July 20, 2008
Al-Bashir Arrest Warrant Sought. The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court formally requested an arrest warrant for Sudan’s President Omar Al-Bashir July 14, accusing him of masterminding and implementing a plan to wipe out three African tribes in Darfur with a campaign of mass murder, rape, torture and genocide. Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo presented a three-judge panel in The Hague with evidence he has amassed to support 10 charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes against Al- Bashir, who, if the indictment proceeds, will become the first head of state to face charges before the ICC while in office.
“Al-Bashir specifically and purposefully targeted civilians, who were not participants to any conflict, with the intent to destroy them as a group,” the prosecutor said. “Almost the entire population of the three targeted tribes have been forcibly displaced.” The judges who received the case are expected to spend two months reviewing the evidence before deciding whether to charge Al- Bashir and issue an international warrant for his arrest.
Moreno-Ocampo’s report describes in detail how Al-Bashir’s forces operate. “The armed forces would arrive in trucks and land cruisers mounted with a machine gun, and the militia/Janjaweed would arrive on camels and horseback,” the arrest warrant application says. “These forces would then surround the village and, on occasion, the air force would be called upon to drop bombs on the village as a precursor to the attacks. The ground forces would then enter the village or town and attack civilian inhabitants. They kill men, children, elderly women; they subject women and girls to massive rapes. They burn and loot the villages.” He said Sudan’s strategy in Darfur goes beyond simply killing people and driving them from their homes, but seeks to destroy their very means of survival. (National Post [Canada], July 14, 2008)
Al-Bashir Appoints Salva Kiir Head of Crisis Committee. President Omar Al- Bashir has appointed a high level committee, headed by his first deputy, Salva Kiir Mayardit, to develop a road map against the accusations of genocide by the ICC. The crisis committee has to undertake diplomatic and legal actions to counter the charges against Al-Bashir. According to the presidential decree, the panel has to coordinate its efforts with the African Union, the Arab League and Movement of Non- Aligned Countries in this regard. The committee has to study the legal aspects of charges levelled by the ICC and find a compromise with the international community to avoid negative effects on the signed peace accords. The nine member committee, which consists of people from the different parts of the country, including Darfur, held a meeting to discuss a diplomatic plan of action and to tackle the legal aspect of the charges. (Sudan Tribune, July 16, 2008)
ICC Action Protested in Sudan. Sudan slammed the ICC’s call to arrest President Omar Al-Bashir as damaging to peace efforts in the country but vowed to continue co-operation with the UN. Al-Bashir said the ICC had no jurisdiction in Sudan and added that its charges were lies. “Whoever has visited Darfur, met officials and discovered their ethnicities and tribes … will know that all of these things (including ethnic cleansing) are lies,” Al-Bashir was speaking ahead of the signing of Sudan’s new election law, expected to pave the way for Sudan’s first free polls in 23 years, due in 2009. Vice President Ali Osman Taha said that Khartoum was in contact with the permanent members of the UN Security Council. The council has the power to intervene to defer any prosecution for a year. “We are not yet finally agreed but we are engaged in discussions with the different members, especially China and Russia,” Taha told a news conference. “We can’t go along with implementing the CPA or other agreements with a president that is subject to international trial,” he added, in reference to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the 2005 deal that ended two decades of civil war in the south. (Agence France-Presse [Sudan.Net], July 14, 2008)
Sudan Restores Relations with Chad. President Omar Al- Bashir has agreed to restore diplomatic ties with neighbouring Chad, broken off in May after a rebel attack on the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. Chad and Sudan have accused each other repeatedly of supporting rebellions in their respective territories since conflict began in Sudan’s Darfur region in 2003. Senegal has brokered a peace deal between the two governments at an Organization of the Islamic Conference summit, although the deal has done little to smooth tense relations between Chad and Sudan or violence on their common border. The group discussed plans to deploy a peace and security force on the Chad-Sudan border and approved a $30.6 million budget. It said technical experts would meet in the second half of August to discuss the logistics and mandate of the force. Senegalese President, Abdoulaye Wade, has taken a lead role in mediating. (Reuters, July 18, 2008)
Bush Threatens Sudan with More Sanctions. President George Bush threatened the Sudanese government with more sanctions if it does not facilitate the deployment of peacekeepers and flow of aid in Darfur. “We’re trying to work with Al-Bashir to make sure he understands that there will be continued sanctions if he doesn’t move forward” Bush told reporters at a press conference in the White House. Bush said that the US wants to maintain a North South peace agreement and see full deployment of the long due African Union–United Nations troops in Darfur. He also voiced frustration with the slow peacekeepers deployment. “The question is, will the government help expedite the delivery of humanitarian aid?” Bush met privately with his special envoy to Sudan, Richard Williamson, for the first time since Williamson returned from Khartoum last month. (Sudan Tribune, July 15, 2008)
Opinion: Peace Before Justice in Darfur. Human rights activists say an indictment of Sudanese President Omar al Bashir by the ICC is a moral necessity. It will assert a legal principle of universal values in the face of mass atrocities, even if the court can’t bring him to trial. A threat of arrest and trial may even be a way to revive a stalled peace process. Others, who seek a negotiated peace with Sudan to save Darfur refugees, say pursuit of court justice with slim ability to act on it will only harden Sudan’s position. It may push Sudan to retaliate with more violence.
These reactions to the ICC’s move point to a problem for a permanent global war-crimes court: It has no independent “hard power” of enforcement. The 106 nations behind its creation are obligated to turn over indicted suspects to the Hague-based tribunal. But if Al-Bashir doesn’t travel, he’s safe. The US hasn’t joined the ICC. But without the added might of the US to pressure or snag the world’s worst criminals, the ICC might end up being a paper tiger.
The human-rights community has failed to create a broad-based backing for many of its causes, including the ICC – the kind that would bring overwhelming support among Americans and others to act boldly against genocide and other major crimes. Sometimes justice must be set aside or traded for peace. The UN Security Council has been unwilling to enforce peace in Darfur. But it does have the ability to suspend the ICC prosecution of Bashir. It should consider such an action if it might bring a negotiated settlement. Peace needs to come first. The time for justice will be more ripe, and enforceable, later. (Christian Science Monitor, July 16, 2008)
Opinion: Sudan Can Opt for Peace or Saber Rattling. A spokesman for the International Crisis Group said, “Our concern is that the regime will have to decide how it wants to react. It may decide to lash out at the international community and further destabilize the situation in Sudan and make life difficult for the UN missions, the NGO’s and the humanitarian agencies. But it may also decide its best option is to move toward peace, that its options are diminishing, and that it should demonstrate good faith if it wants to have the prosecution put on hold,” he says. The Khartoum government must decide what’s in its best interests, he said. “The regime always has a kind of calculating approach to its interests. To date, it’s decided it’s not in its interest to do peace in Darfur. But this may provide leverage that persuades it that that’s no longer the case,” (Voice of America, July 15, 2008)
“But I will sing of your strength, in the morning I will sing of your love; for you are my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble.” Psalm 59:16 (NIV)
Thank you for praying MORE for Darfur than ever before.
