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Cambodian Extraordinary Chambers (ECCC)

Official Website of the Extraordinary Chambers
Official Website of the Khmer Rouge Trial Task Force
Official Website of the United Nations Assistance to the Khmer Rouge Trials (UNAKRT)

Khmer Rouge trial bogs down in politics
Asia Times
By Bertil Lintner
February 9, 2007

PHNOM PENH - Everything appears set for Cambodia's trial of the century. A huge building attached to the country's army headquarters on the outskirts of the capital has been turned into a courthouse. Behind it, a temporary detention facility is being built to house the suspects once they have been apprehended and brought to trial.

Cambodian as well as United Nations-appointed international prosecutors, defenders and judges are at the ready to take their

positions on the court's benches. The day of reckoning is finally here for the leadership of the Khmer Rouge, which ruled Cambodia from April 1975 to January 1979, during which an estimated 2 million to 3 million people died from government-ordered executions, starvation and disease.

Or is it? Last November, legal experts from the UN submitted an 81-page document titled "Draft Internal Rules" for "the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia". It has yet to be approved by the Cambodian side and, if an agreement has not been reached by the end of April, the international judges will consider asking the UN to withdraw from the tribunal, the French investigating judge, Marcel Lemonde, told Asia Times Online in an exclusive interview.

While people on the international side are emphasizing "the extraordinary chambers" part of the tribunal's charge and insisting on international standards, their Cambodian counterparts view the trial more through the sovereign lens of the "Courts of Cambodia". "We are not speaking the same language in many different ways," said Lemonde. The result may be that the accused leaders of the Khmer Rouge go unpunished for their crimes against humanity.

That would no doubt please China, the Khmer Rouge's main international supporter during the Indochina war as well as during its four years in power. After the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in December 1978 and January 1979, Chinese support helped the Khmer Rouge hold the line against Vietnamese troops from bases along the Thai border.

The latest problems for the trial began last November, when the Cambodian Bar Association (CBA) forbade local lawyers to attend a training program planned by the London-based International Bar Association (IBA), and threatened to cancel the program unless it solely selected the program's participants and speakers. "The prohibition by the Cambodian bar is part of a wider scheme of opposition designed to obstruct the operation of the tribunal," the IBA said in a statement dated November 24. The IBA subsequently canceled the program.

The Cambodian bar, for its part, accused the international group of "encroaching on its sovereignty", arguing that under Cambodian law the local bar is the only body mandated to regulate the country's legal proceedings. The UN-sponsored international contingent argues that the CBA appears to have overlooked Article 2.2 in an agreement that senior minister Sok An and Hans Corell, UN undersecretary general for legal affairs, signed on June 6, 2003, which says: "The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, and in particular its Articles 26 and 27, applies to the agreement."

Article 27 states, "A party may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty." And besides, international law would have to apply. According to Robert Petit, the Canadian co-prosecutor, Cambodia's criminal law is "not complete and comprehensive, and sometimes contradictory".

Petit has relevant international experience, having previously served as a legal officer in the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, as regional legal adviser for the UN's mission to Kosovo, and as senior trial lawyer in the Office of the Prosecutor for the Special Court in Sierra Leone. His Cambodian counterpart, Chea Leang, comes from a totally different legal tradition: she and most of the Cambodian judges on the tribunal were educated in the former Eastern Bloc, including in East Germany, the Soviet Union and Vietnam.

Political complications

But it is not only a question of different backgrounds and widely diverging interpretations of the law. The situation in Cambodia has also changed quite dramatically since June 21, 1997, when Cambodia's then co-prime ministers, Prince Norodom Ranariddh and his bitter rival Hun Sen, agreed to send a joint letter to the UN asking for assistance "in bringing to justice those persons responsible for the genocide and crimes against humanity during the rule of the Khmer Rouge from 1975 to 1979".

The request was made after repeated demands from the international - mainly Western - donor community and the United Nations, which was then represented in Cambodia by Thomas Hammarberg, a former director of the London-based human-rights advocacy group Amnesty International. Only a few weeks later, Hun Sen ousted Ranariddh in a bloody coup d'etat and forced him into temporary exile. The Western donor community was not amused, and the United States and Germany suspended all non-humanitarian aid until a free and fair election was held. Japan, Cambodia's largest donor, said it would halt new projects.

China, which Hun Sen referred to as "the root of everything that was evil in Cambodia" in an essay he penned in 1988, nonetheless came to his government's rescue. Longtime Cambodia watcher Julio Jeldres notes that China was the first country to recognize the change of regime after the July 1997 coup, and in December of that year, Beijing delivered 116 military cargo trucks and 70 jeeps valued at US$2.8 million. In February 1999, Hun Sen paid an official visit to China and obtained $200 million in interest-free loans and $18.3 million in foreign-assistance guarantees.

Since then, China has emerged as a major donor to Cambodia and - unlike aid from the West - Chinese assistance comes with no strings attached for promoting democracy or good governance. China is also a major investor in Cambodia, mainly in the garment industry, but also in agriculture, mining, hotels and tourism. Cambodia's dependence on the West will most likely further diminish when newly found oil and gas reserves come onstream.

According to the World Bank, Cambodia's total energy reserves may be as high as 2 billion barrels of oil and 10 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, which could generate as much as $2 billion in income, or several times the current combined amount that the country generates in domestic revenues and receives in foreign aid. [1]

So why would Cambodia risk upsetting its budding and lucrative relations with China - and Beijing's support for the Khmer Rouge would almost certainly be highlighted if the tribunal were to proceed - at a time when the country's dependence on Western aid and goodwill are set to diminish?

There are also reasons closer to home for Cambodia to scupper the trial. Jesper Huor, a Swedish journalist whose Cambodian father was interned and most likely executed in Khmer Rouge's infamous Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh in 1977, points out that many in the present government actually belonged to the Khmer Rouge before they broke with their leaders and defected to Vietnam in the late 1970s.

That includes Prime Minister Hun Sen, though according to most sources, he was a low-ranking Khmer Rouge military commander and in a capacity not responsible for atrocities. But there are others in positions of prominence in Cambodia's currently ruling establishment who could be vulnerable and exposed during the trial, particularly if those accused began to talk or call in witnesses. Therefore, Huor argued, "Cambodia's government won't agree to a tribunal which they can't control." And, as Lemonde says, "The international judges are not prepared to participate in a show trial."

In other words, time is running out for the Khmer Rouge tribunal, and death rather than the law may ultimately catch up with the aging survivors of the genocidal regime. The top leaders of the Khmer Rouge who are still alive and who would be eligible to stand trial are all now in their 70s and 80s.

But as Trudy Jacobsen, an Australian academic, wrote in a recent issue of the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies' bulletin that a local Cambodian driver told her: "He didn't really care what happened at the tribunal, as he knew that the perpetrators would be reincarnated as beetles." In the end, as the trial bogs down in politics, that may be the best the survivors of the Khmer Rouge terror can hope for.

Nationalism is Obstacle to Justice for Former Cambodian Leader Nuon Chea
World Politics Watch
By Luke Hunt
February 13, 2007

HONG KONG -- As the ousted dictator Saddam Hussein swung miserably from the gallows there were no shortage of political leaders -- past and present, East and West -- who were willing to express their dismay or a touch of glee.

The political point scoring has abated since the December hanging. However, among the least noted to comment on the execution was a former Khmer Rouge leader, Nuon Chea, who defended the former Iraqi president and claimed "Saddam Hussein had a spirit of national love."

His comments were not surprising.

Like Saddam Hussein, Nuon Chea expects to face trial on charges of crimes against humanity, and while the allegations against Pol Pot's former number two are much grander, both men had a habit of cloaking their actions, like genocide, in nationalistic euphemisms.

It's a line that goes something like: "What was done was in the interest of all Iraqis, read Cambodians, and was necessary to rid Cambodia, read Iraq, of the evil outside forces that threaten our very existence."

But where the trial and execution of Saddam Hussein was as swift as it was cruel, the same cannot be said for Nuon Chea or the Cambodian people. Justice has evaded them since the Vietnamese ousted Pol Pot and his cohorts from power in January 1979.

Ironically, the chances of Nuon Chea, or any surviving Khmer Rouge leader, being put in the dock for the deaths of a third of Cambodia's population are wilting amid the very familiar sound of nationalistic rhetoric, only this time it's from those charged with dispensing justice.

Until recently, indictments against possibly 10 former Khmer Rouge leaders had been expected to be issued about now. The tribunal, known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, had expected to be underway by May.

That won't happen despite an agreement being struck with the United Nations and Cambodia in July, 2003, after six years of tortuous negotiations and the international community coughing-up $56 million to fund it.

Instead, a dangerous rift has emerged from behind a semblance of public cooperation between the Cambodian and international judges and lawyers.

It began last November when they failed to agree on about 100 basic rules needed to kick-start the trial, and the gulf is widening amid cultural and political differences, with two blocs being formed: foreign jurists on one side and the Cambodians on the other.

Initially, the Cambodian judges were accused of stonewalling their foreign counterparts amid undue political influence being exerted by elements in the government, which rights activists claim are trying to block the tribunal.

Then the International Bar Association abandoned a legal training program, meant to bring Cambodian lawyers up to speed with international law, after the Cambodian Bar Association boycotted the program and threatened to take measures against any member who participated.

The Cambodian Bar Association is now demanding greater control over the legal defense of former Khmer Rouge leaders and international lawyers have threatened to walk out of the country.

The Bar also insists it will not approve any foreign lawyer whose home country does not grant Cambodian attorneys reciprocal rights to practice law.

Given the reputation of Cambodia's legal system, it is highly unlikely that legal authorities in London, Paris or New York will grant that request.

Association president Ky Tech is also demanding Bar approval for the list of defense attorneys and has threatened to sue the tribunal -- alongside any government and foreign bar associations if their demands are not met.

The Bar has objected to the Defense Office and its principal defender, British lawyer Rupert Skilbeck. That position, according to the Bar, should also be filled by a Cambodian.

Then, in late January, the tribunal suffered another setback when foreign and Cambodian judges again failed to agree on the internal regulations. Expectations for a tribunal start date have been pushed back towards the end of this year.

Such regulations may sound mundane, but the court's members must adopt the rules so the court clearly meets international standards of justice and the selfish demands by Cambodian judges smack of nationalistic excuses.

This has escalated fears that other elderly regime figures like Nuon Chea, former head of state Khieu Samphan and ex-foreign minister Ieng Sary, who live freely in Cambodia, could die before being brought to justice.

Allegations include the deaths of up to two million people through starvation, overwork and from execution during the 1975-79 rule of the ultra-Maoists, which also abolished religion, property rights, currency and schools.

The belligerent, and steely eyed Nuon Chea has always argued, like Saddam Hussein, he only acted on behalf of all Cambodians and against the outside forces who sought to control them. This will be his defense.

"The people never used the word genocide. Only the invaders use the word genocide," Nuon Chea said during a more recent interview.

It is a well-worn argument that the Khmer Rouge have been unjustly maligned by foreigners. If the tribunal collapses and justice continues to evade Cambodians, then brace yourself, because the Cambodian Bar Association will trot out a similar defense for its failures, just like Pol Pot's most trusted lieutenant

Khmer Rouge Tribunal at Risk
Spiegel Online
February 15, 2007

A UN-supported special tribunal for the aging leaders of the Khmer Rouge may fail after all, if the prime minister gets his way. His complaint is foreign meddling.

It was meant to be the first international court for the crimes of communism, a kind of Nuremberg trial to punish the mass murderers of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. An estimated 1.7 million people died under his ideological reign of terror between 1975 and 1979, and now -- after years of negotiation with Prime Minister Hun Sen's government -- the victims would have recourse to an international, UN-supported tribunal. Its judges were sworn in seven months ago. But now the project looks set to fail.
Foreign judges and lawyers participating in the trials have said they will advise the UN to quit funding it if no one can agree on a framework for them by the end of April. The very fact that foreigners are participating -- mostly as defense counsel -- has irritated Hun Sen. He's backtracked on commitments to fund and support the trial more than once over the years, and now he says the UN-appointed legal team is a threat to Cambodia's sovereignty.

Hun Sen was once a junior-level soldier in Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge. He defected to help the Vietnamese topple the Maoist group and install a new Cambodian government, and in the meantime he's criticized many of Pol Pot's former deputies. The problem, though, is that the past isn't really over: Guerrilla factions of the Khmer Rouge were fighting late into the 1990s, and Hun Sen's ruling party, the CPP, is seen as a haven for some ex-Khmer leaders. Hun Sen played too small a role in the movement to fear retribution, but a number of his aging supporters could be hauled before the court.

The tribunal idea is popular in Cambodia: According to a poll by the Khmer Institute of Democracy in Phnom Penh, an NGO, 97 percent of Cambodians support trials to settle the ghosts of the Pol Pot era. The prime minister has said his country should "dig a hole and bury the past." But his delay tactics may not just be a function of his powerful friends. The Khmer Rouge had support from China, and current Chinese leaders have made it clear to their tiny neighbor that Beijing's role in the 1970s bloodbath shouldn't be revisited.

Khmer Rouge tribunal says kickback allegations unsubstantiated
Deutsche Presse-Agentur via Monsters and Critics
February 16, 2007

Phnom Penh - A spokesman for Cambodia's Khmer Rouge tribunal denied allegations Friday that judges were forced to pay kickbacks.

'The allegations are not true. They are totally unsubstantiated,' Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia press officer Reach Sambath said by telephone.

The New York-based Open Society Justice Initiative released a statement Thursday which said that the credibility of the court had been undermined by allegations that court personnel, including judges, must pay considerable kickbacks to Cambodian government officials in exchange for their positions on the tribunal.

The organization gave no details in its release about who had made the allegations or what evidence there was to support them.

Sambath said a routine external audit of the tribunal was underway. He denied it was related to the allegations and said the results were expected within two weeks.

The allegations threaten to further undermine the credibility of the 56-million dollar trials to try a handful of surviving former Khmer Rouge leaders, slated to get underway later this year.

Organizations including New York-based Human Rights Watch have accused the government, which still comprises a number of lower ranking former Khmer Rouge, of lacking the political will to hold the trials.

The Khmer Rouge's Democratic Kampuchea regime ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979, during which time up to 2 million Cambodians died.

Survivors of Khmer Rouge torture camp dying for justice
The Age
By Connie Levett
February 17, 2007

Vann Nath is a good witness, a rare survivor of Tuol Sleng, Cambodia's most notorious Khmer Rouge torture prison, and he is willing to reawaken the demons of his past at a genocide tribunal. The question is: will he survive long enough to do that?

The 60-year-old is fighting serious kidney disease with twice-weekly dialysis, while the 29 judges — 17 Cambodian and 12 international — of the genocide tribunal battle each other over the rules of engagement.

There is a threat of a walk-out by the international judges, amid allegations of Government interference and concerns about the independence of the Cambodian judges. Many senior Government officials, including Prime Minister Hun Sen, were mid-ranking Khmer Rouge officers.

At stake is justice for the more than 1.7 million Cambodians who died between 1975 and 1979 under the murderous Pol Pot regime.

"I have never forgotten what happened in Pol Pot's regime," says Vann Nath, a painter and writer. "They tortured me brutally, and not only me. People still remember. All people in Pol Pot's regime cannot forget."

Vann Nath is one of only seven survivors from the 17,000 prisoners sent to Tuol Sleng, Phnom Penh security prison 21 (S-21), the country's largest torture and detention centre. He was spared after prison commander Commodore Duch discovered his artistic talents and made him paint portraits of Pol Pot.

Of the seven camp survivors, three are still alive.

The aim of the genocide trial is to bring "senior leaders and those most responsible" to court. Pol Pot escaped justice when he died in 1988. Since 2003, when the tribunal was agreed to in principle, two more senior leaders, Ta Mok and Son Sen, have died. Duch is the only senior Khmer Rouge figure in jail awaiting trial.

"There is tremendous pressure, unbelievable pressure. A number of the potential defendants have died, a number of the potential witnesses have died," says Dr Helen Jarvis, head of public affairs at the tribunal, which goes by the unwieldy title of the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia.

"On a larger scale, many Cambodians who hoped to see justice in their lifetime didn't make it. The pressure is immense but I don't think we in the courts can make up for 30 years of lost time.

"It would be foolish to establish the court on an unsound basis, since we have to have a good legal structure."

For Vann Nath, the trial matters for two reasons: "If they don't bring them to court (the Khmer Rouge) won't know what they did (was wrong). We need them to be responsible for what they did.

"If we don't do it, the young generation will not know what is wrong and what is right."
About half of Cambodia's 14 million population is under 18, born almost a generation after the event.

At the court this week when a group of 200 Cambodian law students met French tribunal judge Marcel Lemonde, they sought assurances that the trial would go ahead. All have family members who were victims of the brutal regime.

Law student Nhean Raksmay, 22, says the tribunal is needed to ensure the genocide never happens again. "Twenty-eight years ago, Cambodia went through war and fear and now we are living in peace," he says. "We have modern equipment, modern education and we can travel wherever we want.

"I hope Cambodians are walking in the right direction and will be recognised internationally. "

How Cambodian justice is perceived internationally will depend on the outcome of the tussle on the internal regulations that govern the tribunal. Two sources of tension are the independence of the judges and the role of foreign prosecutors.

The judges were sworn in in July 2006. With the present delay, it is unlikely hearings will begin before 2008, according to Judge Lemonde. "There is one point on which the international judges are unanimous — these trials should take (place) quickly or not at all," he told Agence France Presse recently.

In the West, questions are being raised about how free and fair the genocide tribunal can be when 19 local judges have been appointed by Cambodia's thuggish Prime Minister and former Khmer Rouge soldier Hun Sen. There are also questions about China's role in delaying the trial, analysts say, because it does not want its role as a backer of the Khmer Rouge re-examined.

What you hear less of in the West is the ambiguous role of the UN. Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia which has chronicled the genocide, says the Cambodian people have reservations about both sides of the tribunal and the UN's need to document its own role.

"The conflict is that both sides are associated with the Khmer Rouge," he says.
There is no sunset clause on the tribunal but it has funding for only three years. Seven months into the process, they are still wrangling over the rules of engagement. For Vann Nath, time is precious. His life-saving dialysis costs $1275 a month, but he receives no support from the Cambodian Government. A Swedish non-government organisation gives him some financial help.

After 28 years, he still has the bad dreams. But he also has a wife, three children and two grandchildren who bring him great joy. "Sometimes when I talk about the regime I will dream again, then I cannot sleep and if I sleep I dream."

Yet, despite the nightmares, Vann Nath wants his day in court to talk about the Pol Pot regime one more time.

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Democratic Republic of the Congo (ICC)

Official Website of the International Criminal Court
ICC Public Documents - Situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

UN Mission Steps Up Probe in Wake of Recent Deadly Violence
UN News Service
February 8, 2007

The United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is stepping up its investigation of the situation in the country's far west, where violent clashes last week led to the deaths of more than 130 people.

Human rights officers working with the multi-disciplinary teams dispatched to Bas-Congo province by the Mission, known as MONUC, will now survey the residents of four of the towns hit hardest by the fighting, UN spokesperson Michele Montas told journalists in New York.

MONUC said that 134 people were killed, higher than previous estimates, in the clashes between Congolese security services and members of the Bunda dia Kongo religious movment. Those clashes followed disputes over closely contested local elections in Bas-Congo.

An appeals court in Bas-Congo has called on the DRC's Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) to organize a second round of polls for the positions of governor and vice governor of the province.

MONUC has already increased its police presence in Bas-Congo, especially in the provincial capital, Matadi, and the coastal town of Muanda, which were the scene of some of the worst violence.

Yesterday, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council both issued statements deploring the violence and calling on the newly formed national Government to work with the opposition to bring the perpetrators to justice and to resolve the underlying tensions.

Meanwhile, in the far east of the DRC, MONUC has flown a team from the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) to South Kivu province to assess conditions there.

The Mission has deployed a mobile operations unit to South Kivu, which has been beset by unrest even since the formal end of the country's civil war in 1999, to help maintain public order.

Rwandan Rebels in DRC Army
AllAfrica.com - The New Times (Kigali)
By James Munyaneza
February 10, 2007

The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) recruited in its military ranks members of Interahamwe militia from rebel outfit, the Forces for the Democratic Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), it has emerged. Sources in the eastern Congo as well as officials from the Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD) claim that a number of the Rwandan rebels had also been issued with Congolese national Identity Cards.

An RCD official, Muhire Ruti, was quoted by the BBC Tuesday as saying that some Interahamwe rebels had acquired the Identity Cards.

When contacted for comment, Rwandan Foreign Affairs and Cooperation Minister Dr Charles Murigande denied knowledge of the rebels' acquisition of the Congolese IDs. "I don't know if it is true," he said by telephone on Wednesday.

He also said he was unaware whether Kabila's government still supports Interahamwe/FDLR rebels. Majority of the militias are blamed for the 1994 Rwanda Genocide during which about one million ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred by members of extremist Hutus.

However, the Special Presidential Envoy to the Great Lakes Region, Ambassador Richard Sezibera, confirmed to The New Times on Wednesday that there are indeed reports about the existence of FDLR members in FARDC (Congolese armed forces). "We have had reports about the presence of Interahamwe in FARDC but we are working with the Congo government to address the issue," he said, adding that Kinshasa is cooperative over the matter.

He said that the matter would be handled through the existing joint verification mechanism between the two countries. "Now that there is an elected government in Congo, we hope our two teams will sort out the matter. That is an issue that has been addressed bilaterally."

Ex-DRC rebels excluded

Both Murigande and Sezibera were however, cagey when asked for comment on the set-up of the new Congolese Cabinet.

The RCD and the Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC), both former rebel movements fighting against President Joseph Kabila's government, received no ministerial positions in the new Cabinet announced early this week.

"There is a legitimate government which has legitimacy to govern Congo the way it promised (its electorate)," said Murigande and added: "I don't think we (Rwanda) have a right to comment on an elected government."

When asked the same question, Sezibera said: "We have no comment on the formation of the government in DRC. We welcome the new government; we will work with them on issues of mutual benefit."

Both the leaders of RCD and MLC, Azarius Ruberwa and Jean Pierre Bemba, respectively, lost to President Kabila during last year's multiparty elections, the first in four decades in the vast country. They were both vice presidents during the transitional government set up under a 2002 peace deal. Kabila named 81-year old Antoine Gizenga as the country's new prime minister after the latter backed Kabila's presidential bid during last October's run-off against Bemba.

Gizenga was a deputy prime minister in the government of the country's first post-independence leader, Patrice Lumumba.

The 60-member Cabinet also includes Nzanga Mobutu, son of former dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, who was toppled by Kabila's father, Laurent Kabila Nzanga Mobutu, who also supported Kabila after the former lost his presidential bid in the first election round, is the Agriculture minister and number two to Gizenga in protocol. Congo talks Meanwhile, under a Rwandan brokered deal, the DRC is in the process of integrating the fighters of dissident General Laurent Nkunda into the national army. "They are talking and they agreed on several issues. We are happy with it," Sezibera said yesterday.

Murigande said Rwanda is currently not directly involved in the talks but added that it would assist if called upon. "Rwanda facilitated and the rest is between the two parties unless they come back for mediation."

Meanwhile, violence broke out last week in the eastern DRC between rival Banyamulenge officers, leaving several people dead and others displaced.

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Darfur, Sudan (ICC)

Official Website of the International Criminal Court
ICC Public Documents - Situation in Darfur, Sudan

Darfur rebel group says accepts ceasefire, talks
Reuters via The Washington Post
By Opheera McDoom and Aziz el-Kaissouni
February 15, 2007

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - One of the biggest Darfur rebel factions said on Thursday it would respect a ceasefire and was ready to resume peace talks with the government to try to halt violence in the region that has killed some 200,000 people.

Peace talks have faltered in the past, and only one of three main rebel factions signed a 2006 deal. Since then the rebels have fragmented into numerous factions, but the group which has agreed to the ceasefire is one of the largest.

"We will respect the ... ceasefire and ... once we have our commanders conference we will attend peace negotiations," rebel commander Jar el-Neby told Reuters.

U.N. Darfur envoy Jan Eliasson and his African Union counterpart Salim Ahmed Salim earlier met Darfur rebel commanders who rejected the 2006 deal.

The U.N. Security Council is expected to consult next week on proposals for a mission to protect civilians in eastern Chad, where attacks launched from Darfur have exacerbated ethnic conflicts and displaced tens of thousands.

At a French-African summit in the southern French resort Cannes on Thursday, Sudan, Chad and Central African Republic agreed not to support rebels attacking each other's territory, Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol said.

"There is a commitment in this agreement that each country will respect the sovereignty of the other countries and no country will support any rebellion within its territory,"" Akol told reporters after the meeting.

POSITIONS SOFTENED

The Darfur rebels have in the past said they want the 2006 agreement to be scrapped but the government has refused to allow any changes or additions to the accord.

Eliasson told a news conference that those extreme positions seemed to have softened during their talks, and "that leaves diplomatic space."

Rebels have in the past rejected AU mediation in any new talks on the ground that the first peace deal, which the pan-African body mediated, was biased.

"We will now be happy with mediation from the United Nations and the AU," said Neby.
The joint team has not yet met the other large rebel faction, the National Redemption Front, whose political leadership is divided. Eliasson said the NRF had wanted to meet in Chad, but logistics prevented his team from traveling
there.

Divisions among Darfur's rebel factions have been a factor in delaying peace talks with Khartoum, and an oft-delayed conference to try to unite their positions is now due to start on February 19.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Thursday that he was awaiting a report from Eliasson and a reply from Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on a hybrid peacekeeping force of U.N. and African Union troops in Darfur.

"So again, this continuing deteriorating situation in Darfur is just unacceptable," Ban said.
Sudan has agreed to a hybrid force but has objected to more troops coming to Darfur than the 7,000-strong African Union force now on the ground.

The United States is putting pressure on African governments to offer troops for the hybrid force. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington, "We would say that it is your responsibility because of the nature of the situation to make those contributions."

Most of the AU soldiers now on the ground would be incorporated into a new mission the United Nations hoped would have some 17,000 troops. But until plans are settled, few other countries, except for Bangladesh, have volunteered to send soldiers or logistic personnel Western nations are to provide.

Ban also said he was disappointed Sudan had broken its promise to allow a U.N. human rights mission into Darfur. He urged Sudan to cooperate fully, adding that if Bashir "believes that there is no problem, then he should be able to receive the human rights fact-finding mission."

Experts estimate 2.5 million people have been driven from their homes in four years of conflict in Darfur. Washington calls the violence genocide, a term European governments are reluctant to use and Khartoum rejects.

(Additional reporting by Evelyn Leopold at the United Nations, and Sue Pleming in Washington)

Unable to visit Darfur, UN Human Rights Council fact-finding team heads to Chad
UN News Service
February 15, 2007

After a planned visit to Darfur fell through because of visa problems, the United Nations Human Rights Council’s fact-finding mission on the situation inside the strife-torn region of Sudan has travelled to neighbouring Chad to interview refugees who have fled the war-torn region.

The high-level, five-member team intends to complete its work on the ground by next week, UN spokesperson Marie Okabe said today, in response to press questions at UN Headquarters in New York.

The mission is not going to Sudan as planned because of continued uncertainty over whether members could obtain visas for that country.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today he was disappointed the team could not get into Sudan, and had raised the issue with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir when they met last month on the sidelines of the African Union (AU) summit in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

“He said he would issues visas to the fact-finding mission,” Mr. Ban said. “He said he would have no problem. I am very much disappointed by the decision of the Sudanese Government. I urge again that the Sudanese Government fully cooperates with the unanimous decision of the Human Rights Council.”

The mission, which is headed by Jody Williams, who won the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for her work campaigning against landmines, is expected to present its report on the trip in time for the Council’s fourth regular session next month.

The Council established the mission in December to probe the human rights situation in Darfur, which has been beset by countless instances of abuses, among them mass rape, abduction and forced relocation, since fighting broke out between Government forces, allied militias and rebel groups in 2003.

More than 200,000 people have been killed and 2 million others displaced from their homes, and an estimated 4 million people now depend on aid to survive. Last month Mr. Ban called the situation “the largest humanitarian crisis in the world.”

Since the mission began its work in Geneva on 5 February, it has held dozens of meetings and interviews with human rights specialists, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), community representatives, UN staff members, AU officials and others.

Aside from Ms. Williams, the other members of the mission are: Mart Nutt, an Estonian parliamentarian and member of the Council of Europe’s European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance; Bertrand Ramcharan, the former Acting and Deputy UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; Patrice Tonda, Gabon’s Permanent Representative to the International Organizations in Geneva; and Indonesian Ambassador Makarim Wibisono, President of the 61st session of the Commission on Human Rights. The members are serving in their personal capacity.

France wins agreement in Darfur crisis
Associated Press via Mercury News
by John Leicester
February 15, 2007

CANNES, France - Looking to end the crisis in Darfur, France won agreement on Thursday from three involved African nations that they would not support armed rebel movements on each other's territories.

Sudan, Chad and Central African Republic made the commitment in a declaration signed Thursday night, on the sidelines of an African summit that France hosted in the Riviera city of Cannes.

There were still no signs that Sudan was any closer to agreeing to a key international demand: that it accept the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur, its western region where fighting has killed more than 200,000 people since 2003.

However, French President Jacques Chirac's spokesman hailed the African nations' pledge and their call for continued United Nations and African Union involvement as an indication that they don't want the crisis to worsen.

"We hope that all those who took part in this meeting did so because they don't want the status quo to establish itself," said the spokesman, Jerome Bonnafont.
France and other powers fear the Darfur violence is spilling over and could engulf the entire region. Tensions have mounted as Sudan, Chad and Central African Republic accused one another of supporting each other's rebels.

The mere fact that presidents Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, Idriss Deby of Chad and Francois Bozize of Central African Republic met was in itself seen as noteworthy.
"There is clear suspicion between the three countries and a clear willingness from African countries, in particular the African Union, and the international community to dispel it," said Bonnafont.

Whether their pledge would have real significance was open to question. Deby and al-Bashir signed a similar agreement a year ago to normalize diplomatic relations and deny refuge to each other's rebel groups.
Chad has accused Sudan of backing rebels in the country. Central African Republic also has alleged that Sudan supported a rebellion there. Sudan denied both charges and has accused Chad of backing rebels in Darfur.

More than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million have fled their homes since 2003, when Darfur tribes took up arms against the Sudanese government, accusing it of long neglect and discrimination. The Arab-dominated government responded with a military offensive in which the janjaweed militia have committed widespread atrocities. The U.S. government has described the violence as genocide.

A 7,000-strong African Union peacekeeping force has been trying to quell the ongoing violence, but the force is underfunded and ill-equipped. Al-Bashir rejected a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for 22,000 U.N. peacekeepers to replace the AU force in Darfur. But he also has sent mixed signals about a joint U.N.-AU force.

The United Nation and African Union envoys to Darfur said on Thursday that they were "encouraged" about prospects for peace in the country's troubled region after two days of talks with factions in Sudan.

The two - U.N.'s special envoy tasked with re-energizing the Darfur peace process, Jan Eliasson, and AU's Salim Ahmed Salim - have been in Sudan this week for meetings with Khartoum officials, rebel leaders and stops in Darfur.

"We are encouraged by the initial reaction of everyone we have met on this issue of reduction of the escalation of violence" in Darfur, Salim told reporters.

At the United Nations in New York, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed disappointment that Sudan's president reneged on a promise to allow a U.N. human rights team to visit Darfur to assess alleged atrocities.

Ban said that during a meeting with al-Bashir last month, "he said he would issue visas to the fact-finding mission."

The 14-member mission has been stuck in Addis Ababa because Khartoum has failed to give them visas.

"I am very much disappointed by the decision of the Sudanese government," Ban said. "I urge again that the Sudanese government fully cooperates with the unanimous decision of the Human Rights Council" to send a fact-finding team to Darfur.

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Uganda (ICC)

Official Website of the International Criminal Court
ICC Public Documents - Situation in Uganda

LRA gets ready for war
The Monitor
by Paul harera Sebikali & Rodney Muhumuza
February 6, 2007

A PREMATURE end to the Juba talks appears inevitable after the LRA's second-in-command said the rebel outfit was resolute in its rejection of the South Sudan capital as a venue for the talks.

Vincent Otti yesterday dismissed the Uganda Government's insistence on Juba and warned: "If [President] Museveni does not want to shift to anywhere out of Sudan, then that is the end of the peace talks. We need somewhere else. If they reject, we can go back to war."

Otti's terse warning was also in response to Kenya's refusal, on Sunday, to host the peace negotiations between the LRA and the Uganda government, saying it did not want the talks delayed by distractions of "venue or forum shopping".

The Ugandan rebels, who have been fighting for two decades, had said they would not return to talks in south Sudan's capital Juba and suggested Kenya or South Africa as alternative venues after Sudan's president vowed "to get rid of the LRA from Sudan".

Mr Otti's remarks, delivered in response to Mr Museveni's condemnation of the rebel's demand for a new venue and mediator, could lead to a resumption of fighting and bring to an end a landmark cessation of hostilities agreement signed in August 2006.

Mr Museveni told a local radio station in Gulu on Saturday that he was considering Plan B against the rebels. "I hope the LRA will listen to advice from leaders of Acholi sub region and be serious with the talks. If they don't, we will have to first liaise with the Government of South Sudan, DR Congo and the UN Secretary General to work out on their arrests," Mr Museveni said.

"They will be arrested wherever they go, whether in Garamba, Central African Republic or any other country…I met with UN general secretary Ban Ki-moon in Ethiopia recently and we discussed this Kony issue."

It appears even the LRA's external advisors, on whom the indicted field commanders are increasingly depending for strategic guidance, are lost over the way forward. A London-based former LRA operative, who is consulted by the LRA, said he was aware that no other African government is willing to host the talks. "All governments have refused to host the LRA," he said on condition of anonymity. "The advice I give them is that they resolve the outstanding issues from Juba…but the LRA needs a guarantor for the talks."

The LRA delegation to Juba rejected the peace talks mediator, South Sudan Vice-President Riek Machar, whom they accused of having a soft spot for the Ugandan government. Arguing that Dr Machar was not to be trusted and that South Sudan was no longer safe for the rebels, the LRA has been lobbying the Kenyan Government to host the talks. Its request has, however, been turned down, a statement from the Kenyan foreign ministry said on Sunday.

Although the rebels had proposed Johannesburg as another possibility, it was still unclear if any other venue was being considered. Dr Machar told Daily Monitor yesterday that he was not giving up yet. "We are asking the LRA to return to Juba. It is the only way to ensure meaningful talks. All the other areas [as venue], I think, would not be a good idea for them," he said by phone. "It would be unfortunate of them to talk of war."

According to a letter the rebels sent UN Special Envoy for Northern Uganda Joachim Chissano, a copy of which Daily Monitor has seen, the rebels predicted the talks would collapse unless Dr Machar resigns as mediator. "They [talks] will collapse if Dr Riek Machar is to continue as a chief mediator because he is not [a] neutral player," the December 18, 2006 letter said.

After his visit to Uganda in late January, Mr Chissano told reporters in Maputo that the peace process does not have a future unless President Museveni's government agrees to change the venue of the talks. Chissano negotiated peace with the LRA-like RENAMO which had brought untold suffering to his people for years.

According to Dr Machar, the peace process is still on because there are "diplomatic negotiations" to resolve some outstanding issues from last year. "[That] UPDF in South Sudan withdraw out of Sudan if they [|LRA] are to remain in the East [Equatoria province] is under discussion," Dr Machar said.

The cessation of hostilities agreement required all the rebels to assemble at two South Sudan areas - Ri-Kwangba in Western Equatoria and Owiny-Ki-Bul in Eastern Equatoria. Truce observers later reported that some LRA rebels had reported to Owiny-Ki-Bul only to disappear after UPDF soldiers allegedly camped dangerously close.

Daily Monitor reported yesterday that hundreds of LRA soldiers were leaving their Congo and South Sudan bases for the Central African Republic, a claim yet to be confirmed by the LRA's leadership. Otti has said the LRA leaders, who were indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), will not leave their hideouts unless the warrants of arrest for them are rescinded, a demand that was rejected by the government.

"If they don't want peace, why should we now withdraw the ICC indictments? We would have worked for the ICC withdrawals if they were serious for peace," Mr Museveni said on Saturday.

"If they (LRA) want us to leave southern Sudan, they should work for peace. If they bring peace, we shall leave south Sudan. Talk by Otti that our presence in South Sudan is threat to peace talks is nonsense. Our presence there is hope for peace in northern Uganda."

ICC holds workshop with stakeholders from Uganda’s Teso Region
ICC via ReliefWeb
February 7, 2007

Soroti, Uganda, 7 February 2007 - Over 40 participants representing civil society organisations, local councils, the judiciary and security organs have agreed to promote greater understanding of the International Criminal Court in their respective groups. This was decided at a one-day informative workshop attended by participants from Uganda's Teso region districts of Amuria, Katakwi and Soroti held on 7 February in Soroti town, Soroti district.

The workshop, organised by the Registry, was held to broaden the understanding of the Court and bolster existing outreach networks.

Officials from the Registry responded to concerns expressed by participants and distributed information on how victims could take part in the Court's proceedings.
Collaborative arrangements and mechanisms of information sharing were established as a result of this meeting. Recommendations to use existing civil society networks to increase access to ICC materials at the grassroots levels were made by the participants. They also recommended the promotion of victims' applications through the internet as a means of increasing confidence and improving stakeholder involvement in Court proceedings.

For further information, please contact Mr. Charles-Martin Jjuuko, Field Public Information and Outreach Coordinator for Uganda, Telephone: +256-77-2261879, Email: Charles.Jjuuko@icc-cpi.int

German minister defends ICC
New Vision
By Carol Natukunda
February 8, 2007

THE stalling of peace talks in Juba should not be blamed on the International Criminal Court (ICC), former German minister of justice, Dr. Herta Daubler-Gmelin, has said.

“the ICC and peace talks are not contradictory. One has to be careful when apportioning blame. if peace talks are not going the right way, the international justice system can not be used as a scapegoat.”

Daubler-Gmelin added: “ICC is independent. It is not established for special situations, but for the present and the future. it is not limited to certain regions.”

She was responding to concerns raised by the Pader LC5 chief, Peter Odok W’ocheng and Lira Municipality MP James Akena at a meeting examining the challenges and opportunities posed by the international justice system to Uganda.

“The parties at the talks had agreed to reconcile. But when the ICC threatened to arrest Kony, the talks stalled. will the ICC protect our people when it has blocked our method of reconciliation? If Kony is arrested, won’t the conflict will be escalated by those still in the bush?” W’ocheng asked.

Akena added: “justice is when society reconciles with criminals. arresting rebels may create more deaths.”

But Daubler-Gmelin maintained that peace and justice were not separable and added that the judicial system followed its own rules.

The Director of Public Prosecutions, Richard Buteera, noted that the country’s judicial system could not work in isolation of the international system.

He also urged MPs to ensure that that the ICC Bill goes beyond tackling the LRA question.

The meeting at Hotel Africana, Kampala yesterday, was organised by the Uganda Law Society and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.

49 apply to testify against Kony
The Monitor
By Frank Nyakairu
February 15, 2007

THE International Criminal Court has so far received 49 applicants willing to testify against Joseph Kony, the indicted leader of the rebel Lords Resistance Army.
The applicants are all victims of the 20-year rebel insurgency that has ravaged northern Uganda, leaving thousands dead and over two million displaced.

Claudia Perdomo, the ICC outreach coordinator, told Daily Monitor by telephone from The Hague, Netherlands that the applications are currently under scrutiny. "The Registry has on the basis of confidentiality, received a total of 49 applicants as victims of the situation in northern Uganda willing to participate as witnesses in the trial of the suspects," Ms Perdomo said.

Kony (right) and his Lords Resistance Army rebel group have achieved notoriety for alleged mutilations of limbs, ears and lips, mass killings, abductions, rape among other accusations. He faces 33 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes. He, however, vehemently denies the allegations. The other co-accused are Vincent Otti, second in command, Dominic Ongwen, Okot Odhiambo and Raska Lukwiya (RIP).

According to ICC procedures, the applications have to first be approved by the ICC Chambers before they are declared witnesses. Unlike in the common law practice, the witnesses will not stand in the dock to give their testimonies. "We have a pool of 200 defence counsels from who these witnesses will choose a single lawyer to represent them in the court," said Ms Perdomo.

In the face of stalled peace talks between the rebels and the Uganda government, the ICC has gone ahead to prepare guidelines for the hearing process.
According to declassified documents on global court official site www.icc-cpi.int, the single Judge for the case, Mauro Politi and Office of Public Counsel for Victims held a mock hearing session on Monday.

This is meant to help the ICC, which is six years old, to find better ways of protecting the witness. At least 66,000 youth are thought to have been forcibly recruited into the LRA, according to the recently released World Development Report. This is more than double the usual estimate. Unicef has always put the number of children abducted at 25,000.

Peace talks

As the ICC pursues justice, efforts to revive the peace talks are unyielding. The latest move has been made by World Vision, a global charity organisation.
Later this week, World Vision plans to hold the second tele-conference in seven days between the government of Uganda and the LRA peace teams.

"We succeeded in bringing the two sides to talk last week. We hope to bring them together before this week ends, an additional voice to those who want the Juba peace talks to resume," World Vision Uganda communication and advocacy director Fortunate Sewankambo said.

Both parties, according to Ms Sewankambo, appreciated the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement, which was signed last year, saying they would not return to war. They also agreed to keep channels of communication open. The talks that started in July 2006 stalled five months later after the LRA refused to retun to Juba claiming the South Sudan government is not a credible mediator.

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International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)

Official Website of the ICTY

Can a Fast Trial Be a Fair Trial?
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
By Caroline Tosh
February 9, 2007

Defence and prosecution teams in case against Prlic and others claim rush to complete trials seriously affects fairness of proceedings.

The prosecution and defence in the trial of six former Bosnian Croat officials are protesting against strict time constraints imposed by tribunal judges, claiming pressure to meet deadlines imposed by the court’s completion strategy is being given priority over the fairness of proceedings.

The tribunal is due to close its doors in 2010, and all first-instance trials have to be finished by 2008.

The six Bosnian Croats, Jadranko Prlic, Bruno Stojic, Slobodan Praljak, Milivoj Petkovic, Valentin Coric and Berislav Pusic - senior political and military leaders of an unrecognised Croat entity known as “Herceg-Bosna” - face 26 counts of war crimes for the expulsion and murder of Muslims in Bosnia and Hercegovina during the Croatian-Muslim conflict in 1993.

Time restrictions have been a reoccurring feature of this trial since it began on April 26 2006, when presiding judge Jean-Claude Antonetti ordered the prosecution to cut its case to 400 hours from the 450 it requested.

Then on May 8, the judge ordered that for their cross examination of each witness, the defence teams would each have a sixth of the time used by the prosecution for its examination in chief - unless they reached an agreement among themselves to divide the time otherwise.

On November 13, despite vehement protests from both sides of the court, judges slashed the time allowed for the prosecution case by another 107 hours, to allow it to finish by the summer recess of July 2007 - a decision that also impinged on the defence.

The prosecution has appealed the ruling on November 30, saying it violated “the fundamental right of the victims, the prosecution and the international community to a fair trial”.

The defence counsels for Jadranko Prlic, Slobodan Praljak and Berislav Pusic supported the prosecution’s appeal, arguing the cuts were “dictated by the Security Council’s completion strategy”.

“It is not the function of the judges of the tribunal to concern themselves with, much less to implement, political decisions of the Security Council,” said their response.

Since the UN endorsed the tribunal's completion strategy in July 2002, judges have exercised greater control and have implemented reforms in order to speed through trials, and some observers argue that this is causing particular problems to the defence teams.

On September 30, 2003, former tribunal judge David Hunt spoke out against an appeals court decision in the case of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, in which he said the completion strategy had “been given priority over the rights of the accused”.

The decision, he said, could permit written evidence to be given instead of live testimony, which went to prove the acts of the accused, where the witness was called to court – a change which has since been incorporated into the tribunal’s rules.

Hunt argued that since the adversarial system of law practiced at the tribunal means statements are prepared by a party to the case - and not by a neutral judicial officer - there was a risk of the statement “placing the best gloss on the evidence which suits that party”.

Michael Karnavas, Prlic’s defence counsel and president of the Association of Defence Counsel, shares these concerns.

“They're turning more and more to the inquisitorial system of trying to introduce more statements instead of live testimony. In some instances, that might be fine, but in others, I don't think it's correct, because you're entitled to challenge the testimony of witnesses,” he said.

To give judges greater control when the nature of the system means they don’t have access to all the facts could create irreversible problems, he said.

“We’re not dealing with an inquisitorial system where the judges have a dossier containing the universal facts. Instead, we have an adversarial system where the prosecutor has no obligation to search for exculpatory evidence – but only to turn it over if they find it,” he said.

He says the decision to give each defendant in the Prlic trial just one-sixth of the time available to the prosecution to question each witness is irrational and unfair and means evidence is going unchallenged.

“It’s virtually impossible to have adequate time for cross examination of a major witness because you share it with five accused. The notion that the defence can be treated as one is unreasonable, because they all stand charged individually and not collectively,” he said.

He says that while he is impressed at the judges’ ability to manage the courtroom under difficult circumstances - and believes they are striving to find a balance between a fair and expeditious trial - he would prefer seeing a more flexible approach.

“They have to consider whether the areas that the lawyers wish to go into on cross examination are irrelevant or repetitive. If not, you should be entitled to go over it,” he said.

Bozidar Kovacic, defence lawyer of Prlic’s co-accused Slobodan Praljak, agrees.

“The judge should control the proceedings based on the relevance of the questions. There are six accused – if the second accused asks the same question, then he should be rejected,” said Kovacic.

He says the “absurd” practice of dividing up one block of time between six accused, each with his own defence strategy, is causing enormous strain, with lawyers forced to bargain for time.

“If you get more time with one witness, then the next time you’re obliged to give something in return. Everybody is keeping a record,” he said.

The pressure to be fast is creating a stressful atmosphere with lawyers reluctant to raise objections, he says.

“This is creating very strong pressure in the courtroom. Sometimes you have to intervene by all normal rules, but you’re limiting yourself,” he said.

Kovacic believes that if it comes down to a choice between a fast trial and a fair trial then the latter should take priority.

“For the defendants, it’s better to spend one year longer in the court, then life imprisonment after the judgment,” he said.

The defence lawyer, who previously represented former Bosnian Croat commander Mario Cerkez in 1999 to 2000, recently came across a transcript of his cross-examination of a witness in that case.

“I approached it step by step, and in the end, I got my answer. That’s unthinkable here. Now you go straight in and you get bitten,” he said.

Kovacic thinks the tribunal judges have a duty to resist external political pressure.

If the rush to complete trials continues, he says, there will have been an opportunity missed.

“One of the primary goals of the tribunal was to develop international criminal law - something that had not been done since Nuremberg - but the work of the tribunal is being influenced so much by the exit strategy that we will have bad results. That’s a pity, really,” he said.

But Goran Sluiter, a professor of international criminal law at the University of Amsterdam, disagrees.

"In general, judges at the tribunal have struck a fair balance between ensuring efficiency of proceedings and the rights of the accused," he said.

Sluiter sees no problem with allowing more use of written statements and testimony to increase efficiency, and argues that the admission of written evidence has actually become more restricted at the tribunal.

He cites the trial of smalltime Bosnian Serb politician Dusko Tadic in 1996 - which saw the admission of certain hearsay evidence allowed by the chamber - and says this would not be permitted now.

Sluiter also believes there is ample opportunity for the defence to challenge evidence.

"The right to cross-examine witnesses is adequately protected at the tribunal - far more than it is in certain civil law systems, such as The Netherlands," he said.

Margetic Conviction Sparks Media Ethics Debate
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
By Merdijana Sadovic
February 9, 2007

Journalists across the Balkans discuss professional issues raised by tribunal contempt case.

The case of a Croatian journalist found guilty of contempt of court has sparked a debate in the Balkans over how far journalists should go to make headlines and whether imprisoning those who cross the line is an attack on press freedom.

Tribunal judges last week found freelance journalist Domagoj Margeti? guilty of contempt of court for disclosing protected witness lists. He was sentenced to a prison term of three months and fined 10,000 Euro.

The tribunal has held contempt proceedings against 19 people so far, including witnesses, defence counsel and journalists.

However, Margetic is the first journalist to be sentenced to prison for violating the court’s rules which govern the protection of witnesses and confidential information.

Margetic was convicted of publishing a list with names of 48 protected witnesses who testified in the case of Bosnian Croat general Tihomir Blaskic on his personal website last summer.

In its judgment on February 7, the trial chamber described this as a “particularly egregious” contempt of court case. It said Margetic “did not only intentionally violate protective measures orders and interfere with witnesses, but did so with reckless disregard for [their] safety”.

When determining its sentence, the trial chamber said it took into account the personal and psychological consequences the disclosure had on the lives of at least three of the protected witnesses.

The judges dismissed the defence claims that Margetic was innocent because he only published names that had already been revealed by someone in the prosecutor’s office by “error and serious neglect”. The defence argued at the time Margetic published the list that it was no longer a confidential document.

The trial chamber noted that “the witness list was from the outset a confidential document and never lost its status as such”. They also added that the accused was well aware of that, because in the article accompanying this document which appeared on his website “he emphasised that he was publishing confidential information”.

Thus, they said, Margetic exposed the protected witnesses to threats, intimidation and possible injury, interfered with the witnesses and dissuaded them from further cooperation with the tribunal.

Explaining their decision, the judges said, “Journalists are free to report and comment on all proceedings before the tribunal, including the testimony of witnesses. However, they are under an obligation to respect the tribunal's orders and protective measures granted to witnesses.”

While some observers in the Balkans consider Margetic’s sentence too harsh, others agree it could send an important message to the local journalists covering war crimes trials at the tribunal and in national courts and may even prevent them from revealing confidential documents and information in the future.

The Margetic case also highlighted issues such as freedom of the press and the responsibility of journalists in transitional democracies to adhere to the ethics of their profession, especially when it comes to particularly sensitive issues, such as confidential information related to war crimes trials.

As IWPR found out, a dilemma between professional ethics and the opportunity to publish exclusive information is not always an easy one.

Editor of Sarajevo-based weekly Dani Senad Pecanin says he would never reveal the names of protected witnesses at a war crimes trial - even if he would get hold of such information - because he would be concerned how that might affect their lives.

“There is a great possibility that revealing names of protected witnesses would put them in real danger. And not just them, but their families, too,” he said.

However, he adds that if he found out a protected witness was a head of state, prime minister or some other high-ranking official, he would be really tempted to publish such information. He says that “unlike ordinary citizens, these people have at their disposal a whole protection mechanism provided by the state during and even after their mandate”.

But Pecanin admits that even in such a case, he would be concerned about the message this act would send to other protected witnesses.

“They could say: if the court was not able to protect the identity of a head of a state, how on earth is it going to protect me,” continued Pecanin. “To the horror of a journalist in me, I realise that this would probably be the main reason why I would restrain from revealing such information.”

A reporter for the Sarajevo-based daily Avaz, Sead Numanovic, has a similar opinion. He says he would never publish the names of ordinary people who testify at war crimes or any other trials as protected witnesses, but would probably do so if the witnesses were high-ranking officials.

When it comes to the situation in Bosnia, Numanovic says professional standards are generally high, although things could always be better, “There is more self-censorship in the local media than violations of professional ethics, I would say.”

As a positive example, he pointed at the fact that Bosnian journalists exercise a lot of restraint in covering war crimes trials, and so far there has been very little, if any, leakage of confidential information, including documents and names of protected witnesses in the local media.

While most journalists say their responsible approach to sensitive information is due to their own high professional standards, some claim strict laws governing this issue also help.

Spokesman for Bosnia’s state prosecutor Boris Grubesic points out the fact that those who reveal information classified by the Bosnian court as confidential can be charged with contempt and ordered to pay a fine, or even sentenced to one to three years imprisonment.

“Generally speaking, all parties in court proceedings at the War Crimes Chamber have so far respected their obligation to protect identities of the witnesses who testify under protective measures,” said Grubesic.

In Serbia, however, as of last year, journalists cannot be sent to prison for revealing confidential information. Sasa Gajin, a senior lecturer at the law faculty of the Union University in Belgrade, says this is good, because he was always against the penalisation of journalists. But he also draws attention to another problem.

“It’s hard for the media to know what classified information is, when Serbia currently has no law which would clearly define it,” he said.

Radio Free Europe’s correspondent from Belgrade and former head of Serbia’s Independent Journalists Association, Nebojsa Bugarinovic, agrees with Gajin that imprisoning media representatives who cross the line is probably not the best solution.

“I would be a cynic if I said a prison sentence in Margetic case was appropriate, because I was the one who always opposed such drastic measures. Any sentence is fine, as long as it is not imprisonment,” he said.

Speaking of Margetic case, Bugarinovic says that - from what he knows - Margetic’s act was “neither ethical nor professional”.

As for some observers’ claims that tribunal’s judgments against the Croatian journalist was an attack on freedom of the press, Bugarinovic disagrees.

“In the Balkans, many see freedom of the press as an excuse to be irresponsible,” he said. “But that freedom also means responsibility towards the facts, as well as protected categories of people, such as protected witnesses.”

Some analysts in the Balkans say media ethics standards should be set by journalists themselves, because misplaced calls for guidelines and legal constraints could only encourage direct political interference.

Bugarinovic agrees and adds that the competitive nature of today’s media with the emphasis up-to-the-minute news and sensational coverage puts additional pressure on journalists to produce articles that sell best, which often means putting professional ethics aside. Therefore, revealing private and confidential information is not a rare occurrence.

This, in turn, results in a large number of lawsuits launched against journalists.

According to the Croatian Journalists’ Association, Croatia is one of Europe’s transitional countries with the highest number of lawsuits involving media. Between 1990 and 1999, a staggering 1,000 cases were launched, with at least another 500 lawsuits registered in the following years.

In his recent speech delivered at the traditional annual reception for media representatives, Croatia’s President Stjepan Mesic said freedom of the press is one of the foundations of every democratic society, but warned that not every truth serves the public interests. It’s up to the reporters and editors themselves to draw a line between professional journalism and sensationalism, said Mesic.

Some say in Margetic case this line was not clear enough.

When Margetic explained his reasons for publishing lists of protected witnesses from Blaskic trial on his own website, more than a few eyebrows were raised.

In his official statement dated September 12, 2006, he said, “The reason I published the witness list in part was to reveal to the world that some witnesses were in fact mujahedeen, or better known to the world as ‘terrorists’. In light of the five year anniversary of 9/11, it is important for the public to know with whom the tribunal was working with to prosecute Croatian general Tihomir Blaskic.”

Margetic also insisted the court was “terrorizing an innocent Croatian journalist”, and that the only reason he was indicted was because he was always an open critic of the tribunal.

“Moreover, I published the witness list because of my staunch and profound belief in freedom of the press and independence of media,” he said in his statement.

British journalist Brian Gallagher, who has closely followed Margetic case and maintained the Croatian journalist was falsely accused, says his judgment “sets a dangerous precedent” which could “easily lead to entrapment of difficult journalists”.

However, Professor Stjepan Malovich, from the Faculty of Political Sciences at the Zagreb University, can find no excuse for what Margetic did.

“A real journalist would never publish names of protected witnesses and thus put them in danger,” he said.

Malovich adds witnesses testifying in war crimes trials today - and especially those who testified shortly after the war - are very brave and “Margetic poses a real threat to such people”.

“It doesn’t matter what information I obtain or how – if I know it is confidential, then from the professional and ethical point of view it is absolutely unacceptable for me to publish it,” said Malovich.

“I am by all means for freedom of the press, but it does not mean I can use that freedom irresponsibly and publish everything I like, just because I am free to do so.”

Address by Prosecutor Del Ponte on Importance of War Crimes Trials for Truth-telling Process
ICTY Statement
February 15, 2006

Panel: "Role of war crimes trials in truth-telling"

Dear colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen,

First of all, I would like to thank the organisers together with the sponsors of this conference for their continuous and noble effort on the subject of war crimes and related matters. Allow me to go straight to the point of this panel.

***

In general terms, notions like justice and truth are simply said and understood, but they are not easily achieved in practice and to everyone's satisfaction. With the Tribunal's clearly defined mandate, limitations in resources, timeline and co-operation of states - it is inconceivable to satisfy every specific interest, whether national or individual. Our task is to do our best in establishing facts about crimes and bringing a measure of justice to the victims and peoples of the former Yugoslavia.

Responding to the critics, including here in Croatia, who even now continue to dispute even the jurisdictional basis of the ICTY, I can proudly say that the Tribunal has achieved remarkable results. The UN Security Council, in its wisdom and knowledge of international law, mandated ICTY to deal only with the individual criminal responsibility. Presidents, prime ministers, ministers, senior military and police commanders, paramilitary leaders, public figures were indicted and brought before the international Judges. Without any shred of a doubt the most serious and most emblematic crimes committed during the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia have been addressed, and are being addressed in the courtrooms in The Hague.

***

This leads me to the main point of discussion today - the role of the war crimes prosecutions in establishing the truth. In the process of achieving this goal the prosecution is representing the victims of the crimes and therefore is primarily responsible for bringing to the courts' and public's attention truthful testimonies. Not all perpetrators are brought to justice, as not all evidence is always available and there is no possibility - physically or in time - to bring all the willing witnesses to take stand. Therefore, even a proper judicial process, as the one in The Hague, might not be enough for the thousands of victims. This conference, following the one in Sarajevo, is looking further into different ways to address the issue of establishing and telling the truth in the aftermath of the conflicts.

The debate on the conflicts and war crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia has only somewhat subsided. It is still present in the daily life and media. It is often politicized, as it usually addresses the war crimes issues through the political glasses, - not through the perspective of the victims. These debates often mix the notions of truth with establishing facts. Truth can be a very complex and very subjective issue based only loosely on facts, and it could easily be seen differently by two sides or individuals. Facts, on the other hand, are indisputable.

A judicial process like war crimes prosecutions, with all the checks and tests involved, can answer serious questions and can establish facts beyond reasonable doubt. By establishing these facts criminal prosecutions contribute to a clear understanding of the crimes committed and a fair understanding of the context of the conflicts. Prosecution is required to adduce evidence on the nature of the armed conflicts - internal or international, and by that to place criminal charges in the right legal framework.

Politicians, historians, anybody in position to argue will likely continue endless discussions about the nature of the conflicts, placing political and historical definitions above human dimension, human suffering and individual responsibility. Contrary to that, criminal prosecution is targeting exactly the human dimension of each criminal offence - the perpetrators and the victims. Major prosecutions generate a comprehensive record of past violations.

***

The courtroom testimonies of eyewitnesses are fundamentally important - they tell us about the horrifying conditions of the detention camps, ethnic cleansing campaigns, torture, rape and sexual slavery, mass executions, destruction of property and religious institutions, plunder and looting. Most importantly they tell us about human suffering. They must be told and listened to. They put the picture about the conflicts burdened by ethnic hatred in the right perspective. They tell us what happened in a particular village, town, barrack, and farm. Their personalized stories make us feel how it was to be there - in that particular place at that particular time - be it Ov?ara or Vukovar, Ahmi?i or Stupni Do, Medak pocket, Poto?ari or Bratunac, Fo?a or Višegrad, Mostar or Grabovica, Sarajevo or Dubrovnik, Suva Reka or Djakovica.

Those willing to listen will understand that the testimonies of the very modest, not sophisticated people, very ordinary people can bring to understanding of the core issues. As it was, for instance, with many so called crime base witnesses, often very simple farmers from Kosovo, who had to face the late Milosevic in court. There is more in these stories of personal tragedy and suffering than catches the eye at first. They pointedly lead to a conclusion that not only soldiers, policemen or some paramilitaries are responsible for the massive crimes, but also those who were in charge, who fuelled the conflicts using all available official, unofficial and propaganda tools. Those willing to hear will understand from these courtroom accounts that those who ordered and commanded operations and campaigns which led to massive atrocities and suffering - must be held responsible.

While we can establish facts and a credible version of truth about the events from the past - we cannot establish all truth and all facts. Therefore, we must endeavour to establish the main facts and resolve the most essential developments of criminal nature. For instance, we have established in great details what happened in Ov?ara, in Srebrenica, in Sarajevo, in Fo?a. But we can only assist people in understanding what happened to them and why. The extent of the crimes committed is so great, the cruelty so grotesque - that it is impossible to comprehend and cure through the process of war crimes trials only.

Obviously, the results of the judicial process, its record and established facts are a crucial part of efforts to establish the truth, face the past and embrace reconciliation. Crimes leave traces, no crime is without a trace. Investigating complex crimes require more than just eye witnesses and their testimonies. Very often no eye witnesses are left. The prosecution in The Hague was lucky to find just a handful of survivors of the mass executions (like in Ov?ara and Srebrenica). But the traces of terrible crimes are still possible to find, not only in the memories of people. The murderers themselves, for reasons known only to them, leave evidence of the crimes, like video tapes of executions in Trnovo by Scorpions or in Br?ko by Goran Jelisi?.

Another important way of reaching the truth through trials - is to achieve guilty pleas whenever it is possible. There were so far 20 guilty pleas before the ICTY, including those of Biljana Plavši?, Milan Babi?, several accused for Srebrenica, Miroslav Bralo and others. Guilty pleas maybe considered being as close as possible to the truth telling from the perpetrator's point of view. They are indeed very important - despite the fact they are often seen by the victims as something unacceptable. But they have great value, as first of all they confirm the commission of the crime, they do reflect remorse and guilt, though not always in genuine manner. And most importantly, they do provide information which the victims could not have known - for instance, about the planning and organized manner of the crime and cover up. The guilty pleas also allow us to avoid numerous calls for the victims-witnesses to testify and be exposed to the trauma of facing the perpetrator. Closest to the truth telling as it may be, the perpetrator's story provides the essence of the intent to commit crimes, clarity of the context and chain of command.

In addition to witnesses the prosecutions bring into the courtrooms massive documentary evidence as a result of complex research and analysis. Various documentary collections are exposed in order to establish, for instance, the chain of command structures, formal and informal. As even military structures are not always clear, not to speak about various paramilitary groups, often established illegally by the secret services or interested criminal groups. However, traces are still left and could be found in different administrative or financial record, official records, correspondence, and personnel files. The intercepts of different communications during the war, where everybody was listening to everybody else, if at all accessible and available, also represents a source of truly valuable and often shocking information, as cynical remarks/ exchanges of the accused between themselves.

Such documents, though not stories of eye witnesses and without blood stains on them, very often tell us more than an individual witness. They tell us how the war efforts were organized and sustained as well as who was in charge, how the illegal plans were concocted and disguised - all in the service of a specific policy.

Just an example here. You may wonder why my office is so keen to have access to the personnel file and full record for Ratko Mladi?? Because the file can speak for itself and show that Ratko Mladi? was not an outcast, not a lunatic who went on a rampage in Bosnia to fulfill his crazy ideas. No. He was a senior officer of the Yugoslav army on duty in Bosnia as commander of VRS; he was promoted twice during the war with highest marks in his dossier, the full approval of the Belgrade military and political leadership and with very generous remuneration. If, for a moment, you combine this with the facts from the ground, known to the whole world, and reported to Belgrade - you have the fact established beyond any doubt - and that is that Belgrade was directly involved in the war in Bosnia. And later? Belgrade organized comfortable hiding places for Ratko Mladi? in Serbia, so he can evade international justice. And where he is now? He is still in Serbia. Nothing was done to stop Mladi? or his associates; nothing was done to punish him or his associates.

There are other interesting examples of the documents which can speak for themselves. Here in Croatia, for instance, we have truly remarkable documents, such as the transcripts of the meetings from the office of the late President Franjo Tudjman. Official meetings were recorded very diligently and accurately and therefore represent an authentic and powerful account of the thinking and planning of the leadership. At the same time - you should not have any illusions - there are still missing archives and documents: for example, in Serbia the authorities still cannot find where the Miloševi? archive has disappeared; strangely enough the war time archive of Karadži? (President of Republika Srpska) has also disappeared without a trace. What a coincidence!

In searching for the truth it is certain that much more has to be done, and many more perpetrators must be brought to justice for the war crimes. We are yet to see the kind of collective search for the truth when we will be able to see soldier(s) coming out and admitting the crime by saying 'it was me, not my unit'; or a commander of the unit saying - 'I was responsible, these were my people, I ordered them to do it, I knew what happened but looked the other way'; or a politician admitting the knowledge of the crimes and failure to speak out or seek punishment for perpetrators. When we see that, we will be definitely much closer the truth about the war. In the words of the British philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), "war does not determine who is right, only who is left."

***

In conclusion I would like to repeat - the Tribunal is your partner in the search for the truth. We are concentrated now on achieving successful "finale" of the Tribunal's mandate in partnership with the national judicial and prosecutorial authorities. We are working together, with the same goal, and will continue to share our experience and whenever possible and applicable - our evidence. The challenges remain serious.

Trading genocide for independence
ISN Security Watch
Commentary by Anes Alic for ISN Security Watch
February 16, 2007

It is a sacrifice for the greater good, apparently, as the West deals with Serbia to lay off the hunt for war criminals responsible for genocide in Bosnia in return for Kosovo's independence.

A year of patience, denial and evasion on the part of Serbian authorities regarding the international community's demand that they turn over indicted war criminal Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic has finally paid off. After more than decade of sanctions, accusations and threats of stalled EU integration, Serbian leaders now hold the ace.

It is quite possible that the Serbs will trade Kosovo for the resumption of pre-membership talks with the EU, while the international community will in turn drop its demand to see Mladic at the UN's war crimes court in The Hague.

On Monday, the EU gave its clearest signal yet that it is ready to restart integration talks with Serbia, despite the fact that Belgrade has not made good on demands to hand over Mladic and other fugitives wanted by the international community.

Mladic is wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), where he is charged with, among other things, genocide for the massacre of some 8,000 Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and boys in Srebrenica in July 1995.

A statement released by EU foreign ministers on Monday said that the EU welcome mat was still laid down for Serbia and that the bloc would "restart talks if the new government in Belgrade takes concrete and effective action for full cooperation with the ICTY in The Hague." This time, the statement does not specifically mention the arrest of Mladic, who is believed to be hiding out in Serbia.

Some EU states - including Spain, Italy and Austria - favor resuming talks on a Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA), the first step towards EU membership for Western Balkan nations, frozen last May, despite Belgrade's failure to bring key war crimes suspects to justice.

But there is always room for a deal, and the EU looks set to restart SAA talks in return for guarantees that Serbia and Russia will not block status talks on the future of Serbia's UN-administered province of Kosovo. Those talks are set to be concluded by the end of the month.

Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht confirmed the deal when he said that some EU members were seeking a compromise with Belgrade. "A lot of people are convinced that loosening the demands of the ICTY would be helpful with resolving Kosovo," news agencies quoted him as saying.
EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn stressed that Serbia's level of cooperation with The Hague had improved, and that it would be better to have a democratic rather than an isolated Serbia.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said the SAA could be concluded within months, but insisted that the requirement to cooperate with the ICTY would not be relaxed. After all, the international community would not like to be seen overtly skirting the issue of war crimes as a means to a greater end.

Others, including Belgium and the Netherlands, say talks on the agreement should not resume until Serbia cooperates fully and hands over Mladic.

The loudest among the second group is chief UN war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte, who appealed to the EU earlier this month not to restart talks with Belgrade before Mladic is behind bars, saying that Serbian authorities are sheltering him.
Indeed, Mladic was in the pay of the Serbian military for years after he was indicted for war crimes in 1995, receiving an official pension from Belgrade until 2001, at the time when current Serbian moderate president and EU favorite Boris Tadic was defense minister.

Del Ponte criticized the EU and NATO for allowing Serbia to get closer to membership, saying Belgrade has not cooperated at all with the ICTY. She also accused the international community of losing interest in arresting war criminals.

The EU ministers on Monday also gave their backing to a UN plan for the future of Kosovo that would set it on the road to independence.Final discussions are to begin on 21 February and conclude on 10 March. Ministers anonymously accepted a plan drawn up by international envoy Martti Ahtisaari, which calls for the UN and the EU to take over supervision of Kosovo for a transition period and the EU to deploy a police mission there. However, on Wednesday, Serbia's newly elected parliament overwhelmingly rejected the plan and the international community is concerned that the deal might not work.

It is also worried that any further delay of the Kosovo status issue could lead to an increase in ethnic violence in the province. Indeed, during recent demonstrations launched by Kosovo's ethnic Albanians two people were killed and some 100 injured.
Protesters were frustrated with the UN plan on Kosovo's future status, demanding full independence, while the Ahtisaari's plan calls for internationally supervised self-rule. The same atmosphere can be expected and on other side, as the Serb minority in Kosovo has already announced it would fight for the "homeland" if independence was granted.

Another sticking point as far as Belgrade is concerned is a genocide case filed by Bosnia against Serbia and Montenegro, for which a final verdict is expected just days after the Kosovo status talks.

Bosnia and Herzegovina filed the case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 1993, seeking compensation for the loss of life and property during the 1992-1995 war, when an estimated 200,000 people were killed and entire Muslim and Croat towns and villages were devastated.

No figure was named, but Serbia and Montenegro could be obliged to pay billions of dollars if found guilty.

Bosniak officials are concerned that the court is also in on the Kosovo deal and could return a "not guilty" verdict in order to smooth things over for Kosovo's independence.

This particular brand of wheeling and dealing is what makes politics, well, politics. And it would certainly not be the first time that international leaders have been willing to sacrifice something for what they consider to be the greater good, the bigger picture. This time it will mean burying the genocide that took place in Bosnia in the name of allowing Kosovo to become independent. Even the international community itself is divided about such a sacrifice, and it is a moral question that perhaps does not have a clear cut answer. But somehow it does not feel quite right, and one has to ask just how much it is appropriate to sacrifice for the greater good.

Jankovic given 34-year jail term
BIRN Justice Report
February 16, 2007

The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina has sentenced Gojko Jankovic to 34 years' imprisonment for crimes against humanity committed against civilians from Foca.

Gojko Jankovic, a former leader of a paramilitary group that operated jointly with Army of Republika Srpska (VRS), has been found guilty of the murder, torture, rape and sexual assault of Bosniaks in Foca. He has been sentenced to 34 years of imprisonment.

Jankovic is the second indictee charged with rape in Foca who has been found guilty before the first instance Trial Chamber, after his case was transferred from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to be processed in Sarajevo.

In explaining the verdict, Trial Chamber chairwoman Zorica Gogala said that, while making their decision, the judges had no reason to suspect the prosecution's evidence against Jankovic.

"The Chamber did not accept the Defence's evidence, believing that it did not have legal support - especially the physical evidence," Gogala explained.

Jankovic was found guilty of seven out of the nine counts of the indictment. He was found guilty of five counts that accuse him of rape, torture and rape and keeping in sexual slavery.

However, the heaviest crimes he is convicted of are the rape of 12-year-old "AB" in the so-called Karaman house in Miljevina village near Foca, and the multiple rapes of a girls aged 15, 16, and 17 years old.

Jankovic also kept protected witness 186 in sexual slavery for many months in multiple locations in and around Foca.

The Prosecution read this protected witness's testimony, in which she accused Jankovic of abuse and rape.

"I knew that he had a wife and three children. One of his daughters was one year younger than me. The other children were even younger. I asked him how he could rape someone who is the same age as his daughter. That made him very angry. I was too afraid to insist on an answer," witness 186 told ICTY investigators in 1998.

The Chamber also found him guilty of forced relocation of population, illegal detention, and the murders and tortures of Bosniaks from the territory of Foca municipality, all of which he committed as leader of a paramilitary formation from April 1992 to November 1993.

The Trial Chamber found Jankovic not guilty on two counts of the indictment, including the murder of Redjo Pekaz that, according to the indictment, took place in July 1992. Pekaz and a group of civilians were arrested in Trosanj village, and then taken to hydroelectric power plant Buk Bijela, where he was abused and killed.

Also, due to lack of evidence, Jankovic was found not guilty of the additional count of the indictment which charges him with the rape of protected witness E, which took place in Foca in 1992.

The trial lasted for nine months and a total of 53 witnesses were questioned. Also, three statements given by protected witnesses to the ICTY were read, two court experts were questioned, and more than 120 pieces of physical evidence were submitted by both sides.

Beside the fact that the trial chamber found Jankovic guilty, for the first time they also ruled that the indictee has to cover the expenses of the trial. The judges also asked the victims-witnesses to press civil charges.

"The only mitigating circumstance we took into consideration is the fact that Jankovic is a family man," Judge Gogala said.

The charges against Jankovic were originally pressed before the ICTY. After eight years of hiding, the indictee surrendered in March 2005, then he was transferred to the detention unit in Scheveningen, The Hague, but the whole case was then forwarded to Court of BiH on December 8, 2005.

The local prosecution adapted and expanded the indictment, and after a comprehensive investigation they also ensured new witnesses.

According to the Bosnian prosecution, lead by Prosecutor Philip Alcock, from April 1992 Jankovic headed a small paramilitary formation which operated within 4th battalion of Army of Republika Srpska (VRS), within its Foca Tactics Brigade.

In its closing argument, the Prosecution proposed at least 30 years imprisonment for Jankovic. The indictee and his defence attorney proposed an acquittal, believing that guilt was not proven.

Both sides have the right to appeal.

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International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)

Official Website of the ICTR

Senate Endorses ICTR Transfers' Bill
AllAfrica.com - The New Times (Kigali)
by Felly Kimenyi & Steven Baguma
February 6, 2007

The Senate yesterday evening unanimously endorsed the special bill on the transfer of cases from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).The Bill was tabled by justice minister Tharcisse Karugarama. The Senators had, however, contested some clauses in the Bill especially the one granting all witnesses in the trials prosecution immunity, saying that some of them may be wanted criminals. "What will happen if some of those genocide fugitives take advantage of the immunity and turn up in the country as witnesses? Will they be simply let go like that? There should be a provision deterring this," Wellars Gasamagera contented.

However, in response Karugarama (pictured) said that it would even serve Rwanda better if at all those people showed up in the country. "We have nothing to lose if anything, we have everything to gain, by these people turning up, it will be a step toward their being captured. They will have to sign affidavits on which their current address will be shown and that would at any other time lead to their arrest," Karugarama told the Senators. Article 14 of the Bill states inter alia 'All witnesses who travel from abroad to Rwanda to testify in the trials of cases transferred from ICTR shall have immunity from search, seizure, arrest or detention during their testimony or their travel from or to the trials'. Senators also raised concern over immunity from search, saying that prohibited commodities like drugs would be trafficked into the country.

But Karugarama countered the assertion, saying the immunity will only apply to documents that will be used in the trial.

"The normal immigration procedures will be followed; it does not mean that they will would go through the airport unsearched," Karugarama assured the legislators.
This Bill which was endorsed and subjected to further scrutiny by the Political Commission was last month passed by the lower chamber.

Meanwhile, during yesterday's session, the lawmakers also passed a draft bill for the law on political parties.

The Senators however, first tasked the Minister of Local Government, Protais Musoni, who presented the bill, to explain some issues among others 'political space'. "We have been hearing debates about lack of political space in this country; now as the minister in charge, could you tell us whether political parties in Rwanda function or not, do they actually operate according to their ideals? And if yes, why do we continue hearing statements like 'in Rwanda there is completely no Political Space'?" Senator Antoine Mugesera asked. In response, Minister Musoni clarified that the 'political space' debate dates back to 2003 when the new Rwandan constitution was enacted. "That's when it started and those who have persistently traded the allegations argue that the Forum for Political Parties is dominated and manipulated by the ruling Rwanda Patriotic Front which is not the case as we have always assured those people," Musoni said. He added the functioning of political parties was incumbent upon their doctrines.

"If you allow I will bring you the report about their activities," Musoni underlined and added: "those people just engaging in politics of conflict."

Prosecution Closes its Case in Renzaho Trial
UN Observer
February 7, 2007

The Prosecution today closed its case in the trial of Colonel Tharcisse Renzaho, former prefect of Kigali-ville, subject to the appearance of one expert witness and resolution of two motions. The trial commenced on 8 January 2007. Twenty-three Prosecution witnesses were heard in the course of eighteen trial days.

Renzaho, who was born in 1944 in Kibungo prefecture, is facing six counts charging him with genocide, complicity in genocide, crimes against humanity for murder and rape, and serious violations of Article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol II. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

The Prosecution team includes Senior Trial Attorney Jonathan Moses, Katya Melluish and Ignacio Tredici. Renzaho is represented by Maître François Cantier from France and Barnabé Nekuie from Cameroon. The case is heard by Trial Chamber I, composed of Judges Erik Møse (Norway), presiding, Sergei Alekseevich Egorov (Russian Federation) and Florence Rita Arrey (Cameroon).

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Iraqi High Tribunal

Official Website of the Iraqi High Tribunal
Grotian Moment: The Saddam Hussein Trial Blog

UN rights chief files brief to prevent death sentence on Iraq’s ex-vice president
UN News Service
February 8, 2007

The top United Nations human rights official today filed a legal brief with the Iraqi High Tribunal asserting that international law prohibits the imposition of capital punishment on former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan on grounds of breach of due process, and calling on it not to pass a death sentence.

The ‘friend of the court’ brief was submitted by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour in connection with the court’s reconsideration of the jail sentence imposed on Mr. Ramadan in connection with the same events for which former president Saddam Hussein and two co-defendants were hanged. The Tribunal’s Appeals Chamber ruled that the life sentence was too lenient and ordered the court to re-sentence him.

“The High Commissioner argues that the Court’s imposition of the death sentence on Taha Yassin Ramadan would violate Iraq’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,” a statement issued by Ms. Arbour’s office in Geneva said.

The 18-page brief describes shortcomings in the proceedings against Mr. Ramadan and concludes that these constitute “an unfair trial.”

The statement points out that the Covenant, which Iraq has ratified, provides that a death sentence may only be imposed following proceedings conducted in strict adherence to due process requirements, and guarantees the right to seek a commutation or pardon. “In the circumstances, the High Commissioner submits, the Court should refrain from imposing the death sentence.”

Mr. Ramadan was sentenced for his role in crimes against the civilian population of the town of Dujail in 1982. Ms. Arbour’s move followed a call last month by two independent UN rights experts that Iraq should suspend without delay any further executions until a fair trial is provided.

“International law allows the imposition of capital punishment only within rigorous legal constraints, including respect of fair trial standards,” Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers Leandro Despouy and Chairperson-Rapporteur of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention Leïla Zerrougui said then.

They cited the violation of a number of international standards on the right to be tried by an independent and impartial tribunal and on the right to defence, including numerous reports of external pressure on the judges that appear to have led to the removal and resignation of some of them.

The right to appropriate and independent defence was severely undermined, in particular by the “extremely serious attacks” against defence lawyers, some of whom were killed, they said. “The assassination of defence attorneys appearing before the Iraqi High Tribunal threatens the entire procedure, since the role of defence lawyers is critical to a fair trial,” they added.

Iraqi court raises sentence against former Saddam deputy to death by hanging
The Associated Press via USA Today
February 12, 2007

BAGHDAD (AP) — An Iraqi court on Monday sentenced Saddam Hussein's former deputy to be hanged after an appeals court panel said the original life-in-prison sentence was too lenient, ignoring an international outcry from the United Nations and human rights organizations.

Taha Yassin Ramadan, who wore a traditional red-and-white checked headdress, angrily declared his innocence after the verdict was read.

"I swear to God that I'm innocent, Allah is my supporter and will take revenge on all who treated me unjustly!" he yelled before he was led out of the courtroom.

The government welcomed the ruling against Ramadan, who was Saddam's vice president when the regime was ousted by the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Bassam al-Husseini, an adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, dismissed the criticism by human rights groups and declared the death penalty was justified.

"He (Ramadan) is responsible for the murder of people. Where were those human rights groups during the days of the former regime when it killed and executed without trial?" al-Husseini said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

The decision had been expected after an appeals court ruled late last year that Ramadan's previous sentence of life in prison was too lenient.

On Thursday, U.N. human rights chief Louise Arbour filed an unprecedented legal challenge with the Iraqi High Tribunal against imposing the death sentence on Ramadan.

Ramadan is the fourth member of the ousted regime to face capital punishment for the killings of 148 Shiites after a 1982 attempt on Saddam's life in the mainly Shiite town of Dujail, north of Baghdad.

Saddam, his half brother and former intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court, also were sent to the gallows.

Ramadan said his duties were limited to economic affairs, not security issues.

"I have nothing to do with this case, I have nothing to do with the Dujail case from the beginning to the end. I came to know about this case just in detention, and I swear to God that this is the truth," Ramadan said before the verdict was delivered.

The chief judge, Ali al-Kahachi, said the case would be automatically appealed.

Ramadan was convicted on Nov. 5 of murder, forced deportation and torture and sentenced to life in prison. A month later, the appeals court said the sentence was too lenient, and returned his case to the High Tribunal, demanding he be sentenced to death. The tribunal agreed.

Three other defendants were sentenced to 15 years in jail in the case, while one was acquitted.

Saddam was hanged on Dec. 30, while Ibrahim and al-Bandar were executed Jan. 15, provoking anger among their fellow Sunnis after the former leader's half brother was decapitated on the gallows.

The decision to impose the maximum sentence against Ramadan came ignored appeals from human rights groups.

Human Rights Watch and the International Center for Transitional Justice issued a joint statement on the eve of the hearing saying the evidence was insufficient for such a punishment.

"The tribunal found Ramadan guilty without evidence linking him to the horrific crimes committed in Dujail," said Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch. "Ramadan was convicted in an unfair trial, and increasing his punishment from life imprisonment to death reeks of vengeance."

Arbour, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said she recognized "the desire for justice of victims in societies emerging from regimes that have engaged in or procured the most grave and systematic crimes."

But while the death penalty was permitted under strict conditions, she said the trial of Ramadan "failed to meet the standards of due process" and capital punishment would amount to "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment," which is prohibited under international law.

Arbour previously asked the Iraqi tribunal not to carry out the death sentences imposed on Saddam, Ibrahim, and al-Bandar.

Al-Husseini said a total of 78 convicted terrorists have been executed since 2003, a number he described as low given the number of attacks carried out over this period. He, however, disclosed that five new sites for executions have been set up in Baghdad and that they all complied with international conventions. He said the locations will remain secret to head off attacks by insurgents.

Iraq announced Sunday the execution of 14 terrorists convicted for kidnappings, murder and rape in five of Iraq's 18 provinces. A government announcement did not say when and where the 14 were convicted.

Iraq: Don't Add Death Penalty to Dujail Sentence
Human Rights Watch
February 12, 2007

(New York, February 12, 2007) The Iraqi High Tribunal should not impose the death penalty against former Iraqi Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan, especially given the lack of evidence linking him to the alleged crimes, Human Rights Watch and the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) said today. The Dujail Trial Chamber is expected to hold a hearing today to determine whether Ramadan's life sentence should be increased to death. In a 300-page judgment issued on November 5, 2006, the tribunal's Trial Chamber found Ramadan guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to life imprisonment. Defense counsel appealed this decision on December 5. On December 26, the tribunal's Appeals Chamber issued a 17-page judgment confirming Ramadan's conviction and, without giving any reasons, returned the case to the Trial Chamber to increase the penalty to a death sentence.

"The tribunal found Ramadan guilty without evidence linking him to the horrific crimes committed in Dujail," said Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch. "Ramadan was convicted in an unfair trial, and increasing his punishment from life imprisonment to death reeks of vengeance."

In November 2006, Human Rights Watch issued a report, "Judging Dujail: The First Trial Before the Iraqi High Tribunal", that highlighted a number of serious flaws in the Dujail trial, including the lack of evidence linking Ramadan to the underlying criminal acts. That same month, the ICTJ issued "Dujail: Trial and Error?", in which it also raised concerns about the fairness of the trial proceedings, including actions by the Iraqi government that threatened the Iraqi High Tribunal's independence and impartiality from the outset.

The two reports also highlighted the tribunal's failures to disclose key evidence to the defense, violations of the defendants' right to question prosecution witnesses, and the presiding judge's demonstrations of bias. The findings of the two reports were based on 10 months of observation, dozens of interviews with judges, prosecutors and defense lawyers, and an analysis of the evidence presented in the case, conducted by Human Rights Watch and the ICTJ.

The Ba'ath Party's "Popular Army" militia was alleged to have arrested suspects and delivered them to the custody of the General Intelligence Directorate and the General Security Directorate following the assassination attempt against Saddam Hussein in Dujail in 1982. Ramadan was the national commander of the Popular Army, yet no evidence was presented at trial concerning the army's command structure, the actual and legal authority of Ramadan as army commander, his relationship to the army's operational commander on the ground in Dujail, and the reporting lines between Ramadan and his subordinates. Instead, the judgment relies heavily on broad inferences drawn from Ramadan's superior position and proximity to Saddam Hussein, who was convicted and swiftly hanged for his role in the Dujail killings.

"The Appeals Chamber of the Iraqi High Tribunal acted too hastily and did not conduct a serious review of the evidentiary and fairness shortcomings in the Dujail trial," said Miranda Sissons, head of the ICTJ's Iraq Program. "Instead of a sound verdict, the victims were dealt a flawed process. Executing Taha Yassin Ramadan will further deprive them of the chance to see him face justice for other egregious crimes."

Human Rights Watch has spent nearly two decades documenting the widespread human rights violations committed by the former Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein and campaigning for those responsible to be brought to justice. These violations include the killing of more than 100,000 Iraqi Kurds in northern Iraq as part of the 1998 Anfal campaign . The victims, including women, children and the elderly, were selected because they were Kurds who remained on their traditional lands in zones outside of areas controlled by Baghdad.

The ICTJ worked in Iraq prior to the beginning of the Dujail trial and since then has played a crucial role in monitoring the trial, evaluating the trial dossiers, and corresponding with tribunal staff.

Both organizations are opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances, as it is an inherently cruel and inhuman punishment.

Saddam's military intelligence chief downplays Anfal role
Agence France Presse via Yahoo! News
Feb. 13, 2007

BAGHDAD (AFP) - The former head of Saddam Hussein's military intelligence service took the stand in his war crimes trial, protesting that his role was only to gather information not bomb villages.

Sabir al-Duri is one of six defendants in the so-called Anfal trial of aides to the executed former Iraqi dictator charged with involvement in the killing of up to 182,000 Iraqi Kurds in the late 1980s.

Among those accused is Ali Hassan al-Majid, also known as "Chemical Ali" because of his alleged enthusiasm for using poison gas in Saddam's war on his country's own Kurdish minority, which prosecutors describe as a genocide.

Tuesday was Duri's day, and he presented a defence statement to the Iraqi High Tribunal insisting that he was innocent of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Questioned by presiding judge Mohammed al-Oreibi al-Khalifah, Duri said his service was responsible only for providing the locations of enemy headquarters for eventual Iraqi air and artillery strikes, and evaluating the result.

"The military intelligence department was responsible for providing the army chief of staff with information, not for giving orders," he stressed.
Duri added that after strikes were carried out, including some with "special weapons," his service evaluated the results and reported back to the army chief of staff, the defense ministry and Saddam's secretariat.

Iraqi forces used chemical weapons against Iranian troops and Kurdish peshmerga fighters.

But Duri insisted that "the chemical units were related to the army chief of staff," and that "we could not give military orders that must come from the highest rank."

The judge presented a document Duri had signed, which indicated that Duri's service had suggested targets. The defendant countered that an underling had written the brief "by mistake."

Khalifah shot back that "when you sign it you are responsible for that document. You did sign it and you will take responsibility."

Duri, who remained combative throughout the session, said: "That's right but the statement was wrong and I didn't pay attention to the mistake. I cannot correct it now. It was a mistake and it is done."

UN human rights expert warns against execution of Iraqi former vice-president
UN News Service
February 13, 2007

An independent United Nations human rights expert today added his voice to the chorus of officials calling on Iraq to not proceed with the planned hanging of former vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan, saying his trial was so “marred by serious irregularities” that to execute him would clearly violate international law.

Philip Alston, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, issued a statement saying that executive interference in the trial, “glaring procedural flaws” and the murder of defence counsel during the proceedings meant Mr. Ramadan was denied a fair hearing.

Mr. Alston, who is also a legal professor at New York University, noted that senior Government and legislative figures made statements about the guilt of the defendants, the presiding judge was removed and the prosecution was allowed to read 23 statements into the court record without the defendants being given an opportunity to question them.

He added that the defendants were given only weeks to prepare their appeal and the Iraqi High Tribunal then took less than a month to consider all of the complex issues and make a ruling.

“This undue haste mocks the due process requirements of international law,” he said.

Mr. Alston accused Iraq, in the way it established the Tribunal, allowed the trial to be conducted and the appeals to be considered, “showed contempt for the pleas of the international community that it abide by human rights law.”

He urged the Government to undertake “far-reaching reforms” to ensure it meets all of its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states that the death penalty can only be imposed after a trial satisfying the strictest guarantees of a fair hearing.

Mr. Ramadan was originally given a sentence of life imprisonment after being convicted with six co-defendants, including Saddam Hussein, of involvement in crimes against the civilian population of the town of Dujail in 1982.

But in December the appellate chamber of the Iraqi High Tribunal annulled the sentence as being too lenient and sent the matter back for reconsideration to the trial chamber, which yesterday issued a sentence of death by hanging.

Mr. Alston joins UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers Leandro Despouy and Chairperson-Rapporteur of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention Leïla Zerrougui, who have all questioned the conduct of the trial and called on Iraq to halt the planned execution.

Last week Ms. Arbour filed a “friend of the court” brief to the Iraqi High Tribunal, calling on it to not pass the death sentence on Mr. Ramadan, and Mr. Alston said today that he was “very disappointed that the Tribunal seems to have attached no importance to it.”

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Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) &
Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Offical Website of the Special Court for Sierra Leone
The Sierra Leone Court Monitoring Programme
Official Website of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia

The TRC is In America: Liberians Must Seize a Historic Moment!
The Perspective
by Ahmed K. Sirleaf
February 7, 2007

Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) is operating here in the United States of America. The Liberia TRC has agreed to partner with an international human rights NGO, Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights, to make its work accessible to thousands of Liberians in the U.S. In the history of any truth commissions or analogous bodies—current or past— this is the first time that a truth commission is systematically engaging both the people in the country where human rights and humanitarian law violations occurred (Liberia) and the Diaspora community; particularly in the United States.

Mirroring the TRC’s work in Liberia, Minnesota Advocates is coordinating an effort to take thousands of statements or testimonies from Liberians, and other Africans impacted by the Liberian crises between January 1979 and August 2003; living in the United States. Mainly lawyer and paralegal volunteers will conduct interviews with Liberians in the U.S. who voluntarily come forward to give statements to the TRC. Most statements will primarily be taken at statement taking sites, where individuals will have access to mental health counselors, immigration lawyers, and social service referrals.

Information gathered from these interviews will be forwarded to the TRC in Liberia to be included in the overall TRC records to form part of the accurate historical record the Commission is mandated to establish. Ideally, on the basis of these statements or testimonies collected, Minnesota Advocates hopes to conduct public hearings both here in the United States and in Liberia. These public hearings would give individuals, who would willingly agree to participate, an opportunity to interact and share their experiences in the crises.

Following its inauguration by President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf in February last year, the TRC was launched in all 15 counties in Liberia on June 22, 2006. In collaboration with Minnesota Advocates, the TRC’s U.S. Based Project was simultaneously launched in Minnesota, USA, on the same day as in Liberia. Since this U.S. launch in June, Minnesota Advocates has recruited and trained some 200 volunteers, and is still garnering local and national supports for the Diaspora implementation of the project. Volunteers have received training in various project appropriate and sensitive subject matters including: Liberian history; history of the Liberian crises; avoiding vicarious or secondary traumatization, Liberian culture and working with Liberians, etc.

In addition to the recruitment and training of volunteer professionals, Minnesota Advocates is working with a TRC National Advisory Committee; made up of Liberian community leaders across the United States. This committee advises Minnesota Advocates on myriad of issues including cultural sensibility matters and strategic outreach and implementation plans. Nonetheless, it suffices to say the project has continued to enjoy the assistances and collaborations of numerous Liberian community organizations. For example, the Union of Liberian Associations in the Americas (ULAA), and the Organization of Liberians in Minnesota (OLM) have offered and rendered their continued supports to the project. The project is currently doing outreach consultations with various other community support groups and organizations such as various county, youth, women’s, and alumni associations in Minnesota and across the country. Furthermore, it has sought and received the support of various religious leaders; Liberian churches, mosques, and similar institutions and authorities in the United States.

The project is designed to give Liberian refugees in the U.S. a role in promoting international justice and human rights as part of the truth, justice, accountability, and reconciliation processes in Liberia. The project will also raise awareness of transitional justice mechanisms and the Liberian process here in the United States.

To ensure that the project is successful and that is appropriately designed to meet the needs of Liberians in the United States; Minnesota Advocates piloted the statement taking process in Minnesota in December, and as a result of the success of this pilot work, it has now launched a full-scale statement taking campaign in Minnesota and Chicago. When the model has fully been established in Minnesota and Chicago, the project will expand to other U.S. cities with large Liberian populations.

To engender increased and adequate access to the TRC work here in the U.S., and with the support of Faegre & Benson, LLP, a local corporate law firm in Minneapolis, Minnesota Advocates has established a phone line for Liberians to call and make an appointment to give their statements to the Commission. Liberians and other West Africans who were affected by the conflicts may call 612-766-7788 or 1-800-799-3688 to schedule an appointment.

Generally, Liberians have responded to the TRC’s Diaspora work very well. The reception in the Minnesota Liberian community in particular has been positive. As the project expands to other cities, soon, it is important for Liberians in the United States to seize the historic moment. The historic moment is that the Liberia TRC model to include Liberians in the Diaspora is groundbreaking, thus, it is imperative for us to come forward willingly to talk about what we know about the roots causes of the various episodes of the Liberian crises. Whether you think that there are fundamental historic fallacies that assumed the status of historical accuracy overtime, corruption or marginalization, or tribal hatreds, the TRC wants to hear from you.

The TRC is also interested in knowing about what may have happened to you or your family or neighbors during the rebel wars. These things that may have happened to you may have been violations of your rights as a human being. They may have been violations of war crimes or international humanitarian standards. The Commission wants to know about these violations that happened to you or to your family.

Finally the Commission wants to know if you have any recommendations about the direction in which you would like to see the country moving. What kind of systematic reforms do you envision for the new Liberia? The Commission wants to know whether you support recommendations for amnesty where allowable or if you are most interested in prosecutions in particular cases or of particular individuals or groups of individuals.

Some Liberians are interested only in seeing their fellow Liberians renewing trusts, confidence and respect in each other and/or in the system, again—in other words, these Liberians are most interested in reconciliation only. Whatever your particular interest in the TRC process may be, the Commission wants to know about it. The Commission will not know what you are thinking if you do not summon the courage to come forward to talk to the Commission’s representative here, Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights.

This is a historic and groundbreaking project that deserves a befitting recognition. It needs our attention and our enthusiasms for participation, as it is the only beginning that satisfies our divergence of interests in the reconstruction of Liberia. No other truth commission has ever included its refugee Diaspora populations in America in its proceedings. This means then that if the Liberia TRC does it well and is successful in implementing this model then it would make Liberia a leader in developing this new Transitional Justice model for others to emulate.

It is important to underscore the point that Liberia is not the only country to be trying the truth commission model for its post-conflict healing and reconciliation needs. Nearly all continents of the world, including North America have deployed a truth commission or an analogous body for social healing and moving forward from chaos to a more democratic shared future for all.

Since the Nuremberg tribunals after World War II, there has been a proliferation of tribunals and truth commissions with various nomenclatures. In Africa for example, we have had commissions and tribunals from Ethiopia (1992) to Rwanda (1994), Uganda (1986), South Africa (1994), and Sierra Leone (1999), and now in Liberia. The list continues, even still, from Bolivia, Argentina, El Salvador and Haiti to Chile-just mentioning a few on a long list. All of these post conflict areas have set up some forms of a truth commission with different kinds of mandates.

Of these mechanisms, a common trend is to be seen in the complementarity between prosecution and reconciliation. Moreover, this common trend does not imply that those countries that have tried transitional justice strategies have done so with the choice between either a truth commission or war crimes court, for example. It does not mean that it is either one or the other. One Transitional Justice strategy could lead to several others. For example, the Liberia TRC could possibly end up recommending prosecutions or reparations in particular cases.

Whereas, on the other hand it could recommend amnesties in other cases, provided those cases do not constitute the violations of serious international humanitarian or human rights standards. For instance, it cannot recommend amnesty if the perpetrator is said to have committed genocide or serious war crimes. Invariably, the TRC can only make recommendations to the Government of Liberia for its consideration and/or implementation. It is up to us, Liberians, to suggest the best recommendations to the TRC by coming forward to tell the Commission what want it to recommend. In the end, it is also up to us, and the International Community, to ensure the practicable and appropriate recommendations made are fully implemented to effect change in Liberia.

In sum, the Commission is here for all and every Liberians. Minnesota Advocates is implementing the TRC’s U.S project on a voluntary basis. Neither the Liberian Government nor the TRC is paying the international human rights organization to this do this work. Minnesota Advocates has done similar work in other countries in the past. It worked with the Sierra Leonean TRC and the Special Court for Sierra Leone. The organization has done transitional justice and human rights works in Peru and in other South American countries as well. Thus, it comes to the TRC work with lots of international human rights work experience and benevolence.

These 200 plus volunteers are putting in some $ 2.5 million staff time into this work, unpaid. Nobody is paying them this money! Why don’t we embrace their generosity and goodwill, and show our gratitude by fully supporting the process? Let us come forward to give our statements to the TRC in honor of our lost loved ones. For the sakes of the memories of families and friends we lost in all these conflicts in Liberia over the years, if not for the sake of our common patrimony—Liberia. Let’s seize a historic moment and heal Liberia.

ICTJ and TRC Sign MOU
Official Website of the TRC of Liberia
February 13, 2007

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Liberia and the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Thursday, February 8, 2007 in Monrovia. The MOU talks about the working relationship between the two institutions. The ICTJ has worked with a number of truth commissions around the world but this is the first time it is sighning a document of the sort.

Through the MOU, the ICTJ has agreed to provide training for TRC Staff and partners in the process. According to the MOU, the ICTJ will assist the TRC in its human resource development. Already the ICTJ has provided several training initiatives to media institutions reporting on TRC activities. It also provided technical expertise for the Women Nationwide Zonal Workshops and Town Hall Meetings in December 2006, as well as for the development of a policy document for women in the TRC process.

The MOU further states that the ICTJ will seek to provide training and workshops to the Commission which may address issues such as thematic research and investigations, psychological support and reparations.

The Chairman of the TRC, Cllr. Jerome Verdier and Dr. Alex Boraine, Chairman of the ICTJ signed the MOU after ICTJ conducted a three day training on Hearings for the TRC. Dr. Alex Boraine, Vice Chairperson of the South African TRC and founder of ICTJ, Javier Curlizza, Executive Secretary of the TRC in Peru (2001-2003), Ozonnia Ojielo, Officer-in-Charge of the TRC in Sierra Leone (2002-2005) and Priscilla Hayner, Director of International Policy Makers, ICTJ facilitated sessions about fundamental set-ups of hearings in different countries, strategic planning and policy decisions for hearings and programming and realization of hearings. Commissioners and the Hearings Committee alongside the Programme Assistants took part in the training.

Liberia: Government doing little to ease pain of haunted past
Amnesty International
February 15, 2007

(Monrovia) -- Amnesty International today revealed that the Liberian government has done little or nothing to bring to justice thousands of people accused of serious human rights violations that took place during the country's protracted armed conflict, in which hundreds of thousands were killed, raped or tortured.

Launching a new report, Truth, justice and reparation for Liberia's victims, the organization urged Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf to immediately put in place a plan to ensure that perpetrators of past human rights abuses are brought to justice so that the cycle of violence that plagued Liberia for years can finally come to an end.

"Although the Truth and Reconciliation Commission currently in place is an important first step, much more can and should be done by the government to address past human rights abuses," said Kolawole Olaniyan, Amnesty International's Africa Programme Director, speaking in Monrovia.

"The government should not wait for the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission before beginning the process of deciding when and how those suspected of committing human rights abuses will be brought to justice -- nor should victims wait to receive reparations."

"Although the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has an important role to play in establishing the truth of many of the horrific incidents that took place during the years of conflict in Liberia, it is not a substitute for a court of law. It cannot establish individual criminal responsibility or provide for full reparations to victims," said Olaniyan.

It is difficult to estimate how many were killed in massacres during the 14 years of conflict in Liberia, which was characterized by mass killings and rape. At least sixty percent of the population is estimated to have suffered some form of sexual violence.

"Societies that have emerged from a long history of human rights abuses, like Liberia has, must create a long-term plan to ensure that the truth is told, that justice is done, and that adequate compensation is provided to victims," said Olaniyan. "This is the only way to ensure that the horrors of the past are never repeated."

Amnesty International admitted that there are both political and practical challenges in addressing impunity in Liberia, with some current Members of Parliament alleged to have committed human rights abuses themselves and the challenge of operating in a climate of post-war economic difficulties.

"Passing appropriate legislation in Congress to bring all perpetrators to justice in Liberia will be a major challenge -- but is one that the government must tackle head-on, not least because it has a legal obligation to do so," said Olaniyan.

"Failing to punish suspected perpetrators allows them to believe that they will not have to face the consequences of their horrific acts, ignores the distress of the victims, and creates a risk of further violations."

The government has made no formal plans for providing reparations to the hundreds of thousands of victims of rape, torture or sexual violence or to children who were forced to enlist in armed groups. As a result, victims have been left to suffer without official acknowledgement of the crimes committed against them or assistance to rebuild their lives. Amnesty International urged the government to come up with an action plan for reparations that particularly takes into account ensuring counselling for children and medical care for women who have been victims of rape and other forms of sexual violence

"President Johnson-Sirleaf took a stand against impunity when she turned Charles Taylor over to the Special Court for Sierra Leone so that he could be tried for crimes against the people of Sierra Leone. She now needs to display that same leadership in addressing violations against the people of Liberia," said Olaniyan.

Background

In June 2006, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) began operating in Liberia as part of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. The TRC was mandated to contribute to justice and reparation by establishing the facts about past crimes.

However, little effort has been made to investigate and document the rape and other forms of sexual violence perpetrated during the years of armed conflict. As a result, there is no effective basis for eventual prosecution of the alleged perpetrators of those crimes. Many women are forced to live near their attackers -- passing them on the streets and in the markets -- fearing that their abusers will never be brought to justice.

Special Court Recieves €600,000 for Legacy From the European Commission
Special Court for Sierra Leone
February 16, 2007

The European Commission has made a donation of €600,000 ($787,000) to the Special Court for Sierra Leone to continue the Court’s Victims Justice and Legacy Project.

The EC grant is part of the European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights. Since the Project was started in January 2004, the EC has given more than €1.9 million to the project.

The Victims Justice and Legacy Project aims to provide a broader understanding of justice to the victims of Sierra Leone’s decade-long civil conflict. Through various sub-projects, the Special Court seeks to leave a legacy to Sierra Leone and to international criminal justice.

The main activities of the Project are conducted through the Witness and Victim Support Programme, the Grass Roots Awareness Campaign (Outreach), the Audio Visual Programme, the Intern and Pro-bono Support Programme, the Court Interpreters Professionalising and Training Programme, and the Library and Archives Development Programme.

The Project targets all areas of the Sierra Leone public and civil society, in particular victims and witnesses, ex-combatants, national grassroots organizations and community leaders. In the coming months it will begin programmes to inform the people of Sierra Leone and Liberia about the upcoming Special Court trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor in The Hague.

The Victims Justice and Legacy Project is part of the Court’s overall legacy programme, which seeks to promote the rule of law, human rights, and international humanitarian law.

ICTJ Holds Workshop on Hearings for the TRC; Training for Journalists Reporting on the TRC; TRC Meets Children in Buchanan
Official Website of the TRC of Liberia
February 17, 2007

ICTJ Holds Workshop on Hearings for the TRC

In preparation of its nationwide hearings, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Liberia has concluded an extensive three day Training Workshop on Hearings at the Corina Hotel, Sinkor. The training commenced from February 6 to the 8, 2007. Dr. Alex Boraine, Vice Chairperson of the South African TRC and founder of ICTJ, Javier Curlizza, Executive Secretary of the TRC in Peru (2001-2003), Ozonnia Ojielo, Officer-in-Charge of the TRC in Sierra Leone (2002-2005) and Priscilla Hayner, Director of International Policy Makers, ICTJ, facilitated sessions about fundamental set-ups of hearings in different countries, strategic planning and policy decisions for hearings and programming and realization of hearings.

The three day workshop further highlighted the role of individual staff in the hearings and the care that needs to be given the statement giver. The Peruvian, Sierra Leonean and South African experiences were also discussed. TRC Commissioners and the Hearings Committee alongside the Programme Assistants took part in the training.

At the end of the workshop, the TRC and the ICTJ signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for a service oriented relationship between the two institutions. The ICTJ has been providing human resource development services to the TRC and will continue to do so.

Training for Journalists Reporting on the TRC

The International Media Support (IMS), the Liberian Media Centre (LMC) and the International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) conducted a training for editors and reporters in cooperation with the TRC. This is to ensure that reporting on TRC activities will enhance the process.

The programme started with a one day meeting with editors of media institutions on January 26 at ECOWAS Headquarters, and continued the following week with a three day training each for two groups of reporters, conducted by two international trainers, Lars Møller from Denmark and David Tam-Baryoh from Sierra Leone at the University of Liberia.

Participants got a clear idea about the aims, structure and process of the Liberian TRC and were encouraged to do an accurate, responsible and balanced media coverage of the TRC process.

The training will be followed by a three months group reporting exercise. LMC and the regional consultant will engage and coach the participants in the actual coverage of the TRC process over a three months period. It will include news, feature and background reports on various issues such as children, women and other witnesses needing special treatment appearing before the TRC.
Meanwhile local trainers will train journalists in the Counties.

TRC Meets Children in Buchanan

A one day children's workshop was held on Saturday, February 3, 2007 in Buchanan, Grand Bassa County. Seventy five children (mostly school children), between the ages of 6-18 fully participated. The aim of the workshop was to examine the level of awareness among children about the TRC process. The facilitators came from a child protection agency, the United Nations Mission in Liberia and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Issues discussed were, the TRC mandate and the role of children in the TRC process, Child's Rights and Child Protection and problems that could arise with children's participation in the TRC process.

Concerns were raised about the protection of children's dignity and reputation, including the importance to prevent children from humilation, insults and embarrassment. Thus, child's rights, confidence and personality will be respected to enhance their full participation in the TRC process.

Most participants knew little about the TRC process before. The children asked the TRC to organize sports and community activities to educate children about the TRC, to engage churches and mosques where children go to worship, and encourage schools to discuss about the mandate and work of the TRC with the children.

The County authorities promised to support the TRC process and encouraged the Commission to prioritize the involvement of children, giving the fact that they are the future leaders of Liberia. It is important that the experiences of the children be reconciled in order to gain a peaceful future.

The TRC intends holding children workshops in districts, towns and villages where strong violations might have occurred, particularly to children. In attendance were Commissioners Dolopei, Stewart and Syllah, EU technical assistance expert Lucy Daxbacher, David Ntambara from the UNMIL Child Protection Unit, Onika Gooding-Freeman from Don Bosco, representatives from several CPAs and TRC staff.

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United States

Military says Guantanamo abuse boasts unsubstantiated
Reuters
By Jane Sutton
February 7, 2007

MIAMI (Reuters) - A military investigation found no evidence of prisoner abuse after probing allegations that Guantanamo guards had bragged about beating detainees, the military's Southern Command said on Wednesday.

Miami-based SouthCom, which oversees the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, ordered an investigation in October after a Marine paralegal reported that sailor guards had boasted in a bar on the base that they routinely beat captives at the detention camp for suspected al Qaeda and Taliban operatives.

The sailors laughed as they described hitting prisoners, denying them water and revoking privileges for no reason, she said.

"From the whole conversation, I understood that striking detainees was a common practice," the paralegal, Marine Sgt. Heather Cerveny, said in an affidavit.

Cerveny visited Guantanamo as part of the military legal team defending Canadian prisoner Omar Khadr, who is charged by a war crimes tribunal with murdering a U.S. Army medic in a firefight in Afghanistan. She said the sailors were drinking alcohol but did not seem intoxicated.

Investigators said none of the sailors involved would face discipline but recommended a review of "activities involving alcoholic beverages" at the base.

Investigators did not question prisoners, but interviewed suspects and witnesses at the camp, including medical personnel, and examined records of guards' interaction with prisoners, SouthCom said.

"The evidence did not support any of the allegations of mistreatment or harassment," SouthCom said in a news release.

The investigators also looked into a related allegation from an unidentified civilian employee who reported overhearing a female guard describing detainee abuse to a male interrogator on a training range at Guantanamo.

Investigators concluded that conversation "was a fictitious account of abuse" and SouthCom said the guard would receive a letter of counseling.

In addition to ordering a review of alcohol policy, SouthCom's commander, Adm. James Stavridis, ordered that guards working closely with detainees rotate their duties and continue to be trained and supervised.

Some 395 foreign captives are held at Guantanamo, where the U.S. military has faced allegations of prisoner abuse since the first captives arrived in 2002.

Various investigators have found what the military called isolated incidents of misconduct by guards but Guantanamo officials have said repeatedly that detainees are treated humanely.

European investigator says U.S. refuses to let him question Guantanamo prisoners
Associated Press via International Herald Tribune
February 16, 2007

BRUSSELS, Belgium: The Swiss senator leading a European investigation into reports that the CIA operated secret prisons in Europe and illegally transferred terror suspects complained Friday that the United States has refused to let him question prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay.

"If I cannot speak freely with detainees — as I understand from the American reply — such a visit would be pointless," Dick Marty said. "I am disappointed at this refusal."

A trip to the U.S. base in Cuba without the right to interview detainees would amount to little more than "parliamentary tourism at the taxpayer's expense," said a statement issued by the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France, but it added Marty's investigation would continue.

Marty heads an investigation by the Council of Europe — the continent's leading human rights watchdog. In June he released a report accusing 14 European nations of colluding with U.S. intelligence in human rights abuses to help the CIA spirit terror suspects to illegal detention facilities.

US: Failure to Provide Justice for Afghan Victims
Human Rights Watch
February 16, 2007

Jamal Naseer, a soldier in the Afghan National Army, was killed in March 2003 after he and seven other soldiers were mistakenly arrested by US forces and taken to a base in Gardez. Their case was investigated by the United Nations office in Gardez, the office of the Attorney General of the Afghan National Army, and the Crimes of War project. The investigations showed that US forces severely beat Naseer and the other soldiers while in custody. Numerous witnesses who saw them at the time (including UN representatives) described them as bearing wounds and heavy bruises. The surviving detainees themselves allege that US forces punched them, kicked them, hung them upside down, and hit them with sticks or cables, among other abuses. Some said they were soaked in cold water and forced to lie in snow, and shocked with electricity on their toes.

The Army Criminal Investigative Command opened an investigation into this case in May 2004. Over two years later, in early 2007, CID sent recommendations to Special Forces Command in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, that two soldiers be charged with abuse in relation to the death and beatings. On the evening of January 27, 2007 a Friday night after close of business Special Operations Command released a statement that two soldiers would receive administrative reprimands, but not face courts-martial.

Case from Gardez in 2004 An Afghan detainee died in US custody in Gardez in September 2004. Sher Mohammad Khan was arrested on September 24, 2004 during a raid on his family's home near Khost in which his brother, Mohammad Rais Khan, was shot and killed by US forces. Sher Mohammad Khan died sometime later the next day at a US military base. Military officials in Khost told journalists that he had died of a heart attack, and that the Khan family were "bad guys." As noted above, Khan died within hours of being taken into US custody. Khan's family has told investigators with AIHRC that the body was bruised when they retrieved it from US forces. But later, in January 2005, a US military official said that Khan, before he died, had complained of "being bitten by a snake." Human Rights Watch is not aware of any criminal investigation into the death.

Two Deaths at Bagram in December 2002 Two detainees died at the US air base at Bagram in December 2002. The two detainees, named Habibullah and Dilawar, died after suffering extensive beatings and mistreatment by military intelligence and military police. The killings were not fully investigated by Army criminal investigators until details of the deaths were reported in the New York Times. Investigators ultimately recommended that at least 27 different personnel, including military police, be criminally charged, both for crimes relating to the deaths and for other abuses of detainees at Bagram that were documented during the investigation. As of February 2007, however, few of the soldiers and officers implicated in connection with the killings have been punished, and none of those convicted were sentenced to more than a few months in prison (the sentences were two months, two-and-a-half months, three months, and five months, respectively).

Two of the military police received particularly light punishments: Willie Brand, who admitted to kicking and striking one of the detainees over 30 times, and who was initially charged with homicide and ultimately found guilty of cruelty and maltreatment, assault, maiming, and making a false official statement crimes that carried a potential 16-year prison sentence was only punished with a rank reduction and received an honorable discharge. Selena Salcedo, another soldier directly involved in beating the detainees and found guilty of assault and dereliction of duty, was merely fined $1,000 (payable in four installments of $250) and given a letter of reprimand. Two other guards, though implicated by other soldiers who testified as witnesses, were acquitted.

Although evidence uncovered during the investigation that commanders up the chain of command had authorized harsh interrogation methods at the time of the beatings, no senior officers have even been investigated for criminal liability under the command responsibility doctrine. One officer charged for command failure was charged for dereliction of duty in failing to properly train his troops, and he was acquitted. The military intelligence officer overseeing the interrogations of the detainees who were killed Captain Carolyn Wood was not charged with any crime, nor even reprimanded. No other officer has been charged in this case as a principal in the commission of any crime.

Background on the Passaro Case David Passaro was convicted in August 2006 of assault charges in connection with the killing of Abdul Wali, an Afghan farmer arrested in Asadabad, in Eastern Afghanistan, June 2003, suspected of involvement in rocket attacks on a military post. Passaro, a former CIA contractor, had no experience in military intelligence or interrogations, but took a lead role in interrogating Wali.

According to the prosecution, Wali was subjected to a "chamber of horrors" by Passaro, who ordered guards to keep Wali from sleeping and to limit his access to food and water. According to witnesses, Passaro subjected Wali to over 48 hours of interrogation and beatings, hitting Wali on the shins, elbows and wrists, and kicking Wali in the groin so hard that the blow lifted him off the ground. Witnesses said Wali begged them to shoot him, and before he died, was moaning "I'm dying." Throughout the ordeal, Wali repeatedly denied any role in the rocket attacks. He died on his fourth day in custody.

Although Passaro could have been charged under federal homicide and torture statutes, prosecutors charged him only with assault charges; he was ultimately convicted of only one felony assault charge and three charges of "simple assault."

Passaro faced a minimum of 15 months in prison and a maximum of 11-and-a-half years. Federal sentencing guidelines specified a baseline at the minimum of 15 months. During the sentencing hearing on February 13, Judge Terrence Boyle grilled prosecutors about their requests for upward departures from the sentencing guidelines. Prosecutors provided various justifications, noting that Wali was shackled and prone; that the detainee had died; and that the crime had damaged US operations in Afghanistan. In the end, although Judge Boyle questioned their assertions, he made a significant upward departure to 8-and-a-half years, closer to the maximum than the minimum.

Agents contradict German foreign minister
United Press International
February 16, 2007

BERLIN, Feb. 16 (UPI) -- U.S. officials, with the backing of the Pentagon, offered Germany in September 2002 to release a German-Turkish Guantanamo inmate, a news magazine said.

Contrary to what Berlin has said, two agents of Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, or BND, told a closed session of a parliamentary inquiry that Washington in September 2002 was willing to release Murat Kurnaz, a Turkish national born and raised in Germany.

The online service of German news magazine Stern quoted two BND agents, who had questioned Kurnaz in Guantanamo, as saying the Pentagon officially backed the offer to free him in November the same year.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who has come under scrutiny for allegedly blocking Kurnaz's return to Germany, has previously said he never received an official U.S. offer to release the man.

Steinmeier also said that a release was bound to commitments to place Kurnaz as a double agent within the German Islamist scene, but the two agents denied that as well.

"No conditions" were pinned to Kurnaz's release, Stern quoted an agent as saying.

The agents, in their testimony earlier this month, also reiterated the belief of U.S. and German intelligence that Kurnaz had no links to terrorist groups and was indeed harmless.

Kurnaz ended up spending four and a half years in Guantanamo, a U.S. military prison in Cuba, before he was released on German Chancellor Angela Merkel's intervention in August 2006.

A parliamentary inquiry is currently probing Germany's involvement in his detention, and Steinmeier is expected to testify before the inquiry next month.

Italy indicts 33 in CIA covert anti-terrorism tactic
Los Angeles Times
By Tracy Wilkinson and Maria De Cristofaro
February 16, 2007

ROME -- The first criminal trial involving one of the Bush administration's most controversial tactics in fighting terrorism is set to begin June 8 after an Italian judge on Friday indicted 33 people -- including two dozen CIA operatives and the man who was Italy's top spy.

Judge Caterina Interlandi ordered the 26 Americans and seven Italians to stand trial in connection with the February 2003 abduction of a radical Egyptian cleric who was snatched in broad daylight on a Milan street and whisked to an Egyptian jail, where he has said he was tortured.

"This is an important moment," lead prosecutor Armando Spataro said in welcoming the indictments.

He urged the Italian government to press ahead with petitions to extradite the defendants.

It is not clear that Italy will seek extradition of the Americans, and more than unlikely that the U.S. government would comply. In fact, it is all but guaranteed that none of the Americans will ever appear in court.

Still, the trial could go ahead because Italian law allows for the prosecution of defendants in absentia. Arrest warrants for all 26 men and women -- 25 suspected CIA operatives including two station chiefs and a U.S. Air Force colonel -- have been issued and apply throughout the European Union.

The case has proved embarrassing to Washington for having exposed the highly secretive and extrajudicial practice known as "extraordinary rendition." After years of denial, the Bush administration now acknowledges the tactic of capturing suspects and transporting them to third countries for interrogation, but denies the sanctioning of torture.

The complicity of several European governments has also been exposed as prosecutors and investigators in Italy, Germany and elsewhere have attempted to build cases against American and European intelligence agents who are believed to have detained hundreds of suspects in extraordinary renditions.

The first trial promises to reveal more details about the covert operations, turning a fresh public spotlight on the Bush administration and its most loyal allies, such as the government of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

The cleric at the center of the case, Hassan Osama Nasr, known as Abu Omar, was released without charge from an Egyptian prison in February. Through an attorney, he said he was prepared to return to Italy and wanted to sue Berlusconi and the CIA, following what he described as confinement in a rat-infested cell where guards repeatedly beat him, applied electrical shocks to his body and abused his genitals.

"I have been reduced to a wreck of a human being," Abu Omar said.

An Italian judicial source said he believed one of the CIA officers might have been present at some of the early interrogations.

Abu Omar entered Italy illegally in 1997 and was eventually granted political asylum. Though never charged with a crime, he was under investigation in Italy for allegedly organizing networks that recruited fighters for Iraq. Italian law-enforcement officials said they were about to arrest him when the CIA intervened.

Alessia Sorgato, a lawyer representing three of the indicted American agents, welcomed the decision to go to trial.

"I am happy because finally ... we will be able to clarify the role of (the clients) in this matter," she said in an interview Friday.

It is a sign of the complexity of the case that Sorgato has never met nor spoken to her clients. All attorneys representing the Americans were court-appointed, and the CIA and U.S. government have refused to comment publicly on the case or recognize the court's jurisdiction.

"I never spoke to them. I looked for them many times. I wrote to them many times to the official addresses we have, to the embassy," Sorgato said. "Unfortunately, they never replied."

For evidence, Italian prosecutors relied heavily on an extensive paper trail left by the CIA operatives as they plotted and seized Abu Omar. The agents ran up bills totaling tens of thousands of dollars at Milan's finest hotels and restaurants and chatted openly on traceable cellular telephones. They left behind photocopies of their passports and frequent-flier cards.

Although many of the Americans were using aliases, Italian investigators were able to track phone calls and other contacts to Robert Lady, the now-retired CIA station chief in Milan, and former Rome station chief Jeff Castelli, the CIA's top man in Italy.

After Abu Omar was detained, his captors bundled him into a van and rushed him to U.S.-run Aviano air base in northern Italy. A privately contracted jet flew him to Egypt, with a stopover in the U.S. base at Ramstein, Germany.

The only non-CIA American named in the indictment is Lt. Col. Joseph Romano, from the Aviano base.

Berlusconi's government refused prosecutors' requests for extradition, while a decision from the current center-left government of Romano Prodi is pending.

Though the American government will be most concerned about its operatives, Italy is in uproar over confirmation of the complicity of its own secret services.

Nicolo Pollari, the head of Italy's military intelligence service until late last year when he lost his job over the widening Abu Omar scandal, was among those indicted Friday, along with his senior deputy.

According to court documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times, Pollari has said the CIA's Castelli asked for help in apprehending Abu Omar and several other suspects, but that Pollari declined. Wiretaps of conversations of his top aides appear to indicate they knew what they were being asked to do was illegal.

Pollari "is very disappointed and bitter but at the same time combative," the former spymaster's attorney, Titta Madia, said in an interview Friday.

Two Italians included in the original indictment, one of them a senior police officer who confessed to his role in the Abu Omar kidnapping, reached plea agreements separately.

However, the trial could be delayed because the government has asked the Italian Constitutional Court, the country's highest judicial body, to rule on whether prosecutors overstepped their bounds by wiretapping 80 or more military intelligence agents as part of the case. And members of Italy's political establishment are at each other's throats over whether the trial should go ahead.

Francesco Rutelli, the deputy prime minister, accused prosecutors of endangering national security by "exposing" the agents and their methods.

But Antonio di Pietro, the transport minister and a former star state prosecutor, disagreed: "Secret agents, whether Italian or foreign, can't act like a gang of Sardinian bandits."

The European Parliament earlier this week issued a scathing report, the result of a yearlong investigation, that scolded Italy and 13 other countries for allowing their territory and airspace to be used by the CIA in extraordinary renditions. Charging that governments ignored basic human rights, the 77-page report documented 1,245 CIA-operated flights in Europe between 2001 and 2005.

Switzerland this week ordered an investigation into the use of its airspace to transport Abu Omar. Germany recently ordered the arrest of 13 Americans and others in another suspected CIA abduction; Portugal and Spain are investigating use of their territory for stopovers by CIA flights involved in renditions, and Canada in January apologized to a Syrian-born citizen it allowed the U.S. to transport to Syria, where he said he was tortured.

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UN Reports

Lebanon: On second anniversary of Hariri murder, Ban Ki-moon calls for dialogue
UN News Centre
February 14, 2007

14 February 2007 – On the second anniversary of the massive car bombing that killed former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and 22 others in Beirut, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed today that the United Nations remains committed to helping Lebanon “uncover the truth and bring to justice the perpetrators of this despicable act.”

Mr. Ban reiterated his sympathies to the families of the victims and to the Lebanese Government and people, his spokesperson said in a statement.

“At this critical point for Lebanon, and as homage for other lives lost, it is important that all sides return to dialogue and seek the reconciliation, national unity and stability for which Rafik Hariri worked during his lifetime,” the statement added.

Yesterday three people were killed and at least 18 others injured when terrorists bombed two commuter buses in Ain Aaleq, near the mainly Christian town of Bikfaya, prompting Mr. Ban, the Security Council and Geir O. Pedersen, the newly appointed UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon, to each issue statements expressing outrage at the attacks.

They emphasized the need for an end to impunity and urged the Lebanese to maintain national unity, whatever their differences on how best to achieve stability and security, against those who attempt to secure their political objectives through violence.

The Security Council set up the International Independent Investigation Commission (IIIC) to examine the Hariri assassination and 14 other bombings in Lebanon, and earlier this month the UN signed an agreement with Lebanon to establish a Special Tribunal to prosecute the suspected killers of Mr. Hariri. The Lebanese Government now has to approve and ratify the agreement for it to enter into force.

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NGO Reports

Bosnia: Local Trials Key as Hague Tribunal Winds Down
Human Rights Watch
February 12, 2007
Click here to view Report - Narrowing the Impunity Gap: Trials before Bosnia’s War Crimes Chamber

War Crimes Court Makes Progress in Struggle Against Impunity

(New York, February 12, 2007) – Bosnia’s War Crimes Chamber has made considerable progress in bringing perpetrators to justice, but to increase public confidence it must do more to explain its work to the people of Bosnia, Human Rights Watch said in a report issued today.
The war in Bosnia, which lasted from 1992-1995, was characterized by mass killings, rapes, widespread destruction and forcible displacement of the population. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which is scheduled to close in 2010, will only have tried a limited number of top-level perpetrators by the end of its mandate. Effective national prosecutions are needed to hold to account the numerous remaining perpetrators.

"Bosnia’s War Crimes Chamber gives victims of brutal crimes committed during the war an important opportunity to see justice done," said Param-Preet Singh, counsel with Human Rights Watch’s International Justice Program. "The chamber’s work has made an impact by narrowing the impunity gap in Bosnia through fair and effective trials."

The 61-page report, "Narrowing the Impunity Gap: Trials Before Bosnia’s War Crimes Chamber," evaluates the chamber’s work in conducting trials. Although a relatively new institution, the chamber has made substantial headway in trying cases, including the trial of 11 defendants charged with genocide for their role in the Srebrenica massacre. Other important accomplishments include introducing support for witnesses in the pre-indictment phase and establishing an effective defense office committed to assisting defendants in trials before the chamber.

"Donor countries have played an important role in helping the chamber succeed," said Singh. "Ongoing support for the chamber’s work is essential to building respect for the rule of law in Bosnia."

Despite its progress, Human Rights Watch expressed concern about features of the chamber’s operations that could undercut its effectiveness. For example, there is confusion about the prosecution’s policy for the selection of cases. Human Rights Watch also noted with concern the court’s use of closed sessions, and inadequate outreach and communications efforts to explain the court’s work to the communities most affected.

"The lack of information about the chamber’s work risks undermining the public’s confidence in the institution," said Singh. "The chamber must do more to make its work understood by the people of Bosnia."

The report identifies achievements of the chamber and makes recommendations on how to improve its operations and share its expertise with district and cantonal courts in Bosnia, which will hear the majority of domestic war crimes cases. The report builds upon Human Rights Watch’s February 2006 report, "Looking for Justice: The War Crimes Chamber in Bosnia and Herzegovina," which assessed the chamber’s operations during its establishment phase.

The War Crimes Chamber was established in early 2005 to facilitate fair and effective war crimes trials within Bosnia. In addition to handling cases initiated locally, the chamber also tries cases of mid- and lower-ranking defendants referred to it by the ICTY. To date, the ICTY has referred five of its cases, involving nine accused, to the chamber.

The chamber is the latest in a series of "hybrid" tribunals that are supported by the international community and aimed at bringing to justice those responsible for the worst crimes committed during war. Other examples include the Regulation 64 panels in Kosovo and the Special Panels for Serious Crimes in East Timor.

Although the chamber presently includes international staff to provide assistance in handling war crimes cases, the international staff will be phased out within a relatively short timeframe. Human Rights Watch recommended, among other things, adopting a flexible approach in retaining international staff as needed within the general framework of the completion strategy, so that the chamber can operate effectively while it transitions to a fully national institution.

Lebanon: Amnesty International condemns targeting of civilians
Amnesty International
February 14, 2007

Amnesty International condemns in the strongest terms yesterday’s bomb attacks on two buses near the town of Bikfaya, a Christian area of Lebanon, north east of Beirut. At least three civilians are reported to have been killed and some 20 injured. Deliberate attacks on civilians can never be justified and those responsible show complete disregard for the most fundamental principles of humanity.

These deadly attacks on civilians represent a further deterioration of the security situation in Lebanon, which has become increasingly polarised, prompting fears of a possible slide towards a new conflict following the civil war which wracked the country from 1975 to 1990. During that conflict mass human rights violations were committed, including some 17,000 enforced disappearances and the killings of thousands of non-combatants.

Amnesty International is calling on political and other leaders in Lebanon urgently to take all possible steps to ensure that the killings of 13 February 2007 are not used as a licence for further violence and that those responsible for yesterday’s attacks on civilians are arrested and brought to justice, promptly and fairly and without recourse to the death penalty.

Yesterday’s bomb attacks were clearly intended to inflame current political tension. Today is the second anniversary of the killing of former Prime Minster Rafiq al-Hariri, who was killed with 22 others by a massive car-bomb in Beirut. The UN International Independent Investigation Commission (UNIIIC) into the assassination has implicated Syrian and Lebanese officials, and discussions over a proposed international tribunal to try the alleged perpetrators led to the resignation of six government ministers, provoking a political crisis.

Since early December 2006, thousands of demonstrators led by Hizbullah and the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) have maintained a mass and largely peaceful protest in Beirut, in support of demands that Hizbullah and the FPM be given a greater role in the government. In the week beginning 24 January 2007 various political groups set up armed road-blocks, some seven people were killed, and scores of others injured or arrested. Earlier, on 21 November 2006 in Beirut, Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel of the Kataeb (Phalange) Party was shot dead by unknown assassins.

Tensions intensified in Lebanon in the aftermath of the summer war between Hizbullah and Israeli forces in which some 1,000 Lebanese civilians and 43 Israeli civilians were killed and tens of thousands of Lebanese homes and other civilian infrastructure were destroyed.

Amnesty International is urging political leaders to reach a framework for addressing the unresolved issues that have fuelled background grievances and suspicions, including over the international tribunal to prosecute those responsible for the killing of al-Hariri, the composition of a new government and forthcoming parliamentary elections. To be sustainable, any such agreements would need to be accompanied by both adoption in Lebanon of particular reforms of the justice system that Amnesty International has repeatedly called for, and also a wider, international law-based resolution to the regional instability that continues to destabilise and generate human rights violations in Lebanon. Amnesty International is calling upon all sides involved in the perilous situation in Lebanon not to allow a further escalation of violence and accompanying human rights abuses.

US: Enact Law to Protect Civilians from Cluster Munitions
Human Rights Watch
February 14, 2007

(Washington, DC, February 14, 2007) – Far-reaching legislation introduced on February 14 to protect civilians from the deadly effects of cluster munitions deserves strong support, Human Rights Watch said today. The Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act, sponsored by Senators Dianne Feinstein and Patrick Leahy, would prohibit the use of cluster munitions in populated areas and prohibit the use and transfer of cluster munitions with submunitions that have a failure rate of 1 percent or more.
The bill was introduced a week before the launch of an international process to create a treaty banning cluster munitions that cause unacceptable humanitarian harm.

"This landmark legislation would put the US at the forefront of global efforts to eliminate weapons that have killed and maimed thousands of civilians," said Steve Goose, director of the arms division at Human Rights Watch. "At the moment, the US is best known as one of the most prolific users, producers, exporters and stockpilers of the weapon."

Cluster munitions, containing dozens or hundreds of small explosive submunitions, are typically dropped from aircraft or fired from artillery or rocket systems. They are particularly objectionable weapons because they pose a double danger to civilians: there is an immediate danger during attacks due to their inaccuracy and wide dispersal pattern, and a long-term danger after conflict, because so many duds are left lying around that, like landmines, can explode years later.

The US has a stockpile of millions of cluster munitions that contain between 720 million and 1 billion submunitions. Only around 30,000 of those submunitions have safety features that might bring the failure rate below 1 percent. The acknowledged failure rate for some of the others is more than 20 percent.

"The US has a staggering number of submunitions in its arsenal – perhaps 1 billion – that are highly unreliable and should never be used," said Goose.

Under existing US policy, which was approved in 2001 and took effect in fiscal year 2005, all newly produced submunitions must have a failure rate of less than 1 percent. But there is no restriction on the use, sale or transfer of the existing stock of dangerous, outdated weapons.

"The US should have the same standard for its old submunitions as it does for its new ones," said Goose. "The current double standard amounts to an unconscionable acceptance of excessive and avoidable civilian casualties."

The United States used about 2 million submunitions in Iraq in 2003, some 248,000 in Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002, and another 295,000 on Kosovo in 1999. Cluster munitions caused more civilian casualties during the armed conflicts in Kosovo and Iraq than any other weapon – apart from small arms – primarily because US forces used them against enemy forces in populated areas.

The United States used cluster munitions with tens of millions of submunitions in Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia during the 1991 Gulf War, causing thousands of civilian casualties in the post-war period. The United States also used cluster munitions in Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia in the 1960s and 1970s, and the deadly leftovers continue to take lives and limbs on a regular basis decades later.

The United States has exported cluster munitions to at least two dozen countries, including: Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, Egypt, Denmark, France, Greece, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, South Korea, Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom.

On the international front, there is great momentum in the battle against cluster munitions. Most notably, Norway is leading a process aimed at development of a new international treaty that would prohibit cluster munitions that cause unacceptable humanitarian harm. Norway will host the first meeting of the process on February 22-23, 2007. In recent months, some three dozen countries have formally declared their support for a new treaty on cluster munitions, as have the International Committee of the Red Cross and many UN agencies.

The Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act of 2007 would prevent any funds from being spent to use, sell, or transfer any cluster munitions unless: (1) the submunitions of the cluster munitions have a 99 percent or higher functioning rate, and (2) a policy is in place prohibiting use in areas where civilians are known to be present or in areas normally inhabited by civilians.

The bill contains a presidential waiver provision that would allow use of submunitions with a failure rate greater than 1 percent if the president certifies that it is vital to protect the security of the United States.

"It is difficult to conjure up a situation in which the security of the United States would depend on the use of cluster munitions with known high failure rates," said Goose. "The US is no safer when it knowingly puts civilians at high risk during combat operations."

Palestinian Authority: New unity government must put civilian protection above politics
Amnesty International
February 16, 2007

Amnesty International's Secretary General Irene Khan today wrote to the Palestinian President and Prime Minister calling on them to make it a top priority of the new unity government to create a security force that respects the human rights of all Palestinian people and operates within the rule of law.

The two leaders must take action to break the pattern of impunity which has fostered spiralling inter-factional violence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories between armed groups and security forces loyal to President Abbas’ Fatah party and Prime Minister Haniyeh’s Hamas party.

"Any agreement between the two sides must address the human rights abuses their forces are committing and ensure an end to the pattern of impunity that, for far too long, has allowed the gunmen to walk free and repeat their crimes," said Irene Khan. "The leaders of Fatah and Hamas must put their own houses in order and stop fostering the internecine violence that has shattered so many Palestinian lives."

Amnesty International called on to the two leaders to take prompt action to:

Ensure that the recruitment and training of members of the security forces and the prosecutorial authorities is free from partisan political control and that they are accountable to the community they serve;
Ensure that no groups or individuals are allowed to use or carry firearms/ammunition in a manner which may jeopardize the security of others;
Issue clear and unambiguous instructions to all members of the security forces that anyone who abuses their power or violates human rights will be brought to account, including if appropriate, criminal prosecution;
Put in place a mechanism to ensure independent, impartial and non-partisan oversight of the security forces;
Take measures to ensure that all killings, abductions and any other attacks against civilians are investigated promptly, thoroughly and impartially, and that those responsible for such crimes are brought to justice in proceedings which comply with internationally recognized standards for fair trial and without recourse to the death penalty.

In the past six weeks alone, more than 80 people have been killed and others injured in armed attacks and clashes between the two sides; many of the victims have been armed militants but unarmed civilians have been among those killed, including no fewer than 10 children, and scores more have been wounded. Both sides have also abducted people to hold as bargaining chips in the conflict.

"Those responsible for the violence have included members of rival Palestinian security forces, including the Presidential Guards loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the Executive Force formed by the Palestinian Authority's Hamas government," said Irene Khan. "Instead of upholding the law and confronting violence by Palestinian armed groups, these forces have joined in and exacerbated the problem."

The new government of unity must ensure that all unlawful killings, abductions and any other attacks against civilians – be they Palestinians, Israelis or nationals of other countries – are investigated promptly, thoroughly and impartially, and that those responsible for such crimes are brought to justice.

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