part series on the current Sudanese president Al-Bashir's power take over, association with militant groups, civil wars and International Criminal Court arrest warrant. Omar Hassan Ahmad Al-Bashir is the current president of Sudan and the head of the National Congress Party. In October 2004, Al-Bashir's government negotiated an end to the Second Sudanese Civil War by granting limited autonomy to Southern Sudan. Since then, however, there has been violent conflict in Darfur that has resulted in death of thousands. Al-Bashir is a controversial figure both in Sudan and worldwide. In July 2008, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno Acampo, accused him of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur.Al-Bashir is the first sitting head of state ever indicted by the ICC as well as the first to be charged with genocide. Early life Al-Bashir was born on Jan. 1, 1944, at the village of Hosh Bannaga, north of Khartoum. He comes from Al-Bedairya Al-Dahmashya, an Arab tribe. Upon receiving his secondary education in Khartoum, he joined the Sudanese Army in 1960 and graduated from the Sudan Military Academy in Khartoum in 1966. 1989 coup On June 30, 1989, a bloodless coup d'état by Al-Bashir and supported by Al-Turabi and his followers ousted the government of Prime Minister Sadiq Al-Mahdi; and, by 1993 Al-Bashir had garnered all political powers appointing himself president. He disbanded the Revolutionary Command Council for National Salvation , his political spring board, and all other rival political parties, retaining executive and legislative powers. Al-Bashir /Al-Turabi power take over led to severe repression, including purges and executions, the banning of associations, political parties, independent newspapers and the imprisonment of leading political figures and journalists. Al-Bashir was elected president (a five-year term) in 1996 being the sole candidate. At the legislative elections that same year, Al-Bashir's National Congress Party won 355 out of 360 seats, with Al-Turabi as its chairman. On 12 Dec. 1999, Al-Bashir sent troops, overtook the parliament and ousted Hassan Al-Turabi, speaker of parliament. Tensions with Al-Turabi Hassan Al-Turabi was the leader of the National Islamic Front. When Gaafar Numairy assumed power in a military coup in 1969, members of Islamic Front were arrested, and Al-Turabi spent six years in custody and three in exile in Libya. In the mid-1990s, a feud between Al-Bashir and Al-Turabi ensued due to Al-Turabi's links to Islamic fundamentalist groups, as well as allowing them to operate out of Sudan; even personally inviting Osama Bin Laden to the country. The relationship between the two turned sour after Al-Turabi introduced a bill to reduce the president's powers. In response, Al-Bashir dissolved parliament and declared a state of emergency. Further deterioration came in a splinter-faction led by Al-Turabi when the Popular National Congress Party signed peace agreement with Sudan People's Liberation Army. On Al-Bashir's orders, Al-Turabi was imprisoned several times between: 2003-2005 before he was released after the civil war peace agreement. The First Civil War Until 1946, the British government, in collaboration with the Egyptian government, administered south and north Sudan as separate regions. Later, the two areas were merged into a single administrative region as part of British strategy in the Mideast. This act was taken without consultation with the southerners, who feared being subsumed by the political power of the larger north. Southern Sudan is inhabited primarily by Christians and animists and considers itself culturally sub-Saharan, while most of the north is inhabited by Muslims who were culturally Arabic. The First Sudanese Civil War was a conflict during which half a million people died over 17 years; however, the agreement that ended civil war fighting in 1972 failed to put in place a sustained solution to the north-south conflict; a conflict which was reignited during the Second Civil War. The Second Civil war The period:1955 and 2005 is thus considered a single conflict with eleven-year ceasefire separating the two phases. Civil war had raged between the northern and southern halves for over 19 years and soon developed into a struggle between the Sudan People's Liberation Army and Al-Bashir's government. The war resulted in millions of southerners being displaced, starved, and deprived of education and health care, with almost two million casualties. Because of these actions, various international sanctions were placed on Sudan. The UN called on Al-Bashir to make efforts to end the conflict and allow humanitarian and international workers to deliver relief to Sudan's southern regions. Much progress was made throughout 2003 and peace was consolidated with the official signing by both sides of the Nairobi Comprehensive Peace Agreement January 2005, granting Southern Sudan autonomy for six years, to be followed by a referendum about independence. It created a co-vice president position and allowed the north and south to split oil deposits equally, but also left both the north's and south's armies in place. John Gerang, the south's peace agreement appointed co-vice president died in a helicopter crash in August 2005, three weeks after being sworn in. This resulted in riots, but peace was eventually re-established and allowed southerners to vote in a referendum of independence which took place in 2011. (To be continued) __
