War Crimes Prosecution Watch
is a bi-weekly e-newsletter that compiles official documents and
articles from major news sources detailing and analyzing salient issues
pertaining to the investigation and prosecution of war crimes
throughout the world. To subscribe, please email warcrimeswatch@pilpg.org and type "subscribe" in the subject line.
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)
Bar fee dispute delays Khmer Rouge hearings
The Guardian
by Ian MacKinnon
March 19, 2007
A proposed £2,500 charge for international lawyers to take part in Cambodia's long-delayed Khmer Rouge genocide trial is threatening to derail the process.
Most lawyers are refusing to pay the fee set by the Cambodian bar association. Concern is mounting that defendants could be denied a fair trial if international lawyers pull out. The senior international defence lawyer in the trial, the British war crimes barrister Rupert Skilbeck, is to request talks with the Cambodian bar association to settle the dispute.
All other outstanding issues were resolved when a committee of Cambodian and international judges concluded 10 days of talks last week to thrash out ground rules for the trial. The agreement paves the way for the trial of Khmer Rouge leaders over the deaths of 1.7 million Cambodians in the "killing fields" between 1975 and 1979. The row over fees must be settled before a meeting set for the end of April of the Cambodian and international judges to approve the trial rules.
The role of overseas barristers in the UN-sponsored tribunal was one of the biggest hurdles in failed discussions in November and January. "If this can't be resolved the tribunal does not go forward," said Mr Skilbeck. "But I'm fairly confident we can find a way to sort this out."
Mr Skilbeck said the fees proposed would put off most international lawyers, leaving the defendants, thought to number as few as 10, with limited choice.
Establishing the tribunal has taken more than a decade since Cambodia's government asked for UN assistance. The latest wrangling has eaten into the three-year mandate of the court set up last July.
Cambodian Bar Association accuses foreign judges of hindering Khmer Rouge tribunal
Associated Press via The International Herald Tribune
March 26, 2007
PHNOM PENH , Cambodia : The Cambodian Bar Association said Monday foreign judges for the Khmer Rouge genocide trials were behaving like children and finding excuses to delay the long-awaited tribunal.
"This is a childish game the international judges with international reputations should not be playing," said bar association president Ky Tech.
The tribunal's international judges have threatened to boycott preparations for the tribunal over the bar association's decision to impose fees on foreign lawyers wishing to participate in the trials.
Many fear that internal disputes could delay efforts to bring the Khmer Rouge's few surviving leaders to trial for crimes against humanity for the deaths of about 1.7 million people during the group's 1975-79 rule. The U.N.-backed tribunal, led by Cambodian and international judges, was expected to begin this year.
The bar association wants foreign lawyers to pay a US$500 (€375) membership application fee. If chosen to work with a client, they must pay an additional US$2,000 (€1,500) and a US$200 (€150) monthly fee, Ky Tech said.
He argued that foreign lawyers selected to practice at the tribunal could earn up to US$30,000 (€22,510) a month and could, therefore, afford the fees.
The international judges have said the fees severely limit the rights of the accused and of victims to select counsel of their choice. They said they will boycott a meeting next month on internal rules governing the proceedings if the fee issue is not resolved.
"This is evidence that they are the ones who are hindering the tribunal, not the bar association, not the Cambodian government," Ky Tech told reporters.
The Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission said in a statement Friday the bar association "must be condemned for their action in imposition (of) exorbitant fees, which has no doubt brought more delays and may even be the reason why the trial proceedings collapse altogether."
The move "is immoral and reprehensible" and "must be looked at as an inhuman act," the commission said, adding the bar association "is widely known to be under government control."
Ky Tech called the allegation "baseless."
Peter Foster, the U.N.-appointed spokesman for the tribunal, could not be reached for comment.
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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
Ex-Congo Warlord Says He Won’t Surrender
Associated Press
by Eddy Isango
March 23, 2007
KINSHASA, Congo (AP) - Congo's chief prosecutor issued an arrest warrant Friday for a former warlord and senator who took refuge inside a foreign embassy while his personal army and government troops fought in the capital.
Former warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba said he would not surrender, but had ordered his troops to stop fighting.
Prosecutor Tsaimanga Mukenda said that neither Bemba's immunity as a senator nor the fact that he had sought refuge in the South African Embassy would stop the government from seeking his arrest on charges of high treason.
"He has caused serious infractions by organizing a militia and by ordering looting ... his actions amount to high treason and we will pursue him wherever he is," Mukenda said, adding he would ask parliament to strip Bemba of immunity.
Bemba accused the government of starting the violence and said its goal appeared to be "to kill me." He added in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. that he had heard he was being sought for arrest and that he would not surrender.
"For what reason? I have been attacked, and if someone has to complain, it's me," he told the BBC from the South African Embassy. He said he had called on his supporters to stop fighting, and wanted a political solution. He said he had not decided whether to request asylum from South Africa.
Bemba, whose personal army began clashing with security forces Thursday, arrived at the South African Embassy Thursday night with his wife, said the embassy's charge d'affaires, Kenneth Pedro.
"This is a temporary measure, until a cease-fire is declared. He has not sought asylum," Pedro said.
Gunfire rang out and thick black smoke rose from an oil refinery in the capital. Radio Okapi, a United Nations-backed radio station, reported that the state-run refinery had been hit during the clashes, possibly by a mortar shell. Many restaurants were looted overnight, as well as the Embassy of Zimbabwe, said government spokesman Toussaint Tshilombo.
The army has seized control of two of Bemba's three residences in the capital, the governor of Kinshasa, Andre Kimbuta, said. He said the military was slowly gaining control over the city and that some of Bemba's fighters had fled.
Mortar shells landed as far as two miles away in Brazzaville, the capital of Republic of Congo, which sits across the Congo River from Kinshasa. Shells damaged the defense minister's home there, a government spokesman said.
South African Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad said Friday that his country would send an envoy to the Congo to try to help negotiate a cease-fire.
Pahad told journalists in Pretoria that the South African government was "deeply concerned" about the heavy fighting. Pahad said it could open a "Pandora's box" if the fighting was allowed to continue, saying it would encourage others to also use violence to achieve what they think they did not get through the peace process.
The European Union called on the factions in Kinshasa to settle their differences through dialogue - and to ensure civilians were not caught up in the violence.
"The international community, and the European Union in particular, will not allow democracy in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a major success for the entire African continent, to be compromised," EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana added in the statement issued in Brussels.
This week's fighting is the first in the capital since Congo installed Joseph Kabila as president on Dec. 6, making him the nation's first freely elected president since 1960.
Bemba, who came in second in the presidential run-off, initially rejected the election results and his militia took to the streets, clashing with Kabila's security forces. At least two dozen civilians were killed. Bemba gave up his challenge after the Supreme Court rejected his claims and was recently elected to the Senate, but he has so far refused to disband his personal army, which is thought to number in the thousands.
Replace War Spirit With Reconciliation, Urges EU
AllAfrica.com - IRIN
March 28, 2007
The recent violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was irresponsible and should be replaced with a spirit of reconciliation and inclusiveness to ensure stability in the fragile country, said European Union envoys.
Addressing a news conference in the capital, Kinshasa, on Tuesday, they expressed indignation at the violence that rocked the city on 22-25 March, and condemned the loss of life, especially of civilians.
"There remains a war spirit in the country, which is a bit like malaria," the UK ambassador, Andy Sparkes, said. "We thought we had healed the country with a big dose of quinine, with the holding of free and transparent elections last year, but this war spirit has returned."
The violence erupted when armed forces clashed with the private guards of opposition leader, Jean-Pierre Bemba. The army had sought to disarm Bemba's troops.
Greek ambassador Ioannis Christofilis said attacks on foreign missions broke the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations, while the Italian ambassador Leonardo Baroncelli said uniformed men broke into his residence on 23 March and stole property.
"There needs to be a new spirit of reconciliation with a real engagement of the authorities for democratic opposition, where the liberty of expression is reaffirmed," said Sparkes. "Violence needs to be denounced so that dialogue can continue."
The EU estimates that more than 500 people could have died in the violence. DRC authorities later issued an arrest warrant for Bemba who sought shelter in the South African embassy.
"All those who are responsible for insecurity will be tracked down," President Joseph Kabila said. "It was not a political problem; [it] was military. We needed to act quickly. And that is what we did."
Medical workers said hospitals were overwhelmed by hundreds of injured civilians. A surgeon in Kinshasa's general hospital, Katamba Mbewbe, said the facility received "a lot of injured people".
A few hundred people fled across the river to nearby Congo Brazzaville. The NGO Caritas said it was distributing medical supplies within the city.
"We started on Saturday [24 March] because the hospitals and morgues were overloaded," said a spokesman, Guy-Marin Kamandji, adding that the general hospital had received 150 bodies. "This is why we brought formalin and disinfecting products. We want the bodies, which have started putrefying, to be stabilised before burial."
It was not a political problem; [it] was military. We needed to act quickly. And that is what we did.
The International Committee of the Red Cross deplored the situation. "There were dozens of dead bodies left lying at the roadside, many of them civilians. It was a distressing sight," said Max Hadorn, head of the ICRC delegation in Kinshasa.
Ever since Bemba disputed the results of the 29 October run-off presidential election, which gave Kabila 58.05 percent of the vote, leaving him 41.95 percent, Kinshasa has been living in fear that clashes could recur between his guards and government forces. This month, tension rose after he refused to disarm his men and accept police guards.
The elections, the first in 40 years, were seen as the best opportunity to return peace to the war-ravaged country and to encourage the return of an estimated 1.2 million displaced Congolese and 410,000 refugees in neighbouring countries.
In New York, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged the government and opposition "to shoulder their responsibilities to democracy" to ensure a full transition to peace.
"I strongly urge the political leaders in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to respect the principles of transparency, inclusiveness and tolerance of dissent," he said in a report that called for an extension till 31 December of the UN Mission in DRC (MONUC).
MONUC, which has a military and police strength of almost 18,000, supplied food, water and medicine to 1,300 people caught up in last week's fighting and evacuated about 1,100, including the Nigerian ambassador, who was wounded in the legs.
"Opposition parties should adhere to those same democratic norms, voicing their views responsibly and without resort to violence," Ban added. "Failure to adhere to these democratic principles would seriously undermine the credibility and ultimate legitimacy of the country's political leaders and institutions."
Specialized UN Police Units Helped Civilians During Recent Unrest - Official
UN News Service
March 30, 2007
Specialized United Nations police units from Bangladesh and India were instrumental in saving civilian lives amidst heavy fighting during last week's violence in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
The specialized armoured police units - known as Formed Police Units (FPUs) - from Bangladesh and India "operated at considerable risk to extricate people who had been pinned down by gunfire who were actually inside homes where mortar rounds and other munitions were being deployed," said UN Police (UNPOL) Adviser Mark Kroeker told the UN News Service.
The UN mission in the DRC, known as MONUC, estimates that hundreds were killed and many more wounded in the violence which broke out on 22 March between Government forces and guards of former Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba, who was defeated last year by current President Joseph Kabila in the run-off round of landmark presidential elections.
The FPUs rescued not only "the high-level people such as ambassadors, but also just ordinary people who are trapped and who needed to be evacuated from the line of fire," Mr. Kroeker added, voicing his gratitude to the police officers, none of whom have been reported injured. "They were in what turned out to be almost a military environment, but they operated as a rescue unit helping people."
FPUs were first used as part of the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), but their success there and in other operations has led to calls for increasing deployment, and to date, there are 35 units dispersed among six missions worldwide.
Each of these units, comprising over 100 police officers from a single country, is highly mobile and tactically ready to respond to various situations, including crowd control, riots or natural disasters, in which local agencies are overwhelmed or lack capacity due to conflict.
FPUs, known for their competence and efficiency, have demonstrated "compassion and caring" not only last week in the DRC, but in other instances as well, Mr. Kroeker said.
For example, a Jordanian FPU with UNMIL in Liberia recently visited an orphanage housing approximately 350 children who lost their parents in the civil war that ravaged the country, bringing with them food from their own storage to feed the orphans. An Indian FPU stationed in Kisangani in the DRC is aiding in the re-equipment of schools and also assisting community members with a range of tasks, including helping people start their cars.
Mr. Kroeker noted that such efforts help to hasten communities' acceptance of the UNPOL officers and also show that "they're more than just police officers, but police officers who care" with a "beating humanitarian heart under that big façade of the tough cop."
SADC Leaders Concerned DRC Could Regress
AllAfrica.com - BuaNews (Tshwane)
March 30, 2007
Leaders of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) are concerned that current violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo could cause the nation to fall back into conflict.
This emanated from the leaders' two-day extraordinary summit which ended in the Tanzanian coastal city of Dar-Es-Salaam Thursday.
The SADC leaders felt that the current hostilities were retrogressive and should be brought to an end sooner rather than later.
In a joint communique, which was adopted by all the ten heads of state, it was agreed that since the DRC was a sovereign state, it should have only one national army.
Tanzania, represented by President Jakaya Kikwete, is the current chair of the community's organ on politics, defense and security cooperation and is concurrently chairing the SADC diplomatic Troika that also includes Lesotho and Namibia.
The SADC leaders, who recommended that all the small armies in the DRC be integrated into the national army or be demobilised, were concerned that the proliferation of armies in the DRC was a sure recipe for continued violence and loss of lives.
President Thabo Mbeki was supported at the summit by Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad.
Briefing reporters in Parliament Tuesday, Mr Pahad had indicated the leaders' concerns that the DRC may slide back to its previous state due to the clashes between government forces and the personal bodyguard of senator Jean-Pierre Bemba.
" South Africa continues to be seized with the matter," Mr Pahad said.
"Many countries are expressing deep concern that the gains made in the DRC will be undermined."
Unsuccessful presidential candidate Jean-Pierre Bemba, who is also leader of the opposition Movement for the Liberation of Congo, has been sheltering at the South African embassy in the DRC's capital Kinshasa, since last week.
The opposition leader has since called the attacks an attempt on his life.
Mr Pahad said reports indicated at least 120 people had died in the recent upsurge of violence there.
South Africa, the deputy minister said, would continue to provide sanctuary for Mr Bemba "on South African property" until such time as the opposition leader saw fit.
"In terms of international conventions he has taken asylum. He'll remain there until he sees fit."
Mr Bemba, said the deputy minister, has been charged with high treason, while his party has called for a truce.
South Africa is a vital roleplayer in the vast central African nation's move from over 40 years of unrest towards becoming a democracy in last year's elections where former vice President Bemba faced off with incumbent President Joseph Kabila.
Mandated by the African Union, South Africa facilitated talks between various factions and government representatives and went on to provide intensive logistical and technical support for the elections.
This included printing and distributing ballot papers and providing vital IT infrastructure to count votes.
South African troops are also part of the security forces of MONUC, the United Nations mission in the DRC, which is incidentally the largest UN military presence deployed anywhere in the world.
Mr Kabila was reinstated as the president of the resource rich African country after run-off elections on 29 October 2006, where neither he nor Mr Bemba garnered a majority of the votes cast at initial polls in July.
President Kabila won 44.81 percent of the votes while Mr Bemba captured 20.03 percent.
It is provided for by the DRC's constitution, that in cases where a presidential candidate fails to garner a minimum of 51 percent of the votes, a run off election must be convened between the two strongest candidates.
President Kabila won the run off elections, but these results were challenged by Mr Bemba who alleged "systematic cheating and falsified results."
The results subsequently went before the DRC's Supreme Court on 16 November amid violence, including the torching of the court's premises.
The Supreme Court on 27 November confirmed President Kabila as the winner of the run-off elections, a decision South Africa urged Mr Bemba and his party to accept.
- BuaNews-NNN
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Darfur, Sudan (ICC)
Official Website of the International Criminal Court
ICC Public Documents - Situation in Darfur, Sudan
Sudan 's President Denies Involvement in Darfur Violence
Voice of America
by Sean Maroney
March 20, 2007
DATELINE: Washington
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir denied in an interview with NBC news Monday that his government had any involvement in the violence in Darfur. VOA's Sean Maroney reports from Washington.
Sudan 's President Omar al-Bashir is rejecting reports that government-backed Arab militias called janjaweed have burned thousands of villages in Darfur.
Mr. Bashir tells NBC news that, while some villages have been burned, women have been raped and people have died, reports of violence from the region are either exaggerated or false.
"Yes, there have been villages burned, but not to the extent you are talking about,"said al-Bashir. "People have been killed because there is war. It is not the Sudanese culture or people of Darfur to rape. It doesn't exist. We don't have it."
Mr. Bashir also says the former junior interior minister, Ahmed Muhammed Harun, who was charged with war crimes by International Criminal Court prosecutors, is innocent and will not appear before the court.
"I'm sure that he did not participate in any war crimes," he said.
He said any Sudanese accused of war crimes would be tried by the country's judicial system.
Mr. Bashir also accuses the United States of trying to gain control of Darfur's rich oil and gas reserves.
The United States and several human rights groups has called the atrocities in Darfur genocide.
Fighting between rebel groups, the government and militias has claimed some 200,000 lives and driven two million others from their homes.
Sudan Govt Suspends Agreement on Kony
AllAfrica.com - The Monitor
by
Frank Nyakairu
March 20, 2007
THE Sudanese government will suspend all cooperation with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in response to accusations that Sudanese officials have committed war crimes in Darfur.
The action will also affect Khartoum's commitment to cooperate in the arrest of rebel leader Joseph Kony and his commanders in the Lord's Resistance Army who are under indictment by the Hague-based court.
"We had extended our cooperation with the ICC for some time, but now the situation is completely different," Justice Minister Mohammed Ali al-Mardi told journalists yesterday in Geneva where he was attending a UN Human Rights Council meeting.
"It's not even a question of cooperation anymore, it's a question that they (the ICC) want to try Sudanese citizens, which is absolutely nonsensical," he said.
On October 3, 2005, the ICC, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate in the arrest of Kony and four LRA commanders. The rebel group had been operating from South Sudan for years and had also moved into northeastern Congo.
Daily Monitor has seen the document signed by Abdul Kassim, Sudan 's ambassador in The Hague, that commits the signatories to arrest Kony, his deputy Vincent Otti and commanders Dominic Ongwen, Okot Odhiambo and Raska Lukwiya, who has since died.
The other four are wanted in connection with war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed during their 20-year insurgency in northern Uganda.
Uganda's Justice Minister Khiddu Makubuya said he couldn't comment on possible implications of the decision to suspend the agreement until receiving an official note from Khartoum.
Regional Cooperation Minister Isaac Musumba acknowledged that the suspension of cooperation between Sudan and the ICC "has huge implications for the dynamics of the Kony case."
The government of South Sudan is mediating peace talks between Uganda and the LRA, which are currently in suspension.
Khartoum has rejected ICC allegations made late last month against two Sudanese officials of committing war crimes in Sudan 's western Darfur province.
ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said there was evidence that Sudan 's Minister of State for Humanitarian Affairs Ahmad Muhamad Haroun recruited people for the Janjaweed, an armed group allegedly backed by Khartoum. Khartoum denies the claims, but there is increasing evidence backing them.
Mr Moreno-Ocampo said Mr Haroun and a Janjaweed leader known as "Ali Kusheib" were suspected of committing 51 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The Sudanese justice minister said Khartoum did not accept the indictments and would not hand over the suspects.
The ICC, the world's first permanent war crimes court, has authority to prosecute when national courts are unwilling or unable to act. Its mandate does not cover crimes committed before 2002.
Khartoum maintains that the ICC has no right to try Sudanese citizens because Sudan did not ratify the convention creating the international court.
The Sudanese government says it is investigating the two suspects named by the ICC.
An estimated 200,000 people have been killed in Darfur and more than two million displaced since the conflict between local rebels and the Janjaweed erupted in 2003.
Probe of Darfur 'slavery' starts
BBC News
by Joseph Winter
March 21, 2007
Lawyers in Sudan's Darfur region are investigating reports of slavery during the conflict, the BBC has learned.
"There are many cases of abductions," a Sudanese lawyer told the BBC.
They are too afraid of possible reprisals from either militias or state security agents to give their names but say there is strong evidence.
"It is happening but on a smaller scale than in the south," one Sudanese human rights worker said. Some 11,000 people were enslaved in the north-south war.
Arab pro-government "Murahaleen" militias rode their horses into southern villages, killing men, raping women, looting anything they found and burning the huts.
The Darfur conflict broke out just as the war in the south was coming to an end and eyewitness reports bear a striking similarity of atrocities committed by the militias, known in Darfur as the Janjaweed.
One of the worst affected parts of south Sudan was Bahr al-Ghazal - just south of the border with the largely Arab north and not far from South Darfur.
Training
Sudanese human rights workers say some members of the Arab Rezeigat community have been in both the Janjaweed and the Murahaleen but most of the Janjaweed are from different Arab tribes.
Sudan 's veteran anti-slave campaigner James Aguer, however, says they are exactly the same groups, just with a different name.
Sudan 's government has strongly denied claims it mobilised first the Murahaleen and then the Janjaweed to terrorise civilian populations seen as rebel sympathisers.
It also denies there are slaves in Sudan, instead using the euphemism "abductees".
But some analysts say the similar methods used could be because they have undergone the same training.
One aid worker said that in both cases, after local groups took up arms against the government, Arab tribal leaders were told that black Africans were trying to take their land and needed to be resisted.
The Arabs were given weapons with horrific results, he said.
Until now, a key difference between the two conflicts is that despite all the other atrocities committed, there have been no reports of people in Darfur being abducted and held for more than a few weeks.
Arrest warrant
A court in Khartoum has heard evidence that some 40 women and girls were abducted two years ago from the village of Wadi Saleh by a group of Janjaweed.
One of the militiamen sought a court order to let him legally marry one of the women but after he admitted how they had met, the judge refused his request.
Both the woman and the man said the 40 had been divided up between the raiders as a form of booty.
But the woman has since disappeared.
There is no independent confirmation of the claims but the testimony closely resembles that of some of the southerners who were abducted during raids on their villages and spent years in slavery in the north before returning home following the north-south peace deal.
One of the lawyers now investigating the reports says he has personally met two people who were forced to work for a prominent Janjaweed leader for six months, before another member of the militia helped them escape.
One reason why there seems to be less slavery in Darfur could be religion.
Both Darfur and south Sudan are mostly inhabited by black Africans but southerners are mostly Christian and animist, while Darfuris are generally Muslim, like the Arabs who have traditionally dominated Sudan.
Forced conversion seemed to be one motivation behind the abduction of southerners - they were mostly given Islamic names and told they were now Muslim.
One group of abductors was known as the Muhajadeen [Islamic holy warriors].
But this justification cannot be used in Darfur.
"Muslims are strictly forbidden to enslave fellow Muslims," the lawyer said.
While they proceed with their investigations, the lawyers are extremely concerned for their safety.
The Hague-based International Criminal Court has already issued an arrest warrant for a top Sudanese official over the conflict in Darfur - and says it is investigating others.
As a result, anyone seen asking questions about possible war crimes such as enslavement would be seen as a potential ICC spy, the lawyers fear.
Darfur: UN, Sudan and regional groups commit to hybrid peacekeeping force
UN News Service
March 29, 2007
The United Nations, the Sudanese Government, the African Union (AU) and the League of Arab States (LAS) have agreed to re-double their efforts to resolve the conflict engulfing Darfur and to press ahead quickly with plans to deploy a hybrid UN-AU peacekeeping force to the war-torn region to stop the bloodshed and protect civilians.
During a meeting in Riyadh last night chaired by Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, the participants agreed to play their part to try to accelerate political reconciliation inside Darfur, where rebel groups have been fighting Government forces and allied Janjaweed militias since 2003.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who attended the meeting with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, AU Chairperson Alpha Oumar Konaré and LAS Secretary-General Amr Moussa, later told reporters that, “I think we made progress where there had been an impasse.”
A statement issued after the meeting committed the UN, AU, LAS and Sudan “to work together to seek an early and comprehensive settlement to the conflict and humanitarian suffering,” and commended yesterday’s separate agreement between the UN and Sudan to improve humanitarian access to Darfur.
“In parallel with the political process, they also agreed on the shared need to move expeditiously ahead with the AU-UN peacekeeping operation,” the statement added, referring to the planned hybrid force – known also as the “heavy support package” – which the Sudanese Government had backed initially but then indicated it may not support.
“Reaffirming the commitment of the Government of Sudan to the Abuja and Addis [Ababa] agreements, they agreed to hold a technical consultative briefing at the earliest possible date, to finalize the agreement on the heavy support package.”
The agreement comes amid mounting international concern at the humanitarian situation in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have been killed and at least 2 million others forced to leave their homes. The unrest and large-scale displacement has now spilled over into neighbouring Chad and the Central African Republic (CAR).
Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes wrapped up his visit today to Chad, the second leg of his two-week tour of the region to see first hand the conditions on the ground.
Mr. Holmes, who is also Emergency Relief Coordinator, held talks in the capital, N’Djamena, with Chadian Prime Minister Nouradine Deluce Kassiré Coumakoye in which he stressed the need for the country’s Government to increase its protection of both internally displaced persons (IDPs) and the estimated 280,000 refugees from Darfur and the CAR.
Mr. Holmes voiced concern about the situation in eastern Chad in particular, noting the need for increased security in the camps for IDPs and refugees. Citing carjackings as an example, he said impunity prevails for the perpetrators of many crimes.
The Emergency Relief Coordinator then headed to Paoua in northern CAR, the scene of massive internal displacement in the past six months as armed rebels have launched attacks against villages and towns.
He visited the destroyed village of Polau, where the 360 inhabitants fled after an attack on a Sunday three months ago when the entire village was at church.
Human Rights Council sets up independent monitoring group on Darfur
UN News Service
March 30, 2007
The United Nations Human Rights Council today agreed to set up a group of independent rights experts to work with the Sudanese Government and the African Union (AU) to monitor the situation on the ground in the war-torn Darfur region.
In a resolution adopted by consensus, the 47-member Council voiced “deep concern regarding the seriousness of the ongoing violations of human rights and international humanitarian law in Darfur,” citing armed attacks on civilians and humanitarian workers, the widespread destruction of villages and the lack of accountability for the perpetrators of gender-based violence against women and girls.
Calling on all sides to the conflict to end the violence, especially against civilians and humanitarian workers, the Council voiced regret that its recent five-member High-Level Mission led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jody Williams could not visit Darfur.
The resolution backs the establishment of a new group to be presided over by the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Sudan, Sima Samar. The group will work with Sudan and the AU to ensure that all resolutions and recommendations on Darfur by UN human rights institutions – including the Council – are implemented and followed up.
The other members of the group are: the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for children and armed conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy; the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Philip Alston; the Secretary-General’s Special Representative on the situation of human rights defenders, Hina Jilani; the Secretary-General’s Representative on human rights of internally displaced persons (IDPs), Walter Kälin; the Special Rapporteur on the question of torture, Manfred Nowak; and the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, Yakin Ertürk.
The resolution was adopted amid mounting international concern at the situation inside Darfur, where at least 200,000 have been killed and 2 million others forced from their homes since rebel groups took up arms against Government forces and allied Janjaweed militias in 2003.
The Darfur resolution was one of seven adopted, as well as two decisions, on the last day of the Council’s fourth session, held at its headquarters in Geneva.
In its other resolutions, the Council agreed to:
- work towards raising the right to development to the same level with other human rights enshrined in key international instruments;
- emphasize that development should be at the centre of the international economic agenda;
- strengthen the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, so that the promotion and protection of the right to development is reaffirmed;
- rectify the legal status of the Committee on Economic, Social and Economic Rights so that it is on a par with all other treaty-monitoring bodies;
- urge States to take resolute action to ban the dissemination of racist or xenophobic ideas and material aimed at any religion or its followers that constituted incitement to racial or religious hatred or violence;
- ask the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Asma Jahangir, to report on the elimination of all forms of intolerance and discrimination.
The Council, which replaced the discredited Commission on Human Rights last year, also decided to request Ms. Arbour to consult States, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and others on ways to enhance international cooperation in the UN human rights machinery, and to ask Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to seek the views of all States on the issue of human rights and unilateral coercive measures. The Council’s next session will be held from 11 to 18 June.
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Uganda (ICC)
Official Website of the International Criminal Court
ICC Public Documents - Situation in Uganda
Chissano seeks to rescue flagging LRA peace talks
The East African
by Barbara Among
March 26, 2007
Representatives of the Uganda government and the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels will this week meet the UN Secretary General’s special envoy to northern Uganda, Joaqim Chissano, in a bid to restart the faltering peace talks.
Mr Chissano a former president of Mozambique.
The meeting comes in the wake of Khartoum’s decision to pull out of an agreement to co-operate with the International Criminal Court after the ICC indicted two Sudanese officials over war crimes in the western region of Darfur.
Although it is widely believed that Sudan’s earlier decision to co-operate with the ICC helped force the LRA rebel leaders to the negotiating table, officials on all sides say Khartoum’s recent decision will not derail the peace talks in the Southern Sudanese town of Juba.
LRA leader Joseph Kony, his deputy Vincent Otti and three of his commanders were indicted by the ICC over war crimes in northern Uganda following an application by the Ugandan government in 2005.
The leader of the Uganda government’s negotiating team, Dr Ruhakana Rugunda, who is also Internal Affairs Minister, said the indictments over Darfur were “a bilateral matter” between the government of Sudan and the ICC.
“I do not expect it to have a significant impact on the ongoing peace process,” he said.
LRA spokesman Godfrey Ayo said in a telephone interview last week that the rebels were not bothered by the development.
“That is Sudan’s business with the ICC,” Mr Ayo said. “It has nothing to add or subtract from our position that the ICC drops the indictment of our leaders; that is our biggest concern.”
However, the talks between Kampala and the LRA, which have been on-and-off since July last year, are unlikely to restart in early April as earlier envisaged by the negotiators.
The ICC indictments hanging over the rebel leaders continue to cast a shadow over the Juba peace talks, as the LRA has threatened to pull out of the talks unless the warrants of arrest are withdrawn.
“The ICC warrant of arrest is a big issue for us, we call it a major obstacle to the peace talks. Without removing the arrest warrant, it will not be possible to get our leaders into the open. We shall talk but we won’t be able to sign the comprehensive peace agreement,” Mr Ayo said.
After the rebels showed a willingness to talk peace, the government said it would consider asking the ICC to suspend the indictments, but only if the rebels signed a peace deal, handed over their arms and underwent traditional reconciliation processes. The ICC has however, refused to withdraw the indictments.
This week’s meeting is expected to discuss the presence of the Ugandan army in Southern Sudan, where an agreement with Khartoum allowed them to flush out the rebels from their bases there.
The meeting is also expected to consider a rebel demand to shift the talks away from Juba, allegedly because the government of Southern Sudan and its Vice President Riek Machar, who is the mediator of the talks, are biased against the rebels.
The rebels also want their delegates to the talks given more money in allowances. Dr Rugunda met Kony at the latter’s hideout in Garamba, in the jungles of northeastern Congo but the meeting failed to resolve the issue of the venue of the talks.
“We did meet at the request of Mr Chissano and other stakeholders and discussed a number of issues,” said Mr Ayo. “The meeting was called to address specific reasons that led to the stalemate of the peace talks, but it was not conclusive. So we are meeting soon to discuss the way forward.”
This week’s meeting is expected to take place either in Juba or in Nairobi and will be attended by representatives of the Kenyan and Tanzanian governments.
In January, LRA delegates quit talks that had restarted in Juba, saying they feared for their safety after Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir vowed to “get rid” of them.
They called for the talks to be moved to Kenya, the appointment of a new mediator, and the withdrawal of Ugandan troops from Southern Sudan – demands that the Ugandan government has rejected.
High on the LRA agenda is the question of security of its fighters at the two assembly points of Owiny-Ki Bul and Ri-Kwamgba in Southern Sudan. The LRA accuses Ugandan troops of ambushing them at the two points.
A truce signed in August and renewed in December 2006 expired last month. Many in northern Uganda are apprehensive about what could happen if it is not extended, though the army has ruled out launching attacks on the rebels.
The talks are meant to end two decades of civil war in northern Uganda, which have claimed thousands of lives and displaced some 1.6 million from their homes.
Ugandan army 'kills 66 children'
BBC News
March 30, 2007
Sixty-six children were killed in eastern Uganda during an army operation against suspected cattle rustlers, UK charity Save the Children says.
They were shot by soldiers, run over by armoured vehicles or crushed by stampeding animals last month.
The aid group said it had not found physical evidence of the alleged deaths in Karamoja, but had consistent reports after interviewing some 200 people.
The army denied the allegations, saying only adults were killed in the raids.
The BBC's Sarah Grainger in Uganda says there has been an increase in violence in Karamoja since the army began its disarmament programme in May last year.
'Crushed'
"I saw many children killed, including my own son," one woman in Kaputh village near Kothido town told the BBC.
I ran away like many people and when I came back both of my young sons were missing.
"He was with the livestock, trying to untie them so they could escape the firing. But he got crushed by the animals as they tried to run away."
Other villagers said the raid began at 0800 on 12 February.
A village elder greeted the army forces thinking they were carrying out a disarmament exercise, but was shot dead.
"I ran away like many people and when I came back both of my young sons were missing. Up till now I cannot find them so I think they were killed," another man said.
Army spokesman in Karamoja Lieutenant Henry Obbo said a five-day disarmament exercise had begun in the area on 10 February.
But when some warriors resisted the operation they opened fire on the army.
He said 52 warriors and four soldiers were killed in the incident, but no children were involved.
Save the Children has called for an independent investigation into the events at Kaputh.
"Reports of children being killed in indiscriminate, illegal and inhumane ways is absolutely devastating. Such allegations must be fully investigated and those involved brought to account," Save the Children's Valter Tinderholt said, Reuters news agency reports.
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International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)
Official Website of the ICTY
Defence Lawyer Appeals Dismissal
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
By Caroline Tosh
March 23, 2007
Former Croatian justice minister Miroslav Separovic has appealed against his dismissal as lawyer for Croatian general Mladen Markac.
Separovic’s appeal, filed on March 20, is also against the trial chamber finding of misconduct in his representation of Markac, who is set to go on trial with former Croatian army generals Ante Gotovina and Ivan Cermak, on May 7.
The three Croatians are charged with the murder, persecution and deportation of ethnic Serbs during a Croatian military operation to retake the Serb-held Krajina region in the summer of 1995.
Judges dismissed Separovic from the case on March 6, stating that he had a “personal interest” in the case and was likely to be called to testify.
Separovic, a Zagreb attorney, was Croatia’s justice minister during the period relevant to the indictment.
The trial chamber also ordered Markac to find a new lawyer, and told Separovic to assist his replacement until he or she is ready to fully take over the case.
The code of ethics for the defence at the tribunal prevents lawyers representing a client where there is a conflict of interest, or where “counsel is likely to be a necessary witness” in a trial.
In his appeal this week, Separovic argued that in their decision to dismiss him, judges “did not appropriately take into account the legal arguments and jurisprudence” on conflict of interest at the tribunal.
He also argued that the judges’ finding “jeopardises and endangers” Markac’s right to a fair trial “due to substantial hardship he would suffer” if he were not allowed to choose his own counsel.
Attached to the appeal was a statement signed by Markac on March 7, 2006, in which the former general said he was “entirely informed” of the conflict of interest of his counsel and had “full faith” in Separovic.
Markac also said he thought the judges’ decision “unjust and unlawful” as it deprived him of his right to choose his own counsel.
Peace at expense of law leaves us with neither
B92
March 23, 2007
WASHINGTON -- The Cato Institute’s Stanley Kober says Europe and the UN could be facing a defining moment.
“Even though the [1999] war had been fought to protect the people of Kosovo, [Resolution] 1244 decreed that Kosovo would not be granted independence."
"The sovereignty and territorial integrity’ of Yugoslavia (now Serbia) were to be protected, while Kosovo was to be granted ‘substantial autonomy and meaningful self-administration,’” Kober, a research fellow in foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute writes in an op-ed published by the International Herald Tribune.
“Now, it appears, these assurances will be repudiated,” Kober notes.
He reminds that the Serbian government and Russia have reacted negatively to the recently disclosed Kosovo status proposal, prepared by the UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari, as have the Kosovo Serbs, even with “assurances of protection, while Serbia is being shown the carrot (and stick) of inclusion (or exclusion) in a broader Europe.”
“These inducements, however, do not seem to be having much effect. The Serbs in Kosovo would ‘resist as any occupied people would do,’ the head of the Serbian Orthodox church, Bishop Artemije, told an audience in Washington on February 8,” Kober writes.
“Then there is the problem of international law,” he continues, reminding that the 1999 NATO campaign was not endorsed by the UN.
“But the rule of law works by precedent, so what applies to one must apply to others. If NATO, as an international security organization, can act this way, why cannot other such organizations act similarly in the future,” Kober argues.
“That is why adherence to Resolution 1244 is so important. If 1244 is ignored, it is unreasonable to expect that our actions would not be treated as a precedent to ignore other UN resolutions in the future. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov have both made this point.”
“Indeed, if we attempt to buy peace at the expense of law, we might find out we end up with neither,” Kober concludes.
He describes the conflicting points of Kosovo’s independence, Serbia's territorial integrity, legitimacy and law as Europe’s trains “hurtling toward each other,” adding that should Russians and the Chinese opt to oppose the revision of 1244, and the U.S. decide to ignore that and formally approve the Ahtisaari plan, “the reverberations will be felt well beyond the Balkans."
Tale of two worlds for Kosovo politician
International Herald Tribune
Nicholas Wood
March 26, 2007
PRISTINA, Kosovo: Depending on whom you talk to here, Ramush Haradinaj, a stocky ethnic Albanian, former guerrilla commander and, briefly, Kosovo's prime minister, is either one of most impressive leaders to emerge in the Balkans in recent years, or a gruesome war criminal. Some say he is both.
Haradinaj began to stand trial at the UN tribunal in The Hague this month charged with the killing of 40 people in 1998, during the conflict between the Kosovo Liberation Army guerrilla group and the Serb-dominated security forces. Two other former members of the army are on trial with him.
The prosecution's leading witness, Tahir Zemaj, his son and nephew were shot and killed during the investigation. Another witness, Kjutim Berisha, died two weeks before the trial opened when he was hit by a car in the Montenegrin capital.
More than a third of those giving evidence on behalf of the prosecution are allowed to conceal their identities, more than any other case in the tribunal's history, according to the prosecution team.
But the most unusual controversy does not stem from the security measures, or the prosecution's gory allegations, but from the divisions the case has created between prosecutors at the tribunal and in Kosovo on the one side, and on the other, UN diplomats in Kosovo and Western governments that are among the court's biggest supporters.
For Western diplomats, Haradinaj was a key partner in their efforts to bring peace to the province, so much so that they tried to prevent the case from going to trial, according to a former head of the UN mission in Kosovo and the court's chief prosecutor. Once he was indicted, the UN mission supported Haradinaj's provisional release so he could continue to play a role in politics. He was given that release, lasting almost two years, the only indicted person to have been released by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in order to play an active role in politics.
Starting when he was first indicted, many diplomats and UN officials feared that their efforts at reconciliation between Serbs and Albanians would be set back.
"He moved this process forward in a way that nobody else has done," said Soren Jessen-Petersen, who was the head of the UN mission in Kosovo at the time of Haradinaj's indictment, in March 2005, just four months after Haradinaj became prime minister.
Prosecutors both in Kosovo and The Hague argue that the United Nations and Western governments bent over backwards to stop the trial of someone charged with war crimes.
The tribunal's chief prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, has referred to the case as "a prosecution that some did not want to see brought, and that few supported by their cooperation at both the international and local level."
In Kosovo, the former guerrilla commander is seen as one of the most charismatic leaders to emerge from the 1997-99 fighting. While the Serbian government vilified him as a terrorist, senior UN officials say he was instrumental in promoting reconciliation.
"He clearly understood that Serbs could and should be part of the society," said Jessen-Petersen. "And he had the credentials. Because of his background nobody could accuse him of betraying Kosovo."
Both before and after his indictment, Haradinaj proved helpful, Jessen-Petersen and other diplomats say.
In March 2004, during rioting across Kosovo, he was credited by Serbian Orthodox monks for preventing hundreds of rioters from attacking Kosovo's best known monastery. UN officials say Haradinaj also helped ensure that a visit to Kosovo by Serbia's president, Boris Tadic, in January 2005 passed without incident.
All along, international officials have tried to balance the need for political stability with the demands for justice. The UN administration in Kosovo repeatedly blocked the prosecution of Haradinaj in a case in which he was accused of attacking a rival family group of former fighters of the Kosovo Liberation Army.
The effect, according to the prosecution, was to create a sense of impunity around Haradinaj and to scare away witnesses.
"There was a general atmosphere of intimidation; they did nothing to change this atmosphere," said Jean-Daniel Ruche, political advisor to the chief prosecutor in The Hague. He said that senior UN officials had met with Haradinaj before his departure to the Netherlands at the time of his indictment in 2005 and when he returned there to stand trial. "This has had a chilling impact on our witnesses," he said in an interview by telephone.
The UN mission denies that its conduct had a detrimental impact on the tribunal and referred to three decisions by the tribunal supporting Haradinaj's provisional release. In each case the tribunal rejected motions from the prosecution arguing that his release would intimidate witnesses.
"In decision after decision, the ICTY Chamber has made it clear that the United Nations Mission in Kosovo is in the best position to determine what is in the interest of promoting peace and reconciliation in Kosovo," wrote Myriam Dessables, a UN spokeswoman in an e-mail.
The indictment contains details that are among the most gruesome brought before the tribunal: of prisoners being seized by men under Haradinaj's command, bound in barbed wire and dragged behind vehicles, and of women taken from their homes and raped repeatedly.
Haradinaj's supporters profess his innocence, saying there is no evidence to link him directly to the crimes, and suggest the court charged him simply to appear even handed in its prosecution of senior ethnic Albanians and Serbs.
As Haradinaj's indictment loomed in early 2005, Jessen-Petersen said he was aware that Western diplomats were trying to prevent the case from going ahead. He emphasized though that the UN mission in Kosovo had made no such approaches to the court.
But the UN mission stopped at least one prosecution of Haradinaj within Kosovo, according to two former members of Kosovo's justice department.
On July 7, 2000, Haradinaj led a group of men to a rival family's house in the village of Strelc in western Kosovo. A gun fight ensued, according to police investigators, in which Haradinaj was injured by a grenade. He was evacuated by U.S. personnel operating out of the main U.S. Army base in Kosovo, who also removed evidence of the shootout from the walls, according to Frederick Pascoe, a former U.S. police officer who investigated the shooting. Pascoe served with the United Nations in Kosovo.
When UN prosecutors tried to bring charges against Haradinaj, senior UN officials within the mission lobbied to prevent that, according to two former members of the UN mission's Department of Justice.
Kamudoni Nyasulu, an international prosecutor in Pec, in northwestern Kosovo, said that between 2001 and 2004 he repeatedly tried to bring the case to court.
"What I had was sufficient for a case," Nyasulu said, but he added that he was rebuffed by senior UN officials because the case was "politically sensitive."
In early 2005 another justice official at the United Nations tried again to bring the case to court but says he was directed in an e-mail by the head of the justice department not to.
"I was told we do not do the Haradinaj case," said the former UN official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Mesic: There Was No Joint Criminal Enterprise
Hina News Agency
March 28, 2007
ZAGREB, March 28 (Hina) - Croatian President Stjepan Mesic said on Wednesday he disagreed with the allegation by prosecutors at the Hague war crimes tribunal that crimes committed during and in the wake of Croatian military operation "Storm" were the result of a joint criminal enterprise.
"I do not agree that there was a criminal enterprise, because I myself was a member of the Croatian leadership until 1994. If there had been a criminal enterprise I would have known something about it. The court will have its say, but it will have to consider all the arguments and realise that it cannot draw far-reaching conclusions from a meeting that may have taken place in a special atmosphere," Mesic told reporters.
When asked to comment on the fact that the prosecution based the indictment in the case of three Croatian generals on transcripts from his office, Mesic said he did not know on what basis the indictment was put together.
"I was not elected to this office to hide evidence (...) but to abide by the Croatian Constitution. I am obligated under the Constitutional Law on Cooperation with the Hague tribunal to assist in establishing facts, and it is up to the tribunal to find if someone is guilty or not," the president said.
In a pre-trial brief filed ahead of the start of the joint trial of Croatian army generals Ante Gotovina, Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac, the prosecution announced it would use transcripts submitted by the Croatian President's Office to prove the alleged existence of the so-called joint criminal enterprise.
The indictment alleges that the three generals, together with the late president Franjo Tudjman, the late defence minister Gojko Susak, the late generals Janko Bobetko and Zvonimir Cervenko, and other unidentified members of the Croatian wartime leadership, planned and carried out a combined military and police operation codenamed Storm in early August 1995 with the aim of ethnically cleansing the areas of Croatia that were under Serb occupation at the time.
The prosecution claims that the plan was conceived at a meeting of the Croatian political and military leadership on the northern Adriatic archipelago of Brijuni on July 31, 1995, which was
attended by Gotovina and Markac.
EP backs supervised independence
B92
29 March 2007
BRUSSELS -- Members of the European Parliament today voted to give full support to Ahtisaari’s Kosovo plan. The adopted report stated that "sovereignty supervised by the international community is the best option for securing the objectives of a peaceful, self-sustaining Kosovo.”
The report also “reaffirmed the European perspective of both Serbia and Kosovo, and called for the EU to play a central role in the current international negotiations for a settlement.”
The own-initiative report by Joost Lagendijk (Greens/EFA, Netherlands), adopted by an overwhelming majority (490 in favor to 80 against with 87 abstentions) spelled out several desirable aspects of a settlement, including access to international financial organizations, an international presence in Kosovo, with a clear definition of its role and mandate, clear provisions on decentralization which grant substantial autonomy in key areas.
The report also called on full respect of human rights, retention of Kosovo's multi-ethnic character, with protection for cultural and religious sites, the establishment of a limited, internal, multi-ethnic Kosovo Security Force, and international guarantees for the territorial integrity of all neighboring states.
The European parliament said on its website that “addressing fears, especially in Russia, that granting Kosovo any form of independence would exacerbate other separatist tensions around the globe, the report ‘underlines that the solution in Kosovo will set no precedent in international law, as Kosovo has been under UN rule since 1999 [...and] is in no way comparable to the situation in other conflict regions which are not under UN administration.’”
The document added, "in the long run, the solution regarding the future status of Kosovo lies also in the fact that both Serbia and Kosovo are due to become part of the EU, together with their neighbors, since the future of the Western Balkans lies in the European Union."
The report emphasized that the EU member states should “speak with one voice on the Kosovo issue,” by adopting a common position in Council, and maintaining it in international fora, especially the UN Security Council.
The Parliament also argued that "the European Union should have a decisive say on the final terms of the settlement."
European Parliament members also called for a visa facilitation agreement for Kosovo, to ease access for travel into the European Union.
Finally, the report stated that "the EP is prepared to make available the additional resources required in order to finance the future EU involvement in Kosovo with a view to implementing the status settlement."
The report also expressed the Parliament's support for the establishment of an ESDP (European Security and Defense Policy) mission to Kosovo.
British Refusal to Extradite Serb Angers Croatia
Balkan Insight
By Drago Hedl in Osijek and Anna McTaggart
March 30, 2007
Row over Milan Spanovic throws spotlight on Croatia’s controversial in absentia war crimes trials.
Croatia is set to appeal a decision made last week in the British courts, refusing Zagreb’s request to extradite the convicted war criminal Milan Spanovic.
While the government has declined to comment on the decision until legal proceedings are over, many in the public and judicial circles have interpreted it as British double standards.
Others disagree, and blame legal sloppiness in Zagreb. Human rights activists, meanwhile, say the decision ought to highlight problems over the way Croatia prosecutes Serb war-crime suspects in absentia.
Spanovic was convicted in 1993 along with 18 other ethnic Serbs in a mass in absentia trial held during the conflict in Croatia that raged from 1991 to 1995. Found guilty of looting, harassing and assaulting civilians, he was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment but never apprehended. He has been resident in Britain since 1998.
A minor altercation with the UK police last year activated an Interpol arrest warrant issued for Spanovic by the Croatian authorities. As the British authorities, to whom he had disclosed the in absentia conviction, awarded him leave to remain in 2000, Croatia filed extradition proceedings.
However, Timothy Workman, an experienced extradition judge, turned down the request, even after the Croatian government had said Spanovic would receive a re-trial upon his transfer, which is general practice in cases of in absentia convictions.
Workman concluded that sending Spanovic back to Croatia would be unjust, as so much time had passed since the original trial to allow for reliable evidence, and the British authorities - by allowing Spanovic to remain, in full knowledge of the conviction - had given him reasonable expectations that he could stay in the UK.
Workman’s findings on the reliability of evidence against Spanovic have caused a storm in Croatia, as they appear at odds with the UK’s strong view that war crimes committed during Yugoslavia’s break-up should be tried in local and international courts.
In particular, he said that “the alleged offences were said to have occurred during a period of civil war, in which inevitably evidence will be hard to find or reconstruct. Witnesses memories after such a lengthy period during which radical change took place will have faded or be inaccurate. Inevitably some witnesses may be unavailable or impossible to trace”.
Many judicial experts have interpreted this as a serious deviation from the conventional viewpoint that a statute of limitation cannot be applied to war crimes and as a subversion of the international community’s proclaimed principles that each and every war crime must be prosecuted and the perpetrators punished.
“How is it that the passage of time since the event took place 16 years ago in the Spanovic case could result in the poor memory of the witnesses when such a rationale has not been applied to some other war crimes, including the ones prosecuted in The Hague, in which the witnesses’ testimonies are deemed to be credible and accurate?” asked one senior Croatian judicial official.
In his view, the Croatian courts are paying a price for the “inflation” of in absentia trials held in the early 1990s, many of which were politically motivated and intended to relieve the anger of the victims’ families over the lack of prosecutions of perpetrators of crimes.
The judiciary then often resorted to bringing war crimes charges en masse and holding trials in absentia that awarded long sentences. Individual responsibility was sometimes not distinguished.
Croatia has issued between 600 and 700 arrest warrants in relation to war crimes and held about 400 in absentia trials, almost entirely of Serbs, according to statistics.
State appointed defence lawyers routinely did little to represent absent clients. The Spanovic trial is considered an example of this practice, which local and international observers, such as the OSCE, Amnesty and Human Rights Watch have researched and criticised.
Nevertheless, Professor Ivo Josipovic, of Zagreb University Law School, still believes the British are applying double standards in this matter. “The Spanovic trial was a sloppy affair but one should bear in mind that we are talking here of the most serious criminal offence,” he told Balkan Insight.
“Now even The Hague tribunal has transferred war crimes cases to the Croatian judiciary, confirming its confidence in the domestic justice system, it is unusual for an EU member country to refuse to hand over to Croatia a person convicted of war crimes under the explanation that the person would not have a fair trial.
“In addition, there is a trial monitoring system in place as well as the fact that in some retrials the persons who received guilty verdicts in absentia have been acquitted.”
But others say Croatia’s argument for extradition had weaknesses. A source in the justice ministry said, “The Croatian authorities issued a Croatian passport to Spanovic in 1997 and back then no one realised this was a person convicted of war crimes by a Croatian court.”
The same source added, “On several occasions, Spanovic also visited the Croatian consulate in London to obtain personal documents for his children but no one told him he was convicted, or that there was an arrest warrant with his name on it.”
According to British lawyer Anand Doobey, an expert in extradition law at Peters & Peters, this was a decisive factor in this case. “What is in question is not the period since the commission of the criminal acts per se, but [the time lapse] since the requesting authorities became aware of the whereabouts of the defendant,” he said. Doobey described the delay of nine years as “excessive”.
Ben Ward, from Human Rights Watch, HRW, in London, emphasised the importance of understanding the court’s reasoning, telling Balkan Insight it would be “unfortunate if the decision was seen as an endorsement of the view that it’s not possible to fairly prosecute war crimes committed in the Balkans in the early 1990s”.
Although the extradition case was decided on the basis of Croatian delays and UK immigration decisions, Workman also commented on human rights concerns in the way Croatia treats ethnic Serbs, quoting HRW reports among others to raise concerns.
While no legal-binding conclusion on these points was made, their mention by the English judge indicates that they would likely be relevant in any future appeal.
According to Ward, “Croatia has improved the way it processes war crimes trials in recent years but there are still problems in the way that it prosecutes ethnic Serbs for those crimes.”
OSCE monitoring shows that the courts in Croatia have made some acquittals once individuals previously convicted in “in absentia” were re-tried in person. In other cases, no new trial was held after arrest because charges were either dropped or re-qualified as non-war crimes, allowing amnesty provisions to apply. Some have also been convicted.
The OSCE Mission told Balkan Insight it now proposed “that a mechanism be found to enable review of these old pending verdicts, outside the standard procedure that requires arrest, detention, and further court proceedings”. It said this would be in keeping with similar procedures used by the prosecutor in cases where no trial has as yet been conducted, where cases that should be pursued are distinguished from those that lack substantiation
However, in absentia trials are not entirely a thing of the past in Croatia. Vesna Terselic, of the Zagreb-based Documenta, a non-governmental organisation that deals with issues to do with facing up to the recent past, said, “Unfortunately, despite the recommendation of the state prosecutor’s office to refrain from organising trials ‘in absentia’, they are still taking place in Croatia.”
Two such trials are currently underway. In another seven, some of those accused are inaccessible and consequently absent from the trials. These include two large trials in the Vukovar District Court over alleged war crimes in the villages of Lovas and Berko.
At regular meetings with representatives of the Croatian justice ministry, the OSCE Mission to Croatia has inquired how state officials plan to address the significant number of in absentia convictions. Along with the European Commission and the ICTY, it recommends enhancing the mechanisms available for inter-state cooperation as a way to try suspects in person.
“Progress in facilitating enhanced inter-state judicial cooperation will be key to avoiding impunity and resolving at least some un-prosecuted cases and avoiding further in absentia cases,” the OSCE Mission stated, emphasising that this also requires assistance from neighbouring states.
Vesna Terselic agrees. “Today, when collaboration among prosecutors’ offices is in place, such trials are not necessary,” she said. “We should also bear in mind the witnesses and victims in particular, who are forced to relive their traumatic experiences several times in court - first in trials in absentia and later on when the accused finally appear in the dock.”
The fact that the accused is not in the courtroom during the trial, added Terselic, did not help to create an impression that court proceedings were impartial and fair.
The Croatian state prosecutor’s office also wants to see the situation improved through closer interstate cooperation along the lines already established among the prosecutors in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro.
Given that suspects are often located in one of these countries whereas the evidence and witnesses are in another - and that there are also those cases in which the crime in question was perpetrated in the third country, it is essential that the prosecutors’ offices in the former Yugoslav republics collaborate effectively.
“We are working on a new agreement to cooperate in the prosecution of war crimes suspects and those who committed crimes against humanity and genocide,” Vladimir Vukcevic, Serbia’s war crimes prosecutor, told Balkan Insight.
“When there is a problem that states cannot extradite their citizens we’ll be transferring evidence against persons suspected of war crimes to the country where that person resides.
“We’ll also be monitoring each others’ activities, but we should say that we’ve already developed mutual trust and that judicial organs in all countries are acting in a professional manner.”
In this sense, legal experts agree that the Spanovic case, regardless of its outcome, may serve as a warning to Croatia not to continue holding criminal proceedings in absentia and focus more on cooperation with judicial organs from other former Yugoslav republics facing similar problems.
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International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)
Official Website of the ICTR
Allegations against Bikindi Co-Counsel not well founded
UN Observer
March 20, 2007
On 9 February 2007, the Registrar’s attention was drawn to an allegation against Maitre Jean De Dieu Momo, Co-counsel for Simon Bikindi. The particulars of the allegation were that Maitre Momo had attempted to influence a protected prosecution witness in the Bikindi trial. The allegation was said to potentially affect the Prosecution case in that trial and it was said that a substantial question was raised as to Maitre Momo’s honesty, trustworthiness and fitness as counsel.
The Registrar initiated an enquiry into the facts behind the allegation. Having received the results of those enquiries, the Registrar is now satisfied that the allegations were not well-founded.
The Registrar finds that there was a meeting between Maitre Momo and a person who was subsequently placed on the list of prosecution witnesses and later was the subject of a protection order. The Registrar has concluded that there is no clear evidence that Maitre Momo breached any ethical standards and that there is no credible evidence that Maitre Momo offered financial inducements to the person involved.
The Registrar concludes that Maitre Momo’s behaviour did not have any adverse effect upon the Prosecution witness and his testimony. The Registrar finally concludes that the facts uncovered by the investigation do not reflect adversely on the honesty, trustworthiness and fitness of Maitre Momo as Co-Counsel.
The Registrar wishes to observe that Counsel must take great care when arranging to interview witnesses that the laws and institutional rules in force in the country where the witness is located are obeyed. The Registrar further observes that the greatest care is needed by the representative of a party when interviewing potential witnesses to avoid the possibility of impropriety, or the appearance of impropriety. Representatives of the parties have an overriding duty to protect the integrity of the judicial process.
Mpanga Prison Ready for ICTR Transfers, Says Mutaboba
AllAfrica.com- The New Times
by Willy Mugenzi
March 27, 2007
Mpanga Prison, proposed to house Genocide and other suspects currently at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) is ready for transfers, Secretary General in the ministry of Internal Security, Joseph Mutaboba has revealed.
Talking to The New Times on March 22 at Mpanga Prison, Mukingo Sector in Nyanza District, Ambassador Mutaboba stressed that the prison is ready for ICTR transfers, noting that the Government has played its part in meeting the required prison international standards.
With a current total of 6,494 prisoners, Mpanga Prison has absorption capacity of 7,500 prisoners, an official source told The New Times.
Sources within the prison intimated to The New Times that so far, 30 dossiers of Genocide cases have been received from Arusha.
ICTR, based in Arusha, Tanzania, was mandated to investigate and prosecute Genocide suspects who authored the 1994 Rwandan Genocide that left over one million innocent people dead and thousands of others as survivors.
The tribunal is expected to wind up its work by 2008, and hand over its documentations and suspects to the Rwandan Government.
Asked whether ICTR has accepted handing over its important archives to Rwanda, when its mandate is over, Mutaboba said: "The landing point for all ICTR archives should be in Rwanda. After all, they contain Rwanda's history. Why should they take our history?"
Most Rwandans believe that Arusha-held prisoners have more uptodate facts about Rwanda's tragedy especially providing information to Genocide survivors on the whereabouts of their relatives still missing, 13 years after the Genocide.
According to Ambassador Mutaboba, transferring Genocide suspects will promote justice and prevent any re-occurrence of similar atrocities.
One Genocide survivor said, "The presence of Jean Kambanda and his likes in Rwanda will be a perpetual Genocide archive, a reference for future generations to fear animosity and instead promote humanism."
Bihingiro John, the director of Mpanga Prison said that the prisoners from Arusha will be given their separate cells to distance them from other prisoners who have been in the country.
"We are now partitioning cells to separate them from those we have here. They will not have any direct contact with other prisoners," Bihingiro said.
Govt Might Sue UN Over '94 Genocide
AllAfrica.com- The New Times
By Edwin Musoni
March 28, 2007
The government is considering taking the UN to an international court over the latter's failure to stop the 1994 Rwanda Genocide, it has emerged. Speaking at Parliamentary Buildings yesterday, Youth, Culture and Sports Minister, Joseph Habineza, said that Kigali is currently consulting with its ambassador to the UN (Joseph Nsengimana) 'on (legal) issues to be looked at while filing a lawsuit against the UN'. He was responding to a question from Deputy Polycape Gatete on why no action has been taken against the UN, which he accused of standing by while a million Rwandans perished during the 100 days of slaughter.
"The Government has been reluctant on suing the UN for not having stopped the Genocide; it is good they apologised but we should count them responsible for the deaths of thousands," Gatete said, adding that the government should give an explanation to MPs to that effect.
Meanwhile, Habineza said that the entire international community is expected to join Rwandans to commemorate the thirteenth Rwanda Genocide anniversary come next month. The minister was briefing MPs about preparations for the upcoming commemoration of Genocide yesterday, Joseph Habineza said that arrangements were underway at all Rwandan Embassies to mark the mourning week. "Also Rwandans living in countries where we don't have embassies and the rest of the world will join us in commemorating the Genocide," Habineza said at the Parliamentary Buildings, Kimihurura.
In April 2007, the UN declared April 7 as the 'International Day of reflection on the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda.'
Habineza also told legislators that plans to send government officials abroad to hold dialogues about the 1994 Rwanda Genocide are underway.
"The African Union has already requested us to send them someone who will present a paper on Rwanda Genocide; we have also received a number of requests from the Rwandan Diaspora," he explained.
Last year, the Centre for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at the American University Washington College of Law last year developed the Rwanda Commemoration Project to encourage schools, universities, NGOs, and community groups to hold events to commemorate the Genocide which claimed over a million lives in record 100 days. The UN system is blamed for standing by as an estimated one million ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus perished in the Genocide.
Deputy Polycape Gatete wondered why the government has not sued the UN for not stopping the Genocide yet it had capacity to do so. MPs also demanded that the government bans all kinds of ceremonies during the Genocide commemoration week that are not in line with mourning activities.
"I request that these ceremonies be banned immediately as is a week of remembrance for our beloved ones" Deputy Jacqueline Muhongaire furiously said.
In response, Habineza said that he has already banned all ceremonies including baptism. "Recently, I had an issue with the Catholic Church that wanted to carryout baptism on April 7; but I stopped them after giving them a thorough explanation;
I don't expect to be giving explanations to stop ceremonies every April," Habineza said.
The Christian calendar indicates that this year's Easter Sunday will fall on April 7, the very day the commemoration week will start.
Survivors' livelihood
Deputy Juliana Kantengwa also introduced a new motion about the bad the condition of survivors.
She was backed by Deputies Emmanuel Mugabowidekwe and Gatete backed. "What is the plan for (Genocide-related) child-headed households? Is there a budget for them? Does the Ministry have a unit in charge of these children?" questioned Mugabowidekwe, who owns an orphanage for children orphaned by the Genocide.
Deputy Gatete said there are 19,400 child-headed households, adding, "these children live in 6,000 families, and most of them share houses. Statistics also indicate that there are over 14,000 widows of Genocide."
"In the past period we have had cases of 162 genocide survivors being killed; 121 have been injured by people who intend to kill them, and over 1,000 Genocide survivors have lost their properties," said Gatete
About Frw 56 billion is required for the construction of survivors' shelter. And the Fund for Assistance of Genocide Survivors (FARG) says that it only managed to raise Frw 10 billion for that purpose. However MPs vowed to ensure that the deficit is realised from the budget.
Meanwhile, Speaker Alfred Mukezamfura urged the Executive to speed up the process of establishing the Constitutional anti-Genocide Commission and to devise stringent measures to protect survivors.
He said that MPs would hold a vigil in remembrance of the victims of the Genocide.
The national celebrations on the first day of the mourning week will be held in Murambi, Gatsibo District in Eastern Province, where 200 bodies will be reburied. The closing ceremony is scheduled at Rebero, Kicukiro District in Kigali City.
The theme for this year's Genocide memorial week is: 'Let us remember the Genocide, taking care of the survivors and fighting for justice'.
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Iraqi High Tribunal
Official Website of the Iraqi High Tribunal
Grotian Moment: The Saddam Hussein Trial Blog
Former Iraqi VP Ramadan to hang: lawyers
Reuters via The West Australian
March 20, 2007
Saddam Hussein's former vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan will hang for crimes against humanity on Tuesday, according to legal sources who said his lawyers had been summoned this evening.
Badia Aref, a lawyer who represents former deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz who also faces charges of crimes against humanity, told Reuters the family of Ramadan had telephoned him to ask him to appeal to the president to stop the execution.
Another legal source told Reuters the execution was set for Tuesday at dawn and that the family were making a last minute appeal to President Jalal Talabani to stop it.
"The execution is not legal or correct," Aref said, adding that there should be a 30-day period between final sentence and the implementation of an execution.
Last week, an Iraqi appeals court upheld a decision by the High Court to hang Ramadan and a judge said the death sentence could be carried out "at any moment".
Ramadan was sentenced in November to life in jail for his role in the killing of 148 Shi'ites in the town of Dujail in the 1980s for which Saddam and two former aides have already been hanged. But an appeals court recommended that he receive the death penalty and referred the case back to the trial court.
The trial court in November found Ramadan guilty of issuing orders for the systematic detention, torture and killing of men, women and children from Dujail following an attempt on Saddam's life there in 1982.
Saddam and two others were also found guilty. Saddam was executed at the end of December within days of the sentence being passed, while the other two were executed in January.
While the Iraqi president normally has the power to stop death penalties being implemented, the prosecution and the government have said the statutes of the Iraqi High Tribunal state that in crimes against humanity there is no power of veto.
Former vice president under Saddam Hussein hanged
CNN
March 20, 2007
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Taha Yassin Ramadan, the former vice president under Saddam Hussein, was hanged just before dawn Tuesday, according to a source close to Iraq's High Tribunal.
An official who witnessed the execution told The Associated Press measures were taken in order to prevent a repeat of what happened to Hussein's half-brother, Barzan Hassan, who was decapitated on the gallows. Ramadan was weighed before the execution and the appropriate size rope was chosen, the official said.
Last month, Ramadan was sentenced to death by the Iraqi court for his role in the 1982 killing of 148 men and boys in Dujail. An appeals court upheld the sentence last week.
Ramadan was sentenced to life in prison in November on charges that included willful killing in the 1982 crackdown, but the next month, the tribunal's nine-member appeals chamber decided the original sentence was too lenient and ordered the court to resentence him.
The court's decision drew opposition from coalition officials and nongovernmental groups in Iraq, and some members of Iraq's legal advisory community suggested judges came under pressure from politicians.
Hussein, Hassan and another official from his regime -- Awad Bandar -- also were hanged for their roles in the Dujail crackdown.
Hassan and Bandar were executed side-by-side on January 15, and Hussein was hanged on December 30.
Anfal Proceedings Raise Concerns: Open Letter to the President of the Iraqi High Tribunal
Human Rights Watch
by Richard Dicker
March 28, 2007
President al-Shahin
Iraqi High Tribunal (IHT)
Bagdhad , Iraq
Dear President al-Shahin,
We are writing this public letter to express our concerns arising in the Anfal trial. We hope the shortcomings identified below can be rectified to bring this trial into compliance with internationally recognized fair trial standards. Fair trials are instrumental to providing justice for victims and their families and will play a crucial role in ensuring that the brutal practices of the past regime are not repeated.
Specifically, we are concerned that the charging instruments issued against the six defendants in the Anfal trial are vague and thereby violate the defendants’ right to be informed of the charges against them. We raised similar concerns with respect to the Dujail trial in our report on that proceeding and hoped the problem would be resolved. So far, no corrective action has been taken. In addition, we are concerned that the unavailability of a significant portion of defense witnesses will severely curtail the defendants’ right to an adequate opportunity to present their case.
Defects in the form of the charging instruments
Pursuant to article 19(4)(a) of the IHT Statute and article 14(3)(a) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), a defendant has the right to be informed “promptly and in detail of the content, nature and cause of the charge against him.” This requires that the charging instrument contain sufficient information about the material elements of the case alleged against each defendant to allow them to prepare an adequate defense to the charges.
In order to effectively prepare a defense, the defendant must be able to determine the type of criminal liability to be applied against him, and what facts will be proved in order to sustain that theory. Thus, at a minimum, the particular nature of the defendant’s responsibility (for example, as a planner, commander, instigator, or aider of the crime) must be clearly identified, and the defendant must be given a concise statement of the material facts that will be used to establish the defendant’s specific mode of responsibility.
Disclosure of the dossier of evidence, in itself, does not give the defendants sufficient notice of the charges against them. Because the dossier is not tailored to each defendant, it does not inform the defendant of the material facts related to his role that will be proved at trial.
The charging instruments issued against the defendants on February 20, 2007, contain insufficient material facts of the case alleged against each defendant. For most of the defendants, insufficient information is provided regarding the basis of their individual criminal responsibility for the crimes committed. Generally, this is due to inadequate clarity over the facts the prosecution intends to prove relating to their position of authority during the Anfal campaign and how they fit into the overall chain of command during this campaign.
Charging the defendants with all forms of criminal responsibility listed under article 15 of the statute creates further problems for the fair and expeditious conduct of proceedings in the Anfal trial. Although the court is not limited to charging defendants with only one form of criminal responsibility, charging all defendants with all forms of criminal responsibility recognized under article 15 makes it difficult for defendants to prepare a meaningful defense in the limited time allotted.
Moreover, the charging document fails to provide sufficient notice of the facts that will be used to support the theory of criminal liability. Each form of criminal responsibility being alleged requires proof of separate and additional material elements. For example, charging a defendant with command responsibility under article 15(4) of the statute requires proof of three elements: the existence of a superior-subordinate relationship; that the superior knew or had reason to know that the criminal act was about to be or had been committed; and that the superior failed to take necessary and reasonable measures to prevent the criminal act or punish the perpetrator thereof. The charging instrument issued against any defendant must therefore include a summary of the material facts presented to substantiate each element. Similarly, the charge of joint criminal enterprise requires the pleading of additional facts regarding the nature of the enterprise and of the participants, as well as the form of joint criminal enterprise alleged against the defendant.
From the information provided in the charging documents, many defendants are unable to determine what form or forms of criminal responsibility are being alleged against them and what facts have been used to establish such responsibility. For example, the charges against defendants Sabir Abdul Aziz al-Duri and Farhan Mutlak al-Jubouri merely state that they “deliberately participated” or “intentionally participated” in killing Kurdish civilians and directing attacks against them. It is unclear whether the facts set forth regarding their role in such attacks are intended to establish their direct responsibility, their participation in a joint criminal enterprise, or their command responsibility for the crimes committed.
By charging the defendants with all forms of criminal responsibility and failing to specify the material allegations intended to establish each form of responsibility, the defendants are unfairly prejudiced in their ability to prepare their defense.
We would therefore urge that efforts be taken to ensure that the judges and prosecutors of the IHT understand the importance of sufficiently-pleaded charging instruments and of the relevant case law on this issue. We hope that in the future, the court will provide more details in the charging instruments on the nature of the case being alleged against each defendant, especially with regard to the alleged authority and role of each defendant in the crimes committed.
Ensuring that defense witnesses can testify
A further threat to the integrity of proceedings relates to the availability of defense witnesses during the recently-commenced defense phase of the Anfal trial. Article 19(4)(e) of the IHT Statute guarantees the right of the defense “to call and examine defense … witnesses, and to present any evidence in his defense in accordance with the law.” Article 14(3)(e) of the ICCPR also guarantees the defendant’s right “to examine, or have examined, the witnesses against him and to obtain the attendance and examination of witnesses on his behalf under the same conditions as witnesses against him.” Affording defendants the opportunity to call witnesses and obtain testimony under the same conditions as the prosecution is essential to a fair trial. It is imperative that the judges of the IHT fully uphold this right during the Anfal trial and future trials.
Our understanding is that many witnesses that defendants wish to call are unwilling to come to Iraq to testify because they fear arrest. Failure to obtain the testimony of key defense witnesses threatens to undermine the fairness of trial proceedings. In this regard, we would draw attention to the Human Rights Committee’s decisions interpreting ICCPR article 14(3)(e), noting that in death penalty cases, the court’s requirement to make every reasonable effort to obtain material defense testimony is of even greater importance.
We would therefore urge the court to allow efforts to obtain safe passage of defense witnesses for the limited purpose testifying in the Anfal trial. This would be consistent with the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (article 93(2)), as well as the practice of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which has allowed judges to grant safe-passage agreements for the purpose of obtaining witness testimony since the first case before that tribunal.
Should this prove to be infeasible for reasons beyond the IHT’s control, we urge that the court provide defense witnesses the opportunity to testify through video-link. Since trial judges would retain as much control over testimony given via video-link as with live testimony, affording this opportunity to the defense is essential to safeguard the rights of the defense while protecting the integrity of proceedings.
Although such measures are not strictly required under the IHT Statute, the ICCPR or other sources of international law, we urge the court to make every effort to pursue these options. Doing so is critical to protect the overall fairness – and the perception of fairness – of proceedings in a trial of the utmost importance to the Iraqi nation and its people.
Adherence to fair trial rights in these highly public trials plays a crucial role in building firm respect for the rule of law. Full protection of the rights of the defendants – something sorely lacking under Ba’ath Party rule – is needed for Iraq to be transformed into a society where there are fair trials that respect human rights.
Sincerely,
Richard Dicker
Director, International Justice Program
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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
Dutch lawyer appointed Acting Registrar for UN-backed court in Sierra Leone
UN News Centre
March 20, 2007
20 March 2007 – The United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL), set up to bring to justice those responsible for the worst crimes during the country’s brutal civil war, announced today that it has appointed an experienced Dutch practitioner of international law as its Acting Registrar.
Herman von Hebel, who had been serving as Deputy Registrar since last July, replaces Lovemore Munlo, SC, who is departing after one and a half years at the Special Court.
Before joining the SCSL, Mr. von Hebel worked as a lawyer for the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and represented his Government in negotiations on the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC). He also served as Senior Legal Officer at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
Mr. von Hebel will be Acting Registrar until Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon makes a decision on a permanent replacement to Mr. Munlo, according to a press statement released by the Court in Freetown, the Sierra Leonean capital.
The Registry is responsible for the overall administration and management of the SCSL, including its detention facility. It must ensure that witnesses are protected and that the rights of all accused are respected.
An independent tribunal created jointly by the UN and Sierra Leone, the SCSL is tasked with bringing to justice those bearing the greatest responsibility for atrocities committed after 30 November 1996, during the West African nation’s civil war.
So far 11 people have been indicted on various charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other serious violations of humanitarian law. The Court has jurisdiction over the case against the notorious former Liberian president Charles Taylor, whose trial will be held separately in The Hague in the Netherlands.
Press Release: Statement Taking and Awareness in the US
Official Website of the TRC of Liberia
March 20, 2007
TRC Commissioner Massa A. Washington has been visiting several key cities and states in the United States, among them Minnesota, Philadelphia and Atlanta, to create awareness of the TRC process and get the Liberian community involved.
Addressing Liberians in the US, she said that the importance of the “expansion of the TRC process to include Liberians in the Diaspora cannot be overemphasized, considering the pivotal role of Liberians, particularly in the United States, in the body politic of Liberia. Liberians abroad stuck with their homeland through thick and thin assuming various roles at different times in our national history especially in the peace process. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission recognizes the importance of the Diaspora community and is determined to give it a voice in this all important national process.”
Meanwhile, Commissioner Pearl Brown Bull on a private visit to the States, met 200 members of the group ‘Liberia First’ and members of the People’s Christian Church in Durham, North Carolina. The pastor of the church, Reverend Cecilia Towah, introduced the Commissioner and asked the faithful and Liberians everywhere to pray for the work of the TRC and to participate in the process.
Commissioner Bull talked to them about the TRC mandate and the process in Liberia, encouraging the audience to give their statements. “You may not have waged the war but you can contribute to the peace,”she said.
The Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights, a pro bono group of lawyers that represents the TRC in the US and supports its work by providing voluntary services, material resources and the funds for the diaspora programme in the US. The group has started taking statements in Minnesota and will extend the programme to other states shortly.
Liberians in US Tell of Civil War Atrocities
Voice of America
by Deborah Block
March 20, 2007
In the West African country of Liberia, thousands of people are telling their stories about human rights abuses that took place in the country, especially during the 14-year civil war. Their comments will become part of a report by the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The aim is to promote healing in Liberia. A large Liberian community in the U.S. midwest city of Minneapolis, Minnesota is also providing testimony for the report. VOA's Deborah Block has more.
A recent event in Minneapolis encouraged Liberians to come forward to document atrocities during their country's years of civil war and conflict between 1989 and 2003.
The conflict began when rebel leader Charles Taylor tried to overthrow Samuel Doe, who had taken over the country in a military coup. Various rebel factions also battled each other. It is estimated that the violence left at least 200,000 people dead and displaced a million more.
A private group, Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights, is coordinating the Liberian testimony in the United States.
Director Robin Phillips says the views of Liberians who live in the U.S. are crucial. "A lot of the people who fled Liberia were victims of the atrocities there and if they don't include their statements then the record won't be complete."
Momolu Getaweh was the minister of information under Doe, who was assassinated in 1990. He says he was astounded how Liberians turned against each other. "To see students kill their teachers. It's very gruesome some of those things that we saw, that we witnessed."
After Doe's death, ECOWAS -- The Economic Community of West African states -- formed an interim government, but Taylor's rebels and other factions refused to recognize it. Peace accords failed until Taylor agreed to another transitional government. After major fighting ended in 1997, Liberia held democratic elections. Taylor won the majority of the votes and became president.
During his six years as president, Taylor left Liberia bankrupt and in ruins. Under intense international pressure, he resigned in 2003 and went into exile in Nigeria.
Then in 2006, after being jailed in Sierra Leone, the United Nations sent him to The Hague, Netherlands for trial. He faces charges of allegedly backing rebels in the Sierra Leone civil war.
The Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission
