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)

Villagers find and loot Cambodian killing field
International Herald Tribune
By Seth Mydans
May 15, 2007

SRE LEAV, Cambodia: Researchers are investigating a long unknown killing field in Cambodia with the graves of thousands of Khmer Rouge victims from the 1970s.

But local villagers found it first. By the time the researchers arrived last week, some 200 graves had been dug open and the bones scattered through the woods by hundreds of people hunting for jewelry.

"Everyone was running up there to dig for gold, so I went too," said Srey Net, 50, describing what seems to have been a communal frenzy that seized this poor and isolated village. "If they can dig for gold, why can't I?"

It was the first such raid the researchers had recorded in the thousands of burial grounds they have documented around the country. Altogether 1.7 million people died under Khmer Rouge rule from 1975 to 1979 from starvation, overwork and disease as well as torture and execution.

"People said, 'This goose has no owner,' " said Ouk Souk, 60, a farmer. There were few valuables in the graves, but they took whatever they could find.

The invasion of what has been almost sacred ground suggests that past traumas are beginning to fade even as Cambodia prepares to open a long-delayed trial of some Khmer Rouge leaders, said Youk Chhang, a leading expert on the period.

"I think it has become a memory, rather than a physical thing any longer," he said, speaking of the pain of the past. "There will be no more tears. There are no more feelings to express - only a flash of memory when you see a piece of bone."

For younger Cambodians, who know remarkably little about the Khmer Rouge period, he said, "It's just a dead person."

Youk Chhang heads the Documentation Center of Cambodia, which has researched the killing fields and amassed a huge archive on the Khmer Rouge years. Visiting here on Thursday, two of his investigators said there could be as many as 9,000 bodies buried in the woods behind this village about 150 kilometers, or about 100 miles, south of Phnom Penh.

Though the pain of the past may have faded, the bones and the ghosts of Khmer Rouge victims still terrify many rural people. After the assault on the burial ground, this village seemed filled with remorse and dread. The digging has stopped and several people said they had been awakened at night by screams from the graves.

"People heard voices calling out, 'Help me! Help me!' " said Svay Saroeun, 50, a deputy village chief. "Maybe they are angry at the villagers for digging up their graves. Or maybe they were tortured to death and now they are being tortured again by people who are disturbing their sleep."

Srey Noeun, 47, a farmer with four small children, said she was unable to sleep for three nights after she dug two small gold earrings out of a grave.

"I'm afraid that the owner will take revenge on me because she died with nothing but her earrings and now I have taken them," Srey Noeun said. "She'll say, 'Please give them back. They are all I had.' "

Srey Noeun said she sold the earrings as quickly as she could and bought things she needed: two kilograms, or 4.4 pounds, of pork, a sack of rice, oil for cooking and for lamps, salt, pepper, seasoning and milk powder for her youngest child.

"We never have enough rice," Srey Noeun said. "Normally we can't afford to buy pork."
The treasure unearthed after nearly a week of digging seemed paltry: one gold necklace and 27 small gold earrings. But it was dazzling to people who live without electricity or running water, far from the nearest clinic, school or paved road.

The luckiest villager was Pen Chia, 27, who recovered the necklace and sold it to buy a cow. But most people found nothing but shattered skulls, bits of bone that looked like broken sticks and scraps of moldering clothing.

"I dug all day without eating," said Pron Sythoeun, 36, a farmer. "I dug for four days. And I got nothing."

He has gone back to poke through the scraps with a stick, but few other villagers have returned except to light incense and pray for forgiveness from the restless souls.

The killing field sits empty now in the pouring rain, cratered with shallow pits and mounds of freshly turned red mud, silent under the trees except for the lowing of thin white cattle in a nearby field.

Some villagers said they had not known it was there, although its existence had not been a secret. It had lain there beside them through the decades, like the suppressed traumas of the past, a blank spot in their minds.

They rediscovered it by chance a week ago, when a team of Vietnamese soldiers came by, searching for the remains of their own missing men. The Vietnamese Army drove the Khmer Rouge from power in 1979 and then occupied Cambodia for a decade.

Helping them dig, Pon Khlaut, a farmer, saw the glint of an earring in a pit. When he showed it to his neighbors, they abandoned their homes and fields and rushed to the woods to dig.

Among them was Srey Net, who knew the graveyard well. As a teenager, she said, she was enlisted to bury the bodies of people who died in labor gangs building one of the huge irrigation dikes that were a particular folly of the Khmer Rouge.

Nearly 20,000 killing fields, holding anywhere from a few bodies to thousands, served as burial grounds for Khmer Rouge victims as well as execution sites.

Like many of the victims, Srey Net said, the people here died from accidents, exhaustion and starvation as well as fevers, malaria and an epidemic of diarrhea. Many of them were sent to a small, crude clinic nearby from which she said few emerged alive.

"Whenever a patient died, they would ring a gong or blow a whistle," she said. "Even in the middle of the night, I had to run up there to help carry away the bodies."

Last week she was among the graves again, whacking at the ground with a hoe, unearthing what may have been some of the same bodies she had buried years ago. And then, finding no gold, she reverted to her former role, retrieving and reburying some of the bones.

"I felt pity for them, that's why I collected the bones," she said. "They were scattered all over the place."

Srey Noeun, the farmer who sold two earrings to buy food, also had a connection with the bodies in the graves. Like many of them, she had been a member of a work brigade here, but unlike them she had survived.

"I went to see what was happening but I didn't have a hoe," she said of the raid on the burial ground. "I said to someone, 'Give me your hoe, I want to dig too.' "

The first thing she found was clothing, she said, then bones, then gold.

"I dug downward to the feet and then I started upward," she said. "I found the teeth and the skull. I moved them down around the feet and I cleared the ground around them with my hands. I saw the earrings, first on the left and then on the right."

She said they were exactly like the small gold rings she wore in her ears as a girl until they were taken from her when she was forced to join a work brigade.

Srey Noeun said she had no idea whether she had ever met the woman whose grave she raided and she said she did not know why the Khmer Rouge had let the woman keep her earrings.

Cambodians Seek Swift Khmer Rouge Trials
ChinaPost
By Choeung Ek
May 21, 2007

More than 1,000 Cambodians gathered at the Khmer Rouge's notorious Choeung Ek killing fields on Sunday and called for the swift trial of the regime's surviving leaders.

Buddhist monks chanted prayers for victims of the brutal regime, as somber crowds gathered at the execution site to mark "Memorial Day," when the kingdom remembers those killed.

"I want the tribunal to start as soon as possible -- I want to get justice before I die," said 76-year-old Koun Thol, who lost four children under the Khmer Rouge.

The start of a joint U.N.-Cambodian tribunal has been pushed back to early 2008 after years of delays and wrangling.

But many Cambodians fear it will not be soon enough, and are concerned that aging Khmer Rouge leaders will die before being brought to justice.

"I am so angry -- will I never forget this brutal regime?" said 68-year-old Thong Thon, who lost 14 relatives during the ultra-Maoist regime.

"The delay should be ended and the trial should begin as soon as possible."

Cambodian judges and international jurists will meet from May 31 to June 13 in the hope of resolving a long-running dispute over rules that has delayed the start of genocide trials.

Up to two million people died of overwork and starvation or were executed under the 1975-79 rule of the Khmer Rouge, which abolished religion, property rights, currency and schools.
Only one possible defendant is currently in custody, while several live freely in Cambodia.
The only other person to have been arrested for crimes committed under the regime, military commander Ta Mok, died in prison last July. Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in 1998.

The first trials had initially been expected this year after nearly a decade of negotiations and setbacks.

"We call for a tribunal to start on time because we have been waiting so long," Phnom Penh governor Kep Chuk Tema told reporters at Choeung Ek.

Choeung Ek, 15 kilometers (nine miles) from Phnom Penh, was the main execution site for prisoners of the regime's Tuol Sleng prison, or S-21, where 16,000 men, women and children were tortured before being killed.

Judge says Cambodian genocide tribunal in jeopardy if court rules not adopted
International Herald Tribune/ AP
May 23, 2007

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: The future of the Khmer Rouge genocide tribunal could be in jeopardy if Cambodian and international officials fail to agree on procedural rules when they meet this month, a foreign judge said Wednesday.

But if the issues are resolved, the first court sessions could be held by early 2008, said Marcel Lemonde, a co-investigating judge for the U.N.-backed tribunal.

"We say ... the trial must begin. People have been waiting for this trial for 30 years, and we can't delay anymore," Lemonde said.

The tribunal, set up to prosecute former Khmer Rouge leaders for alleged genocide and crimes against humanity, has already suffered "a bit of a question of credibility" because of delays, said Lemonde.

"And if the rules were not adopted at this time, then it would be dramatic for the future, the very existence of this court," said Lemonde, a U.N.-appointed judge.

The radical polices of the Khmer Rouge caused the death of about 1.7 million people through hunger, disease, overwork and execution during its horrific 1975-79 rule.

The meeting for Cambodian and U.N.-appointed judicial officials is slated from May 31 to June 13. Asked if this was the last chance for the procedural rules to be adopted, he said, "I would say so, yes."

The tribunal was created last year under a 2003 pact between Cambodia and the United Nations.

Trials were originally expected to start this year but have been repeatedly delayed by procedural disagreements between Cambodian and foreign judges. The setting of expensive legal fees for foreign lawyers wanting to take part in the tribunal was the latest obstacle, before being resolved last month.

Many fear the remaining Khmer Rouge leaders, who are aging and in declining health, could die before the trial starts.

Lemonde, formerly a judge in France, said "if everything goes correctly" at the coming meeting, the investigation phase would begin in the weeks afterward. He said the goal is to start the trial proceedings "at the beginning of 2008."

He declined to estimate the number of possible defendants but said the tribunal will try not only the most senior Khmer Rouge leaders.

While the tribunal will not be able to prosecute hundreds of defendants, he said it cannot let "very serious criminals" escape justice.

"We couldn't (just) say 'well, there are too many defendants, and this person is supposed to have killed 1,000 people but we won't deal with him.' This is not acceptable for the victims and for everybody in the world," Lemonde said.

"If we understand and get evidence that somebody has committed large-scale crimes, even if he's not a very high-ranking person, he will have to answer for his crimes," he said.

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Central African Republic

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

Prosecutor Opens Investigation in the Central African Republic
Press Release of the International Criminal Court
May 22, 2007

Today, ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo announced the decision to open an investigation in the Central African Republic: “My Office has carefully reviewed information from a range of sources. We believe that grave crimes falling within the jurisdiction of the Court were committed in the Central African Republic. We will conduct our own independent investigation, gather evidence, and prosecute the individuals who are most responsible.”

Based on a preliminary analysis of alleged crimes, the peak of violence and criminality occurred in 2002 and 2003. Civilians were killed and raped; and homes and stores were looted. The alleged crimes occurred in the context of an armed conflict between the government and rebel forces.
This is the first time the Prosecutor is opening an investigation in which allegations of sexual crimes far outnumber alleged killings. According to the Prosecutor, “The allegations of sexual crimes are detailed and substantiated. The information we have now suggests that the rape of civilians was committed in numbers that cannot be ignored under international law.”

Hundreds of rape victims have come forward to tell their stories, recounting crimes acted out with particular cruelty. Reports detailing their accounts were ultimately provided to the Prosecutor’s Office. Victims described being raped in public; being attacked by multiple perpetrators; being raped in the presence of family members; and being abused in other ways if they resisted their attackers. Many of the victims were subsequently shunned by their families and communities. “These victims are calling for justice,” Mr. Moreno-Ocampo said.

The government of the Central African Republic referred the situation to the Prosecutor. The Cour de Cassation, the country’s highest judicial body, subsequently confirmed that the national justice system was unable to carry out the complex proceedings necessary to investigate and prosecute the alleged crimes. The ruling was an important factor because under the Rome Statute, the ICC is a Court of last resort and intervenes in situations only when national judicial authorities are unable or unwilling to conduct genuine proceedings.

To reach the decision to open an investigation, the Office of the Prosecutor reviewed information provided by the government in its referral, NGOs, international organisations, and other highly knowledgeable sources. Investigators working for the Office of the Prosecutor will now begin collecting criminal evidence, with a focus on the peak periods of violence. The investigation is not targeting any particular suspect at this stage and will be guided solely by the evidence that emerges.

While investigating crimes allegedly committed in 2002 and 2003, the Office continues to monitor the current situation in the Central African Republic. There are worrying reports of violence and crimes being committed in the northern areas of the country bordering Chad and Sudan.

The launch of this criminal investigation occurs in the context of insecurity and deteriorating humanitarian conditions in the country, in particular for displaced persons and children. The Office of the Prosecutor supports efforts by the United Nations and others to achieve a comprehensive solution where lasting security can be established, humanitarian assistance delivered, and development and education promoted.

“In the interests of deterring future violence and promoting enduring peace in the region, we have a duty to show that massive crimes cannot be committed with impunity. We will do our part, working through our judicial mandate,” Prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo said.

International Criminal Court opens probe into Central African Republic
UN News Service
May 22, 2007

Acting on a referral by the Government of the Central African Republic (CAR), the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) today announced an investigation into alleged crimes – especially widespread rape – committed there in 2002 and 2003, and voiced support for efforts by the United Nations to achieve a comprehensive solution to ongoing instability in the country.

“My Office has carefully reviewed information from a range of sources. We believe that grave crimes falling within the jurisdiction of the Court were committed in the Central African Republic,” said ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo in a news release.

“We will conduct our own independent investigation, gather evidence, and prosecute the individuals who are most responsible.”

When the violence peaked during an armed conflict between the government and rebel forces in 2002 and 2003, civilians were killed and raped and homes and stores were looted, the ICC said, citing a preliminary analysis of alleged crimes.

The conflict was characterized by widespread use of rape, and the investigation marks the first time the Prosecutor is examining a situation where allegations of sexual crimes far outnumber alleged killings. “The information we have now suggests that the rape of civilians was committed in numbers that cannot be ignored under international law,” said Mr. Moreno-Ocampo.

At least 600 rape victims were identified in period of 5 months, said the Court, while cautioning that the real numbers are likely higher as sexual violence is customarily underreported.

Credible reports indicate that rape has been committed against civilians, including women, young girls and men. There were often aggravating aspects of cruelty such as rapes committed by multiple perpetrators, in front of third persons, with relatives sometimes forced to participate, the ICC said.

Many victims suffered social stigmatization and a number of them were infected with the HIV virus.

“These victims are calling for justice,” Mr. Moreno-Ocampo said.

The CAR’s highest judicial body, the Cour de Cassation, said the national justice system was unable to carry out the complex proceedings necessary to investigate and prosecute the alleged crimes. Under the Rome Statute that created the ICC – and to which CAR is a party – the Court intervenes only when national judicial authorities are unable or unwilling to conduct genuine proceedings.

Even while investigating crimes allegedly committed in 2002 and 2003, the Prosecutor said he will continue to monitor the current situation in the CAR, citing what the Court termed “worrying reports of violence and crimes being committed in the northern areas of the country bordering Chad and Sudan.”

The impact of the conflict in the war-torn Sudanese region of Darfur is widely feared to be spilling over and causing instability in neighbouring States.

The launch of this criminal investigation occurs in the context of insecurity and deteriorating humanitarian conditions in the country, in particular for displaced persons and children,” the ICC said in a news release, voicing support for UN efforts to achieve a comprehensive solution where lasting security can be established, humanitarian assistance delivered, and development and education promoted.

The CAR Government ratified the Rome Statute on 3 October 2001. The ICC has jurisdiction in CAR since the entry into force of the Rome Statute on 1st July 2002. The Government referred the situation to the Office of the Prosecutor in December, 2004.

Central African Republic: ICC Opens Investigation
Court Examines Crimes in Forgotten Conflict
Human Rights Watch
May 22, 2007

(Brussels, May 22, 2007) – The decision to open an International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation into crimes committed in the Central African Republic will help to end decades of impunity, Human Rights Watch said today.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the ICC prosecutor, announced on May 22, 2007, that he would begin an investigation into crimes committed in the Central African Republic (CAR) by parties to the conflict in the region from 2002-2003. The CAR is a party to the Rome Statute establishing the ICC, and on December 21, 2004, the government referred the situation in its country to the ICC requesting the investigation.

“The ICC investigation in the Central African Republic could bring justice to victims who’ve suffered years of abuses without seeing anyone held to account,” said Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch.

The CAR has suffered a history of political instability. In October 2002, former Army Chief of Staff François Bozizé launched a coup against then-President Ange-Félix Patassé. This led to the overthrow of Patassé’s government in March 2003. During the five-month armed conflict, Patassé enlisted the support of militia from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and mercenaries from Chad and Libya, to defend the capital, Bangui, from rebel attacks. These troops are accused of committing widespread crimes in the capital and other regions, including summary executions, rape and other sexual violence, enforced disappearances, and looting.

In mid-2004, judicial authorities in CAR instituted criminal proceedings against Patassé and several military commanders for crimes committed against the civilian population. Later, the Court of Appeals recommended referring the crimes to the ICC, and the government followed this advice. The highest court in CAR subsequently confirmed the Court of Appeals decision, citing the inability of the national judicial system to effectively investigate and prosecute the relevant crimes.

The ICC prosecutor’s investigation is not limited to persons or events implicated in the national proceedings. When a government has voluntarily referred crimes committed on its territory, the prosecutor must impartially investigate crimes committed by all parties to the conflict and make clear that he is independent from political influence, Human Rights Watch said.

“The prosecutor should continue to gather information on recent crimes committed in northern CAR, and on any national attempts at prosecution,” said Dicker. “The ICC needs to look at the most serious crimes committed by all sides and assess whether to bring charges.”

Since May 2005, Bozizé’s government has been fighting two rebellions in the northeastern and northwestern regions of CAR. Government forces have perpetrated serious abuses against the civilian population in these regions, including summary executions and the wholesale destruction of villages.

The CAR has become the fourth situation under investigation by the ICC. All of the ICC’s investigations to date have been pursuant to referrals by national authorities or, in the case of Darfur, by the Security Council. Opening a new investigation will require more investigators, Human Rights Watch said.

“With four investigations under way, the ICC has an enormous amount of work on its plate, and the prosecutor needs more staff to work effectively,” said Dicker.

As the ICC conducts its investigation, it must bear in mind the importance of keeping the communities most affected by these crimes informed about their work and the role and rights of victims in the process, Human Rights Watch said.

CAR Case to Focus on Sexual Violence
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
By Katy Glassborow
May 24, 2007

Human rights groups welcome the move, but say the ICC should have filed similar charges in Uganda, Sudan and Congo.

Launching an investigation into crimes committed following a failed coup attempt in the Central African Republic in 2002, prosecutors from the International Criminal Court announced that their initial findings had revealed widespread instances of crimes of sexual violence.

Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said the court would be looking into the violence that followed a coup attempt by former army chief François Bozizé in October 2002.

The then president of the Central African Republic, Ange-Felix Patassé, brought in allies from the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, Chad and Libya, and initially drove the rebels back.

ICC prosecutors say the worst allegations of killing, looting and rape date from this phase of the conflict – October and November 2002 – and also from February and March the following year, when Bozizé’s forces turned the tide and eventually ousted Patassé. Bozizé remains president of CAR.

The International Federation for Human Rights, FIDH, has conducted extensive research in CAR, and says fighting in the capital Bangui was conducted in “flagrant violation” of the Geneva Conventions, including reprisals by pro-Patisse forces directed against the rebels but mainly affecting the civilian population.

Commanders from outside CAR, including Jean-Pierre Bemba from DRC and Abdoulaye Miskine from Chad, are believed to have played a significant role in the 2002-03 conflict. Weakened by previous coups attempts and suspicious of his own army, FIDH reports, Patassé surrounded himself with the militia forces of Bemba and Miskine.

FIDH has collected evidence of mass graves in which the “victims [were] likely to be civilians”, and asserts that war crimes were perpetrated by troops commanded by Bemba and Miskine. The group has urged the ICC to look into whether Bemba, Miskine and Patassé himself bore individual criminal responsibility for abuses.

Marceau Sivieuve from FIDH told IWPR that a year after Bozizé came to power, the authorities in CAR launched proceedings against Patassé and 15 commanders who had provided him with firepower, including Bemba and Miskine.

Shortly afterwards, CAR judges recommended that since the local judicial system would not be able to cope with crimes of this magnitude, they should be referred to the ICC. In light of this, the CAR government referred the situation to the ICC in December 2004.

In April 2006, the country’s highest court of appeal confirmed that CAR’s judicial system was unable to investigate and prosecute these crimes.

According to media reports, Bemba maintains his innocence and is in favour of an ICC inquiry, while ex-president Patassé – now living in exile in Togo – has told reporters he was willing to testify before the international tribunal.

As ICC prosecutors embark on collecting evidence relating to 2002-03, they have stressed that “investigations are not targeting any particular suspect at this stage”.

CAR CASE DOCUMENTS HIGH INCIDENCE OF RAPE

Prosecutors say a distinctive feature of the allegations they have come across in CAR is the high reported number of victims of rape – at least 600 identified in a period of five months, while the real number may well far exceed this.

On May 22, Prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo said the “allegations of sexual crimes are detailed and substantiated. The information we have now suggests that the rape of civilians was committed in numbers that cannot be ignored under international law”

According to prosecutors, women were raped in public, attacked by multiple perpetrators, raped in the presence of family members, and abused if they resisted attacks.

They indicate that rape has been committed against innocent elderly women, young girls and men.

Following criticism that crimes of sexual violence have not featured heavily in arrest warrants for suspects from the other areas where the ICC is working - Uganda, DRC and Darfur - prosecutors stressed that sexual crimes far outnumber killings in CAR.

Brigid Inder, director of Women's Initiatives for Gender Justice, WIGJ, told IWPR that her group sent a mission to CAR in May 2006 to consult with women’s organisations and survivor groups. All of them, she said, were “supportive of the ICC, and wanting prosecutions for crimes committed during the 2002 and 2003 period”.

However, Inder stressed that the widespread commission of sexual violence is by no means specific to CAR, but is in fact a “common factor of all the situations – Uganda, DRC and Darfur – before the ICC, where rape has been used in each conflict”.

What is unique to CAR is the level of evidence compiled by local women’s organisations, which documented over 1,000 instances of rape - and handed these accounts over to ICC prosecutors, who deemed 600 of them valid. These files enabled the court to establish evidence of a pattern of sexual violence.

“Women organise themselves in response to crisis and their own experiences of crimes of sexual violence,” Inder told IWPR. “There are groups in CAR dedicated to being trusted community-based places, where women can go to tell their stories”.

ICC RULES ENABLE PROSECUTIONS OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE CRIMES

Encouraged by the successful conviction of Jean-Paul Akayesu at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in 1998, for encouraging the rape and sexual mutilation of Tutsi women during the 1994 genocide, the ICC sought to incorporate gender-neutral definitions of rape into its founding principles.

Under the Rome Statute which governs the workings of the ICC, suspects can be prosecuted for committing rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilisation or any other form of sexual violence against women and men.

ICC prosecutors said the accounts of sexual violence in CAR that they have received often feature “aggravating aspects of cruelty”, such as multiple perpetrators, and the forced participation of family members.

“These victims are calling for justice,” said Moreno-Ocampo.

Geraldine Mattioli of Human Rights Watch told IWPR that ICC prosecutors have a “nuanced way of analysing the gravity of crimes”, and that the number of killings is not the only measure.

Human rights organisations have recommended that the perception and impact of crimes should be factored in when weighing up their gravity. Mattioli stressed that crimes of sexual violence are humiliating, leading to rejection from communities and possible infection with the HIV virus.

According to Mattioli, the fact that prosecutors have not accused anyone of crimes of sexual violence in DRC is a “big omission”. She says rape was used in eastern Congo as a “systematic way of terrorising the civilian population”.

Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, the only person now detained by the ICC and the sole person indicted in the DRC case, faces charges that deal exclusively with the alleged conscription of child soldiers into his Union of Congolese Patriots militia.

Mattioli says the consequence of neglecting to prosecute crimes of sexual violence is that “rape is now being perpetrated by civilians such as demobilised child soldiers, who saw rape occurring habitually”. As a result, the persistence of rape has “gone beyond the armed conflict, and permeated into a pattern of conduct in the population”.

She argues that prosecutors working for the DRC’s own judicial system need to be set an example of prosecutions of crimes of sexual violence.

OMISSION LEAVES CHARGES “INCOMPLETE”

WIGJ has campaigned for the world’s first permanent war crimes court to pay close attention to sexual violence, suggesting that the omission of charges of this kind from the arrest warrants issued for Uganda, DRC and Sudan means those indictments are incomplete.

Inder told IWPR that sexual enslavement is taking place in the Darfur region, but neither “Janjaweed” militia leader Ali Kushayb nor Sudanese minister Ahmad Muhammad Harun have been indicted for this crime.

Prosecutors suspect the two men of orchestrating mass rape as a war crime, a form of persecution and a crime against humanity, but Inder is disappointed the charge of sexual enslavement is missing, as she feels there is overwhelming evidence.

In Uganda the ICC has four arrest warrants pending for the leaders of the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army, LRA, operating in the north of the country, but only two – LRA leader Joseph Kony and his deputy Vincent Otti - have been charged with rape as a war crime and crime against humanity.

“All the LRA commanders could be charged with rape, as they were all commanding soldiers to attack villages and abduct and rape girls.”

In Inder’s view, this amounts to “incomplete charging”.

Given that prosecutors have opened the CAR investigation with a strong statement about crimes of sexual violence, Inder expects to see some “very solid and full charges for rape and sexual violence charges against individuals”.

A LONG WAIT FOR JUSTICE

Some human rights organisations like FIDH are frustrated that it has taken four years since the end of the 2002-03 conflict for ICC prosecutors to open an investigation.

ICC prosecutors can only intervene if national justice systems are ‘unwilling or unable’ to deal with cases, and must verify the ability of domestic courts before instigating proceedings.

Officials in CAR first referred the situation to the ICC in December 2004, telling prosecutors that information on the alleged crimes and the national prosecutions undertaken thus far would be transferred to The Hague within three months.

The information arrived only in June 2005. After that, ICC prosecutors looked into the local prosecutions, and decided that although CAR authorities were unable to collect evidence and detain the accused, they must await the national appeals court’s decision before ruling on whether the ICC should take it on. The CAR appeals court only issued its decision in April last year, giving ICC prosecutors the green light to move forward.

In September last year, the CAR government alleged that prosecutors had failed to decide within a reasonable time whether to initiate an investigation, and urged the court to “take measures to preserve evidence [and] protect the victims”.

In December, prosecutors said the CAR situation presented challenges different to those encountered in previous cases because of the need to assess local proceedings and also because the deteriorating security situation in the north of the country made access to information difficult.

Preliminary examinations of the situations in the DRC and northern Uganda were completed within two to six months of receiving referrals.

Moreno-Ocampo has said that due to the “limited resources and particular procedures and requirements of some of the parties who provided information, this process has sometimes been slow”.

He has told the New York Times that he expects the investigation into allegations relating to CAR to take 18 months.

ICC MAY LOOK AT POST-2003 VIOLENCE

Whilst the ICC focused on crimes committed during 2002 and 2003, Moreno-Ocampo has pledged to gather evidence about crimes committed in northern CAR since violence flared there at the end of 2005.

Prosecutors have noted that their investigation into past crimes is taking place in the context of a continuing lack of security and deteriorating humanitarian conditions in CAR, and they are aware of “worrying reports” of fresh violence spilling over the northern borders with Chad and Sudan.

Since 2005, Bozizé’s government has been fighting two rebellions in the north of the country. Human Rights Watch says government forces have perpetrated serious abuses against civilians, including extrajudicial executions and destruction of villages. According to FIDH, former president Patassé is behind one of the insurgent groups.

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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

U.N. Extends Peacekeeping Force In Congo Until End Of Year
All Headline News
By Richard Bowden - AHN Staff Writer
May 15, 2007

New York, NY (AHN) - The U.N. today looked to assist the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to "establish a stable security environment" by extending the deployment of its 18,000-strong peacekeeping force in the country.
The United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) will now extend its mission until December 31, 2007.

The Mission would "ensure the protection of civilians, including humanitarian personnel,...contribute to the improvement of the security conditions...and assist in the voluntary return of refugees and internally displaced persons;" according to a U.N. media release.

Congo held its first free elections in more than forty years after being wracked by years of civil war. However the Government, led by President Kabila is still considered to be fragile.

Last month the Security Council expressed "grave concern" over armed clashes in March between Congolese forces and soldiers loyal to former warlord Senator Jean-Pierre Bemba.

Violations of Human Rights Common - Arbour
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
May 15, 2007
May 9, 2007

Serious human rights violations take place almost daily with total impunity in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), said the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, on a visit to the country this week.

Arbour is scheduled to stay five days in the DRC, where she will meet the Congolese authorities as well as human rights activists, local and international non-governmental organisations, diplomats and the special representative of the UN Secretary-General, William Swing.

These discussions will focus on the fight against the culture of impunity and the implementation of the means to protect fundamental freedoms, and on the efforts towards reconciliation and reconstruction.

"Grave human rights violations occur almost every day in DRC as the perpetrators are encouraged by a climate of impunity that reigns virtually throughout this country," said Arbour.

She regarded the timing of her visit to Kinshasa as critical because "we have seen some advances ... towards stability - as witnessed with the recent elections - as well as a strong determination among the Congolese people to see the consolidation of a state of rights in a peaceful country".

However, there were still considerable obstacles on the way towards peace and the complete respect of human rights. Among these, Arbour pointed to human rights violations and the culture of impunity.

Universal appeal of human rights only set to grow
Khaleej Times Online
By Jonathan Power
May 19, 2007

THE International Criminal Court — meant to be the world's answer to present and future war crimes — is used to being attacked by conservative opinion in the US. President George W Bush cancelled Bill Clinton's decision to sign on for membership.

Yet now, ironically, we have the Bush administration giving the ICC important support from behind the scenes whilst some liberal voices in Europe are raising doubts about its counter-productiveness, as with an essay by Richard Dowden, director of Britain's Royal African Society, in this month's Prospect magazine.

The ICC, voted into creation by an overwhelming majority of the world's nations in 1998, only got moving two-and-a-half years ago when it issued its first warrants against five leaders of the Lord's Resistance Army of Uganda, and more recently making a single arrest of a suspected warlord in the Democratic Republic of Congo and identifying publicly three suspects in Sudan.

Dowden accuses the ICC of showing signs of "naivety and a sense of bad timing" and suggests that "Western-inspired universal ideas of justice might come into conflict with local forms of law, jeopardising the process of reconciliation". He goes on to argue that almost all of Africa's nastiest wars have ended in local deals. "Victors have showed a reluctance to punish. Losers have not been excluded but given places in government."

The implication is that modern-day human rights laws are a Western construct — which indeed they are, tracing their roots back to twelfth century European Christian theology on natural rights and later the Enlightenment. But law is no Western invention. Every society has developed law, just as they have developed language.

There is no imperialism in the present day spread of human rights law. At the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993, the African nations lobbied hard to persuade the hold outs — mainly Muslim and Confucian nations — to sign up for an improved and strengthened version of the original Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They succeeded, which was one of the reasons that when it came to negotiating the statutes of the ICC towards the end of that decade, the African nations had no compunction about supporting it and the Muslim and Confucian nations, China excepted, willingly joined them.

All nations and all peoples have a deep urge for law — this is one of the defining chracteristics of homo sapiens — and in this day and age, leaders, elites and, often enough, the populace yearn for their laws to be seen, to be sensitive and up-to-date. Thus all over the world legal codes are being continuously updated to take on the responsibility for complex financial, economic and aviation issues, for fighting corruption, for controlling immigration or international trafficking in drugs, women and children. Very few question the need for this, even if legislation is often borrowed from more developed jurisdictions.

The reason for adopting contemporary ideas on human rights and turning them into legislative practices is not because developing nations are being bulldozed by know-it-all outsiders, it is because most countries want to develop, want to modernise and want best practice from wherever it emanates. They realise that life is becoming too complicated to have its disputes settled by a palaver under the baobab tree, even though sometimes old-fashioned community values can be brought into play to reinforce modern day decision-making.

Besides, what research has been done shows clearly that local peoples who have been brutalised by insurgency and war want justice as much as they want peace. One important survey carried out in Uganda among those whose lives have been terrorised by the Lord's Resistance Army makes it clear that more than half the people do not want to settle for peace if it means their persecutors are merely absolved by an age old practice of ritual cleansing. This makes sense. Unless their killers are locked away they may too easily resume their pathological urge to kill and destroy. A deal that absolves such merciless killers sends a message to the young, who in many ways have had most to fear, that future life will always be precarious, that the laws of the land mean very little when evil men decide they want power at any cost. Good law is about setting a standard. One of the beauties of the articles of the ICC is that there is no statute of limitations. (Neither is there for the ad hoc Yugoslavia and Rwanda courts.) This means that if present day authorities don't have the guts to arrest the prime suspects, a future administration might. The sword of Damocles will hang over them. No wonder that there are credible reports that only when the ICC handed down the indictments against the leaders of the Lord's Resistance Army did they began to negotiate for peace.

Bemba denies involvement in ‘car war’ crimes
Citizen.co.za
May 23, 2007

KINSHASA – Former Democratic Republic of Congo rebel chief Jean-Pierre Bemba denied Tuesday any responsibility for alleged war crimes in neighbouring Central African Republic (CAR).

Bemba, a former DR Congo vice president, issued the denial after prosecutors at the International Criminal Court in The Hague announced an investigation into hundreds of rapes and other atrocities in the CAR in 2002 and 2003.

Although the court declined to identify any suspects, the CAR authorities in 2004 had named Bemba, whose rebel group had been invited into the country to quash a coup attempt in late 2002.

“I'm totally clear of any responsibility in this affair,” Bemba told AFP by telephone from Portugal where he is receiving medical treatment.

“We only did one thing, and that was to intervene at the request of a democratically-elected president who was the victim of an attempted coup,” he said.

Bemba stressed that he had been the first to call for a UN probe when allegations of rape against his men first surfaced.

“Until this day, I have never received any news from the United Nations, nor any proof that would implicate the troops sent to the Central African Republic,” he added. –Sapa-AFP

ICC path to justice tested in Congo
Investigations for the International Criminal Court's first trial face serious logistical and security obstacles as well as charges of selective justice.
The Christian Science Monitor
By Stephanie Hanes
May 24, 2007

Bunia, Democratic Republic of Congo
In many ways, the hope for a new era of international justice starts here in this dusty, war-scarred city far from almost everything.

This is where the first defendant charged and arrested by the International Criminal Court (ICC), a Congolese warlord named Thomas Lubanga, allegedly recruited children to fight in his militia. And this is where court investigators have been piecing together the landmark case, interviewing victims and gathering evidence in hopes of creating not just a solid prosecution for the ICC's first trial but also a model for holding alleged war criminals accountable.

But drive across ethnically divided Bunia and something else about the world's latest attempt to end impunity becomes clear: the challenges to international justice run deep.
"We should have no illusion about how difficult it will be for this court to fulfill its mission and its mandate," says Richard Dicker, the director for international justice at Human Rights Watch, who has worked on efforts related to the ICC for 14 years. "The crimes this court looks at are widespread and systematic. They occur ... in remote regions that are insecure, lacking in infrastructure. To investigate these crimes is an extremely challenging task."

For many involved in human rights and international law, the ICC's opening in 2002 was a long-awaited step toward a world where war crimes would not go unpunished. Unlike the tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda – or the special court for Sierra Leone, which is scheduled to start hearing the war-crimes case against former Liberian President Charles Taylor next month – the ICC is a permanent court, independent from the United Nations and with international jurisdiction.

The court has delved into some of the world's most devastating modern conflicts – the long-running war in northern Uganda, the resource-fueled battles in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the crisis in Sudan's Darfur region. This week, the ICC announced a new investigation into violence in the Central African Republic.

The difficulties of investigating
In 2004, the Congolese government asked the ICC to investigate the many atrocities that took place in this country during and after the Second Congolese War, the five-year conflict that ended in 2003 and killed some 4 million people through hunger, disease, and violence. It didn't take long for investigators to zero in on Mr. Lubanga, who headed one of the militias fighting over the gold-rich Ituri Province.
Wide swaths of Ituri are still plagued by warring militias. The region is so volatile – and so underdeveloped – that it can take investigators days or weeks to travel short distances.
Still, prosecutors say they have pieced together a case that shows that Lubanga forced children to fight.

In January 2006, the ICC submitted an application for an arrest warrant against Lubanga. Two months later, the government handed him over without dispute.

Meanwhile, ICC investigators continued their work in and around Bunia, asking people such as Charlotte Agoyo what she remembered about Lubanga.

"Thomas Lubanga came and held a meeting here," Ms. Agoyo says, sitting in a neighbor's house on the western side of Bunia. "He said all children older than 10 should come for military service. Families who resisted would be considered enemies. Those who didn't agree were sliced with machetes."

Agoyo and her neighbors say they told ICC investigators about the fear they had when they saw children armed and vengeful, and about the families killed when Lubanga's militia raided their neighborhood.

But across town, where most of the residents are of Lubanga's ethnicity, people wonder about the ICC's focus.

Jean Paul Dhelo works at a rehabilitation center for child soldiers.
He says that he knows young boys who were in Lubanga's militia, but says he knows plenty of children conscripted by other militias, too.

"We welcomed children from all those armed groups," he says. "And in each group there was a leader. There should be other leaders who are arrested."

Mr. Dicker, of Human Rights Watch, says his organization has heard many complaints about the court unfairly targeting Lubanga – a sentiment that has made Bunia and surrounding areas dangerous for ICC investigators and those who cooperate with the court.

"There's a concern that the ICC is biased, or at least applying justice selectively," says Dicker.

Detaining suspects a tough issue
The ICC will probably face similar questions about selective justice – and logistics and security obstacles – as it moves into other war-torn countries.

But there will also be another, arguably greater, challenge for the ICC: actually detaining its suspects for trial.

Because it has no marshal service or enforcement authority of its own, the ICC is often powerless to act on its warrants, especially in ongoing conflicts.

Some people also say that without effective enforcement, the Court can actually exacerbate some conflicts by scaring the accused into more entrenched positions.

In 2005, for instance, the court charged five Ugandan rebel commanders with crimes against humanity. But Ugandan officials have been unable to arrest the men, and many involved in Ugandan politics – including Betty Bigombe, a former cabinet minister who has been mediating peace-treaty discussions – criticize the ICC warrants as undercutting peace efforts.

"It was her view and the view of other people that if indictments are issued against the leaders ..., then there would be no incentive for them to enter a peace agreement," said Richard Goldstone, chief prosecutor of the international tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, at seminar about the ICC in South Africa last year.

The situation in Uganda has prompted much debate about how the ICC should coordinate with countries that might want to grant amnesties for the sake of ending conflict.

Back in Bunia, Agoyo says she wonders why these foreigners are still so concerned about Lubanga. More important, she says as her neighbors nod in agreement, are daily concerns such as access to water. After years of war and instability, infrastructure in this dreary city of about a quarter-million is poor to nonexistent, and people still must walk to a distant, dirty stream if they want to drink or bathe.

Analysts agree the court's actions will mean little if development concerns such as Agoyo's are not addressed.

The tensions in Bunia, says Dicker, are no surprise. "We have to understand," he says, "that as important as it was to bring the court into being, it will not be a panacea."

[back to contents]

Darfur, Sudan (ICC)

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

Pursuit of War Crimes is a universal urge
The Statesman (India)
By Jonathan Power
May 17, 2007

The International Criminal Court - meant to be the worlds answer to present and future war crimes - is used to being attacked by conservative opinion in the US. President George W Bush cancelled Bill Clintons decision to sign on for membership. Yet now, ironically, we have the Bush administration giving the ICC important support from behind the scenes whilst some liberal voices in Europe are raising doubts about its counter productiveness, as with an essay by Richard Dowden, director of Britains Royal African Society, in this months Prospect magazine.

The ICC, voted into creation by an overwhelming majority of the worlds nations in 1998, only got moving two and a half years ago when it issued its first warrants against five leaders of the Lords Resistance Army of Uganda, and more recently making a single arrest of a suspected warlord in the Democratic Republic of Congo and identifying publicly three suspects in the Sudan. Dowden accuses the ICC of showing signs of naivety and a sense of bad timing and suggests that, western-inspired universal ideas of justice might come into conflict with local forms of law, jeopardising the process of reconciliation. He goes on to argue that almost all of Africas nastiest wars have ended in local deals. Victors have showed a reluctance to punish. Losers have not been excluded but given places in government. The implication is that modern day human rights laws are a western construct- which indeed they are, tracing their roots back to twelve century European Christian theology on natural rights and later the Enlightenment. But law is no western invention. Every society has developed law, just as they have developed language. There is no imperialism in the present day spread of human rights law. At the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993 the African nations lobbied hard to persuade the hold outs- mainly Muslim and Confucian nations- to sign up for an improved and strengthened version of the original Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They succeeded, which was one of the reasons that when it came to negotiating the statutes of the ICC towards the end of that decade the African nations had no compunction about supporting it and the Muslim and Confucian nations, China excepted, willingly joined them. All nations and all peoples have a deep urge for law - this is one of the defining characteristics of homo sapiens - and in this day and age leaders, the elite and, often enough, the populace yearn for their laws to be seen to be sensitive and up-to-date. Thus all over the world legal codes are being continuously updated to take on the responsibility for complex financial, economic and aviation issues, for fighting corruption, for controlling immigration, or international trafficking in drugs, women children. Very few question the need for this, even if legislation is often borrowed from more developed jurisdictions.

The reason for adopting contemporary ideas on human rights and turning them into legislative practices is not because developing nations are being bulldozed by know-it-all outsiders, it is because most countries want to develop, want to modernise, and want best practice from wherever it emanates. They realize that life is becoming too complicated to have its disputes settled by a palaver under the baobab tree, even though sometimes old-fashioned community values can be brought into play to reinforce modern day decision-making. Besides, what research has been done shows clearly that local peoples who have been brutalised by insurgency and war want justice as much as they want peace. One important survey carried out in Uganda among those whose lives have been terrorised by the Lords Resistance Army makes it clear that more than half the people do not want to settle for peace if it means their persecutors are merely absolved by an age-old practice of ritual cleansing. This makes sense. Unless their killers are locked away they may too easily resume their pathological urge to kill and destroy. A deal that absolves such merciless killers sends a message to the young, who in many ways have had most to fear, that future life will always be precarious, that the laws of the land mean very little when evil men decide they want power at any cost. Good law is about setting a standard.

One of the beauties of the articles of the ICC is that there is no statute of limitations. (Neither is there for the ad hoc Yugoslavia and Rwanda courts.) This means that if present day authorities dont have the guts to arrest the prime suspects a future administration might. The sword of Damocles will hang over them. No wonder that there are credible reports that only when the ICC handed down the indictments against the leaders of the Lords Resistance Army did they began to negotiate for peace.

Sudan pushes for Darfur peace talks, ceasefire: envoy
Reuters, reprinted at Yahoo! News
By Michelle Nichols
May 24, 2007

Sudan's government is willing to meet rebel groups from Darfur anywhere, any time and would commit to a unilateral cease-fire while peace talks are held, Khartoum's ambassador to the United Nations said on Thursday.

Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem told a Reuters Newsmakers panel there were now up to 19 rebel groups in Darfur and urged the international community to unite them.

"I can assure you that the government will observe unilaterally a cease-fire, cessation of hostilities, today if they come to the negotiating table," Abdalhaleem said.

Only one rebel faction signed an initial Darfur Peace Agreement with Khartoum last year.

"We want to sit today with the non-signatories in any place, whether it's South Sudan, in Addis Abba, in Eritrea or in Libya," he said. "We want without any delay for there groups to unite or at least to come to the negotiating tables."

The United Nations and the African Union are organizing peace talks. But it is expected to be months before an initial dialogue is underway, much less an agreement, thus bolstering calls for a robust peacekeeping force in the interim.

More than 200,000 people are estimated to have died and 2 million chased from their homes in the four-year-old conflict in western Sudan between ethnic African rebels and the government, backed by the Arab Janjaweed militia. However, over the last year rebel groups have been fighting each other.

Abdalhaleem disputed the death figure, saying the toll was between 9,000 and 10,000. The United States has said the conflict is a genocide, but Khartoum has denied this.

"For many forces in the United States the issue is not Darfur, the issue is regime change," he said. "So please don't deceive people and tell that you are very passionate and very concerned about Darfur."

NO PEACE TO KEEP

But Lauren Landis, the U.S. State Department's senior envoy to Sudan and a member of the panel, said a regime change was "furthest from our mind," adding that Washington would likely announce new sanctions soon against Khartoum if the country does not agree to accept a large force of U.N. peacekeepers.

The U.N. Security Council last year adopted a resolution to deploy a "hybrid" U.N.-African Union force of more than 20,000. But Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has argued that this figure is too high. He has agreed to the deployment of 3,000 U.N. police and military personnel to aid the African Union force of about 7,000.

"In order to have peace in Darfur we need a 'hybrid' agreement," Landis said.

The panel, held at the New York Historical Society, also included actress Mia Farrow, NBC television journalist Ann Curry and John Prendergast, an International Crisis Group senior adviser.

A frustrated United States and Britain are considering international sanctions in the U.N. Security Council, which would have a wider impact, including imposing an arms embargo on all of Sudan and financial and travel bans on individuals.

"We should start imposing sanctions," said Prendergast. "We have a monumental opportunity staring us in the face right now to finally build the leverage to get the protection for the people and to get a real peace deal for Darfur."

An angry Abdalhaleem accused the Brussels-based International Crisis Group think tank of being "one of the most destabilizing elements in current world politics and especially in out part of Africa."

Prendergast laughed off the comment and accused Khartoum of arming some of the rebels in a "divide and conquer" strategy Chad and Eritrea provided guns to other armed groups.

Senegal mulls quitting AU force in Sudan
Reuters, reprinted at Independent Online
By Daniel Flynn
May 25, 2007

Senegal will withdraw its peacekeeping troops from an African Union (AU) mission in Darfur unless there is a firm peace commitment from Sudan's government and its rebel foes, the foreign minister said on Friday.

The West African country, whose peacekeeping forces are widely respected, warned in April it could pull out its troops unless the overstretched AU force in Darfur was given UN support after five Senegalese peacekeepers were killed.

Foreign Minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio said Senegal, which has more than 500 troops in the 7 000-strong AU contingent, was making a "global analysis" of the Darfur peacekeeping situation.

"The president of the republic has fixed a framework for the decisions expected from the government of Sudan and the rebels," Gadio told Reuters in an interview on Friday.

"If we consider that the Sudanese government and the rebel forces want to play with the international community to win time and not respect their commitments, then Senegal has no part in that crisis," Gadio said.

"We would withdraw our troops and continue to contribute towards the conclusion of a serious peace agreement," he said, adding that the timing of any decision would be at President Abdoulaye Wade's discretion.

Wade, who won re-election to a new five-year term in February, was in discussion with the African Union and the United Nations over the troubled peacekeeping mission.

About 200 000 people are estimated to have been killed and more than two million made homeless in Darfur since 2003 in a war that pits Sudanese government forces and allied Janjaweed Arab militias against local rebels and their non-Arab supporters.

The conflict has spilled westwards across the border into Chad, and southwards into Central African Republic.

"There is a pretence of having peacekeeping forces on the ground, but these troops cannot keep the peace because there is none," said Gadio. "The Janjaweed militia is committing terrible atrocities and the rebels are creating their own militia to respond to the Janjaweed."

"Darfur is a silent tragedy," he said.

The Security Council was due to consider plans as early as Friday for a hybrid AU-UN force of more than 23 000 troops, police and other personnel to protect civilians, mandated to use force to deter further violence, diplomats said.

Sudan has not rejected the force but top officials have said the number of troops is too large, and the United Nations would do better to finance and augment the existing AU force.

Sudan had stalled for months in approving the first two phases of UN support for the African Union in a lead up to the hybrid force.

Gadio said the possible withdrawal of Senegalese peacekeeping troops would be limited to Darfur and would not affect a possible AU mission in Somalia. Nor would the decision be irrevocable, he added.

"If we withdraw our troops on Saturday and on Sunday the Sudanese government accepts a UN force or a hybrid AU-UN force, then Senegal would return the very next day," he said.

Security Council drops appeal to Sudan
Associated Press, reprinted at Yahoo! News
By Edith M. Lederer
May 25, 2007

The U.N. Security Council dropped an appeal Friday urging Sudan to quickly allow a robust peacekeeping force in violence-wracked Darfur, approving instead a watered-down statement that took the focus off the Sudanese government.

The United States had drafted a presidential statement calling on Sudan, "to cooperate fully in ... the expeditious start-up and implementation," of a highly mobile and robust hybrid force of African Union and U.N. peacekeepers.

The AU and U.N. on Thursday proposed tripling the number of peacekeepers in Darfur with the force of at least 23,000 soldiers and police allowed to launch pre-emptive attacks to stop violence.

But after lengthy discussions among council experts and ambassadors Friday, the council eliminated all references to the Sudanese government, which has not given a green light to the deployment of the hybrid force.

The presidential statement, read at a formal meeting by U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, the current council president, demanded that all parties "meet their international obligations."

The change was a clear indication of the continuing international discord over how best to halt the ongoing bloodshed in Darfur. The negotiations on the presidential statement were held behind closed doors and council diplomats said there were some objections to pressuring the Khartoum government directly. While some countries are concerned that pressure could backfire, others have been accused of protecting Sudan, for a variety of reasons including their own economic and political interests.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon met Sudan's U.N. Ambassador Abdelmahmood Abdelhaleem on Friday morning and handed him a copy of the report. Abdelhaleem told reporters later that his government would study it.

Despite the changes, Khalilzad called Friday's statement, "a good statement that not only welcomed this development but also called on the parties concerned, including the government of Sudan to observe its obligations."

He then read the key sentence from the statement, which says: "The Security Council further demands that all parties meet their international obligations; support the political process; end violence against civilians and attacks on peacekeepers; and facilitate humanitarian relief."

The four-year conflict between ethnic African rebels and pro-government janjaweed militia in the vast western Darfur region has killed more than 200,000 people and displaced 2.5 million Darfurians. The beleaguered, 7,000-strong African Union force has been unable to stop the fighting, and Sudan's President Omar Al-Bashir has stalled implementation of the hybrid force — the last part of a three-phase U.N. plan to back up the African troops.

In Friday's statement, the council called for "full implementation without delay" of the first two phases — a light support package including U.N. police advisers, civilian staff and additional resources and technical support, and a heavy support package with 3,000 U.N. troops, police and civilian personnel along with six attack helicopters and other equipment.
When Khalilzad read the presidential statement the first time, it included a demand for all parties to "abide by the cease-fire, including the cessation of aerial bombardment." The U.S. had proposed this language but it had been dropped in the final text and Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin could be seen on in-house television getting up, apparently to protest.

After about 15 minutes, Khalilzad called a second council meeting and read the correct statement.

Council diplomats said he was handed the wrong statement to read. "It was late in the day, Friday, administration under a degree of stress — but you know, we're all human beings. It happens," Khalilzad said afterwards.

"We remain concerned about ongoing aerial bombardment of targets in Darfur," the U.S. ambassador said. "We remain concerned about the fact that the janjaweed have not been disarmed yet."

Activists Hail Fidelity’s Divestment from Sudan-Linked Oil Company
OneWorld.net
By Haider Rizvi
May 25, 2007

The news that a major investment firm has drastically reduced its business interests with those close to the Sudanese government has emboldened pressure groups involved in the global campaign to stop attacks in Darfur.

Last week, Fidelity Investments, the world's leading mutual funds company, announced it had sold 91 percent of its American Depository Receipts in PetroChina, which amounts to nearly half the investment firm's total holdings in the state-owned oil company that operates in Sudan.

Fidelity did not explain why it made the move to sell its PetroChina shares, but observers say it was clear the decision came amid increasing pressure from the Darfur campaign.

"The Fidelity divestment is a good first step," Howard Salter of Washington, DC-based Citizens for Global Solutions, an advocacy group, told OneWorld. "It reflects how individual voices can come together and make a difference."

The group, along with many others, has long been calling for U.S. investors, including Fidelity, to withdraw their money from projects that help the Sudanese government to aid militias involved in genocidal attacks against the indigenous population of Darfur.

The campaign targeting investors in Sudan say there is a well-established link between the oil industry in that country and the government funding of genocide of the people of Darfur.

Fidelity's decision "also sends a strong signal to the Bashir government that the global community is watching," said Salter, referring to Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir, who has been accused of supporting the actions of militia fighters wreaking havoc throughout the villages of Darfur.

China National Petroleum Corporation, PetroChina's parent company and the country's largest energy enterprise, owns the largest single share in the consortium that dominates the Sudanese oil business, in partnership with other foreign firms.

In the past months, time and again the U.S. government has tried hard to win international support for tough sanctions against Khartoum, but failed to build the required consensus in the 15-member United Nations Security Council.

Though dismissive of the Sudanese government's stance on Darfur, both China and Russia, which enjoy veto powers, continue to oppose Western proposals for strict economic sanctions against Sudan.

Neither nation, however, raised opposition to last year's Security Council resolution calling for the deployment of 20,000 UN troops in Darfur, a move that Sudan has never fully accepted.

In rejecting the UN resolution, Sudan argued that it could address the issue of civilian protection in Darfur by using its own military might. The Sudanese government did agree last month to accept a 3,000-strong UN force.

In Darfur, more than 200,000 people -- and by some estimates over 400,000 -- have been killed and at least 2 million others forced from their homes since 2003 when the armed conflict began between rebel groups representing the interests of ethnic African tribes and the Khartoum-backed Janjaweed militia.

With no immediate end to the violence in Darfur in sight, the armed conflict has now spilled over to neighboring countries of Chad and the Central African Republic.

Emboldened by Fidelity's decision, activists in the United States say they will step up the campaign to force other investors to do the same, hoping that the Chinese might also learn a lesson from this move.

Joining the campaign to end genocide in Darfur, some leading U.S. politicians have also divested their money from what activists brand "problematic companies" in Sudan.

While such tactics, according to Salter, could add momentum to the international pressure on Sudan, he believes Washington could do more.

"We implore the Bush administration to use all its diplomatic tools to convince Bashir to allow UN peacekeepers into the region in order to save the lives of the people of Darfur," he said.

[back to contents]

Uganda (ICC)

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

ICC Holds Workshop for IDP Camp Leaders in Kaberamaido District
Press Release of the International Criminal Court
May 16, 2007

Soroti, Uganda, 16 May 2007- Eighty leaders from the Internally Displaced People’s camps of Kaberamaido district, Teso region, have taken part in a two-day informational workshop about the International Criminal Court. The workshop, which ended today, was held in Soroti town, Soroti district. It was attended by leaders from Alwa, Anyara, Abalang, Idamakan, Kamekadan, Kalaki, Kaberamaido (township) and Otuboi camps.

During the meeting, participants invited Court officials to address mass meetings for IDP camp dwellers and neighbouring communities. The first meetings, with the participation of about 1,000 adults are scheduled to take place in the IDP camps of Abalang, Anyara sub-county and Otuboi, Otuboi sub-county in the first week of June 2007.

Earlier, Court officials from the Registry made presentations on the Court’s mandate, its investigation in Northern Uganda, judicial phases and how victims could participate in ICC proceedings. They also distributed ICC materials and listened to concerns presented by the participants.

Participants committed to sharing information about the ICC during regular meetings held in the camps.

Uganda’s Need for Justice Far Exceeds ICC’s Mandate
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
By Rockie Menya Oyoo and Katy Glassborow
May 24, 2007

Locals say Ugandan army forces as well as the rebels have a long history of violence which is likely never to go to court.

There is a frustration amongst community groups in northern Uganda that the International Criminal Court is unable to look into allegations of human rights abuses committed before 2002, either by the army or by the rebel Lord's Resistance Army.

Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni referred Uganda's 20-year civil war in the north, to the International Criminal Court, ICC, in The Hague in December 2003.

In July 2005, the court issued arrest warrants for five senior figures in the Lord's Resistance Army, LRA - its leader Joseph Kony and top commanders Vincent Otti, Raska Lukwiya, Okot Odhiambo and Dominic Ongwen. Lukwiya died last year so the list is now down to four.

In inviting the ICC to start work, Museveni's government wanted it to specifically investigate the LRA's part in the conflict.

In October 2006, ICC prosecutors insisted they were trying to be impartial, telling journalists in The Hague that when Uganda referred the situation in 2003, prosecutors informed it that they "would interpret the referral to include all crimes committed in northern Uganda".

However, the ICC is unable to investigate actions committed before July 2002, when it came into being, and this rules out crimes committed prior to that, whether they are attributed to the LRA or the Ugandan army.

Members of the Acholi, Teso, Langi and other northern ethnic groups affected by the years of war are frustrated that this cut-off date means the court will not be looking into injustices attributed to the Ugandan army in previous years.

Among these communities, there is a danger that the justice process will be seen as one-sided if the military is treated as if it were beyond suspicion by both the Ugandan authorities and the international justice system.

Many of the people to whom IWPR spoke in camps for internally displaced persons in the north of the country were critical both of the ICC's approach and of the Museveni government's involvement with the court.

They allege that as far back as the Eighties, Museveni's then rebel group, the National Resistance Army, NRA, was responsible for human rights abuses during the war against the government of the then president Milton Obote. In the 1981-86 guerrilla war, tens of thousands of people were killed in the Luwero Triangle, an area to the northwest of Kampala where NRA rebels were deeply entrenched.

The rebellion was matched by brutal counter-insurgency tactics, and Museveni and the NRA claimed that the main culprits in the killings were Acholi soldiers loyal to Obote, and that the NRA's actions were only payback for this.

Apart from the justice issue, such claims highlight the north-south divide that has been a feature of Uganda's recent history. Museveni's southern faction has governed the country since deposing Obote, who like his predecessor Idi Amin was a northerner. Until Museveni came to power in 1986, Uganda had been ruled by northerners throughout the 24 years of independence.

Museveni, from Uganda's far south near the border with Rwanda, is deeply unpopular among the people of the north, who say that for many years the Acholi were not represented in national government.

According to one interviewee in the north, who preferred to remain anonymous, "the barrel of the gun has been the [Acholis'] only voice", until 2006 when Museveni was re-elected and brought in Hilary Onek, an Acholi, as Minister of Agriculture.

When Museveni and the NRA took power, they were unwelcome in the north, and the Acholi and other groups refused to cooperate with the new government.

Northerners say this prompted the NRA to engage in violence against civilians in a bid to bludgeon them into line. People interviewed by IWPR said during this period, civilians were tied together and hacked to death by government soldiers, women were raped, girls abducted, huts burnt, crops burned, property looted and livelihoods disrupted.

Many victims of the early NRA campaign against the north question what justice they will get when several of the key commanders they hold responsible for the violence are now highly decorated generals in the Uganda People’s Defence Forces, UPDF, the regular army that grew out of the NRA.

"The important question is whose justice are we seeking here?" said one Acholi, noting that both the Ugandan government and the ICC claim that they are out to make sure victims receive justice. This man said Acholis have watched their loved ones killed by both LRA and UPDF combatants, and the "only way they will feel satisfied is if both parties get their share of punishment".

Museveni's government has now entered into peace talks with the LRA, hosted by the government of South Sudan, and one of the main issues is justice and accountability for crimes committed during the two decades-long insurgency.

The LRA is insisting that the indictments the ICC has issued against Kony and his aides should be withdrawn as a condition for further progress on the peace process. Museveni has made offers of a blanket amnesty in return for peace, although he is not able to make the ICC withdraw its indictments.

The sense of grievance in the north was a major contributory factor to shaping the LRA. In 1986-87, the Holy Spirit Movement, a mystical rebel force led by Alice Lakwena, attempted to overthrow Museveni's young regime. After Lakwena's forces were defeated, Joseph Kony - variously described as her cousin or nephew - recruited some of her followers and formed the Acholi-based LRA, which has waged war on the Museveni government ever since.

Like the Holy Spirit Movement, the LRA combines traditional beliefs in the spirit world with aspects of Christian doctrine. Kony says the Old Testament's Ten Commandments form the core of the LRA's code, although this has not stopped his fighters from kidnapping some 20,000 Acholi children to serve as child fighters, porters and sex slaves. Many people in the north believe Kony was given supernatural support to fight the government.

Northerners interviewed by IWPR said that LRA consciously mimicked the NRA first by adopting a similar acronym, and then by copying its practice of tying people together, forcing them to dig their own graves, and recruiting child soldiers.

For most of his 20-year insurgency, Kony did not speak to outsiders, and for a long time it was unclear what exactly the LRA wanted. In recent interviews, one way Kony has sought to justify his baffling history of brutality towards his own Acholi people is to claim that he is fighting for greater representation in central government, which he says has neglected the north.

Some members of the Langi and Teso communities, neighbours of the Acholi in northern Uganda, told IWPR they are also frustrated that the LRA will not be held accountable for crimes committed before 2002.

One case in point is the "Atiak massacre" of April 1995, when more than 250 people were killed in an LRA attack on a technical college north of Gulu. The raiders burned down dormitories with students still inside them, while other students and local civilians were hacked to death on the school premises.

On April 20 this year – the 12 anniversary - members of the Acholi Religious Leaders' Peace Initiative gathered with victims' relatives, local leaders and people from across the Acholi region for a memorial service.

Alex Odongo Okoya, a reporter for Uganda's New Vision newspaper, told IWPR that participants reasserted their commitment to forgiveness, reconciliation and peace. Victim's relatives appealed to the LRA to remain committed to the peace talks in southern Sudan. Some participants also urged the ICC to drop charges against the LRA "the people are ready to forgive and reconcile with the LRA".

Many northerners feel that if the ICC cannot deal with crimes committed before 2002, it may as well ignore crimes committed since then, and should allow alternative, traditional justice mechanisms to be used instead. They argue that justice cannot be seen to be done only for a fraction of the whole time in question, and only charging some of the perpetrators.

However, the ICC's founding statute cannot be changed to allow it to investigate and prosecute cases relating to crimes committed before 2002. It will therefore be up to the Ugandan legal system to deal with all such cases. This is likely to prove problematic, since the reason the government gave for referring the situation in the north to the ICC in late 2003 was that because it believed its own justice system was unable to handle cases of this gravity.

LRA and Ugandan Government Renew Truce
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
By Alexis Okeowo
May 24, 2007

After an initial deal to continue the ceasefire was nearly derailed by allegations of more violence, the Lord’s Resistance Army and the Ugandan authorities have formally signed up to a truce.

There are hopes that that the peace process in northern Uganda will start moving forward again after the Kampala government and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army signed a new truce and agreed to resume negotiations from May 31.

It is widely hoped that the talks, underpinned by a new two-month truce agreed on May 19 and lasting until the end of July, will lead to an end to the 21-year old conflict that has resulted in an estimated 100,000 deaths and displaced nearly two million people.

The Lord's Resistance Army, LRA, has spread terror throughout northern Uganda by massacring and disfiguring civilians. The rebels have also abducted an estimated 20,000 children to serve as soldiers, porters and sex slaves. Northern civilians have also accused government soldiers of atrocities.

The International Criminal Court, ICC, in The Hague has indicted LRA leader Joseph Kony, his deputy Vincent Otti and two other commanders for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Although it was President Yoweri Museveni who invited the ICC to work in Uganda, he has since offered LRA leaders an amnesty from domestic prosecution in exchange for a peace deal.

Negotiations in the South Sudan capital Juba stalled in January after the LRA announced that they were walking out because they were worried about their safety. They accused mediators from the South Sudan government of bias, and demanded a new venue and new mediators.

The venue will remain in Juba when the talks resume, but there will be new monitors from Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa and Mozambique. The United Nations special envoy to northern Uganda, former Mozambican President Joachim Chissano, will also aid the mediation process.

Although the final agreement to resume talks was reached on May 19, the groundwork was laid in mid-April when the Ugandan government's lead negotiator, Internal Affairs Minister Ruhakana Rugunda, Chissano and the elusive Kony met in the village of Ri-Kwangba in Sudan. There they secured an initial agreement to resume peace negotiations.

Ri-Kwangba is on Sudan's southwestern border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo; most of Kony's fighters now operate from forest bases in northeastern Congo. The Ri-Kwangba deal stipulated that the LRA guerillas be given a six-week deadline to assemble in the village and that they be given security guarantees.

"We only need the way [to Ri-Kwangba] to be open – we don't need any protection," said LRA spokesman Obonyo Olweny. He added that he believed that this time, the LRA fighters would move to the base freely if the Ugandan and southern Sudanese armies refrained from attacking them.

The Ugandan government military accused the LRA of jeopardising the potential truce when rebels attacked a village in northern Uganda and killed seven civilians on April 30.

"They undressed the seven, tied their hands behind their backs and used clubs to smash them on the heads and kill them," said Lieutenant Chris Magezi, who did not identify the village concerned. "This is a blatant violation of the truce agreement, and an indication of the lack of seriousness on the part of the rebels to pursue a peace deal with the government."

However, this hurdle seems to have been overcome, and the May 31 reopening of peace negotiations is on track for the time being.

The LRA is primarily composed of former soldiers from the north who left the army after a southern president, Yoweri Museveni, came to power in a guerrilla offensive waged by his own southern-dominated rebel National Resistance Army in 1986. Disgruntled northerners left the new Ugandan army and began a campaign, in the shape of the LRA, to regain power, forcing women and children to join their ranks.

The LRA established bases in northeastern Congo and southern Sudan, contributing to the serious instability in both those regions.

A major hurdle for the truce will be the ICC indictments against the four LRA leaders, who insist there will be no peace deal unless the indictments are withdrawn. The ICC has repeatedly refused to drop its charges.

"[LRA leaders] are of the opinion that the indictments should be withdrawn before we can reach a conclusive peace agreement. However, we told them that we cannot withdraw the case unless we have signed an agreement with them," Rugunda told reporters.

He added that the ICC charges would be the first item on the agenda when the talks restart.

However, the ICC indictments will prove a formidable obstacle to overcome. On May 25, Sky News broadcast a televised interview with LRA deputy Leader Vincent Otti in which he threatened a return to war unless the ICC charges are dropped.

Interviewed by Sky correspondent Stuart Ramsay at a remote spot on the Sudan-Congo border, Otti said, "We cannot go back to Uganda without lifting these indictments. That is impossible. We cannot go, and without our going none of the other soldiers can go. But we can fight.

"If they [the ICC prosecutors] refuse, then the war will continue. I am prepared to do anything - even war. I am ready for war. If they don't drop the indictments you will see that we have enough to capture power. We were seven [people, when the LRA was formed in 1986]. Now we are thousands. Everybody in Uganda wants change but they can't do anything without the barrel of a gun."

Ramsay said that in the three days he spent in the LRA camp, he saw at least 100 heavily-armed soldiers, some of them aged only 14 or 15.

"Most sport dreadlocks and wear combat fatigues and T-shirts emblazoned with pictures of gangsta-rap stars such as 50 Cent," the Sky TV man said. "Women, girls and children are kept out of sight, although I saw at least 20 aged between 15 and 20 carrying out chores and fetching water."

Past agreements that required the LRA to move to specific assembly points have been marred by accusations of ceasefire violations on both sides.
It remains to be seen whether the LRA fighters will all congregate at the designated area this time around, but government negotiators remain optimistic. The landmark peace talks began in July 2006, but have stalled frequently since then.

Lord’s Army Threatens War over Court Charges
The Times
By Stuart Ramsay Nabanga
May 24, 2007

The military leadership of the Lord’s Resistance Army is threatening to return to war and to “capture power and overthrow” President Museveni’s government in Uganda if International Criminal Court indictments against four named leaders are not withdrawn.
The threat comes as peace negotiators from the LRA, the most feared rebel organisation in Africa, and the Government continue to hold talks in the southern Sudanese capital, Juba, despite repeated allegations by both sides of ceasefire violations. The military leader, Vincent Oti, and LRA founder, Joseph Kony, agreed at a meeting in one of the rebel group’s jungle camps along the borders of southern Sudan, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, that they will attack if the peace talks end without the lifting of the indictments.
“We cannot go back to Uganda without lifting these indictments. That is impossible. We cannot go and without our going none of the other soldiers can go. But we can fight,” General Oti, who is also deputy chairman of the LRA’s political movement, told me.
“If they refuse then the war will continue. I am prepared to do anything – even war. I am ready for war.

“If they don’t drop the indictments you will see that we have enough to capture power. We were seven, now we are thousands. Everybody in Uganda wants change but they can’t do anything without the barrel of a gun,” he said.

The LRA is accused of abducting 20,000 children for use as boy soldiers and sex slaves in a 20-year reign of terror over most of northern Uganda.

General Oti, as the group’s main military tactician, is accused of overseeing terrible acts of violence.

Abducted children were forced to kill their parents, girls were raped by LRA commanders and anyone who stood up to them risked having ears, lips and tongues cut off. The LRA insists it is not to blame for all the atrocities. Indeed, it maintains, with some justification according to a number of aid agencies, that the Ugandan Army is responsible for the violence.

For three days I stayed with the LRA in their camp, which is two days driving and walking from the nearest village, Naban-ga, in southern Sudan. I saw at least 100 heavily armed soldiers, some of them boys of about 14 or 15. Most sport dread-locks and wear combat fatigues and T-shirts emblazoned with pictures of gangsta-rap stars such as 50 Cent.

There are four or five camps of similar size in the area. The fighters carry their weapons at all times. The youngest boys cook food and carry out menial work for the more senior members. Women, girls and children are kept out of sight, although I saw at least 20 aged between 15 to 20 carrying out chores and fetching water.

A member of the LRA’s negotiating team at the peace talks, who asked to remain anonymous, says he believes the LRA numbers a few thousand but can still command support in northern Uganda.

The violence in northern Uganda has forced 1.6 million people to live in so-called protected camps. Normal life has, in effect, ground to a halt.

The Ugandan Army and its supporters who run the camps are far from popular.

The peace talks in Juba have been continuing but heavily disrupted for the past year.

Uganda wants the LRA to go through a “traditional” healing process and accept punishment, with the indictments still standing. The LRA says that is impossible and also dismisses a suggestion from independent monitors at the talks for the LRA to serve some sort of “house arrest” punishment in a third-party country before returning home.

“That won’t happen, that won’t happen. The indictments must go or the war goes on,” said General Oti.

[back to contents]

International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)

Official Website of the ICTY

Is Croatia’s Judiciary Ready for Its Big Challenge?
IWPR
By Lisa Clifford
May 18, 2007

Upcoming trial of two ex-Croatian army generals charged with war crimes against Serbs seen by many as important test of reforms to the Croatian judiciary.

All eyes will be on Zagreb County Court next month when the first case transferred to the Croatian judiciary by the Hague tribunal comes to trial.

Croatian generals Rahim Ademi and Mirko Norac are charged with war crimes allegedly committed against Serbs in 1993.

Their trial is expected to generate great interest at home but also in Brussels where EU accession officials will be looking on with keen interest when the case begins on June 18. The judiciary has been Croatia’s biggest obstacle to its hopes to join the union in 2009, and observers say a well-run trial could demonstrate that legal reforms have firmly taken hold.

Ademi and Norac are indicted for persecutions on political, racial and religious grounds; murder; plunder of public or private property; and wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages.

The charges against them relate to an attack on Serb civilians in the so-called Medak Pocket, south of the city of Gospic in Croatia.

Ademi was acting commander of the Gospic military district and Norac was commander of the 9th Guards Motorised Brigade of the Croatian army during the military operation in the area. At the time, it was part of the Republika Srpska Krajina, a self-proclaimed Serbian entity in Croatia.

The indictment says the Medak Pocket was wiped out during the September 9-17 attack by Croat forces and the population of 400 Serbs forced to flee. Many Serbs were killed or wounded and their property stolen.

According to the indictment, Ademi and Norac, "planned, instigated, ordered, committed or otherwise aided and abetted in the planning, preparation or execution of persecutions of Serb civilians of the Medak Pocket on racial, political or religious grounds".

That includes the unlawful killing of Serb civilians and captured and wounded soldiers; cruel and inhumane treatment of local people, including stabbing, cutting of fingers, severe beatings with rifle butts, burning with cigarettes and mutilation.

Their case was transferred from The Hague to Croatia in 2005. It will be heard by judges in Zagreb County Court, one of four so-called special war crimes courts in Croatia, which under legislation adopted in 2003 is authorised to hear such war crimes cases. The other courts are in Osijek, Split and Rijeka.

Mary Wyckoff, head of the Rule of Law Unit at the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Croatia mission, said the Ademi/Norac case is in some ways more complicated than many of the war crimes cases that Croatia’s court system has heard so far.

“There is a long indictment with a large number of witnesses, many of whom are abroad,” said Wyckoff. “Unlike many cases here, there is also a lot of documentary evidence.”

She points out that a number of protected witnesses will testify at this trial and that maintaining witness confidentiality has been problematic in other proceedings in Croatia.

In 2005, Croatian parliamentary deputy Anto Djapic identified people cooperating with prosecutors investigating the former army general and mayor of Osijek Branmir Glavas during a press conference in Osijek.

“The effectiveness of measures to be put in place to maintain the confidentiality of witness identity will be an issue to watch in this case," said Wyckoff.

She points out, however, that while Ademi/Norac is a crucial case, "each war crimes case is important, particularly for the accused and the victims. It is important that cases prosecuted in the communities where the crimes occurred provide the same standard of justice".

Norac is already in prison in Croatia, serving a 12-year sentence imposed in 2003 for his role in the killing of ethnic Serb civilians in Gospic – crimes unrelated to the current case. He was the first Croatian army general to be found guilty of war crimes by a domestic court.

That verdict four years ago was greeted with anger by some Croatians who viewed Norac as a hero for his role in the country’s 1991-1995 war of independence. When the indictment against Norac was first announced in 2001, more than 100,000 demonstrators converged on Split. On the day the verdict was revealed, hundreds more bussed in from around the country lay down in the street outside the Rijeka courtroom.

Ranko Helebrant, deputy executive director of the Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, doubts there will be any protests this time.

“People aren’t so interested anymore in speculation about whether they are heroes or war criminals,” said Helebrant. “The economic situation is not so good, and people are more interested in their daily lives than in political situations about Croatian generals.”

The Ademi and Norac trial is the only case currently before one of the specially-designated war crimes courts. Dozens of other war crimes trials are – and have been for many years – being heard locally in the communities where the incidents occurred.

Under pressure from the EU and other western countries that have made aid and investment contingent on robust war crimes prosecutions, observers say the quality of these trials has been better in recent years, but most agree there is still room for improvement.

One area of major concern has been the disproportionate number of cases brought against Serbs alleged to have committed crimes against Croats. The state prosecutor revealed earlier this month that around 98 per cent of the almost 3,700 war crimes proceedings initiated since 1991 involved Serbs.

“We had hundreds of war crimes cases, mostly not very well prepared or very well done, in many cases politically motivated, oriented towards the other side and not Croatian people,” said Ivo Josipovic, a law professor at the University of Zagreb.

"But in the last few years the situation is much better. The prosecution of war crimes is much more professional, following international standards."

Helebrant, whose organisation is monitoring 18 of the 23 war crimes trials currently underway in local courts, says that ethnic balance is shifting.

“In the cases we monitored, until 2001 there were almost no cases where the indicted person was Croat,” he said. “Now about 30 per cent of the indictments are against Croats who committed crimes against Serbs.”

The calibre and education of some Croatian judges - who in the past were politically appointed - has also been questioned.

“In the domestic courts the situation is mixed,” said Josipovic, who helped prepare training materials for an ICTY-supported education campaign for Croatian war crimes judges. “We have some excellent courts and excellent judges. Even in the same court we have some excellent judges and on the opposite side some very bad judges.”

Although the specially-designated war crimes courts have been quiet so far, observers are predicting a flurry of activity.

One of the most high profile trials will be the case against Glavas, who faces charges relating to two separate investigations into war crimes.

He was indicted last week along with six others for allegedly torturing and killing ten Serbs in Osijek. Glavas was also taken into custody in Zagreb in late 2006 on separate charges also relating to war crimes in the eastern city. Both cases are expected to be joined and sent to Zagreb for trial.

Two other cases soon destined for Croatian courts involve Serbs - Ernest Radjen and Dragan Vasiljkovic. A court in Greece has ordered Radjen’s extradition to Croatia where he is accused of commanding a military police unit that executed Croatian civilians in the village of Skabrnja near Zadar.

Vasiljkovic, a former Serb paramilitary leader known as Captain Dragan, is facing extradition from Australia. He is accused of commanding a unit of the Serbian Red Beret paramilitaries, who allegedly killed civilians, raped women and executed hospital patients.

And there are more trials to come.

Croatian prosecutors say they are seeking approximately 1,100 war crimes suspects, either under investigation or already indicted.

For the OSCE’s Wyckoff, cooperation between states of the former Yugoslavia is key to ending impunity and ensuring that those who committed serious crimes face trial. She says individual prosecutors are exchanging evidence and information, but points out the countries themselves have legal and constitutional impediments to the extradition of their citizens and other types of inter-state judicial cooperation.
“There is growing and good cooperation between individual prosecutors, but the legal regimes of these states as regards inter-state judicial cooperation remain significantly closed to each other,” said Wyckoff.

Mejakic et al: Horrors of 'Byelaw kuca'
BIRN Justice Report
May 17, 2007

Two former Omarska detainees testify of horrors that they saw in the camp that one of them calls a "slaughterhouse".

During continuation of trial against four inductees from Prijedor, prosecution witnesses spoke about crimes committed in Bijela kuca, Omarska. Zeljko Mejakic, Momcilo Gruban, Dusan Fustar and Dusko Knezevic are accused of responsibility for the crimes committed in this detention camp.

Protected witness K01 claims to have been brought to Omarska on 20 June 1992 after being arrested in the village of Rizvanovic, Prijedor municipality.

The witness alleges that, after the arrival to Omarska, all men were asked to stand by the wall, hand over their personal documents and, then, the guards started hitting them with "butts, rifles, sticks and legs". "We were taken to Bijela kuca, in which there were some 180 prisoners that night. People fainted due to heat, congestion and narrow space. The guards forced us to lie down facing the ground and then they started jumping on us and beating us," said the witness.

Witness K01 was e