War Crimes Prosecution Watch

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)

Cambodians Remember Khmer Rouge Victims, Demand End to Delays in Justice
The Associated Press/ International Herald Tribune
April 17, 2007

CHOEUNG EK, Cambodia: Some 300 Cambodians held a memorial service Tuesday for victims of the Khmer Rouge communist regime that ruled the country in the 1970s and demanded an end to the delay in the start of U.N.-backed genocide trials.

The commemoration — organized by the main opposition Sam Rainsy Party at the Choeung Ek "killing field" just outside the capital Phnom Penh — was led by 32 Buddhist monks, who marked the 32nd anniversary of the Khmer Rouge taking power in Cambodia.

The communist movement came to power on April 17, 1975 after defeating a U.S.-backed Cambodian government in a bloody civil war.

It implemented radical policies that resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people from starvation, disease, overwork and execution.

The Khmer Rouge was driven from power by a Vietnamese invasion in 1979 and finally collapsed eight years ago. But none of its leaders has ever been brought to trial.

"How long do we have to wait? Where is justice? Year after year has passed, so please put them on trial since my eyes are still open and able to see," 62-year-old Chan Kim Suong said, adding that her husband and son were executed by the Khmer Rouge.

She and two other women, who addressed the crowd through a microphone about their losses, urged a U.N.-backed genocide tribunal to convene trials for former Khmer Rouge leaders.

The tribunal was created last year following a 2003 pact between Cambodia and the United Nations. But trials, which had been expected to begin sometime this year, have been delayed by disputes over procedural rules and, most recently, a demand by local lawyers for legal fees from foreign lawyers wishing to take part in the tribunal.

Attending Tuesday's event, Sam Rainsy, the opposition leader, blamed the Cambodian government for creating "one excuse after another" to delay the trials.

Looking at hundreds of skulls of Khmer Rouge victims stored in a concrete memorial at the Choeung Ek mass grave site, about 16 kilometers (10 miles) south of Phnom Penh, Sam Rainsy said: "When we look at those skulls, it seems they are staring back at us with a cry for help in finding justice for them."

"But I do not think the current leaders want to see the tribunal move ahead. They want to let remaining Khmer Rouge leaders die one by one until no one is left, so that the tribunal would finally collapse," he added.

Various human rights groups have also accused the Cambodian government of foot-dragging, which the government has repeatedly dismissed.

The tribunal's foreign judges have said they will not meet with their Cambodian counterparts on April 30 as scheduled, if the Cambodian Bar Association does not reconsider the US$4,900 (€3,610) legal fee it plans to impose on each foreign lawyer wanting to practice at the tribunal.

Cambodian-penned Khmer Rouge Genocide History Book to be Unveiled
Associated Press / International Herald Tribune
April 22, 2007

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: The first history book written by a Cambodian author about the Khmer Rouge will soon be available in the country, in a step toward educating Cambodian youths about the murderous regime, a leading genocide researcher said Sunday.

Khamboly Dy's "A History of Democratic Kampuchea" will be released on April 25, said Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, an independent group documenting the Khmer Rouge crimes. Cambodia was named Democratic Kampuchea during the 1975-1979 Khmer Rouge rule.

"Cambodians are at last beginning to investigate and record their country's past," he said, adding that books about Cambodian history have been written almost exclusively by foreigners.

During its four-year rule, the Khmer Rouge implemented radical policies that led to the death of some 1.7 million people from starvation, disease, overwork and execution.

Cambodian schools currently teach very little about the Khmer Rouge, mainly because the subject is so sensitive among Cambodian political groups and high-profile individuals who used to be associated with the now-defunct communist movement.

No Cambodian history scholar has previously written about the Khmer Rouge period because of fears of reprisal, Youk Chhang said.

The education ministry in January approved the book's release as a "core reference" material for writing history textbooks, but not as part of the core curriculum, Youk Chhang said.

Despite the limited status imposed by the government, Youk Chhang said the book "is a major step showing that Cambodians are capable of telling their own history."
The book, written mainly for high school teachers and students, will also be available to the public for free upon request, he said.

"By taking responsibility for teaching Cambodians through books such as this, the country can go forward and ensure that the seeds of genocide never again take root in our country," he said.

The Khmer Rouge was driven from power by a Vietnamese invasion in 1979 and finally collapsed eight years ago. None of its leaders, however, has ever been brought to trial.
Cambodia and the United Nations have jointly created a tribunal aimed at prosecuting surviving Khmer Rouge leaders for genocide and crimes against humanity. The trials, expected to convene this year, have been delayed by disputes over local bar association fees foreign lawyers have been ordered to pay.

Learning Lessons from the Past
Voice of America
By Ann Ward
April 25, 2007

The atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia during the late 1970s represent one of the worst human tragedies of the 20th century. Through execution, starvation and forced labor, this genocide left nearly two million Cambodians dead.
Today, the Documentation Center of Cambodia, or DC-Cam, is working to document the many crimes and atrocities committed during the Khmer Rouge's reign. Recently, two young staff members of the Center were in Washington, D.C. for internships at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum to learn how to better document Cambodia's tragic past. For producer Ana Ward, VOA's Jim Bertel has their story.

Ser Sayana and Dy Khamboly are both in their twenties, too young to remember the horrors and suffering under the Khmer Rouge. The two writers work for the Documentation Center of Cambodia, a non-profit organization that collects documents and testimonies related to Khmer Rouge's atrocities. Dy is the author of a high school textbook on the Khmer Rouge.

"The Documentation Center of Cambodia aims to achieve two objectives: justice and we would like to preserve the memory of the Khmer Rouge (atrocities) for younger generations,” says Dy. “So, this way we preserve the memory of the Khmer Rouge, the history of the Khmer Rouge so that people will learn and remember and not repeat that mistake again in the future."

According to a study done by the Documentation Center, 65 percent of the population that survived that period still has traumatic memories related to the genocide nearly three decades after the fall of the Khmer Rouge.

Dy says his country's road to recovery has been very slow. "After the Khmer Rouge regime, Cambodia almost came down to nothing (as) a country. It was in complete poverty and almost all the infrastructure was (destroyed) by the regime. So after the first national elections in 1993 up to now, Cambodia (has become) a democratic country, we have more freedom than before. We still have some problems, but I personally think it's getting better now in Cambodia."

During the researchers' time at the Holocaust Museum, they learned about conservation, preserving artifacts and keeping an archive. The two hope this will enable them to start a genocide museum in Cambodia. Ser believes the museum will help her country recover from its past.

"Through my experience at the center I think that a lot of people have not really healed. It may not show on their (faces), but inside there's still a lot more that needs to be healed," she says.
At the Holocaust Museum Ser and Dy studied displays on Nazi-occupied Europe and contemporary genocides, like the crisis in Darfur.

Bridget Zilkicis is a Project Director with the Holocaust Museum and mentored the two young writers. "The Cambodian project is at a different stage of course than the Holocaust Museum. They're just getting started, but a lot of the issues that they have, are similar to the ones we struggle with on a day-to-day basis and how do you tell these horrible stories in a way that engages people rather then turns them away? In the end we have the same goal essentially, it is to take a traumatic history and make it part of a process of learning not to do that again."

To that end, Ser and Dy plan to introduce the study of comparative genocide to college students in Cambodia, comparing their country's own horrors with the genocides in Rwanda, Darfur and the Holocaust. They believe this will help young people to learn from the past and see that these atrocities never happen again.

Cambodia Cuts Fees Threatening Khmer Rouge Trial
Reuters
By Ek Madra
April 28, 2007

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - The Cambodian Bar Association slashed its levy on foreign lawyers on Saturday, removing the last barrier to the long-delayed trial of Pol Pot's top surviving henchmen for the "Killing Fields" atrocities.

The United Nations had balked at the $4,900 fee the CBA wanted to charge foreign defence lawyers, triggering a row that threatened to scuttle the mainly donor-funded, U.N.-backed joint court before it got underway.

"We decided to lower the legal fees to $500 because we want to see foreign lawyers take part in the Khmer Rouge trials to seek justice for the victims," CBA spokesman Nou Tharith said.

After nearly a decade of tortuous negotiations, Cambodia and the United Nations agreed the outline of the joint court and donors coughed up $53 million to pay for it.

But the U.N. said earlier this month the lawyers' fees were "not in line with accepted practice at the international level" as it would deter lawyers who might want to offer their services free of charge to defendants.

International judges and lawyers, who had pulled out of a full session of the court planned for the end of April, were not available for comment.

The CBA has argued that domestic law prohibits foreigners from representing clients in local courts unless they are Bar Association members.

"We are very happy to hear about the decision made by the bar association," said Reach Sambath, a spokesman for the joint court, adding judges could now push ahead with a final agreement on the internal court rules.

Phnom Penh and the U.N. agreed to the trials in 2003 and the judges were sworn in last year, but wrangling over the nuts and bolts of the court has delayed any charges being filed.

The trial is expected to last three years and getting it underway as soon as possible is key, given the age and health of many of the remaining Khmer Rouge top command.

The main defendants are likely to be "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea, former foreign minister Ieng Sary, former president Khieu Samphan, and Duch, head of the capital's Tuol Sleng interrogation and torture centre.

"Brother Number One" Pol Pot, presumed architect of the ultra-Maoist regime, died in 1998.

His one-legged military chief Ta Mok -- dubbed "The Butcher" for his alleged role in mass internal purges -- died last year.

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Central African Republic

Official Website of the International Criminal Court
ICC Public Documents - Cases: Central African Republic

Thousands Flee Fighting in Central African Republic
Reuters
By Paul-Marin Ngoupana
April 21, 2007

BANGUI, April 21 (Reuters) - Thousands of people have fled fighting in northwestern Central African Republic, some swimming over the border after their homes were torched during government raids to hunt down rebels, local officials said on Saturday.

Government soldiers launched raids on villages on the northwest border with Cameroon and Chad between Tuesday and Thursday to try to root out gunmen who attacked a town last weekend, the mayor of some of the affected settlements said.

"Thousands of people from the town of Mann, the villages of Kodi, Ngbama, Ndanga and Kore in my commune and Bokolere, Bang and Ngouboye in the next commune have all gone into hiding in Cameroon," Mayor Richard Laoutaye told Reuters by phone.

"Some swam across the river Mbere, some took pirogues (wooden fishing boats), while some were able to cross a bridge by foot. Others are in the bush and have health and food problems," he said.

One man was killed in the town of Mann and another suspected of being a rebel had his arm amputated by government soldiers as he tried to flee, Laoutaye said, speaking from refuge in Cameroon after himself being beaten by soldiers.

In the village of Ndanga, soldiers burned down more than 100 homes after six men arrested there managed to escape, he said.

Central African Republic, a landlocked former French colony, ranks near the bottom of almost all development rankings. Its ill-resourced government has control of little beyond the capital Bangui and banditry is rife.

The U.N. children's agency UNICEF said this month the country faced a growing humanitarian disaster, with the lives of a million people -- a quarter of the population -- disrupted by civil and regional warfare involving various rebel groups.

"ANOTHER RWANDA"

The government signed a peace accord with rebels in the northeast, which borders troubled Chad and Sudan's Darfur region, just over a week ago, establishing a ceasefire.

But swathes of the country remain unstable, creating what aid workers have termed a "forgotten" humanitarian crisis.

"Our population is hostage to rebels, hostage to bandits, and an enemy of the army meant to protect it. And in the face of all that, neither the president, who is also minister of defence, nor the U.N., nor the Central African human rights league, is reacting," said Marie Agbe, a local Kodi deputy.

“We do not want another Rwanda here. We do not want a genocide in Central African Republic," she said by phone.

President Francois Bozize, who seized power in a 2003 coup and then won an election in 2005, has been to trying to make peace deals with several rebel groups across the country.

Under a bilateral defence accord, former colonial power France sent special forces backed by helicopters and fighter jets to the northeast late last year to help government troops.
The United Nations appealed in January for richer countries to provide $11.7 million to fund basic health, schooling and water programmes in the country, but only $2.5 million had been pledged by the start of this month.

UNICEF says studies indicate some 15 percent of the adult female population across the north have been raped, contributing to a surge in HIV/AIDS, while some 450 children die each week in the region from malnutrition and preventable disease.

Military Clash with Rebels in Central African Republic
Agence France Presse
April 27, 2007

BANGUI (AFP) - At least one government soldier was killed in fighting with rebels in the Central African Republic, only days after the signing of a peace deal with a major insurgent group, a military source said Friday.

The source said the soldier died when rebels of the People's Army for the Restoration of the Republic and Democracy (APRD) attacked a military convoy at Bang, 500 kilometres (300 miles) northwest of the capital, on April 17.

The attacks sparked clashes in a number of places, causing residents to flee across the nearby border into Cameroon and Chad, other sources said.

Local member of parliament Luc-Apollinaire Dondon Konamabaye of the opposition Centrafrican People's Liberation Movement, said houses had been burned and villages razed.

The APRD, formed in 2005, is one of a number of groups opposed to President Francois Bozize which have been fighting the government across the north of the country.

The fighting over the last two years has led to numerous deaths and the displacement of more than 280,000 people, according to the

United Nations.

The country's army has also been accused of violent acts against civilians in the north.
On April 13 the authorities signed an accord with the Union of Democratic Forces for Unity rebels that called for an "immediate end to hostilities" and granted amnesty for rebel fighters.

The government has been assisted by a multinational force from other states in the region as well as the French air force in its attempts to repel rebel groups and reduce bandit attacks in the north.

There have also been fears that conflict in neighbouring Sudan's Darfur region could spill over into the CAR. The United Nations children's agency, UNICEF, has warned of a "humanitarian disaster" in the CAR, amid fears that the country is being increasingly affected by the conflict in Sudan.

Bozize came to power following a 2003 coup.

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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

LRA Call for Suspension of ICC Arrest Warrants
New Vision (Kampala)
April 19, 2007

NAIROBI, Thursday, The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels demanded a 12-month suspension of international Criminal court (ICC) arrest warrants against its top leaders, which are seen as the main hurdle to a deal ending the war.

The rebels have insisted that ICC indictments for war crimes against its leader, Joseph Kony, and three others be scrapped in favour of traditional justice.

But Kampala, which asked the global human rights court to investigate the LRA, has repeatedly said a peace deal should be signed before it considers asking the ICC to drop the case.

Despite the stand-off, both sides agreed on Saturday to a new two-month truce and a resumption of talks to end the two-decade conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people and forced nearly two million more into squalid camps.

LRA representative James Obita said the LRA hoped a request for the suspension of the arrest warrants would be made after a range of issues, including reconciliation and the fate of displaced Ugandans, were resolved.

He said the LRA had asked former Mozambique president Joaquim Chissano, the UN envoy in the peace efforts, to speak to the Security Council on its behalf.

"We want the government of Uganda through Chissano to go to the Security Council and say surely we have now reached a point of no return," Obita told a news conference.
"We're saying at the very minimum, suspend the warrants for 12 months so that we can complete the process and have the comprehensive peace agreement signed," he added.
The LRA still hopes the charges against its leaders will be rescinded completely, but the ICC has repeatedly refused to withdraw the indictments in what is seen as a test case for the Hague-based court.

The LRA is known for massacring civilians, slicing the noses and lips off their victims and kidnapping thousands of children.

The traditional 'Mato Oput' justice it advocates involves a ritual in which a murderer faces relatives of the victim and admits his crime before both drink a bitter brew made from a tree root mixed with sheep's blood.

ICC to charge former DRC warlord with recruitment of child soldiers
People’s Daily Online
April 17, 2007

The International Criminal Court (ICC) will charge Thomas Lubanga, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)'s former warlord with forcefully recruiting children into his Congolese Patriotic Front (FPC) militia, according to judiciary sources.

It was confirmed by Paul Madidi, coordinator of ICC activities in the DRC.

Lubanga who is being held at Hague, has been investigated for numerous crimes including war crimes against humanity, but the ICC prosecutor in Bunia, a major town in Ituri, eastern DRC has been unable to gather enough evidence to sustain further charges against the former warlord.

Speaking on Sunday, Lubanga's lawyers who sought to clarify the status of the charges against their client said that the recruitment of child soldiers had also been undertaken by other Ituri warlords, calling on the ICC to instigate proceedings against these warlords.

DR Congo: Army Should Stop Use of Child Soldiers
Human Rights Watch
April 18, 2007

The Congolese government should immediately stop former rebel warlords now commissioned as national army officers from recruiting and using child soldiers in army brigades deployed in North Kivu province, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch also called upon the Rwandan government to prevent these officials and their agents from continuing to recruit children in Rwanda to serve in the Congolese army's North Kivu brigades.

"The head of the Congolese military in January ordered the North Kivu brigades to stop recruiting and using children soldiers," said Alison Des Forges, senior advisor to Human Rights Watch's Africa division. "Former rebel warlords now serving as army officers have failed to follow this order, and children are still on the front lines shooting and being shot at."

Despite the order by chief of staff of the armed forces, Maj. Gen. Kisempia Sungilanga Lombe, 300 to 500 children, some as young as 13, currently serve in newly formed army brigades, according to international and local child protection workers. The brigades are deploying these children in military operations against local armed groups, including the Mai Mai and the Forces for the Democratic Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR, or Forces democratiques de liberation du Rwanda), which are fighting the Rwandan government. Many of the children are Congolese Tutsi who were originally under the command of former rebel leader Gen. Laurent Nkunda.

Under a deal meant to end combat between the national army and Nkunda's forces, rebel combatants were to be integrated into the national army by a process called "mixage." Beginning in January, army brigade commanders were supposed to identify and hand children over to agencies responsible for their rehabilitation, but several have refused to do so. The commanders say they must maintain sufficient soldiers to protect Tutsi living in North Kivu and enable the return of thousands of Congolese Tutsi refugees living in camps in Rwanda.

In one case at the North Kivu military camp at Kitchanga on March 22, brigade commander Col. Sultani Makenga tried to forcibly remove eight children from the vehicle of child protection workers. He personally dragged six from the vehicle under protest and beat two of the children who refused. Makenga also called the child protection workers "dogs," and threatened to beat them as well. Three of the children later found refuge with the United Nations peacekeepers, but three are still missing.

According to child protection workers, children are still being recruited for the North Kivu brigades within the Congo and also from across the border in Rwanda. In one case, the Association of Young Congolese Refugees (Association des jeunes refugies congolais), active in the Congolese refugee camps in Rwanda since 2005, recruited two boys, aged 14 and 16, from one of the camps, along with nine other children and 17 adults. On January 18, the two boys were taken from Rwanda to serve in one of the Congolese army's North Kivu brigades, but were able to escape during the burial of two adult recruits who died on the journey.

Other armed groups active in North Kivu are known to be using child soldiers. One of the local armed groups known as Mai Mai engaged in a skirmish with Congolese army brigades in February. On February 19, six boys aged 14 to 17 fled this Mai Mai group and made their way to United Nations peacekeepers based in Kiwandja.

At a news conference on April 11, the UN Mission in DR Congo (MONUC, or Mission de l'ONU en RD Congo) said that only 37 of 267 children whom they had identified in the North Kivu brigades had been demobilized. MONUC urged the brigade commanders to respect national and international law and to follow the orders of Maj. Gen. Kisempia Sungilanga Lombe, who ordered the children to be released.

Since November 2001, DR Congo has been a party to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict, which sets 18 as the minimum age for participation in armed conflict. The country is also party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which defines as war crimes both the recruitment of children under the age of 15 into military forces and the use of children to participate actively in hostilities.

In September, DR Congo was the first country to be considered by the UN Security Council's new monitoring and reporting mechanism on children in armed conflict, which envisages strong measures against those responsible for child recruitment. The Security Council's Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict called on the government to take appropriate legal action against members of the Congolese army accused of grave crimes against children and reiterated the responsibility of MONUC to aid the government in apprehending and bringing to justice those responsible for recruiting and using child soldiers.

Despite this new system, UN peacekeeping officials in Congo have privately raised concern at their inability to oblige army brigade commanders to release the children. Human Rights Watch called on UN officials to refer brigade commanders responsible for continuing child recruitment in North Kivu to the UN sanctions committee on Congo for possible sanctions, including travel bans, asset freezes or other measures.

"Congolese army officers who are recruiting, training and using child soldiers are violating international law and they know it," said Des Forges. "The chief of the armed forces took the first step by ordering an end to this crime, but the military must ensure that officers follow these orders or face serious consequences if they refuse."

'Parties Agree on Need for Dialogue and Reconciliation - Migiro
UN News Service (New York)
April 24, 2007

The United Nations Deputy Secretary-General said today in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) that all parties there agree on the need for dialogue and reconciliation in order to achieve lasting peace in the country, where recent clashes have forced thousands to flee in the northeast.

"I carry with me a strong feeling of triumph, having seen the efforts of the National Assembly and its president in promoting reconciliation and dialogue in a bid for unity and to strengthen democracy in the DRC," said Asha Rose Migiro following a series of high-level meetings in the country.

Ms. Migiro, who also met with the Minster of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, said all those she had talked to were "proud that the DRC elections were held in a free and fair manner."

She said that the recent March violence in Kinshasa, although regrettable, is "something that can still be an incentive for the country to consolidate the peace dividends and to put in place mechanisms and institutions that will ensure that human rights thrive, and that democracy continues."

This, Ms. Migiro said, "will enable the Congolese people to sit down and to pick up the challenges, and put in place programmes to ensure that they overcome the immense social and economic problems that the country is facing."

She added that all parties she had spoken to "agree that there cannot be any alternative to dialogue and reconciliation."

The UN can give a guarantee of its "engaged presence in the DRC, and a readiness to continue to work with the Congolese people and their Government," she added.

Another guarantee, she said, was that the Congolese themselves have demonstrated that "they want the path of democracy and peace," by voting peacefully in last years elections.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) today reported that they are rushing aid to mitigate the suffering of tens of thousands of people forced to flee their homes after an outbreak of fighting in north-eastern DRC. In North Kivu province alone, close to 65,000 people have been displaced in recent weeks due to intensified fighting between militias and government forces.

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Darfur, Sudan (ICC)

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

Deal allows U.N. forces to enter Darfur
The Washington Times
By Nicholas Kralev
April 17, 2007

Sudan agreed yesterday to allow the deployment of U.N. attack helicopters and 3,000 peacekeepers to its Darfur region, but the United States criticized the decision for allowing limits on the number of non-African troops in the U.N. force.

After refusing for months to accept the helicopters, the Sudan government told U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that it would do so, expressing "sincere hope" that "implementation of the heavy support package would proceed expeditiously."

Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol said his country has fulfilled the commitments it made to the United Nations during talks in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, in November.

"I can now say that Sudan has given its complete agreement to all that was discussed in Addis Ababa, and as such, the path is open to the next steps, so that we can say that we have overcome the issue of peacekeepers in Darfur," he said in Khartoum.

But in Washington, the State Department rejected Mr. Akol's claim that all issues have been resolved, saying Sudan has selected the parts of the U.N. plan it likes with conditions and ignored the parts it does not like.

"While it is a partial step forward, it certainly does not meet all the requirements," said department spokesman Sean McCormack. "There are still elements and other caveats that remain in place."

Some of the outstanding issues include the command-and-control structure of the hybrid United Nations-African Union (AU) force and the participation of non-African troops in the operation, on which Khartoum wants to put strict limits.

Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte, who visited Sudan yesterday, said the U.N. Security Council members agreed that most troops in the force, as well as its commander, will be African.

He insisted, however, that the force must have "a single unified chain of command that conforms to U.N. standards and practices."

For four months, Sudan has resisted the implementation of the U.N. plan, which envisions more than 20,000 peacekeepers in Darfur by its third and final stage. It wants to limit the U.N. role to support and logistics for the AU force because of fears that the U.N. troops would arrest Sudanese officials suspected of war crimes.

There are 7,000 AU troops in Darfur, where experts say more than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced, but they have not been able to stop the fighting. The four-year-old conflict began when rebels from ethnic African tribes rose up against the central government.

Khartoum used Arab militias known as Janjaweed to suppress the rebels. The government denies charges that the militias indiscriminately killed tens of thousands.

"The government of Sudan must disarm the Janjaweed, the Arab militias that we all know could not exist without the Sudanese government's active support," Mr. Negroponte said yesterday.

"The denial of visas, the harassment of aid workers [in Darfur] and other measures have created the impression that the government of Sudan is engaged in a deliberate campaign of intimidation," he said.

* This article is based in part on wire service reports.

China, Russia, South Africa oppose UN sanctions on Sudan
AFP, reprinted at Yahoo! News
April 18, 2007

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - China, Russia and South Africa on Wednesday voiced opposition to US and British plans to push for UN sanctions against Sudan at a time when Khartoum is cooperating with the United Nations on Darfur.

In Washington, US President George W. Bush bluntly warned that Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir had one "last chance" to help end violence in Darfur or face tougher US sanctions and other punishments.

Britain and the United States said they would begin talks in the Security Council Thursday on a new Sudan sanctions draft.

But Russia and China, two veto-wielding council members, along with South Africa made it clear that they oppose such a draft at this time.

"We don't think it's the right time. It would be very strange," Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said.

"Why do we have to be so negative?" he said "After a long while, we have this kind of positive development in the dialogue between the UN and Khartoum and all of a sudden to come back with some sanctions would not be good."

China's deputy UN Ambassador Liu Zhenmin concurred.

"It is better not to move in that direction (sanctions) ... Many parties are engaging the Sudanese government. Agreement has been reached for the heavy package support (deployment of UN 3,000 peacekeepers)," he said. "We have been informed that the deployment could be completed by the end of the year."

Monday Sudan agreed following months of delays to let 3,000 UN personnel plus helicopters into Darfur to support under-equipped African Union forces trying to stabilize the region.

The UN peacekeepers are to provide logistical, communications, intelligence and air support to 7,000 under-equipped AU troops that have failed to stem four years of bloody ethnic strife in the western Sudanese region.

"It is very surprising that they would be bringing up sanctions when Sudan has just made great improvements on the request of the UN for the heavy package (the deployment of 3,000 UN peacekeepers), has accepted (UN chief) Ban Ki-moon's offer to assist," South Africa's UN envoy Dumisani Kumalo told reporters.

"Bringing up sanctions now is very counterproductive. What's the point?" he added.
At the request of Ban, Britain and the United States had held off on introducing a sanctions draft as the United States, China, Saudi Arabia and South Africa pressed coordinated diplomatic efforts to persuade Khartoum to allow joint AU-UN peacekeeping in Darfur.

Sanctions under consideration include expanding a list of Sudanese officials found responsible for atrocities in Darfur that would be subjected to an assets freeze and a travel ban, extending the existing UN arms embargo in Darfur to the whole of Sudan or imposing a no-fly zone over Darfur.

In 2005, the Security Council approved a resolution that allowed for the seizure of assets and a travel ban against individuals who commit atrocities, impede the peace process in Darfur or "constitute a threat to stability" in the region.

It also extended an existing arms embargo against non-state parties in Darfur to the Sudanese government and specifically prohibited Khartoum from offensive military flights into the region, where an estimated 200,000 people have been killed and at least two million more displaced since 2003.

Meanwhile, The New York Times Wednesday cited a confidential UN report that said Sudan put UN markings on airplanes to fly weapons and bomb villages in strife-torn Darfur in violation of UN Security Council resolutions.

Reacting to the New York Times story, UN spokeswoman Michele Montas said Ban "views with deep concern the evidence presented to members of the Security Council regarding the flying of arms and heavy weapons into Darfur in violation" of a Security Council resolution.

This may look like a UN plane...but Sudan used it to bomb Darfur
The Times (London)
Richard Beeston, Diplomatic Editor
April 19, 2007

Britain and America threatened to impose new sanctions on Khartoum yesterday after a United Nations report accused Sudan of disguising its military planes and helicopters as UN aircraft and using them to attack villages in Darfur.

The confidential report says that military aircraft were painted white -a colour usually reserved for the UN -and used to ferry arms to the Janjawid militia, for reconnaissance flights and bombing missions.

The 44-page document, prepared by a panel of experts and circulated to UN Security Council members this week, accuses the authorities in Khartoum of flagrant breaches of international law and calls for tougher sanctions.

Last night Tony Blair warned the Sudanese authorities that American and British officials at the UN Security Council would begin consultations on a new resolution against Sudan if it did not stop its violations in the war-torn province. "What is happening is unacceptable. It is appalling," he said. "The international community will not allow the scandal that is Darfur to continue."

President Bush said that President Omar al-Bashir had one last chance to comply with existing UN demands that he halt the violence in Darfur, disarm the Janjaweed militia and facilitate the deployment of UN and African Union peacekeepers. "The time for promises is over, President Bashir must act," he said. "If President Bashir does not meet his obligations, the United States will act."

Sanctions could include an arms embargo, monitoring of aircraft on the ground and measures aimed at individuals.

The concerted diplomatic offensive was prompted in part by the leak of the UN report, which covers the period from last August to last month, when it claims both the Sudanese authorities and Darfur rebel groups had ignored ceasefires and UN resolutions.

By far the most serious charges are made against Khartoum, which is alleged to have launched a series of bloody offensives against civilians in Darfur, where 200,000 people have been killed since 2003. The Government is also accused of shipping arms and fighters into the province, which is subject to an international arms ban. It has also failed to enforce a travel ban or freeze the assets of suspected war criminals.

The report's most astonishing revelation was the use by the Sudanese Armed Forces of white-painted military aircraft in Darfur. On March 7 a photograph was taken of an Antonov AN26 aircraft on the military apron of al-Fasher airport, the Darfuri regional capital. Guarded by soldiers and with bombs piled alongside, the plane was painted white and has the initials "UN" stencilled on its upper left wing.

Another Sudanese military aircraft was disguised in the same manner. The report said that white Antonovs were used to bombard Darfur villages on at least three occasions in January.

A similar ploy was employed to conceal the identity of three Mi171 military helicopters, which were also painted white. The report said that from a distance the aircraft could be mistaken for similar helicopters operated by the UN and peacekeepers. The UN Security Council has imposed an arms blockade on Darfur and any shipments of weapons by the Sudanese authorities must first be reported. But on February 24 a military transport aircraft crash-landed on a flight from Khartoum to el Geneina.

Photographs revealed soldiers unloading howitzers and scores of ammunition boxes on the runway. The report also provides detailed descriptions of four separate offensives undertaken by the Sudanese military or local militias against villages in southern, northern and western Darfur between August and December last year.

On one occasion in December, it says, men wearing khaki, green and camouflage uniforms attacked a village at night in a convoy of more than 60 Land Cruisers mounted with rocket-propelled grenades and Kalashnikovs. "They set fire to the houses and killed two people, one of whom was a 105-year-old person who was burned alive. They abducted eight girls, five of whom managed to escape, however, three were raped and sent back home naked.

"The witnesses mentioned that the girls were sent to al-Fasher for medical treatment, and that reports were filed with the authorities to no avail," the report said.

UN human rights expert group on Darfur to hold meeting with Sudan
UN News Service
April 27, 2007

The Group of Experts on Darfur established by the United Nations Human Rights Council last month announced plans today to meet with senior Sudanese Government officials next month to discuss how to introduce practical measures to improve the human rights situation in the war-torn region.

Wrapping up its first consultative meeting in Geneva, the seven-member group of independent experts said they would meet the Sudanese representatives in the Swiss city from 23 to 25 May.

“The meeting will identify practical steps to be taken as a matter of priority to implement the relevant resolutions of the UN human rights mechanisms with regards to Darfur,” according to a statement issued by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

“In addition, the meeting will assess the needs of the Sudan in order to ensure effective implementation of those steps.”

The Group of Experts on Darfur was created on 30 March in a Council resolution adopted by consensus, and it is expected to report to the next session in June on the results of its meeting later next month.

That meeting has been scheduled amid mounting international concern at the human rights situation inside Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have been killed and at least 2 million others forced to flee their homes since 2003 because of fighting between Government forces, allied Janjaweed militias and rebel groups. Numerous towns and villages have been torched and there have reports of deliberate targeting of civilians.

Sima Samar, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Sudan, presides over the experts’ group. The other members 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.

US sanctions to pressure Sudan are ineffective - analysts
Associated Press, reprinted at the Sudan Tribune online
April 27, 2007

April 26, 2007 (CAIRO) — U.S. President George W. Bush is threatening to punish Sudan by cutting off its vital oil industry from the U.S. financial system, unless Khartoum takes steps to calm troubled Darfur.

But such sanctions are unlikely to hurt Sudan at all, oil analysts say: China, its biggest customer, already has adapted to similar U.S. pressure on Iran by buying oil in another powerful, rising currency - euros - and can do the same on Sudan.

The issue highlights the difficulty the U.S. faces in finding effective ways to sanction Sudan in order to ease the humanitarian suffering in Darfur, at a time when oil prices are high and the U.S. dollar is weak.

Both Bush and the U.S. envoy to Sudan, Andrew Natsios, have threatened in recent days to bar an additional 29 Sudanese companies, many of them involved in the oil trade, from the U.S. banking system if Khartoum does not agree to implement fully the U.N.’s peacekeeping plan for Darfur.

They also warned that the U.S. government would more aggressively block dollar transactions by Sudanese oil companies that are already on the U.S. sanctions list.

Washington hopes that preventing Sudan from selling oil for dollars - the currency used by global oil markets for pricing - would prove an economic burden, forcing Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to succumb to international pressure.

More than 200,000 people have been killed in Darfur and 2.5 million driven from their homes since fighting began between ethnically African rebels and the Arab-dominated central government in 2003. Al-Bashir has blocked the implementation of a plan he agreed to in November to introduce a 20,000-strong "hybrid" U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force into Darfur.

But Iran has had little difficulty switching its oil sales from dollars to euros when needed under international sanctions pressure - and Sudan could do the same, many financial experts say.

China already has made the switch to buying oil in euros in some of its deals with Iran, said Victor Shum, a Singapore-based oil trading analyst at U.S. consultant Purvin & Gertz Inc.

"The Chinese today do buy some of their Iranian oil in euros instead of U.S. dollars," he said. Chinese officials have not commented publicly on the issue.

China buys two-thirds of Sudan’s oil exports, and oil sales account for 70% of the African country’s export revenue.

The reason Sudan and Iran can adapt?

Oil is priced in dollars on the world’s exchanges, but buyers and sellers can easily use international exchange rates to convert any oil contract into euros, said Mikkal Herberg, a former oil executive now with the U.S.-based National Bureau for Asian Research.

Such a move could even be beneficial given the declining value of the U.S. dollar.

"I don’t see that it causes them any trouble," he said of both Iran and Sudan.

"Crude is denominated in dollars, but someone could choose to pay them in euros at a dollar equivalent. ... With the direction of dollars and euros, that’s not such a bad choice."

The euro has appreciated more than 50% against the dollar in the past five years.

U.S. officials, however, have been strong in their assertions that they can impact Sudan with such moves.

Bush said last week that the U.S. would give the United Nations more time to strike a deal with Khartoum on peacekeepers, but said U.S. sanctions would quickly follow if al-Bashir failed to implement the full U.N. plan.

"We believe it will have an effect on the economy, a substantial effect," Natsios told Congress this month. "And the reason we know is because it’s having an effect on the Iranian ... economy."

Natsios asserted that even though the U.S. does not buy oil from Sudan, such sanctions could have an impact because "the current practice is all international oil transactions, regardless of which country or which company, are in dollars."

But Alex Vines, head of the Africa program at Chatham House, a think tank in London, called such statements "wishful thinking."

"In this environment of high commodity prices, Sudan will be fairly resilient in finding alternatives," Vines said.

Sudan has another advantage - experience in adapting to sanctions, notes John Prendergast of the International Crisis Group. Nearly 10 years ago, the U.S. cut off 130 Sudanese companies from the U.S. system over a different dispute.

"The Sudanese oil industry has thus grown up around the sanctions, and learned how to conduct transactions that easily avoid the sanctions framework," Prendergast said.

Eric Reeves, a Sudan expert at Smith College in the U.S., contended the only way Washington would have real impact is to go to China and say Darfur is "a tier one issue in our bilateral relationship." Reeves is dismissive of what the Bush administration has termed a Plan B of coercive measures like the moves against Sudan’s oil companies.

"The Bush administration, and most particularly Natsios, oversold Plan B," Reeves said.

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Uganda (ICC)

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

ICC Uganda policy under scrutiny
IWPR
By Lisa Clifford in The Hague for IWPR
April 17, 2007

It has been a busy few months at the International Criminal Court (ICC). Judges announced in late January that the first-ever ICC case - against Congolese militia leader Thomas Lubanga Dyilo - could proceed to trial. One month later, prosecutors asked judges to issue summonses for two Sudanese accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.

On the ICC's case in Uganda, however, things are rather quieter. Nearly two years after the court first issued arrest warrants for Joseph Kony and other senior members of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) - Vincent Otti, Okot Odhiambo and Dominic Ongwen - all four remain at large.

They're accused of crimes against humanity, including enslavement, rape and murder as well as war crimes, such as intentionally directing attacks against civilians and enlisting child soldiers.

The ICC insists it has maintained a deliberately low public profile in Uganda so as not to be seen as interfering in the ongoing peace process, but the lack of arrests after so many months is a topic of debate in the international community.

"It's puzzling," admits Mark Ellis, executive director of the International Bar Association.
Talks are tentatively scheduled to resume in mid-April in the southern Sudanese capital of Juba. The on-off process of ending the 21-year-old conflict that has killed tens of thousands of civilians and displaced millions more began last July. With the help of southern Sudanese vice-president Riek Machar, a deal was signed in August but that expired in February amid conflict over the venue for the talks and the mediator.

Some of the rebels - including Kony, Otti and Odhiambo - crossed into the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) some time ago. Others - possibly Ongwen - are in Sudan and recent reports have suggested that other LRA units could be moving towards the Central African Republic.

Without its own police force, the ICC must rely on others to make the arrests. Marieke Wierda, head of the prosecution program at the International Centre for Transitional Justice, says some of the court's recent efforts have been directed towards building a coalition to help it enforce the warrants.

"We can presume that there's been a lot of diplomatic activity with countries that can help them," said Wierda.

The court has a long-standing agreement with Sudan to assist with arrest efforts, though relations between the two have been strained since the recent announcement of possible ICC prosecutions there. Sudan refuses to hand over its citizens, says it wants to conduct its own war crimes trials, and has suggested it will stop cooperating with the ICC.

In DRC, at the request of the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) the government has requested the aid of the UN mission MONUC in helping track down the LRA. In an update to the court last December, the OTP said it continues to receive reports of "good faith" efforts by MONUC to make the arrests but that recent elections there had been a higher priority.

This lack of obvious progress is frustrating for some.

Christopher Hall, senior legal adviser in Amnesty International's international justice project, wonders why it is taking so long to arrest Kony and the others. He questions the wisdom of relying on MONUC troops and says all UN peacekeeping operations should be equipped with special law enforcement units to carry out such activities.

"There are experienced people who've done this," said Hall. "It's a question of political will and allocating a few dollars more for a proper team. I have no idea why they aren't doing it."

For its part, the ICC insists it remains committed to the arrests.

It says bringing the four LRA commanders - whom it blames for the worst atrocities in Uganda - to The Hague to face trial would help with a sustainable peace process and offer justice to the victims.

"The victims of crimes in northern Uganda have a right to peace, security and justice," said ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo.

"Sustainable peace requires accountability - it cannot be achieved at the price of impunity. This was the legal framework adopted by 120 states in 1998 when they created the ICC under Rome Statute. Regarding the situation of northern Uganda, the OTP believes that peace and justice must continue to work together within this legal framework.

"Arrest warrants have been issued against four LRA commanders who have committed atrocities and are still keeping abducted children under their command. As the obligations to give effect to the arrest warrants are outstanding and there continue to be reports that the LRA are currently regrouping and rearming, efforts to secure those arrests should be pursued."

Some commentators point out that the concept of moving any of the LRA leaders far away from Uganda, to a foreign prison where living conditions are better than for many at home, may be strange to many in northern Uganda.

And there are other options. Nick Grono, vice president for advocacy and operations at the International Crisis Group, says that if a peace deal is reached the UN Security Council could put prosecutions on hold for 12 months to see if the peace will hold.

"But that's a temporary measure and they shouldn't consider that until there is a peace deal in place," he said.

There is also a provision in the Rome Statute that created the ICC for prosecutors themselves to put on hold or even suspend a case if they are satisfied that certain conditions have been met and that a genuine and effective process is in place to deal with alleged offenders.

That would likely involve a trial in a Ugandan court for the LRA leadership, something that Ellis doubts would be acceptable to the international community. Citing Serbia and Croatia, he says national trials can work, but in the case of Uganda he questions whether the country is capable, or even willing, to hold war crimes trials at home.

"I support national justice systems undertaking trials. It was one of the goals of the ICC when it was created," he said. "In reality, as we've seen in Iraq, there are difficulties in having local and national courts undertake these trials. In a place like Uganda, it's too early."

Wierda says that there should at least be attempts to explore whether Kony would accept a national trial, where he would be able to argue his innocence. Others, however, say Kony is unlikely to agree to any deal that would see him in either a Ugandan or Hague courtroom.

Some who oppose the ICC and the concept of retributive justice say the Acholi ceremony of "mato oput" would be a more appropriate way of dealing with returning LRA fighters. During the ceremony, those who've committed crimes are welcomed back into their communities in an age-old purification and reconciliation ritual.

Grono, however, points out that Kony has said previously he has committed no crimes against the Acholi people. That's a problem as a precondition for traditional justice ceremonies like the mato oput is for the accused to admit guilt and seek forgiveness.
Also, the mato oput has never been used for crimes of the gravity of which Kony and the other LRA commanders are accused.

One thing that appears not to be on the table is an amnesty for the LRA four. An amnesty deal signed in 2000 did apply to the LRA leadership but was subsequently amended to say the four were excluded. Last year, however, Uganda's president, Yoweri Museveni, caused a storm of controversy when he appeared to offer an amnesty to the rebel leaders in exchange for peace.

Human rights activists were outraged, insisting that an amnesty for atrocities is no basis for a peace deal.

However, it seems Uganda has since had a change of heart and in recent months various government officials have assured the ICC of their commitment to the court and the prosecutions.

"The government assures the ICC and state parties that we are seeking a permanent solution to the violence that serves the need for peace and justice, compatible with our obligations under the Rome Statute," wrote Ugandan ambassador Mirham Blaak in an October letter to the ICC's registrar.

"Rest assured that Uganda will not condone impunity."

Lisa Clifford is an IWPR reporter in The Hague.

This article originally appeared in Africa Reports, produced by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR).

Ugandan rebels urge suspension of arrest warrants
Reuters
By Katie Nguyen
April 19, 2007

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Ugandan rebels demanded on Thursday a 12-month suspension of International Criminal Court arrest warrants against its top leaders, which are seen as the main hurdle to a deal ending one of Africa's most brutal wars.

The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has insisted ICC indictments for war crimes against its leader, Josephy Kony, and three others be scrapped in favour of traditional justice.
But Kampala, which asked the global human rights court to investigate the LRA, has repeatedly said a peace deal should be signed before it considers asking the ICC to drop the case.

Despite the stand-off, both sides agreed on Saturday to a new two-month truce and a resumption of talks to end the two-decade conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people and forced nearly two million more into squalid camps.

LRA representative James Obita said the LRA hoped a request for the suspension of the arrest warrants would be made after a range of issues, including reconciliation and the fate of displaced Ugandans, were resolved.

He said the LRA had asked former Mozambique president Joaquim Chissano, the U.N. envoy in the peace efforts, to speak to the Security Council on its behalf.

"We want the government of Uganda through ... Chissano to go now to the Security Council and say surely we have now reached a point of no return," Obita told a news conference.

"We're saying at the very minimum -- suspend the warrants for 12 months so that we can complete the process and have the comprehensive peace agreement signed," he added.
The LRA still hopes the charges against its leaders will be rescinded completely, but the ICC has repeatedly refused to withdraw the indictments in what is seen as a test case for the Hague-based court.

The LRA is one of the most feared guerrilla groups in Africa, with a reputation for massacring civilians, slicing the noses and lips off their victims and kidnapping thousands of children to serve as fighters, porters and sex slaves.

The traditional "Mato Oput" justice it advocates involves a ritual in which a murderer faces relatives of the victim and admits his crime before both drink a bitter brew made from a tree root mixed with sheep's blood.

Established in 2002, the ICC started its first investigations in 2004 into crimes in Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. But it has yet to prosecute any suspects.

Uganda: concerned by mounting violence against civilians, UN official urges protection
UN News Service
April 19, 2007

In a report released today, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour urged the Government of Uganda to curb violence and human rights abuses voiced concern over escalating violence against civilians in Karamoja in the north-east of the country, where almost 70 people have been killed since last November.

Between 16 November 2006 and 31 March 2007, “the indiscriminate and excessive use of force” by Government forces, known as UPDF, has lead to the deaths of at least 69 civilians, including women and children, as well as 10 cases of torture, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, the High Commissioner's office (OHCHR) said in a statement released in Geneva. Additionally, 400 cattle and many traditional homesteads, or manyattas, have been destroyed in Karamoja.

The High Commissioner also expressed serious concern over a “climate of fear and insecurity” in the area where armed Karimojong have reportedly killed seven UPDF soldiers, eight civilians and almost 300 cattle.

Ms. Arbour, who issued a report last November calling on Uganda to end a forced disarmament exercise, deplored the failure of the Government to implement her previous recommendations.

Allegations of human rights violations and criminal acts have persisted since the strategy was launched last May.

“I call on the Government of Uganda to respect its obligations to protect the human rights of all individuals under its jurisdiction at all times,” Ms. Arbour said, appealing for an end to the indiscriminate and excessive use of force against men, women and children.

The High Commissioner added that the country must also “take all necessary measures, including reviewing the ongoing disarmament process, to prevent any further human rights violations in Karamoja,” as well as implementing sustainable development initiatives to bring stability to the region.

She also stressed that instead of pursuing a solely military response, the Government should create civilian mechanisms for the legal arrest, detention, prosecution and punishment of armed Karimojong who commit crimes.

Uganda peace talks with LRA rebels set to resume
Reuters Foundation
By Tim Cocks
April 24, 2007

KAMPALA, April 24 (Reuters) - Peace talks aiming to end one of Africa's most brutal conflicts are due to restart on Thursday, three months after Ugandan rebel negotiators walked out.

After two decades of fighting that killed tens of thousands and spawned nearly two million refugees, many Ugandans are desperate for the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels and government to agree a lasting peace.

"They have to push talks to a conclusion this time," said Walter Ochora, district commissioner of Gulu, northern Uganda, at the epicentre of the conflict. "People (displaced by war) must have the chance to go back to their homes."

Many of northern Uganda's refugees live in squalid conditions lacking medicine and clean water.

Most depend on food aid from the U.N. because of the risk of attack by marauding rebels -- notorious for slicing body parts off victims and kidnapping children -- if they venture outside their camps to grow food.

"CHANCE FOR PEACE"
A truce signed between the two sides last August at talks in the south Sudanese capital, Juba, has largely held up.

"We have seen a visible impact since August on those in camps from the allaying of (security) fears," said Chulho Hyun, spokesman for the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Uganda.

But in January, the rebels walked out of talks, citing security fears after Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir vowed to "get rid of the LRA from Sudan".
They backed down in March after the new U.N. envoy for Uganda's conflict, former Mozambique President Joaquim Chissano, met LRA leader Joseph Kony near his eastern Congolese jungle hideout.

Chissano promised Kony he would expand the mediating team beyond the untrusted south Sudan to include delegates from other African countries.

"Our concerns were addressed. The process will be carried out in a more conducive manner," LRA spokesman Godfrey Ayoo said. "We really think this is a good chance for peace."

This next phase of talks seeks lasting political solutions to the humanitarian catastrophe the war created, including helping refugees go home.

Both sides expect it to be signed quickly, before they tackle the thornier question of accountability for war crimes.

Kony and four other commanders are wanted in the International Criminal Court over allegations of killing civilians, rape and child abduction.

The rebels say they will never come out of the bush to sign a deal unless the Hague-based court drops the case.

World court must punish Uganda rebels-rights group
Reuters
By Tim Cocks
April 25, 2007

KAMPALA, April 25 (Reuters) - War criminals from Uganda's 20-year civil conflict must be punished if peace is to last, a leading human rights watchdog said on Wednesday on the eve of a resumption of talks with rebels.

The government and Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) are due to resume negotiations on Thursday in a push to end one of Africa's most brutal wars, which has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted 1.7 million more to squalid camps.

Fugitive guerrilla leader Joseph Kony and four other commanders are wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.

Kony has said he will never sign a peace deal until the ICC charges are dropped -- the biggest sticking point in the talks.

"Prosecutions ... are crucial to achieving a sustainable peace in northern Uganda," Human Rights Watch said in a statement. "The LRA leadership has been responsible for shocking crimes against civilians."

It said besides being a legal obligation, the arrest and trial of LRA leaders by the world court would encourage peace and respect for human rights around the world.

"Such prosecutions send the message ... to would-be perpetrators that no one is above the law," the statement said.

Despite the stand-off over the ICC indictments, both sides agreed this month to extend an truce signed in August until June while they resume talks in Juba, southern Sudan.

Campaigners in Uganda see the ICC indictments as an obstacle to a final peace deal, and want them scrapped.

"The ICC is ... the make or break issue," Norbert Mao, a northern politician and peace campaigner, told Reuters. "They are being disruptive to the peace process."

Traditional leaders from Kony's own Acholi tribe -- who have borne the brunt of attacks by rebels notorious for mutilating victims and abducting children to use as soldiers -- want Kony and his henchmen to undergo a reconciliation ritual instead.

"Mato Oput" justice involves a murderer facing relatives of the victim and admitting his crime before both drink a bitter brew made from a tree root mixed with sheep's blood.

Others feel that would be letting Kony off too lightly.

"Prosecutions ... need to involve fair trials and penalties that reflect the gravity of the crimes committed. Anything less would be justice denied," Human Rights Watch said.

Uganda: Resumption of Juba Peace Talks Welcome
Human Rights Watch
April 25, 2007

Credible Prosecutions for Most Serious Crimes Key to Durable Peace

(New York, April 25, 2007) – As the Ugandan government and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) take the welcome step of resuming peace talks tomorrow, the negotiations must seek an outcome that also ensures fair and credible prosecutions for the most serious crimes in northern Uganda, Human Rights Watch said today. Such prosecutions, along with broader accountability measures for lesser abuses, are crucial to achieving a sustainable peace in northern Uganda.

The talks, which began last July but broke down in December, are scheduled to resume in Juba, the regional capital of southern Sudan. During the 21-year conflict, civilians have suffered heinous crimes and mass displacement.

“Over the past two decades, the LRA leadership has been responsible for shocking crimes against civilians, while the Ugandan military forces have also been implicated in serious human rights abuses,” said Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch’s International Justice Program. “Ensuring justice for the most serious crimes is critical to achieve the durable peace sought by the people of northern Uganda.”

International law requires prosecutions for serious crimes such as crimes against humanity and war crimes. But prosecution for the most serious crimes is more than a legal obligation. Such prosecutions send the message, especially to would-be perpetrators, that no one is above the law. This helps to consolidate respect for the rule of law, which in turn helps cement peace and stability, Human Rights Watch said.

In 2005, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued warrants for five senior LRA leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity. These arrest warrants are an important step toward ensuring justice is done, Human Rights Watch said. The LRA leaders have sought to avoid trial at the ICC and present the warrants as an impediment to achieving peace.

“Impunity would only help fuel future abuses in Uganda,” said Dicker. “By painting the ICC as an obstacle to peace, the LRA leaders have been trying to turn reality upside down.”

Every effort must also be made to investigate and prosecute alleged human rights violations committed by the Ugandan military. In addition, broader accountability for less serious offenses through trials, a truth-telling process and, where appropriate, traditional mechanisms is an important component of sustainable peace.

Some involved with the peace talks are working to identify alternatives to ICC trials as a way to help facilitate the signing of a peace agreement. Such proposals may involve a combination of national judicial proceedings and traditional justice measures.

The ICC treaty allows for ICC cases to be tried in Uganda, but only if certain criteria are met. A state must be genuinely able and willing to conduct the investigation or prosecution, which requires that proceedings are independent and impartial. In addition, proceedings cannot be conducted in a way that is inconsistent with an intent to bring a person to justice.

“The ICC’s charges against LRA leaders are of the utmost gravity,” said Dicker. “National prosecutions would need to involve both fair trials and penalties that reflect the gravity of the crimes committed. Anything less would be justice denied.”

Whether the necessary criteria are met to allow ICC cases to be tried domestically is a determination that must ultimately be made by the ICC judges.

While the Security Council could defer the ICC’s investigation or prosecution in northern Uganda for 12 months under article 16 of the ICC statute, this would be inappropriate, Human Rights Watch said. In the absence of credible alternatives at the national level, a deferral would shield LRA leadership from prosecution, perhaps indefinitely if renewed. It could also open the door to dangerous interference by the Security Council in the judicial operations of the ICC.

Human Rights Watch called attention to the continued risks posed by the conflict to the civilian populations of northern Uganda and southern Sudan. The announcements on April 15 to renew the cessation of hostilities agreement and also to enhance the cessation of hostilities monitoring team were positive developments, Human Rights Watch said. Human Rights Watch called on the parties and mediators to ensure that the cessation of hostilities monitoring team immediately investigates credible allegations of attacks on civilians and that humanitarian assistance reached affected communities.

Background

The conflict in northern Uganda to depose President Yoweri Museveni began immediately after he took power by force in 1986. In December 2003, Museveni invited the ICC to investigate the LRA. In July 2005, the court issued warrants for the arrest of the top five LRA leaders – Joseph Kony, Vincent Otti, Okot Odhiambo, Raska Lukwiya and Dominic Ongwen – for crimes against humanity, including widespread or systematic murder, sexual enslavement and rape, and war crimes such as intentionally attacking civilians and abducting and enlisting children under the age of 15. Lukwiya was killed in August during a fight between the LRA and Ugandan military forces.

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International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)

Official Website of the ICTY

Kosovo independent by summer
Beta
April 16, 2007

ZAGREB -- Ahtisaari’s deputy Albert Rohan says Kosovo will be granted supervised independence, while Russia will not use its veto at the UN.

Rohan told Zagreb daily Jutarnji List he did not wish to speculate on whether Serbian and Russian efforts to delay the United Nations Security Council decision on Kosovo’s future status would lead to incidents escalating into violence, creating “negative press” for the province’s Albanians.

However, Rohan told the newspaper he agreed the situation in Kosovo, although currently stable, was so volatile any incident could spark off more serious violence.

“The sooner we have a decision, the better. We oppose unreasonable delays,” Rohan said.

Rohan explained he expected negotiations over a new Kosovo resolution to take place during May, while the resolution itself would be adopted at the end of that month.

“In any case, Kosovo should be independent before the summer,” he added.

Rohan told the daily Ahtisaari’s proposal “had no alternative”, as well as that after eight years of uncertainty Kosovo’s status needed to be resolved.

“Miloševi? is the one who lost Kosovo, everybody knows this. The fault is not with the current Serbian leadership and this fact needs to be faced at last,” Rohan said.

Rohan also said he did not believe Russia would reach for its veto in a council session discussing a new Kosovo resolution.

“Permanent Security Council member states have been responsible in the past, rarely using their veto powers,” Rohan explained.

Serb paramilitaries found guilty in war crimes trial
ISN
By: Anes Alic in Sarajevo and Igor Jovanovic
April 17, 2007

After a 15-month trial, the commander and three members of the Serbian paramilitary unit "Scorpions" were sentenced on 10 April by Serbia's war crimes court to a total of 58 years in jail for murdering six Bosnian Muslims from Srebrenica in July 1995.

The conclusion of the trial, based on a videotape made by the attackers that caused outrage when it was broadcast in 2005, follows a February ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that cleared Serbia of direct responsibility for the Srebrenica genocide.

With the ICJ ruling in mind, the Serbian war crimes court in its verdict said the six murders represented an isolated incident, distancing it from the massacre of some 8,000 Bosniak men and boys in Srebrenica.

Two of the charged - Slobodan Medic, the former commander of the Scorpions unit, and Branislav Medic - were each sentenced to 20 years in prison for the murders.
Another Scorpions member, Pera Petrasevic, was sentenced to 13 years - a shorter sentence because of his confession, cooperation with prosecution and demonstration of remorse. The fourth defendant, Aleksandar Medic, was given five years, while the fifth, Aleksandar Vukov, the unit's deputy commander, was acquitted.

Judge Gordana Bozilovic-Petrovic said in the verdict that "Slobodan Medic ordered the three defendants and two others to execute the prisoners, take them away from the site and make it seem as if they had been killed in conflict."

"By committing such acts against defenseless civilians, by showing off their power and not showing remorse, the defendants did not give the court the choice to pass lower sentences," she said.

The six Bosnians - Safet Fejzic, Azmir Alispahic, Sidik Salkic, Smajil Ibrahimovic, Dino Salihovic and Juso Delic - all from Srebrenica, were captured by Bosnian Serb forces on hills surrounding the eastern town, and believed to have been executed between 16 and 17 July near the town of Trnovo, some 30 minutes drive from Sarajevo, where the Scorpions were based.

For the same crime, Serbian authorities are still searching for unit member Milorad Momic, while another member, Slobodan Davidovic, was sentenced to 15 years in prison by a Croatian court in 2005.

Damning video rentals

The video footage was first played at the UN's Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in June 2005 at the unfinished trial of late Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic.

According to local media reports, Slobodan Medic ordered the some 20 existing copies of the tape, in the possession of Scorpions members, to be destroyed. All but one apparently were. However, a dissident member of the Scorpions, who left Bosnia the day before the executions, retrieved the lone tape from a video rental store in the town of Sid in northern Serbia, the Scorpions' home base and gave it to Natasa Kandic, the director of the Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Centre. The dissident then fled Serbia. One copy of the tape had also been placed in the Serbian police archive.

The videotape, recorded by the executioners themselves, shows a group of Bosnian men from Srebrenica being held by an armed unit, then driven by truck and marched to a site where they are summarily shot.

The executioners, wearing camouflage uniforms and berets bearing Serbian flags, are shown dragging the emaciated men, whose hands are tied behind their backs, from trucks before lining them up for execution. The victims appear to have been severely beaten.
The graphic footage showed the men from Srebrenica standing in a line, while Serbian soldiers made each one step forward and executed them one by one at point-blank range. There was no sign of resistance as the men silently accepted their fate, watching the man in front them be shot and his body pushed off to the side to make room for the next victim. Finally, the footage shows two of the victims being forced to carry off the dead bodies, before they line up for their own execution.

The bodies of the six men on the videotape were exhumed in 1999. Two of them were 17 years old when murdered. Another was 16.

The Scorpions were also active in the war in Croatia, where they guarded oil fields, and in the 1999 Kosovo war. In March 2004, a court in Belgrade sentenced a former Scorpion member, Sasa Cvjetan, to 20 years in prison for murdering 14 ethnic Albanian civilians and wounding five others in Kosovo in 1999.

Maintaining a safe distance from Srebrenica

The court said it was unclear how the Scorpions came in possession of the captives from Srebrenica. Therefore, the court ruled, there was no evidence that six were taken from Srebrenica and that the crime committed by the Scorpions was not actually connected to the Srebrenica massacre.

However, according to the prosecution, the distancing of this case from the crime in Srebrenica was a cause for concern, especially since all six victims had Srebrenica IDs and their families verified their origin.

The Humanitarian Law Fund also voiced disagreement with a section of the verdict. In a 12 April press release, the NGO said the Belgrade District Court's War Crimes Council in reaching the verdict had been guided by political rather than legal reasons.

"In the verdict for the murder of six Bosniak civilians, the court correctly assessed the evidence of Slobodan Medic, Branislav Medic and Pera Petrasevic's guilt, but when deciding on the role of defendants Aleksandar Medic and Aleksandar Vukov, the court abandoned the determined facts and opted for political balancing," the Humanitarian Law Fund said.

"The court reached such a verdict in an attempt to adjust to the Serbian authorities' stand on responsibility for the genocide in Srebrenica, in light of the ICJ ruling, which cleared Serbia of responsibility for the genocide, and in order to demonstrate understanding for the patriotic views of certain Scorpions members," the press release said.

It adds that the court failed to take into account the fact from the specified indictment that the six victims were taken to Trnovo from Srebrenica, although their families testified in court that their disappearance took place after the arrival of Serb forces in the town.

The fund also criticized the court's conclusion that the Scorpions were a paramilitary unit, and reiterated that the prosecution had claimed that the Scorpions had acted within the regular units of the armies of the Serbs from Bosnia and Croatia.

There is also other evidence to make the Srebrenica connection. According to the testimony of former Scorpion Goran Stoparic, two other paramilitary groups - the "Caymans" and the "Blues" - arrived in Bosnia in July 1995. On 10 July, a day before the Bosnian Serbs took control of Srebrenica, Stoparic said those units were placed under the command of the Bosnian Serb Special Police forces. However, he said that after taking over Srebrenica, the Caymans and the Blues were pulled back to Serbia, while the Scorpions, along with their prisoners shown in the videotape, returned to their base in the Bosnian town of Trnovo.

According to Kandic, the ruling was likely disappointing to the victims' families.

"Considering the gravity of the crime, the ruling did not deliver justice [â€¦] for victims who were killed only because they were Bosnians from Srebrenica," Kandic told reporters at the court.

Relatives of the victims, who arrived from Bosnia for the trial under heavy police escort, said they were outraged at the court's sentencing. Nura Alispahic, mother of murdered 16-year-old Azmir was among those present for the reading of the verdict.

"I saw with my own eyes when these animals killed my son [â€¦] I saw him. He was second in the row. They were pushing him," Nura told reporters after the sentencing.

Her other son, Admir, also was killed during the war. He was wounded in Srebrenica and evacuated to the city of Tuzla. But shortly after he was released from the hospital, he was killed during the shelling of the town.

Safeta Muhic, the sister of Safet Fejzic, said the verdict was a great shame for both the court and Serbia.

"We came here looking for justice in a state that had carried out aggression, and the court found that those boys were not from Srebrenica. That is a great shame both for this court and this state, and our loved ones are dead," she said.

Human rights groups and the victims' families are particularly outraged by the acquittal of Vukov and the five-year sentence handed down to Aleksandar Medic.

The video shows Aleksandar Medic asking one of the victims, Azmir Alispahic: "Have you ever f*****? Well, you never will," in a vulgar scene that was enough to convince the victim's families that the defendant was well aware of the acts his unit was about to commit.

Progress, if not total justice

The Scorpions trial was the first such trial in Serbia to deal with what happened in Srebrenica. It was also the biggest war crimes trial of Serbs by Serbs to date - something unimaginable only several years ago.

Before bringing the verdict, the accused were smiling, waving to their relatives and supporters and having friendly chats with their police guards, seeming confident that the sentencing would be light - surely lighter than it in fact turned out to be.

In Serbia, where there has been a great deal of denial about what happened at Srebrenica, the controversial video footage has had a powerful effect. Before the airing of the video, more than 50 percent of the population refused to believe that a massacre of Bosniaks ever took place in Srebrenica.

The video was probably the first hard evidence presented to the Serbian public, since the genocide was well hidden by media and the propaganda of the Milosevic regime.

Serbian media aired the video repeatedly, showing the gruesome killings and the aftermath, to a shocked public. As such, the video has worked to change popular belief in Serbia that war crimes committed by Serbian forces were done solely in the heat of battle. Still, many doubt the video's authenticity, as alleged by the Scorpions' defense lawyers, denying that their soldiers could have perpetrated such heinous crimes.

Four days after the verdict, unidentified attackers tossed an explosive device at the home of a Belgrade weekly Vreme journalist, Dejan Anastasijevic, who had criticized the Scorpions. A few years ago, the journalist had testified for the prosecution at the ICTY during the trial of Milosevic.

Still, the court could have done much more toward reconciliation, according to the head of the Human Rights Lawyers' Committee, Biljana Kovacevic-Vuco. She told ISN Security Watch that the Scorpions trial, and particularly the verdict, would not "leave a deeper mark on the Serbian public" or do much to further the potential reconciliation between the peoples of the former Yugoslavia.

"The verdict tried to point out that these were isolated incidents, the work of a paramilitary group. I find the verdict bad, because the crime against Bosniaks was not described as part of the genocide in Srebrenica. I do not see the public being horrified by those crimes, and I think the trial failed to yield that effect," she said.

Serbian War Crimes Prosecution spokesman Bruno Vekaric was more optimistic, telling ISN Security Watch that facing the past and the crimes "is a long process that cannot be finished quickly."

"Many state and non-state institutions should work on that, the judiciary alone cannot persist in it," he said.

According to Vekaric, all the defendants deserved maximum sentences and the prosecution would voice its disagreement with the lighter sentences for certain indictees in an appeal to the Serbian Supreme Court.

Russian deputy FM on Tribunal’s fate
B92
April 18, 2007

MOSCOW -- Russia will demand that the Hague Tribunal closes in 2010, Russian deputy foreign minister says.

A letter Vladimir Titov sent to the Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Konstantin Kosachov states that Russia will demand an end to the Tribunal’s activities, irrelevant of whether all the indicted persons are extradited and tried by that time, the Russian media reported.

The letter said that according to a UN Security Council resolution, the Tribunal was scheduled to close by 2010.

However, Titov wrote, the staff in The Hague is already making announcements they will not be able to finish their work by that deadline, explaining this with insufficient cooperation from involved countries and with the fact Ratko Mladi? and Radovan Karadži? remain at large.

“If Mladi? and Karadži?, and four others, are not arrested by the end of the mandate, this in itself will not be sufficient for us to support the Tribunal’s continued work,” Titov said in the letter.

Titov also said the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs was using all available means to draw the attention of the international public to the Tribunal’s operations.

“We are critical of the Tribunal’s anti-Serb mood, lengthy trials, excessive expenditure and frequent tragic incidents involving the defendants,” Titov stated, adding Russia was the only country that showed interest in these issues.

Gotovina Calls For Appellate Hearing
Sense Tribunal
April 20, 2007

Ante Gotovina’s defense team wants an opportunity to present oral arguments on his appeal against the decision dismissing his motion on the jurisdiction of the Tribunal in the Operation Storm case at a hearing. The trial has now been officially postponed

The Pre-trial Chamber in the case against three Croatian generals charged with the crimes against Serb civilians committed in the course of Operation Storm and in its aftermath issued a written decision confirming that the trial has been postponed.
A new start date for the trial depends on the decision of the Appeals Chamber on the appeals filed by the defense counsel of Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac. They appealed against the Trial Chamber’s decision ruling that their continued representation of their clients in this case was inappropriate.

In the meantime, Ante Gotovina’s defense team filed a motion calling for an oral hearing in which the parties would present their arguments on Gotovina’s appeal against the Trial Chamber’s decision to dismiss his motion on the jurisdiction of the Tribunal.

Witness "Minding his own Business"
Sense Tribunal
April 20, 2007

When an attempt was made to use his soldiers in the execution of about 1,000 Muslims captives in Orahovac in July 1995, witness Lazar Ristic didn’t do anything. He was “shocked by the way in which it was done”, but considered “it” – the execution – to be “out of his remit” and he “minded his own business”

Had their commander been told that they were needed as a “reinforcement” to assist in the execution of Muslim prisoners, the ten or so soldiers of the 4th Battalion in the VRS Zvornik brigade would probably not have been sent to the school in Orahovac. On 14 July 1995 about 1,000 Muslims were held captive there.

Continuing his evidence, Lazar Ristic, the then commander of the 4th Battalion, explained that he would probably have done things differently had he known what his soldiers were needed for. Ristic said that in the cross-examined by the defense counsel of Vinko Pandurevic, former Zvornik brigade commander and one of the seven accused on trial for the for crimes in Srebrenica and Zepa.

According to the indictment, about a thousand Muslims captives were executed near the school in Orahovac. Ristic testified that the soldiers he had sent there had told him that “they were forced to shoot” them. He withdrew them immediately and sent them home.
Ristic said that he was shocked “by the way in which it had been done”, but added that it was “beyond his remit”. He did not part in it: he just “minded his own business”. He argued that Vinko Pandurevic never ordered him to “do something unlawful” or told him how to treat the prisoners of war. It was not necessary, as his battalion was engaged in the defense lines in its area of responsibility.

The defense counsel showed Ristic a number of documents related to the cease fire agreement and decision to open the corridor to allow the column trying to break through from Srebrenica through the woods to pass. Pandurevic signed the agreement with the commander of the BH Army forces in the area on 15 July 1995 when Pandurevic returned to Zvornik.

According to the prosecution, the decision to open the corridor was the result of Pandurevic’s assessment that the column, consisting of civilians and armed BH Army members, represented a threat to Zvornik.

The defense attempted to prove that Pandurevic had not been forced to do so and that he had made the decision for other reasons. In answer to Pandurevic’s defense counsel, Ristic, whose HQ in Zvornik was “attacked and set on fire” by the BH Army, confirmed that the VRS forces in Zvornik had been weak but nevertheless able to “destroy the column” passing through the corridor.

“The cease fire order was complied with", Ristic said. Ristic monitored the passage of the refugees along the corridor from the site where his command post was relocated. Their number was huge, but Ristic could not specify how many refugees from Srebrenica managed to move to the BH controlled territory until the afternoon of 17 July 1995 when the corridor was closed.

Sweden refuses release Bosnia Serb convict
United Press International
April 26, 2007

STOCKHOLM, Sweden April 26 (UPI) -- Sweden rejected a request for the release of former Bosnian Serb leader Biljana Plavsic, who is serving an 11-year prison term for war crimes.

The Swedish government said Plavsic's plea, submitted last year, was not accepted but did not offer any detail about its ruling, the Serbian news agency Beta reported Thursday.
Plavsic, 76, asked for amnesty because of poor health.

An ambassador of Bosnia-Herzegovina also pleaded at the Swedish government for Plavsic's release from the central Swedish prison of Hinseberg, where he claimed living conditions were bad, Beta said.

Plavsic was transferred to the Hinseberg women's jail west of Stockholm in 2003, after the U.N. tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, sentenced her to 11 years imprisonment.

She was jailed for crimes against humanity and persecution of Bosnia's Muslims and Croats in the 1992-95 ethnic wars in the former Yugoslavia.
The Hague war crimes tribunal pronounced a reduced sentence because Plavsic came to the trial voluntarily and expressed remorse when pleaded guilty.

She was the only top-ranking female politician charged with war crimes in the former Yugoslavia.

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International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)

Official Website of the ICTR

Rwanda asks UN court to overturn French arrest warrants over genocide
UN News Centre
April 8, 2007

Rwanda applied today to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to quash arrest warrants issued by a French judge last year against senior Rwandan Government and military officials and a request to the United Nations that President Paul Kagame stand trial at the UN war crimes tribunal dealing with the 1994 genocide.

The application relates to the downing in Kigali on 6 April 1994 of an aircraft carrying the then presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira, an incident that sparked the subsequent genocide in Rwanda.

Last November a French judge issued arrest warrants against a series of Rwandan officials, including the Chief of General Staff of its Defence Forces, the Chief of Protocol to the Presidency and the Rwandan Ambassador to India.

By issuing those warrants, France is violating international law concerned with international and diplomatic immunities, as well as Rwanda’s sovereignty, and the warrants should be annulled immediately, Rwanda stated in its application.

The African nation said the judge’s report was also sent to the UN Secretary-General with the request that Mr. Kagame be brought for trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).

Such an action means France “has acted in breach of the obligation of each and every State to refrain from intervention in the affairs of other States,” Rwanda argued.

The ICJ said in a press release that the application has been sent to the French Government and, in accordance with its rules, no action will be taken by the court unless France consents to ICJ jurisdiction in the case.

Estimates vary but some 800,000 people, mostly Tutsis and moderate Hutus, are thought to have been killed by Hutu militias and others over a 100-day period in Rwanda in 1994.

ICTR Commends Country Progress on Prisoner-Transfer Preparation
AllAfrica.com - The New Times (Kigali)
by Felly Kimenyi
April 24, 2007

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has commended the step the Rwandan judiciary has taken in preparation for the transfer of cases from ICTR to the national jurisdiction. This was revealed by Jean-Pele Fomete, an ICTR Senior Legal Adviser with the tribunal who heads the taskforce on capacity building, in a meeting that brought them together with their Rwandan counterparts to assess the way forward on the transfers.

"It appears that we are at the eve of a major breakthrough which, if successful, could allow Rwanda to show the way to go to many countries in Africa and beyond in various aspects of the broader justice sector," Fomete said during the meeting that took place at Hotel Novotel yesterday.

Fomete, who was delegated by the ICTR to represent them in the meeting, added that a quick look at the available records indicates that both Rwanda and the ICTR have done a lot so far pertaining to the transfers. In an interview with Justice minister Tharcisse Karugarama, he said that this is the second meeting that brings together the tribunal and the Rwandan judiciary to assess the development of the transfers and to discuss issues like the timeline into which this exercise will be carried out.

"It is in this forum that we expect to identify problems if any, that may hamper the progress of the transfers," Karugarama said, adding, though, that the timeline has not been designed yet. The first meeting took place in November 2005. He was however optimistic that the transfers will be effected. "We recently held extensive and valuable discussions with the ICTR Chief Prosecutor (Boubakar Jallow) and it was evident from this discussion that the transfer of cases to Rwanda is a matter of shared interest."

Meanwhile, earlier this year, Jallow was quoted saying that his office was set to file the first motion of the transfer of the first cases by April, but as the month draws towards the end, the motion has not been filed according to Fomete.

Bar sidelined

The Kigali Bar association, however, has said that they have so far received minimal assistance in terms of capacity building to the lawyers in preparation for the transfers.

This was confirmed by the Kigali Bar Chairman Gatera Gashabana. "Initially, we were sending our lawyers to the tribunal for capacity building but the exercise was later stopped after it was established that the transfers, which were supposed to kick off earlier this year, had been postponed," Gashabana said. He added that it was very essential for the lawyers to get wind of what was taking place at the tribunal, especially getting to know about International Law.

"Lawyers must also know about the functioning of the common law system under which the transferred trials will be conducted." The Bar chair lamented the fact that most bar members are French-speaking and should undergo training in English, a fact that has not been given serious consideration.

"We also have the problem of the law establishing our society which has been a matter of contention for the past year where the ministry has failed to recognize it as an organic law and this may have serious implications," he added.

The bill has been at the lower chamber of parliament for over a year after it was contested by the learned fraternity because of some of the articles it contained. He however said that he would present all these obstacles to the meeting with a hope of getting a solution.

The transfer of cases from the ICTR to Rwanda came after the UN, which instituted the Tanzania-based ad hoc tribunal, declared the expiration of its mandate as December 2008.

Many countries have applied to receive those cases but Rwanda has been said to be the favorites of them all after they fulfilled most of the requirements including scraping of the death penalty over the suspects to be transferred.

Established in 1995, the backlogged tribunal has so far completed 33 cases, and of these, 6 were acquittals while the rest were convictions.

Nsengimana Pleads Not Guilty to Amended Indictment
ICTR Press Release
April 27, 2007

Hormisdas Nsengimana, a priest who was formerly Rector of Christ-Roi College in Nyanza, Nyabisindu Commune in Butare Prefecture, today pleaded not guilty to three counts charging him with genocide, murder and extermination as crimes against humanity during his further appearance. Nsengimana, 53, made the appearance before trial chamber II composed of Judges William Sekule, presiding, Arlette Ramaroson and Solomy Balungi Bossa.

On 16 April 2002, during his initial appearance, the accused had entered a plea of ‘Not Guilty’ to four counts, contained in the first indictment. They included that of conspiracy to commit genocide. The Prosecution had on 2 October 2006 filed a motion seeking to amend the indictment by withdrawing the conspiracy charge. It also prayed that new charges of superior responsibility in the commission of the crimes be added in the indictment. In a ruling of 29 March 2007, the Trial Chamber granted the amendment seeking to withdraw the count of conspiracy but dismissed the motion in all other respects.

The accused is alleged to have been among the organisers of the slaughter of Tutsis in Nyanza, Butare in 1994. He is accused of playing a leading role in a group of killers called Les Dragons (The Dragons) or Escadrons de la Mort (Death Squad) which played a crucial role in the killing of Tutsis in and around the Christ-Roi College and in other parts of Butare Prefecture. He is also alleged to have worked closely with soldiers in the prefecture to commit the crimes.

Further, the accused is alleged to have been instrumental in the killing of several Tutsi priests from his college. In one incident he allegedly gave some money to a young orphan to get information about the whereabouts of three Tutsi priests who had fled the Christ-Roi College. After being informed of their whereabouts, Nsengimana and his group allegedly left the college accompanied by some soldiers, in search of the priests who were later killed.

The accused was arrested in Yaoundé, Cameroon on 21 March 2002 and transferred to the United Nations Detention Facility in Arusha on 10 April 2002. He is represented by Counsel Mr. Emmanuel Altit.

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