Civil lawsuit on behalf of Sudanese victims of Khartoum’s atrocity crimes, brought against BNP Paribas in U.S. Federal District Court, January 20, 2017
(The entire 166-page document is available in Word format upon request: ereeves@smith.edu)
Case 1:16-cv-03228-AJN Document 49 | Filed 01/20/17
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
Entesar Osman Kashef; Sara Noureldirz Abdalla; Alfadel Mosabal; Abubakar Abakar; Siama Abdelnabi Hamad; Abbo Ahmed Abakar; Hawa Mohamed Omar; Jane Doe; Shafika G. Hassan; Nyanriak Tingloth; Reverend Anderia Lual; Jane Roe; Nicolas Hakim Lukudu; Turjuman Ramadan Adam; Judy Doe; Johnmark Majuc; Joseph Jok, Ambrose Martin Ulau; Sandi (Sunday) Georgari Marjan; Halima Samuel Khalifa; and Amir Ahmed
Plaintiffs,
– against –
BNP Paribas, S.A., a French corporation; BNP Paribas, S.A. New York Branch, a foreign branch; BNP Paribas North America, Inc., a Delaware corporation; and DOES 2-10;
Defendants.
Case 1:16-cv-03228-AJN JURY TRIAL DEMANDED
SECOND AMENDED COMPLAINT
TABLE OF CONTENTS
[1.] INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………1
[II.] THE PARTIES……………………………………………………………..11
The Plaintiffs………………………………………………………………….1
Representative Plaintiffs………………………………………………..13
Defendants…………………………………………………………………..31
[III.] JURISDICTION AND VENUE………………………………………3
[IV.] FACTUAL BACKGROUND…………………………………………..36
[A] The Repressive Secession of the South Sudan Government of Sudan Sought to Exploit Its Oil Resources…………………………………………………………………….36
The al-Bashir Regime ……………………………………………..36
Sudan’s 1997 Entry Into International Oil Markets…….38
To Capitalize on Oil Exports, the GOS Needed Access to “Petrodollars,” Which BNPP Agreed to Provide………….39
[B] U.S. Sanctions Implemented U.S. Policy Opposing the Government of Sudan’s Persecution of Disfavored Sudanese Civilians and the Use of Oil Income to Finance Such Persecution …………………………………………………………………..41
[C] BNPP Agreed and Conspired with the GOS to Provide Illegal
Access to U.S. Financial Markets with the Understanding That
This Would Sustain and Expand the GOS’s Campaign of Violence and Internal Repression……………………………………41
[D] With Access to Petrodollars Provided by BNPP, Sudan’s Exports of Oil and Revenues Rose Dramatically………………..53
[E] As a Result of Increased Oil Revenues, Military Spending Grew, Both in Total Dollars and as a Percentage of Government Spending………………………………………………………………………55
[F] Sudan Used its Oil Revenue to Buy and Manufacture Weapons and Weapons Delivery Systems…………………………57
[V.] CLASS ALLEGATIONS ……………………………………………………………………………………………..89
A. Class Definition …………………………………………………………………………………………….90
- Numerosity …………………………………………………………………………………….91
- Typicality …………………………………………………………………………………….92
- Adequacy………………………………………………………………………92
- Commonality and Predominance of Common Issues ………..92
- Superiority…….. …………………………………………………………….98
[VI.] THE CAUSES OF ACTION ALLEGED HEREIN ACTION ARE TIMELY……………………………………………………………………………….100
[VII] CAUSES OF ACTION ………………………………………………….102
FIRST CAUSE OF ACTION FOR NEGLIGENCE PER SE……102
SECOND CAUSE OF ACTION
FOR NEGLIGENCE PER SE …………………………………………………………………..107
THIRD CAUSE OF ACTION
FOR CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT BATTERY …………………………………………112
FOURTH CAUSE OF ACTION
FOR AIDING AND ABETTING BATTERY …………………………………………….114
FIFTH CAUSE OF ACTION
FOR CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT BATTERY
IN PERFORMANCE OF
PUBLIC DUTY OR AUTHORITY …………………………………………………………..117
SIXTH CAUSE OF ACTION
FOR AIDING AND ABETTING BATTERY
COMMITTED IN PERFORMANCE OF
PUBLIC DUTY OR AUTHORITY …………………………………………………………..119
SEVENTH CAUSE OF ACTION
FOR CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT ASSAULT………………………………………….122
EIGHTH CAUSE OF ACTION
FOR AIDING AND ABETTING ASSAULT……………………………………………..125
NINTH CAUSE OF ACTION
FOR CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT FALSE ARREST
AND FALSE IMPRISONMENT ………………………………………………………………128
TENTH CAUSE OF ACTION
AIDING AND ABETTING FALSE ARREST
AND FALSE IMPRISONMENT ………………………………………………………………130
ELEVENTH CAUSE OF ACTION
FOR CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT CONVERSION – WRONGFUL TAKING………………………………………………..132
TWELFTH CAUSE OF ACTION
FOR AIDING AND ABETTING CONVERSION – WRONGFUL TAKING………………………………………………………………………….135
THIRTEENTH CAUSE OF ACTION
FOR CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT CONVERSION – WRONGFUL DETENTION, USE OR DISPOSAL WHERE POSSESSION WAS LAWFULLY OBTAINED …………………………..138
FOURTEENTH CAUSE OF ACTION
FOR AIDING AND ABETTING CONVERSION – WRONGFUL DETENTION, USE OR DISPOSAL WHERE POSSESSION WAS LAWFULLY OBTAINED …………………………..141
FIFTEENTH CAUSE OF ACTION
OUTRAGEOUS CONDUCT CAUSING EMOTIONAL
DISTRESS…………………………………………………………………………..145
SIXTEENTH CAUSE OF ACTION
FOR NEGLIGENT INFLICTION OF EMOTIONAL DISTRESS – BYSTANDER/ZONE OF DANGER THEORY…………………………147
SEVENTEENTH CAUSE OF ACTION
FOR COMMERCIAL BAD FAITH ……………………………………….149
EIGHTEENTH CAUSE OF ACTION
FOR UNJUST ENRICHMENT……………………………………………..150
NINETEENTH CAUSE OF ACTION
FOR CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT WRONGFUL DEATH ………..152
TWENTIETH CAUSE OF ACTION
FOR AIDING AND ABETTING WRONGFUL DEATH CAUSED BY INTENTIONAL MURDER …………………………………………………..154
VIII. PRAYER FOR RELIEF………………………………………………….157
TABLE OF EXHIBITS
Document Name
Information, United States v. BNP Paribas (S.D.N.Y., filed July 9, A 2014) (Docket 14-CR-460-LGS No. 002)
Letter from Preet Bharara, United States Attorney for the Southern B District of New York, Leslie Caldwell, Assistant Attorney General,
Criminal Division, Department of Justice, and Jaikumar Ramaswamy, Chief, Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering
Section, Department of Justice, to Karen Patton Seymour, Esq., Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, United States v. BNP Paribas, S.A., June 27, 2014.
Statement of Facts dated June 30, 2014, Ex. 2 to Plea Agreement, C Dkt. No. 14-CR-00460-LGS Doc. No. 13
Plea Agreement Between BNP Paribas SA and the District D Attorney of the County of New York, June 30, 2014
Exhibit A to Plea Agreement Between BNP Paribas SA and the E District Attorney of the County of New York, June 30, 2014
Cease and Desist Order Issued Upon Consent Pursuant to the F Federal Deposit Insurance Act, as Amended; Supervisory Cooperation Decision Applying the Joint Statement of French and
US Banking Supervisors of May, 24th 2004, Dkt. No. 14-022-B-FB
Order to Cease and Desist and Order of Assessment of a Civil G Money Penalty Issued Upon Consent Pursuant to the Federal
Deposit Insurance Act, as Amended, Dkt. Nos. 14-022-B-FB, 14- 022-CMP-FB
Settlement Agreement between the U.S. Department of Treasury’s H Office of Foreign Asset Control (“OFAC”) and BNP Paribas SA
(“BNPP”), COMPL-2013-193659
In re BNP Paribas, S.A. New York Branch, Consent Order Under I New York Banking Law § 44, New York State Department of
Financial Services (“DFS”)
DFS Press Release, Cuomo Administration Announces BNP J Paribas to Pay $8.9 Billion, Including $2.24 Billion to NYDFS,
Terminate Senior Executives, Restrict U.S. Dollar Clearing
Document Name
Operations for Violations of Law (June 30, 2014)
BNP Paribas Sentenced for Conspiring to Violate the International K Emergency Economic Power Act and the Trading with the Enemy
Act, Justice News, May 1, 2015
Maps of Sudan L-O
Plaintiffs Entesar Osman Kashef, Sara Noureldirz Abdalla, Alfadel Mosabal, Abubakar Abakar, Siama Abdelnabi Hamad, Abbo Ahmed Abakar, Hawa Mohamed Omar, Jane Doe, Shafika G. Hassan, Nyanriak Tingloth, Reverend Anderia Lual, Jane Roe, Nicolas Hakim Lukudu, Turjuman Ramadan Adam, Judy Doe, Johnmark Majuc, Joseph Jok, Ambrose Martin Ulau, Sandi (Sunday) Georgari Marjan, Halima Samuel Khalifa, and Amir Ahmed (collectively, “Plaintiffs”), on behalf of themselves and all those similarly situated, through their undersigned attorneys, hereby bring this action and allege as follows:
INTRODUCTION
1. This action seeks justice on behalf of Plaintiffs, and those similarly situated, who are victims of one of the greatest bank crimes of all time. From 1997 to 2007, in criminal violation of U.S. sanctions that were intended to stop Sudan’s terrorist activities and human rights abuses and of New York law, Defendant BNP Paribas, S.A., along with its affiliates Defendants BNP Paribas, S.A. New York Branch and BNP North America, Inc., (collectively “BNPP”) secretly conspired with the rogue government of Sudan and gave it forbidden access to the U.S. financial markets and U.S. dollar clearing services in New York. By 2007, BNPP facilitated an astonishing quarter of Sudan’s exports and a fifth of its imports. BNPP’s financial transactions for the government of Sudan, along with some other illicit transactions with Iran and Cuba, totaled as much as $190 billion dollars. With BNPP’s assistance, rather than being crippled by the U.S. sanctions, the government of Sudan exploited its oil resources by harming, killing, and displacing civilians living in oil rich regions and saw its revenues from oil dramatically increase, revenues it used to buy planes, helicopters and weapons, to fund its military and militias, and to escalate its campaign of unspeakable atrocities against its own people.
2. Defendants’ criminal conduct, which began in 1997, was a substantial factor in causing Plaintiffs’ injuries that have persisted to the present. Plaintiffs were the intended beneficiaries of the very sanctions that Defendants have been convicted, in New York, of violating. And Plaintiffs have suffered grave injury as a result of BNPP providing Sudan with the means to wage genocidal and unlawful attacks on civilians. Without BNPP’s willingness to break U.S. and New York law to provide Sudan with much needed dollars used to trade oil and buy arms, Sudan could not have engaged in the well-documented mass scale ethnic cleansing and violence against its disfavored population, including crude, indiscriminate bombings of their homes and villages, mass rape, torture, infection with HIV, loss of property and income, and displacement of hundreds of thousands from their homes and property through the use of large scale weapons purchased after BNPP became the government of Sudan’s bank providing it access to U.S. dollars. BNPP’s clandestine, criminal conduct in conspiracy with the government of Sudan went far beyond ordinary commercial banking activity, as in the case of other multinationals sued for their business ventures with rogue governments.
3. Defendant BNP Paribas, S.A. ultimately was caught by U.S. authorities, pled guilty to violating U.S. sanctions against doing business with Sudan and to committing a New York felony for falsifying business records, and was ordered to pay a criminal forfeiture of approximately $8.9 billion. But BNPP’s ultimate victims, including Plaintiffs and those similarly situated, the Class, have not been compensated for their injuries caused by BNPP’s conduct. Plaintiffs and the Class, all of whom now lawfully live in the United States, now seek damages from BNPP.
*****
4. In 1989, military officers under then-Colonel Omar al-Bashir seized power in Sudan. The military coup had the support of the National Islamic Front, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.1 As head of the military junta, al-Bashir became Sudan’s president, chief of state, prime minister, and chief of the armed forces. The coup began what is now a decades-long pattern of serious human rights abuses, including genocide, in violation of international law and support for terrorism.2 By the mid-1990s, the human rights abuses in Sudan were well known, including by BNPP, and attracted considerable international attention.
5. At the same time, the Khartoum regime sought to exploit Sudan’s rich oil reserves, knowing that money was crucial to keep it in power. Though Sudan’s oil reserves had been known for many years, even by 1997, Sudan had not been able to produce sufficient oil for export, let alone enough oil to generate substantial revenue. The exploitation of oil required access to the capital and the know-how needed to drill for oil, as well as access to international financial markets to export it at the highest price.
6. Due to longstanding and economically compelling market forces, international oil transactions are priced in U.S. dollars (“petrodollars”), and overwhelmingly cleared through financial intermediaries in New York City that have large dollar deposits. Sudan therefore needed access to the U.S. financial system to maximize its future oil revenue. Conversely, if a country like Sudan desired to sell oil without access to U.S. dollars and the ability to clear transactions in New York or elsewhere in the United States, it would suffer a substantial discount, either having to barter its oil in exchange for other commodities or goods or sell it in other currencies.
7. Sudan’s development of its oil resources was linked to its human rights abuses not just through the government’s desire to use oil revenue to stay in power. Many of Sudan’s oil rich regions were occupied by civilians opposed to the government of Sudan on the basis of ethnicity, religion, and longstanding political disagreements with successive Khartoum governments, particularly the military-Islamist regime that grabbed power in 1989. To exploit its oil resources, the government of Sudan had used and would use its military and allied militias to harm, kill or displace hundreds of thousands of civilians from oil rich regions.
8. In 1997, cognizant of Sudan’s desire to exploit its oil resources and the link between that oil exploitation and human rights abuses, the United States enacted sweeping sanctions specifically to curtail and to stop the government of Sudan’s human rights abuses and its support for global terrorism. Pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (“IEEPA”)3 and the Trading with the Enemy Act (“TWEA”),4 President Bill
Clinton imposed comprehensive criminal sanctions that, among other things, barred banks operating in the United States from extending credit to or facilitating or brokering U.S. dollar transactions for the government of Sudan and its agencies, instrumentalities, and controlled entities (collectively, the “GOS”). In 2006, President George W. Bush enacted further sanctions. (collectively and together with their implementing regulations, the “U.S. Sanctions,” or the “Sanctions”). The U.S. Congress and the Executive Branch thus recognized the causal link—the precise causal link at issue in this case—between the GOS’s access to the U.S. financial system and the GOS’s atrocities against its civilians, including those from its oil exploitation.
9. Given its nascent oil development, Sudan’s meagre, pre-oil economy was particularly vulnerable to U.S. Sanctions. The U.S. Sanctions, if observed, would have cut the GOS off from funding to exploit its oil resources and to export its oil at market prices, thereby negatively impacting the GOS’s revenues from its oil and limiting the GOS’s ability to commit atrocities. Similarly, the U.S. Sanctions, if observed, would have cut the GOS off from importing goods using dollar-denominated lines of credit, thereby negatively impacting its buying power and its ability to acquire goods, such as planes, helicopters and weapons. Thus, U.S. Sanctions were designed and intended to have an adverse impact on the GOS’s economy, thereby limiting the al-Bashir regime’s solidification of its hold on power and its ability to wage its campaign of atrocities against its civilian population.
10. But the U.S. Sanctions did not have their intended or expected impact because BNPP flagrantly and knowingly chose to violate them. In 1997, just as the first U.S. Sanctions were going into effect, knowing that the GOS was a terrorist state and that it was committing atrocities against civilians, BNPP agreed and conspired with the GOS to circumvent U.S. Sanctions and prevent the Sanctions from having their intended and expected impact on the GOS and Sudan’s economy and the protection of Sudan’s victims. BNPP became the GOS’s sole correspondent bank in Europe and provided the GOS with the means to evade U.S. Sanctions via concealed access to U.S. financial markets and clearing facilities in New York City.
11. Specifically, BNPP assisted the GOS with its oil exploitation efforts, which were well-known to include harming, killing and displacing people in oil rich regions. In turn, assisting the GOS in its export of oil, BNPP gave the GOS resources to exploit additional oil resources. Thus, BNPP’s U.S. Sanctions violations created a macabre feedback loop. The resources that oil development generated allowed the GOS to purchase planes, helicopters and weapons, to manufacture weapons, and to fund militia. In turn, the GOS violently harmed, killed and displaced more Sudanese civilians, including those it perceived as ethnically and politically “non-Arab” and those who were in the way of oil development. Oil revenue was both the object and the sine qua non of its ability to carry out the mass destruction and extermination that it let loose on its own civilian population, including Plaintiffs and the Class.
12. As recognized in the promulgation of the U.S. Sanctions themselves by Congress and the Executive Branch, in the experience of other countries subjected to U.S. sanctions like Iraq and Iran, and in the opinions of observers and experts, when complied with, U.S. sanctions are effective because the lion’s share of international trade, particularly for commodities like oil that are priced in dollars, relies on access to the U.S. financial system. Absent that access, countries need to export commodities and import goods through barter or through use of secondary currencies, both of which are significantly less efficient and result in less revenue from exports and more costly imports. As a result, when U.S. sanction are observed, a country’s economy suffers, and it will inevitably have less economic resources with which to acquire weapons and oppress its people.
13. By conspiring with the government of Sudan and giving it access to the U.S. financial system in the pursuit of illicit profits, BNPP enriched itself, undermined U.S. Sanctions and prevented their intended and expected effect, and assisted the terrorist, genocidal government of Sudan. Thus, BNPP’s Sanctions violations were a natural result of its conspiring with the government of Sudan and were a substantial factor in causing the atrocities suffered by Plaintiffs and the Class.
14. The injuries to Plaintiffs and the Class were also reasonably foreseeable by BNPP. As documented in its own internal files, BNPP knew that its violations of Sanctions were linked to human rights abuses. BNPP knew that the Sanctions were intended and expected, if observed, to protect the civilians of Sudan, including Plaintiffs and the Class. BNPP knew that the GOS wanted BNPP’s assistance to increase its ability to exploit its oil resources which directly involved human rights abuses. BNPP knew that the GOS wanted BNPP’s assistance to increase the GOS’s economic resources both for its exports and imports. And BNPP knew, as documented in contemporaneous reports by the United States, Canada, international NGOs, and the media, that the GOS used those increased economic resources to increase its military expenditures and to escalate its human rights abuses. Among other things, BNPP knew about the GOS’s acquisition of advanced military hardware and funding of militias with those additional resources, about the GOS’s manufacture of weapons, and about the GOS’s committing human rights atrocities using that military hardware and those militias. Thus, by violating the Sanctions, BNPP knew that Sudan’s human rights abuses would escalate, not be curtailed.
15. BNPP’s deliberate violation of U.S. Sanctions aimed at preventing the GOS’s human rights abuses against the Sudanese people is incontestable. To no avail, responsible BNPP officials raised internal alarms, including by executives, that if BNPP’s illegal support for the GOS became known externally, it would demonstrate BNPP’s complicity in the GOS actions. BNPP also did everything it could to keep its complicity secret, including falsifying business records.
16. Ultimately, the United States and the State of New York discovered BNPP’s crimes, through years-long investigations and the exercise of prosecutorial discretion by the United States and New York. Five federal and state agencies, primarily in New York, extensively investigated Defendants’ illicit financial dealings with Sudan as well as with Iran and Cuba:
- The U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) through the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York;
- The New York County District Attorneys’ Office (“DANY”);
- The Federal Reserve Board of New York (“FRB-NY”);
- The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”); and
- The New York Department of Financial Services (“DFS”).
17. These investigations culminated in two criminal guilty pleas in this judicial district in 2015—to a federal felony, a New York felony, and a New York misdemeanor, two cease and desist orders, a settlement agreement, and a consent order. In 2014, BNPP pled guilty to conspiracy to violate the IEEPA and the TWEA by processing billions of dollars of transactions through the U.S. financial system on behalf of Sudanese, Iranian, and Cuban entities subject to U.S. economic sanctions, and BNPP pled guilty to violation of the New York State Penal Law5 by falsifying business records with the intent to commit, aid, or conceal another crime. OFAC’s investigation resulted in a settlement agreement with BNPP, pursuant to which OFAC fined BNPP over $960 million and BNPP agreed to terminate its Sanctions violating conduct. Similarly, DFS’s investigation resulted in a consent decree, pursuant to which DFS fined BNPP over $2 billion and BNPP agreed to make reparations and restitution in the amount of $1.05 billion. Further, BNPPNY was suspended for clearing U.S. dollar transactions for other BNPP branches for a year, and BNPP could not act as a U.S. dollar clearing bank for unaffiliated third party banks for two years.
18. The array of enforcement actions, regulating BNPP’s past and future conduct, taken by both the United States and New York demonstrates their critical interest in preserving New York as a global financial center and in ensuring that New York is not used to aid in committing human rights abuses. Indeed, New York was central to BNPP’s illegal activities. BNPP aided and abetted and conspired with the GOS to evade Sanctions through various means and methods in New York. These included, among other things: accepting and following the direction of sanctioned entities to structure financial transactions on behalf of blocked entities in New York to evade the Sanctions; actually processing prohibited transactions in New York through the facilities of BNPPNY and other New York based banks; and in a felony violation of New York law, using false and fraudulent transaction descriptions and transmittal messaging at BNPPNY and the other New York banks to conceal that the transactions were being processed on behalf of blocked entities. These actions, without which BNPP would not have been able to aid the Sudanese government, undermined not only the Sanctions regime but also the integrity of the New York financial system.
19. In 2015, BNPP was sentenced to forfeit approximately $8.9 billion as part of its agreement to plead guilty.6 OFAC also levied a fine of $963 million in a parallel civil settlement. Approximately 70% of BNPP’s criminal asset forfeiture addressed BNPP’s activities with the GOS. BNPP’s criminal activity starkly contrasts with ordinary commercial or banking activity.
20. The forfeiture and fine, none of which went to the victims of BNPP, are among the largest penalties ever levied. Nevertheless, as reported by the Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board, BNPP “got off easy in its plea deal with U.S. authorities.”7
21. Plaintiffs, who lawfully immigrated to the United States, primarily from southern Sudan, the Darfur region and Khartoum under extreme circumstances, on behalf of themselves and the Class they represent, allege the claims herein, including claims for negligence per se given BNPP’s admitted crimes, and seek damages from Defendants to compensate for the atrocities they have suffered, atrocities for which they have never received any compensation, as well as disgorgement of BNPP’s profits obtained through its complicity in those crimes.
*****
22. This action is limited in scope. It involves the legality of the actions of BNPP and the Doe Defendants, all of which are private actors that went far beyond ordinary commercial or banking activity to engage in clandestine criminal conduct. The immediate GOS perpetrators of atrocities against Plaintiffs and the Class, some indicted by the International Criminal Court (“ICC”), are not parties here and, unlike the criminally- convicted BNPP, are beyond the remedial reach of U.S. courts. Plaintiffs’ claims do not seek relief that would require the Court to intervene against or declare invalid any official, governmental act of the GOS. To the contrary, the claims here arise out of the horrific, settled finality of the GOS’s transnational crimes. Plaintiffs, on behalf of themselves and those similarly situated, seek only to obtain damages from the private parties whose deliberate, criminal conduct were a substantial factor in these acts and the resultant harm.
7 Editorial Board, BNP Got Off Easy, Wall Street Journal Asia, July 3, 2014, at 9. The Board also noted that the bank was “lucky not to lose its U.S. banking license.” Id.
II. THE PARTIES
A. The Plaintiffs
23. Each Plaintiff is a refugee from Sudan, including the portion of Sudan that, in 2011, became the Republic of South Sudan (“South Sudan”). Each Plaintiff entered and resides lawfully in the United States or is a U.S. citizen. Some participated in U.S. refugee resettlement programs administered in conjunction with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees or authorized non-governmental organizations (“NGOs”). Some claimed asylum at a U.S. border, embassy, or other intake center. All have undergone background investigations and met the rigorous security standards established by the United States. Most have become U.S. citizens; the rest are permanent residents or waiting to become eligible for permanent resident status.
24. Each Plaintiff claims significant injuries that began in Sudan, including the part that is now South Sudan, from 1997 through at least 2009. This time frame includes 1997-2007, the period when BNPP provided criminal assistance to the GOS, and at least an additional two years, 2008-2009, depending on discovery, during which the effects of the conspiracy continued.8 As set out in detail below, Plaintiffs and the Class suffered extraordinary and unspeakable harm at the hands of the GOS as a result of BNPP’s assistance, including but not limited to beatings, maiming, sexual assault, rape, infection with HIV, loss of property, displacement from their homes, and watching family members be killed. These actions violate all human decency and norms of conduct.
25. Some members of the Class were under the age of 18 when they suffered the injuries described herein, and some are still minors today.
26. Before fleeing to the United States, Plaintiffs and the Class resided in three main geographic areas: (1) southern Sudan, including the states of Upper Nile, Jonglei, the Equatorias, Western Bahr el Ghazal, Northern Bahr el Ghazal, and Unity; (2) the contested border region of Abyei; and (3) in the north, the Nuba Mountains region of Southern Kordofan, the Darfur region, and Khartoum, Sudan’s capital where many groups fled to escape the violence in their homelands. Plaintiffs are culturally diverse and practice various religions. Those Plaintiffs and the Class from southern Sudan, now the separate country of South Sudan, generally practice traditional African religions or Christianity, while those who reside in the west (Darfur) are primarily Muslim. These regions are reflected on the maps attached hereto as Exhibits L-O.
27. Unlike Sudan’s ruling elite, which come predominantly from the Nile Valley in and around Khartoum, and which have “riverine” identity, Plaintiffs are black Africans from peripheral regions of the country. Many of their Arab countrymen, and the Khartoum- based riverine elite in particular, often refer to them as “zurga,” a racial slur frequently used in Darfur, or “abid,” a term which is predominately used in Central and Southern Sudan and means slave. Successive governments in Khartoum stretching back decades have marginalized the peoples living away from the Nile, who are Arabs as well as Africans. This marginalization has always been stratified and layered such that some groups (who often self-define as “African”) have faced greater degrees of exclusion and violent repression than others. The Sudanese state has long sought to assimilate the different people in the country to the riverine identity, including through the promotion of one language (Arabic) and one faith (Islam) at the expense of others. Those people who have sought to resist that effort (like the people in the South, Darfur, and the Nuba Mountains in Central Sudan) have faced the brunt of state-organized violence. This marginalization and persecution escalated significantly in 1997.
28. After fleeing the GOS’s violence, many of the Plaintiffs experienced serial displacement, starvation, disease, and prolonged stays in overcrowded refugee camps. They were living in abject poverty and suffering from physical injuries, loss of all their possessions, and emotional scars inflicted by the GOS and its proxies.
29. Plaintiffs arrived in the United States with nothing. Most of the Muslim female Plaintiffs from western Sudan (Darfur) entered the United States with little or no education that would permit them to adapt to the U.S. economy and way of life. And many of the Plaintiffs continue to suffer from physical and emotional injuries or from diseases such as HIV.