A group of United States senators penned a public plea to President Joe Biden urging him to acknowledge Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and its leader, General Mohamed Hamdan ‘Hemedti’ Dagalo, as perpetrators of human rights violations.
Issued on Friday, the letter coincides with the one-year mark of the conflict in Sudan pitting the RSF against the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in a power struggle following a coup in 2021.
Citing the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, the senators called for sanctions against the RSF and Hemedti for their egregious human rights abuses targeting activists and whistleblowers.
President Biden has been given a 120-day deadline to address the concerns raised in the letter.
The document details disturbing reports of atrocities in Sudan, including rape, extrajudicial killings, and assaults on journalists like Ahmed Fadl and Rashid Gibril of Al Jazeera in Khartoum.
Furthermore, it highlights a statement from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in December 2023 condemning the RSF for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing since the conflict erupted.
The senators also urged Biden to launch an investigation into the RSF’s operations to identify additional grounds for sanctions.
They requested scrutiny of the RSF’s financial activities, such as gold smuggling, and their connections with the Russian Federation and Wagner Group for potential corruption sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.
According to the senators, the US Treasury Department had already imposed penalties in September 2023, including sanctions on Hemedti’s brother and visa restrictions on RSF General Abdul…
Post from www.aljazeera.com