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March 25, 2009
Posted 9:01 PM
by Mary
Defying the International Criminal Court: Bush, Bashir and Obama By: JimWhite Wednesday March 25, 2009 6:28 am Earlier this month, the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for the arrest of Omar Bashir, President of Sudan, for his role in genocide and other war crimes in Darfur. An editorial in the New York Times written shortly after the warrant was issued concluded with this paragraph: And he [Mr. Obama] should urge all of America’s allies to comply with the arrest order if Mr. Bashir decides to leave Sudan — there is talk that he may try to attend an Arab summit in Qatar later this month. Any country that continues to enable Mr. Bashir should be branded as an accomplice to his many horrors. There are now reports that Bashir is traveling freely. He visited Eritrea on Monday and is in Egypt today (Wednesday). So much for the US and Obama following the advice of the Times' editorial staff and urging our allies to honor the arrest warrant. It would be truly ironic if Obama did urge Egypt to arrest Bashir, since both the US and Obama are openly defying the ICC themselves. As described in the New York Times in May, 2002, the Bush Administration repudiated President Clinton's last minute signing of the treaty establishing the ICC: In a letter to Kofi Annan, the secretary general of the United Nations, the Bush administration said that the signature of the Clinton administration on the treaty creating the court was no longer legally binding. "The United States does not intend to become a party to the treaty," John R. Bolton, an undersecretary of state, wrote to Mr. Annan in a one-paragraph letter. "Accordingly, the United States has no legal obligations from its signature on Dec. 31, 2000." Finally, Jonathan Turley pointed out on Rachel Maddow's show this week that Obama is now risking becoming an accomplice to torture because he is refusing to prosecute those who ordered and carried out torture despite irrefutable evidence that the US committed this war crime: By refusing to prosecute those who ordered and carried out torture, Obama is ignoring the requirements of US law and international law. With his lack of action against Bush and Bashir, Obama is joining them in defying the ICC. That is not very good company for our president to be keeping, in my opinion. As the Times feared, Obama now has become an accomplice to Bashir's crimes, just as Turley points out he is an accomplice to Bush's crimes Labels: ICC
March 4, 2009
Posted 10:23 AM
by Mary
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant Wednesday for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. He is the first sitting head of state the court has ordered arrested. The three-judge panel said there was insufficient evidence to support charges of genocide in a war in which up to 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million have fled their homes. "He is suspected of being criminally responsible ... for intentionally directing attacks against an important part of the civilian population of Darfur, Sudan, murdering, exterminating, raping, torturing and forcibly transferring large numbers of civilians, and pillaging their property," court spokeswoman Laurence Blairon said. Labels: ICC
December 14, 2008
Posted 1:14 PM
by Mary
Moreno-Ocampo and the Future of the ICC Helena Cobbam "The International Criminal Court started its work in 2002 with great fanfare and expectations. The hopes of its many supporters around the world (but concentrated particularly in rich western countries) was that this new court could bring a new day of "accountability" to the perpetrators of some of the most heinous mass crimes of our day. Sadly, those hopes have not been realized. And not just because of the complete inability of the ICC to even start grappling with Pres. Bush's perpetration of a monstrous Crime Against the Peace in 2003, and his administration's perpetration of numerous serious war crimes subsequent to that big original crime. But beyond that big lacuna, the way the ICC itself has gone about its business since 2002 has also been deeply, perhaps fatally, flawed... And one person who has certainly contributed to these mistakes has been the Chief Prosecutor, Argentina's Luis Moreno-Ocampo. Tragically, one of the main problems for this court that was meant to usher in this new era of "accountability" has been that the degree to which the court's own major organs are-- or even, can be-- held accountable to the public they purport to serve is extremely limited; or, almost non-existent..." Labels: ICC
October 17, 2008
Posted 10:48 PM
by Mary
Prosecutor to present third Sudan case within weeks 17 Oct 2008 By Michelle Nichols NEW YORK, Oct 17 (Reuters) - The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said on Friday he will present a case within weeks for the indictment of some rebel commanders accused of attacking peacekeepers in Sudan's Darfur region. The court is currently considering chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo's case for the indictment of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and has already indicted a Sudanese minister and an allied militia leader for war crimes. "In a couple of weeks I will present my third case against some rebel commanders who were attacking African Union peacekeepers," Moreno-Ocampo told a Council on Foreign Relations symposium, sponsored by Hollywood actors Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. Moreno-Ocampo has been investigating a 2007 attack on an AU base in Haskanita, Darfur which killed 12 peacekeepers and was blamed on rebels. A U.N. report said vehicles used in the attack bore the initials "JEM," which could have stood for the Justice and Equality Movement, a powerful rebel group. Khalil Ibrahim, leader of the group, said in July that if any of his guerrillas was indicted they would be handed over to the international court for trial. Sudan, which has signed but not ratified the treaty establishing the Hague-based ICC to try suspected war criminals, has refused to hand over the Sudanese minister or the militia leader indicted last year. Asked how confident he was that the court would approve an arrest warrant for Bashir, Moreno-Ocampo said: "The case is in the hands of the judges, I have requested before 12 arrest warrants -- I got 12. I am pretty confident I have a solid case." Bashir is accused of orchestrating a campaign of genocide in Darfur, a desolate region of western Sudan, from 2003. International experts say more than five years of fighting there has killed 200,000 people and driven 2.5 million from their homes. Sudan puts the death toll at 10,000. Jolie, a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, told the symposium that "peace is placed before justice, often instead of justice. "We let those who destroyed their countries decide the future for their countries," she said. "There is no enduring peace without justice." Labels: ICC, SUDAN
July 30, 2008
Posted 9:14 AM
by Mary
Karadzic in UN custody in Netherlands ap.org/Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic sat in a U.N. jail cell Wednesday after being flown to the Netherlands in the dead of night to face charges of genocide against Muslims and Croats during the Balkan wars of the 1990s. His arrival in a white Serbian government jet marked the end of a 13-year effort by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia to take custody of its most wanted war criminal. Karadzic is accused or orchestrating the deaths of tens of thousands of people and the sufferings of hundreds of thousands more. "The arrest of Radovan Karadzic is immensely important for the victims who had to wait far too long for this day," prosecutor Serge Brammertz said. It is also important showed "that there is no alternative to the arrest of war criminals and that there can be no safe haven for fugitives." The tribunal will "ensure his well being and right to a fair trial as much as possible and in accordance with the highest international standards," spokeswoman Nerma Jelacic said in confirming Karadzic's arrival at the detention center outside The Hague. Labels: ICC, Karadzic
July 22, 2008
Posted 3:50 PM
by Mary
Arrest Gives Credibility to War Crimes Tribunals By DAVID ROHDE , NYT July 22, 2008 The arrest of Radovan Karadzic on Monday gave badly needed credibility to international war crimes tribunals that have struggled for years to bring fugitives to justice, according to former prosecutors, legal experts and human rights groups. And the arrest bolstered arguments from tribunal officials that patience, multilateral diplomacy and creativity can make the institutions more effective. “It’s building up piece by piece,” said Martha Minow, a law professor at Harvard and an expert on war crimes trials. “This is building up the legitimacy of these institutions.” Mr. Karadzic will be the third high-profile figure to be brought before a United Nations-backed tribunal on war crimes charges in the last six years, following in the footsteps of President Charles Taylor of Liberia and the Serbian president, Slobodan Milosevic. For years, supporters of the tribunals have argued that if leaders were brought to trial the courts could serve as a deterrent. But Mr. Karadzic, who remained free for nearly 13 years, made a mockery of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, which in 1993 became the first such body established by the United Nations. Although repeatedly seen in public when American and NATO forces entered Bosnia in 1996, he was not arrested, in part out of fear that seizing him could cause a violent backlash against NATO forces. Instead, the United States and the European Union tried to use economic and diplomatic pressure on Serbia to force his arrest. Until Monday, the policy appeared to be a failure. At the same time, other war crimes tribunals established by the United Nations came under fire. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was criticized by Rwandans as being hugely expensive, based outside Rwanda and largely detached from the country itself. And the establishment of the International Criminal Court — a permanent tribunal intended to prosecute war crimes globally — was delayed for years by tortuous negotiations and fierce opposition from the Bush administration. Only last week, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court was criticized for requesting that genocide charges be filed against President Omar al- Bashir of Sudan. Critics warned that the move would complicate peace negotiations for the Darfur region of Sudan and never lead to Mr. Bashir’s arrest, given the international community’s poor track record on arresting fugitives. “When Karadzic was indicted back in 1995, nobody really expected he’d ever actually get arrested,” said Gary Bass, a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University and the author of “Stay the Hand of Vengeance: The Politics of War Crimes Tribunals.” “It’s not clear how exactly Bashir could wind up in The Hague,” he added, “but the Karadzic example has got to make Bashir think hard.” Privately, officials from the war crimes tribunals have argued that the United States and its allies have lacked the political will to make arrests and at the same time failed to use a complex array of diplomatic and economic measures to bring fugitives to justice. The international community has more options than either using military force to arrest a fugitive or doing nothing, they say. Economic sanctions, indictments and travel restrictions all place small but steady pressure on individuals accused of war crimes and on their patrons. Labels: ICC
Posted 10:33 AM
by Mary
Indictment of Sudanese Leader Seen as Threat to Peacekeepers By Colum Lynch Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, July 20, 2008; A01 UNITED NATIONS -- Six days before Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir was charged with genocide, a group of 200 fighters on horseback, supported by more than 40 vehicles mounted with machine guns, carried out the bloodiest and most sophisticated ambush yet on a fledgling U.N. and African peacekeeping mission. The July 8 attack -- which killed seven peacekeepers and wounded 22 -- bore similarities to Sudanese-backed raids by Janjaweed horsemen that have led to the deaths of more than 300,000 civilians and forced nearly 3 million people from their homes in Darfur over the past five years, according to internal U.N. accounts. Some U.N. officials suspect the operation was intended to serve as a warning to U.N. peacekeepers and humanitarian workers of Sudan's intent to use deadly force if the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court targeted the country's leader. On Wednesday, those fears were heightened after a Nigerian company commander was killed by unidentified assailants in the town of Forobaranga in West Darfur. "We are very worried there could be a gradual increase in violence, which could make the mission quite vulnerable," Jean-Marie Guéhenno, the U.N. undersecretary general for peacekeeping, said in an interview. But it "will be very hard to pin down responsibility" for the attacks, he predicted. The Sudanese government has strenuously denied involvement in the attack, accusing a rebel faction, the SLA-Unity, of responsibility. U.N. peacekeeping officials said that Sudanese authorities actually improved cooperation in the days following the announcement of the charges against Bashir. The U.N. case, said Sudan's U.N. envoy, Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad, "doesn't hold water." Labels: darfur, ICC
July 21, 2008
Posted 9:22 PM
by Mary
BELGRADE, Serbia — Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, accused architect of massacres making him one of the world's top war crimes fugitives, was arrested Monday evening in a raid that ended a near 13-year manhunt, the country's president and the U.N. tribunal said. Karadzic is the suspected mastermind of mass killings that the U.N. war crimes tribunal described as "scenes from hell, written on the darkest pages of human history." They include the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica, Europe's worst slaughter since World War II. "This is a very important day for the victims who have waited for this arrest for over a decade. It is also an important day for international justice because it clearly demonstrates that nobody is beyond the reach of the law," said Serge Brammertz, the tribunal's head prosecutor. President Boris Tadic's office said Karadzic has been taken before the investigative judge of Serbia's war crimes court _ a legal procedure that indicates he could soon be extradited to the U.N. court at The Hague, Netherlands. If Karadzic is transferred to there, he would be the 44th Serb suspect extradited to the tribunal. The others include former President Slobodan Milosevic, who was ousted in 2000 and died in 2006 while on trial on war crimes charges. Heavily armed special forces have been deployed around the war crimes court in Belgrade where Karadzic reportedly was being held. Karadzic's brother, Luka, also arrived at the location in central Belgrade. Serbian police deployed throughout central Belgrade as well as in front of the U.S. embassy, which was targeted in nationalist rioting over Kosovo's declaration of independence in February. The White House called the arrest "an important demonstration of the Serbian Government's determination to honor its commitment to cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal. Labels: ICC
April 29, 2008
Posted 8:58 AM
by Mary
ICC seeks DR Congo's 'Terminator'
A Congolese warlord known as "the Terminator" is being sought for prosecution, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague has revealed.The arrest warrant for Bosco Ntaganda, was issued in 2006 but not made public and he is still at large. He is accused of conscripting children under 15 to fight in hostilities in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo between July 2002 and December 2003.Judges say he reported to Thomas Lubanga, currently in ICC custody. The arrest warrant for Mr Ntaganda is the fourth to be issued by the ICC involving fighting in the gold-rich Ituri region. ICC judges say as deputy head of military operations for the rebel Patriotic Forces for the Liberation of the Congo (FPLC), Mr Ntaganda was responsible for seven camps where children were trained.He is also accused of taking part in FPLC attacks when the group used child soldiers. The FPLC, drawn from the area's Hema ethnic group, fought alongside Mr Lubanga's Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) against the Lendu ethnic group. The violence broke out in 1999 and continued until 2003, partly for control of the gold deposits.An estimated 50,000 people were killed and hundreds of thousands left homeless. At different times, Mr Lubanga was backed by both Uganda and Rwanda - DR Congo's neighbours. Under a peace deal, several Congolese militias have disarmed and been integrated into the national army.Mr Ntaganda's arrest warrant was not made public before in case it hindered the court's investigations, the ICC said in a statement. Mr Lubanga's trial is scheduled to start in June. Labels: COngo, ICC, war crimes
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"War does not determine who is right--only who is left." - Bertrand Russell
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