and that this can pave the way for other genocide charges against other criminals.

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