Al-Bashir quer ir a Nova Iorque

Washington — The United States confirmed that it has received a visa application from Sudanese president Omer Hassan al-Bashir who is seeking entry to attend the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) meetings taking place this month at UN headquarters in New York. This month, Sudan state media reported that foreign minister Ali Karti will lead the country's delegation to UNGA sessions this year and it is not clear what prompted Bashir's last minute decision to participate which would be his first time since 2006. Bashir was charged by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2009 and 2010 on ten counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in connection with the decade-long conflict in Sudan's western region of Darfur. The U.S. is the only country in the world to label the conflict in Darfur as genocide during the Bush administration in 2004. But as a host of the UN headquarters, the US is legally obligated to promptly grant visas to officials seeking to take part in activities of the world body. In 1988 however, the US refused to grant the late head of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Yasser Arafat to address the United Nations during a special session on the Middle East drawing strong criticism from Arab and European nations alike. This forced the UN to move the meeting to the UN headquarters in Geneva. At the time the Washington justified its refusal by saying that the Congress conditioned the entry of the US into the UN headquarters Agreement on the retention by the US government of the authority to bar the entry of aliens associated with or invited by the United Nations "in order to safeguard its own security". The Palestinian leader at the time stood accused by the US of terrorism. The terrorism charge has not prevented the US from granting visa to controversial ex-Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmedinejad whose country along with Sudan is on the US list of states that sponsor terrorism. In August 2011, the US president Barack Obama issued a proclamation denying visas to individuals deemed to participate "in serious human rights and humanitarian law violations and other abuses". This includes "any alien who planned, ordered, assisted, aided and abetted, committed or otherwise participated in, including through command responsibility, war crimes, crimes against humanity or other serious violations of human rights, or who attempted or conspired to do so". allAfrica.com