In March of 2009, Omar al-Bashir the president of Sudan was indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for allegations of directing a campaign of mass killing, rape and pillage against the civilians in Darfur. In response to the uprising of rebel groups including the Sudan Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement over the oppression of Darfur's non-Arab population, al-Barshir's government carried out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Darfur's non-Arabs. Some have estimated the number of deaths to be several hundred thousand leading Former US Secretary Colin Powell to describe the situation as a genocide. When the ICC issued an arrest warrant for al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur, Bashir dismissed the charges and soon afterwards expelled 13 international agencies from Sudan. After a brief year of relative peace, fighting escalated in 2010 forcing tens of thousands more to flee their homes, and in 2010, the ICC issued a second arrest warrant. The charges were now escalated to genocide. al-Barshir was accused of displacing some 2 million people from their homes in a bid to cripple support for the rebel movements. Most of the people displaced were African farmers from the Fur, Zaghawa and Massaleit tribes. Darfur means 'the place of the Fur people'. These were Muslims who had inter-married for centuries.
This was the state of Sudan, when the people of South Sudan first began to break away from it's northern neighbor, the Republic of Sudan. While the South Sudan independence and Darfur conflicts really have nothing to do with each other, the two causes fed into each other. While many U.S. political and religious groups had been speaking out about the plight of South Sudan, the events of Darfur brought the region to the world's attention. The "Save Darfur" campaign was so much bigger, and the outrage over Darfur made it easy to pressure the Khartoum, the capital of Sudan and al-Bashir to allow South Sudan to hold a referendum for it's independence. In January of 2011, South Sudan voted to officially break away from Sudan and declare the Independence. On January 30, 98.83% of the population voted for Independence from Sudan. At midnight on July 9, 2011 Sough Sudan became an independent country and joined the African Union as its 54th member state. South Sudan, in 2011 was a nation of 4 million peoples with a religious mix of Christian (60%), traditional African religion (33%) and Islam (6%). The actual numbers are widely disputed, but there is no dispute that it was a nation of mixed religions.
The popular and political support from the United States proved critical to South Sudan. In September 2010, President Obama embraced the referendum process and at the Untied Nations strongly urged the referendum to proceed as planned. Following this, the Obama Administration worked closely with both Khartoum and the new government of South Sudan. The Administration offered a number of incentives to Khartoum for it's cooperation and peace process, resumed diplomatic relations with the Republic of Sudan and even offered to remove Sudan from the state sponsors of terrorism list by July of 2011. The offer was carried by the chairman of he U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee John Kerry to Kartoum as an incentive to Sudan if they would facilitate the independence referendum of South Sudan. In Obama's State of the Union Address he put the independence of South Sudan up as a model for the use of our power. Obama stated that "the purpose behind it", is what sets us apart from other nations. With our assistance, the people of South Sudan were finally freed.
"Recent events have shown us that what sets us apart must not just be our power; it must also be the purpose behind it. In south Sudan--with our assistance--the people were finally able to vote for independence after years of war. Thousands lined up before dawn. People danced in the streets. One man who lost four of his brothers at war summed up the scene around him. "This was a battlefield for most of my life," he said. "Now we want to be free."Unfortunately, the story has a very sad ending. In December 2013, conflict erupted between the South Sudan President Salva Kirr and his former Vice President Riek Machar. South Sudan collapsed into civil war, killing thousands and displacing over 2.4 million people. Entire villages were burned down, looted and food crops destroyed. A United Nations report in 2015, documented at least 280 cases of sexual violence including gang-rape, sexual slavery and forced abortion. In addition, there was a sharp increase in child recruitment as young as 12 into the army. Today (2017) the atrocities continue. Many tens of thousands of civilians have perished, trapped in a "scorched earth" warfare. Today, there are 600,000 refugees from South Sudan camped in Uganda and 340,000 in Ethiopia. Many fear, that if action is not taken very soon, things will escalate into full-scale genocide. At a White House news conference in October 2016, Obama told the press that he felt responsible for the slaughter in South Sudan, and that the slaughter was not being reported by the media.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=88928
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_al-Bashir
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Darfur
http://news.trust.org//spotlight/Darfur-conflict
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=53061#.WJKzm3-LV1F
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_South_Sudan
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/12/30/9-questions-about-south-sudan-you-were-too-embarrassed-to-ask/?utm_term=.c4ce8d244de6
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article36861
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=53061#.WJK9nH-LV1F
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/317252-prevent-and-punish-in-south-sudan
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2016-12-16/obama-feel-responsible-for-slaughter-in-south-sudan
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