Don’t forget about Bashir and Sudan

In the 1990s, Sudan gained infamy for hosting Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, which carried out attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Early in his first term, President George W. Bush appointed former Senator John Danforth — whom he later acknowledged was his second choice for vice president after Dick Cheney — as a special envoy to Sudan to help end its 20-year civil war, which left an estimated 2 million people dead. Shortly after the civil war ended with the south, the Darfur genocide began in which 300,000 more died. The civil war and the Darfur genocide together left more than 6 million people displaced.

Today, with much of the Middle East in turmoil and the world’s eyes elsewhere, Bashir has managed to lower his profile, but he has not changed his ways. On April 27, he was once again declared the winner in Sudan’s elections with a ridiculous 94.5 percent of the vote, allowing him to continue his 26-year reign. In the run-up to the election, opponents of the regime were beaten and imprisoned. Opposition groups boycotted the vote.

Sudan’s human rights abuses remain widespread. Leaked minutes of a Sudanese government meeting in August referred to a government strategy to “starve” rebels fighting his government near the border of South Sudan by ensuring they cannot access their crops.

In October, human rights group reported that the Sudanese Army carried out a mass rape of at least 221 women in Darfur.

On April 26, the Sudanese Air Force launched a strike killing 16 civilians in South Darfur. Sudan also continues to terrorize and launch airstrikes against South Sudan, as it has since 2012, less than a year after the latter won independence.

Lately, many of South Sudan’s problems have come from internal fighting against rebel groups within its borders. These have included brutal rapes and killings. But South Sudan is accusing Bashir and his government to the north of supporting the rebels and of recent airstrikes.

For years, Sudan has provided Iran with a strategic pipeline to send weapons to Hamas terrorists, and there were even reports that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps built a weapons factory in Sudan to funnel weapons to Hamas and other militant groups in Africa. In response, Israel has allegedly responded with strikes against Iranian convoys and weapons sites in Sudan.

The State Department Report on State Sponsors of Terrorism speaks of Sudan’s continued, open embrace of Hamas. Sudan allows Hamas members to live and fundraise in Sudan, and welcomes Hamas leaders at conferences and on official delegations. The U.S. State Department’s State Sponsor of Terrorism Report for 2013 also states that elements of al-Qaeda-inspired organizations and the Lord’s Resistance Army — a terrorist group that has abducted 20,000 children in Northern Uganda — are still operating in Sudan.

Per capita GDP in Sudan is a meager $1,985, but Bashir has allegedly stashed away for himself $9 billion in foreign banks taken from his nation’s oil revenues, according to U.S. diplomatic cables unearthed by Wikileaks.

Our foreign policy focus may currently be on the chaos wrought by the Islamic State, civil wars throughout the Middle East, Russian aggression and the Iranian nuclear negotiations. But the world should not forget about Bashir and the crimes his regime has and continues to commit.

The International Criminal Court should continue to try to capture Bashir and put him on trial. Meanwhile, the world should continue to isolate his government until his bloody reign of terror has ended.

George Phillips, a former aide to U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., participated on the staff level in House-Senate conference negotiations for the Sudan Peace Act, signed into law in 2002. Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.