Photo: Flickr user Alkan Chagler

This week, an appeals chamber at the International Criminal Court ruled that the ICC should review evidence of genocide against the current President of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir. Currently he faces charges of crimes against humanity and  war crimes in connection with the ongoing conflict in Darfur.

Worldfocus contributing blogger Ayo Johnson, who blogs at Africa Speak International, writes about the complexities of the ICC and its rulings.

I have always wondered if the International Criminal Court (ICC) is a fair organization and what criteria it uses when selecting individuals who can be put before its judges in the Hague.

There are increasing calls world wide for both former President Bush and Prime Minister Blair to face the ICC for wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan resulting in the death and the displacement of thousands of people…

The ICC up until recently was labeled a white elephant costing millions of dollars annually and failing to yield any tangible results. The ICC gained some respectability in 1999; when Slobodan Milosevic was indicted and convicting for atrocities against Serbian forces in Kosovo.

In 2003 a vocal and boisterous court; in its ambitious move to date, captured Charles Taylor and charged him with crimes against people of Sierra Leone. Taylor’s rebel group captured and drugged children who in turn chopped off the arm and limbs of innocent citizens during a 10 year brutal war…

The ICC has gone one step further charging Omar Al- Bashir a sitting president of Sudan, with crimes against humanity and violation against the people of Darfur…

The Arab League and the African Union had earlier requested that the Omar Al- Bashir arrest warrant be suspended, as both institutions were fearful of knee-jerk reactions and reprisals against aid agencies and the people of Darfur…

Sudan like the United States of America (USA) is not a member of the ICC. A defiant Bashir refuses to recognise the court, claims that the ICC is in breach of international law and has no jurisdiction in Sudan. This is an argument that has all the hallmarks of double standards, justified on the basis that the U.S.also does not recognise the court and the court has no authority over any U.S. citizens…

Nesrine Malik, a Sudanese-born writer and commentator who lives in London, argues that the ICC ruling may in fact backfire.

Despite my belief that Bashir may be guilty of crimes against humanity, not only in Darfur but in other parts of the country, I cannot help but think that the ICC has over-reached itself in this instance. The timing was again unfortunate, with the first Sudanese elections in 24 years due in April and the country holding on to a fragile peace in preparation for a referendum in 2011 when the south will vote on secession.

But as Jerry Fowler, president of the Save Darfur Coalition, asserts:

Justice and accountability are essential components of the comprehensive solution required to finally end the crisis in Darfur… President Obama and other world leaders must ensure humanitarian aid and protection for Darfuri civilians – especially following the court’s latest decision — and push for a just and inclusive peace agreement to finally end the crisis in Darfur.

The existing warrant is for war crimes, but the Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, is trying to prosecute the president for genocide as well. Today judges at the Court ruled that the pre-trial chamber should examine the evidence for genocide again.

Worldfocus partner Deutsche Welle reports on the ICC’s efforts to bring al-Bashir to justice.

The International Criminal Court’s efforts to secure the arrest of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for alleged war crimes are stalling.

On Tuesday, as the United Nations released a report accusing Sudan of serious human rights violations, a presidential advisor in Sudan said the country is ready for a fresh ceasefire in Darfur.

Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court’s efforts to secure the arrest of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for alleged war crimes are stalling, as critics say the indictment has rallied the African Union, Arab League and the Sudanese people around Bashir.

Andrew Natsios, a former Bush administration envoy to Sudan, recently wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine that “In their zeal to burnish the fledgling court’s credentials with such a high-profile case, the ICC’s prosecutors have weakened the institution.”

Worldfocus contributing blogger Abd al-Wahab Abdalla writes that Sudan is at a crossroads — and change must come from within, rather than from the international community:

Sudan is at the crossroads and we need to be fully cognizant which paths will lead us off the precipice. If we fail to pay attention to where we are going we will surely destroy ourselves.

I have been challenged on accountability for war crimes. The version of accountability preferred by the so-called international community and by those who slavishly follow it within the Sudanese counter-elite is just demonization of the ruling party and individuals within it. The named individuals may be responsible for crimes but to herald their prosecution as a serious response let alone a political programme is just another symptom of the reactionary infantilism that has overtaken too many of our comrades and former comrades. On the left we failed to take political Islamism seriously and for too long we blinded ourselves that it was irrational and transient and it would go away. We demonized it instead of trying to analyze it so that we could fight it properly. As a result we tamely went along with those who also demonized it for their own reasons and applauded whatever they did such as imposing punitive sanctions or indicting its leaders. This is a non-response which has surrendered our political agency.

The only kind of accountability that offers some kind of political solution is accountability under a state that exercises democratic sovereignty. If the head of state were dragged off to the Hague and prosecuted it would not make an iota of difference to the problems of Sudan. The only lesson that our elites will learn is, make sure you are covered by a friendly ally in Paris or Washington DC before you go ahead and commit your crimes.

The arbitrary international sanctions regime and the random and politicized way in which international organizations including the ICC demand accountability only makes this worse. They function as arbitrary power (and worse, external and factional arbitrary power) masquerading as law and as such make a mockery of the rule of law or judicial accountability just as much as the existing Sudanese judiciary. The question is, which comes first: an institutionalized rule of law system or a progressive developmental political economy which provides the substructure for an autonomous state and impartial rules? It has to be the other way round: the foundation must be there first. If liberal judicial institutions are parachuted into the existing realities they will just become more tools in the toolbox of plunder and rentierism for ruling elites and counter-elites. They will be another competing faction within a politicized and corrupt judiciary. Just as in a systemically corrupt political economy, an anti-corruption drive becomes a means of the ruling elite selectively punishing its enemies, so that “weeding out corruption” becomes a tool of corruption. Ditto for accountability without a Weberian state. The objective conditions must exist first. [...]

The fundamental problem of Sudan is the nature of the state-bourgeoisie in power. The solution must arise from that self-same power centre. There is no counter-elite with strong enough roots in the social economy to challenge it. Only when we face this reality can we then begin to grasp the objective constraints on our political programme. [...]

To read more, see the original post.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user United Nations Photo’s under a Creative Commons license.

Omar al-Bashir was indicted by the International Criminal Court on charges of crimes against humanity.

African member nations of the International Criminal Court (ICC) held meetings in Addis Ababa, Ethioipia this week to discuss their opposition to the arrest of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. Last March, Bashir was indicted for crimes against humanity, including murder, rape, torture, pillage and displacement of citizens of the Darfur region of Sudan.

Semhar Araia is an African analyst and consultant. He discusses the wishes of the Darfuris and the goals of 19 African nations that oppose the indictment of Sudan’s president.

African Civil Society Demands More from Governments and African Union on ICC

As a two-day meeting between the 30 original African signatory countries to the ICC draws to a close, the peace-versus-justice debate continues to impact civilians on the ground and divide how Africa’s conflicts are addressed by advocates and policymakers.

This couldn’t be any more true than in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where peace advocates argue that if it weren’t for the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants on Joseph Kony, Thomas Lubanga and Bosco Ntaganda, greater prospects for peace might exist through a viable peace process and stronger support for traditional reconciliation mechanisms. Justice proponents, however, argue that the international judicial mechanisms, absent any legal or judicial system, are necessary to enforce the laws, punish the perpetrators, and implement a peace process.

In my personal conversations with Darfuris and other Sudanese, they felt strongly that the ICC was the only body they could trust to bring justice to their lives. Lacking a viable and internationally-supported peace process for Darfur and a fledgling North-South Comprehensive Peace Agreement, many Sudanese have lost confidence in the ability of the Khartoum government to provide its citizens with any fair or legitimate legal recourse. For them, that means living peacefully, free from harm, with greater representation in government, greater access to wealth and resources, compensation for the damages incurred and punishment for the perpetrators — including President Bashir.

Nearly 70 African civil society groups recently organized in Kampala and Cape Town to express their support for the ICC and Darfuri wishes, arguing that the Court plays a necessary role when their governments are unable or unwilling to investigate and prosecute war crimes, genocide, and other crimes against humanity. Recognizing that their governments originally were supportive of the Court’s creation, they now demand that those same African countries and institutions, including the African Union, show greater support for the ICC. [...]

Nineteen African leaders met on June 8. Sadly, rather than heeding their people’s demands and cries for justice and legality, the group issued a statement calling for a suspension altogether of the ICC arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir.

So it seems that despite the people’s demands, and the fact that thirty of the original signatories to the Rome Statute were African, African leaders prefer making decisions regarding the ICC and Darfur not based on the people’s wishes, but on theirs. Let’s hope this week’s meeting in Addis Ababa bears a more fruitful result that supports the needs of the Darfuris, Ugandans, and Congolese civilians on the ground.

To read more, see the original post.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user  Ammar Abd Rabbo under a Creative Commons license.

The court said Bashir directed attacks that resulted in the murder, rape and torture of hundreds of thousands of people in Darfur. However, it also said there was not sufficient evidence to support charges of genocide.

The United Nations says that at least 300,000 have died in the conflict in Darfur and 2.5 million have been displaced.

On Tuesday, Bashir responded to the impending warrant by saying the ICC could “eat it.”

Amir Idris, a professor of African studies at Fordham University who grew up in Sudan, joins Martin Savidge to discuss the chances that Bashir will stand trial, how it will impact violence in Darfur and the U.S. position on Darfur and the ICC.

Journalist Rob Crilly in Sudan argues that while activists consider the ICC’s warrant a triumph, the Sudanese reaction is less than jubilant:

The Save Darfur movement and human rights campaigners will tell you that it’s all worth it. There need be no conflict between peace and justice, according to John Prendergast and Omer Ismail in today’s San Diego Tribune…

But I can’t help feeling that they’ve been speaking to different people from the ones I have met in five camps across North and South Darfur this past week. Few have time for this debate. Few have heard of the International Criminal Court. Those that have are worried the government will come down hard on anyone celebrating Bashir’s indictment. And most seem to think that going home is more important than anything else.

Forgive me for putting words in their mouths, but I’m interpreting that as putting peace ahead of justice.

Today I met families who fled the fighting in Muhajiriya (incidentally they may not actually have fled - but that’s a post for another day). Some 50,000 are on the move. About 26,000 have arrived in Zam Zam camp.

One of them was Mariam Ahmed Abu, who reckoned she was 60 but looked more like 80 and whose daughter had been shot by her side during the fighting for Muhajiriya. She had survived six years of war but left when she realised she no longer had any children left to care for her. She made the journey with a dozen or so other elderly women who had all run out of children. This is how she summed it all up when I asked her about seeking justice for the misery inflicted on her:

“This is what happened and now we have to live and to forget it.”

She hadn’t heard of the ICC until I asked her about it and I’m starting to think that taking Bashir to the Hague will be more of a victory for activists far away from Sudan than for the people stuck in this miserable war.

The “Fai Notizia” blog interviews a young Sudanese man, who states that the ICC’s actions have allowed Bashir to position himself as victim:

I really hated what International Criminal Court, they gave the Sudanese Government a golden opportunity to polish its image and it’s President Bashir’s. Sudanese People are mostly simple people, after the ICC’s request to arrest Al-Bashir, the government went on and on about how this is a targeting of Islam, and how it’s an insult to the Sudanese Pride and how if this happened the US will surly have it’s clutches around Sudan, blah, blah. It wasn’t more than propaganda and a pethatric attempt to make Al-Bashir worthy of the coming elections, because honestly, before this, nobody liked this idiot. But suddenly I hear people in the bus talking about supporting him against the ICC. He became a hero.

“Mimz,” another Sudanese blogger, writes that the warrant has Sudanese people scared, pleading for calm:

So please, Sudanese citizens, those of you living in Sudan… stop panicking! And stop packing your bags! I know so many people who are actually gone by now because they are afraid of what might happen if the warrant is issued. I’m telling you, Egypt doesn’t need any more people crowding it!

Nothing is going to happen, and no I am not in denial, I am just thinking of the most reasonable sequence of events. You will not be attacked in your own home, you will not lose all your valuable posessions and you will not find a loved one dead outside your house. Don’t be so overdramatic!

A blogger at “The Sudanese Thinker” writes that the arrest warrant may reshape U.S. policy towards Sudan:

[T]he ICC can’t do much on its own in terms of enforcing the arrest warrant (if it issues it at all) and the UN is a fangless paper tiger, but…

… given that we now have Susan Rice as the US Ambassador to the UN, Hillary as Secretary of State, and a Blue Donkey administration in charge of running things, US policies towards Sudan will gradually become starkly different than they were just a few months ago when Bush was still in power.

An ICC arrest warrant issued within this new context will now have more weight, and hence its potential issuance will probably be more useful as a tool for pressuring Omar al-Bashir to act in favor of peace in Darfur and implementing the CPA.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

Several news organizations, including The New York Times and Reuters, have quoted diplomats and United Nations officials who say that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has decided to arrest and indict Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes in Darfur.

However, the ICC has so far denied the media reports and said that judges have not made a decision about al-Bashir.

If an arrest warrant were to be issued by the international court, it would be the first such warrant against a sitting head of state.

Though the U.N. says that at least 300,000 have died in the conflict in Darfur and 2.5 million have been displaced, al-Bashir’s Sudanese government claims that only 10,000 people died and that it in no way constituted genocide. Sudan has denied all ties to the Janjaweed militias, who are blamed for much of the violence.

The U.K.-based human rights organization Aegis Trust recently released a short documentary featuring what it claims are former members of the Sudanese military and Janjaweed militia, who detail their alleged involvement in the Darfur conflict and discuss how the attacks were financed and carried out.

Read more about the film here.

Blogger “Michelle” wonders why the ICC and the media’s sources differ on the indictment decision:

Why the leak? I’m betting that the New York Times wouldn’t be likely to post such major news without a certain level of confidence in its sources…that is, enough confidence to allow it to weather the storm that could come from the ICC’s denials[...]

I think this might be an attempt, either by the UN or the ICC or both, to soften the political ground before the indictment is actually handed down. As I wrote previously, anxieties over Khartoum’s reaction to the arrest warrant, once it becomes official, are running quite high — by leaking the information in the days before the announcement, and then issuing an obligatory denial, someone out there might be trying to soften the blow, test the waters, or at least give a warning to the international community that this is finally coming.

The “For Sudan” blog also considers the ICC’s motives:

This could be a ploy by the ICC to keep the arrest warrant a secret, allowing them to arrest the President if he decides to go abroad and visit one of the member states of the Rome Statute, the agreement that created the court, without having publicly announced the arrest warrant. Or, they can simply still be in the process of working out the final details. Only time will tell.

Brett Schaefer of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty asks if the ICC is the proper forum for prosecuting Darfur’s war crimes:

Although supporters of the court have a noble purpose, there are a number of reasons to be cautious and concerned about the effect the ICC could have on national sovereignty and politically precarious situations the world over.

One of the most basic principles of international law is that a state cannot be bound by a treaty to which it is not a party. Further, long-standing international legal norms hold that a state cannot be bound to legal assertions that it has specifically rejected. The ICC, however, directly contravenes these norms and precedents of international law; it claims jurisdiction to prosecute and imprison citizens of countries that are not party to the Rome Statute and, more shockingly, over those who have specifically rejected the court’s jurisdiction.

[...]For these reasons and others, the United States has declined to join the ICC. It is not alone in its concerns as demonstrated by the many states that are not ICC parties. Major countries like China, India, and Russia have refused to ratify the Rome Statute out of concern that it unduly infringes on their foreign- and security-policy decisions — issues rightly reserved to sovereign governments.

In July, when the ICC chief prosecutor formally requested an arrest warrant for al-Bashir, blogger “Heba Aly” from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting wrote about the reaction in Sudan:

Endless opinion pieces in Sudanese newspapers have denounced the move. Daily, people who support the president have protested outside embassies who support the ICC, calling the decision “racist” and “unfair”.

They say the ICC is holding Sudan to a higher standard than say, the US, which they see as also responsible for their actions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine. It sounds much like the anti-US sentiment I have heard in other parts of the Arab world. One man called those American actions genocide too - I’m not sure he understood what the word means. Sometimes, I think these people have been given lines to rehearse and say to the media, and the extent to which they understand and believe in what they are saying is questionable.

But that’s not to say there is nothing real about the anger over this decision. I think the biggest issue for people here is the perceived violation of sovereignty. I talked to one taxi driver who said he wasn’t a fan of Bashir, “but even if the devil was our president, no one would approve of this ICC decision” because Sudan is a sovereign country and “we should be the ones to remove him.”

Photo courtesy of Flickr user openDemocracy under a Creative Commons license.

The International Criminal Court began its first trial in The Hague.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) was established in 2002 to prosecute serious war crimes and is now holding its first trial.

Congolese militia leader Thomas Lubanga is accused of “enlisting children under the age of 15″ to fight in the Congolese civil war. He has has pled not guilty. 

Read more of our coverage of the crisis in Congo. 

Blogger “Jonathan Fryer” calls the trial “historic,” hoping it puts pressure on world leaders like President Barack Obama to join the ICC, which was shunned by the Bush administration. 

The “Static and Me” blog calls the trial “momentous,” since Lubanga would not have been prosecuted in Congo. 

Blogger “Dennis Doyle” explains why the trial was delayed, writing that the decision to stay the trial reflects the court’s integrity. 

“The Essayist” blog writes that while Lubanga’s trial offers some hope for justice, other war criminals will no doubt replace him. 

Blogger “Matthew Tostevin” notes that all of the ICC’s arrest warrants have been for Africans, wondering if the court is targeting the continent disproportionately. 

The “Things Seen and Heard” blog explores the same question, concluding that in many cases it was the African governments that requested the ICC’s help.

Below, watch a video from The Hub featuring Bukeni Tete Waruzi, a native of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, and his response to the trial:

For more on U.S. opposition to the ICC, see PBS Wide Angle’s interview with Ambassador Pierre-Richard Prosper of the Office of War Crimes Issues.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Michplay under a Creative Commons license.