War Crimes Prosecution Watch

Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (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)

Former US Diplomat Questions Worth of Planned Cambodia Tribunal
Voice of America
By Poch Reasey
June 12, 2007

Cambodian and international judges of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia are meeting in Phnom Penh, Cambodia to hammer out differences on rules for the long-awaited Khmer Rouge tribunal. But the last U.S. diplomat to leave Cambodia before the Khmer Rouge took over in April 1975, says the court's proposed $56-million budget would be better used for schools and hospitals. VOA's Reasey Poch reports from Washington others disagree and say a trial is necessary for Cambodia's recovery.

In an exclusive interview with VOA, former Ambassador John Gunther Dean said he does not see much use in putting former Khmer Rouge on trial because many top leaders have died, others are very old, and the world already knows the atrocities they committed in Cambodia.

"If you go to Phnom Penh and you see the torture chambers and the mountains of skulls and bones, you know what happened," he said. "They are the best proof people will never forget."

Mr. Dean, who now lives in Paris traveled to the Jimmy Carter Center in Atlanta last month to donate documents from his time as ambassador to Cambodia in 1974 and 1975.
He says he does not believe a Khmer Rouge trial will help young Cambodians and the money it would cost could be better used.

"And I think the $56 million which has been collected to convict half a dozen people, would it not be much better to use that to build some hospitals under the name of 'Lest We Forget?'" he asked.

The director of the non-profit Documentation Center of Cambodia, Youk Chhang, says although 30 years have passed since the Khmer Rouge was in power, millions of Cambodians still want the leaders held accountable.

He says the money to be spent on the tribunal comes from voluntary donations from the world community and is intended to help Cambodia build its state of law and therefore, it does not affect the government's budget to rebuild the nation.

The former director of the non-government Cambodian Center for Social Development, Chea Vannath, told VOA most Cambodians want answers from the Khmer Rouge.
She says most of them want to understand what had happened and want to know who is responsible for the killings and crimes.

During nearly four years of Khmer Rouge rule, an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians died of starvation, disease, forced labor, and extra-judicial killings.

The United Nations and Cambodia agreed in 2003 to try the former Khmer Rouge leaders for genocide and human rights violations.

Since then, top Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot and his military commander Ta Mok died. Other top Khmer Rouge leaders who are still alive and free include Ieng Sary, Nuon Chea, and Khieu Samphan, but they are in their 70's.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Charles Ray served as U.S. ambassador to Cambodia from 2002 to 2005. He told VOA that building schools or hospitals is a good idea, but it does not heal the psyche of the Cambodian people who suffered under the Khmer Rouge.

"This issue has inhibited, I think, a lot of the development in Cambodia," he explained. "This is an issue of the long-term health of Cambodia's culture and society. And that impacts its economic and political developments. So you have some kind of official closure to this horrible chapter of history."

Ambassador Ray says while it is not possible to have a perfect tribunal, it is necessary to search for the truth.

"I think the international community needs this as well to help us get a better understanding of how things like this could happen so that maybe in the future, if we cannot prevent them, at least we can minimize them or keep them from being so devastating," he added.

Cambodian Center of Social Development Director Theary Seng says there must be a system to try those accused of human-rights violations in any country. But she says if the trial cannot meet international standards, she would agree with Ambassador Dean.
"What I agree with him is that if we try them, but could not do it fairly, we should not have the trial," he explained. "I agree that it is better to use the $56 million to build something or do something for social development."

Ambassador Dean says the trial could lead to harsh criticisms of U.S. policy in Southeast Asia in the 1970s.

In 1969 President Richard Nixon ordered the secret bombing in Cambodia without letting the U.S. Congress and the American public know. The bombing campaign was designed to get rid of North Vietnamese troops who had been using northeastern Cambodia to transport troops and weapons to fight U.S. and South Vietnamese troops in the Vietnam war.

When General Lon Nol staged a bloodless coup against then Prince Sihanouk in March 1970, the United States supported the new Cambodian government. China and North Vietnam backed the Khmer Rouge and Sihanouk in a subsequent war against the Lon Nol government.

Seng says it is China that should be worried about the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, because it supported them when they were in power in Cambodia.

"For example, China could be embarrassed in the proceedings, because the issue of China's support of the Khmer Rouge could be brought up," he noted. "Other countries could be also embarrassed, but in this tribunal, they should not have anything to worry about."

The Documentation Center's Chhang Youk says the United States has confronted its past and has spent several million dollars helping his center gather documents.

He says this court would have a hard time moving forward without the support, in terms of documents and evidence that the United States helps gather. He says he thinks the United States has taken a noble stance in facing its past.

Current U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia Joseph Mussomeli says the victims of the Khmer Rouge genocide demand justice and deserve justice.

The U.N.-assisted Khmer Rouge Tribunal is expected to take three years to complete, but no former Khmer Rouge leader has yet been charged.

The Cambodian government denies accusations it is dragging its feet and does not want the tribunal.

It says that in 1997 it asked the United Nations for help in putting the Khmer Rouge leaders on trial.

But Human Rights Watch Asia Director Brad Adams says he believes that in 1997 First Prime Minister Norodom Ranariddh and Second Prime Minister Hun Sen only asked the United Nations, because they were competing for public support and political power.

"They needed to appeal to public opinions in Cambodia to show that they were strong against the Khmer Rouge," he said. "Each side was accusing the other of being supporting the Khmer Rouge. Also they wanted to gain international legitimacy."

Cambodian and international judges are scheduled to hold a press conference Wednesday to announce the result of their discussion on the internal rules for the tribunal.

Genocide Trial Rules Agreed in Cambodia
Associated Press via WTOP
By Ker Munthit
June 13, 2007

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) - Cambodian and foreign judges announced rules Wednesday clearing the way for a U.N.-assisted genocide tribunal to begin investigating Khmer Rouge leaders in the deaths of 1.7 million people during their 1975-79 communist regime.

The rules were one of the judges' last major tasks before they could begin working on the cases, but it was unlikely the trials would start anytime soon. That is a growing concern as there is a chance the aging defendants could all die before they are brought to justice.

The top Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998. Ta Mok, the Khmer Rouge army chief, died last July while in detention pending trial by the special tribunal. He was believed to be 80.

The only defendant now in custody is Kaing Khek Iev, also known as Duch, who headed the notorious S-21 torture center in the capital, Phnom Penh.

Their senior-level colleagues, Nuon Chea, the movement's chief ideologue; Ieng Sary, the former foreign minister; and Khieu Samphan, the former head of state, live freely in Cambodia but are in declining health.

Cambodia and the United Nations created the genocide tribunal last year under an agreement they reached in 2003. The 17 Cambodian and 12 foreign judges and prosecutors have spent the last six months in sometimes rancorous disagreement on guidelines for the trials.

After two weeks of meetings, the Cambodian- and U.N.-appointed officials unanimously agreed on a set of rules Tuesday, they said at a joint news conference in Cambodia's capital.

"Now that the rules have been adopted we can move forward," Kong Srim, a Cambodian judge with the tribunal, read from their statement.

"These rules enable us to hold fair, transparent trials before an independent and impartial court," said Robert Petit, a U.N.-appointed prosecutor from Canada, also reading from the statement.

He said investigating judges will begin the judicial process as soon as they receive their first case from prosecutors.

"Although it's impossible to say when the first accused will appear before them (the judges), I think it's safe to say the process is going to get under way within the next weeks," Petit said.

The tribunal is an unprecedented hybrid. It will operate under the Cambodian judicial system often criticized as weak, corrupt and susceptible to political manipulation. Decisions require support from a majority of the Cambodian judges, backed by at least one U.N.-appointed judge.

Rupert Skilbeck, who heads the Defense Support Section of the tribunal, said the rules guarantee fundamental rights for the accused.

The tribunal "can only bring justice to the people of Cambodia, if the trials ... are fair, impartial and open," Skilbeck said in a statement.

With a $56.3 million budget, the tribunal is supposed to complete its work within three years.

However, the judges were sworn in last July and the delays have meant that one year already has been lost without anyone even being charged.

Some 1.7 million people died a result of the Khmer Rouge's radical policies, either from hunger, disease, overwork or execution.

Hopes of convening the trials this year have been dashed by disputes over, for example, the high legal fees Cambodia imposes on foreign lawyers taking part in the tribunal. That issue was resolved in April.

On Wednesday, neither the Cambodian nor the foreign judicial officials would give details about their cases or reveal names and the number of potential suspects. But a U.N.-appointed judge said recently that more arrests could follow.

"I'm very elated that the rules are now official and now the Khmer Rouge tribunal has a green light to go ahead," said Theary Seng, director of the nonprofit Center for Social Development, which monitors Cambodia's court system.

But she added that there are still deep concerns whether the tribunal _ known officially as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia _ will be able to execute its mission without political interference from the government.

There are still going to be other challenges and obstacles for the tribunal, but the adoption of the rules shows that there is political will at the highest level of the Cambodian government to proceed, said U.S. Embassy Spokesman Jeff Daigle.

Japan, the largest financial contributor to the tribunal's budget, said in a statement that the rules represent "an important step to accelerate the process of the trials."

Cambodian PM hopes for early start to genocide tribunals as observers warn of hurdles
Associated Press via PR Inside
June 14, 2007

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) - Cambodian leader Hun Sen said Thursday he hopes for a speedy start to genocide trials for former Khmer Rouge leaders, as observers warned that the U.N.-backed tribunal faces more obstacles.

«We are truly wishing for the trials to start as soon as possible,» Prime Minister Hun Sen said during a visit to Japan. «There is no doubt this is something all Cambodians wish for.

After repeated failures over the past six months, Cambodian and foreign judges announced the rules for the tribunal Wednesday, paving the way for the tribunal to begin investigating the surviving Khmer Rouge leaders over the deaths of 1.7 million during their 1975-79 communist rule.

However, observers said efforts to prosecute the remaining Khmer Rouge leaders face further hurdles.

«The hardest part has yet to come, and that is who and how many (suspects) should be or should not be» indicted, said Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, an independent group collecting evidence of the Khmer Rouge atrocities.
There is also a growing concern that aging defendants could die before the trials begin.

«Cambodia can embrace ... a bright future only after this matter has been settled, the trials have been held and punishment will be given,» Hun Sen told a press conference.
He himself was a junior Khmer Rouge member who defected from the group before the regime was toppled from power in 1979.

The top Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998. Ta Mok, the Khmer Rouge army chief, died last July while in detention pending trial by the special tribunal. He was believed to be 80.

The only potential defendant now in custody is Kaing Khek Iev, also known as Duch, who headed the notorious S-21 torture center in the capital, Phnom Penh.

Their senior-level colleagues, Nuon Chea, the movement's chief ideologue; Ieng Sary, the former foreign minister; and Khieu Samphan, the former head of state, live freely in Cambodia but are in declining health.

Cambodia and the United Nations created the genocide tribunal last year under an agreement they reached in 2003. The 17 Cambodian and 12 foreign judges and prosecutors have spent the last six months in sometimes rancorous disagreement on guidelines for the trials.

The tribunal is an unprecedented hybrid. It will operate under the Cambodian judicial system often criticized as weak, corrupt and susceptible to political manipulation. Decisions require support from a majority of the Cambodian judges, backed by at least one U.N.-appointed judge.

On Wednesday, neither the Cambodian nor the foreign judicial officials would give details about their cases or reveal names and the number of potential suspects.

Kek Galabru, president of the non-governmental human rights group Licadho, warned the Cambodian and foreign co-prosecutors could fail to reach a consensus on which suspects should be indicted.

Additional reporting by Associated Press writer Chisaki Watanabe in Tokyo.

Cambodian Khmer Rouge tribunal begins public radio campaign
Monsters & Critics
June 18, 2007

Phnom Penh - Public radio spots to educate and reassure the Cambodian public of the role of the tribunal to try former top Khmer Rouge leaders will be available for broadcast as of this week, the court's public affairs section said Monday.

A media officer for the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), Reach Sambath, said in a press release that the four public service announcements will highlight the same themes as a poster series published earlier this year.

The spots are designed to address the most common public concerns and are entitled 'All decisions must have the support of both national and international judges,' 'Everyone can be a part of the process,' 'Only senior leaders and those most responsible will be tried,' and 'It's time to set the record straight.'

'It is hoped that Cambodian radio stations will broadcast these information spots to complement radio programs on the Khmer Rouge trials, as well as to help provide the people of Cambodia with information about the court,' Sambath said in the statement.
The Khmer-language radio spots have been provided for free to all the radio stations in the Phnom Penh area and will be made available for download from the ECCC website, and will be disseminated both within and outside of Cambodia to any interested parties, the statement said.

The long awaited 56-million-dollar joint UN-Cambodian hearings to try a handful of aging former leaders of the Khmer Rouge finally made a breakthrough last week with the adoption of the internal rules necessary to govern the court after months of wrangling between international and Cambodian judges.

Up to 2 million Cambodians are believed to have perished under the Khmer Rouge's brutal 1975 to 1979 Democratic Kampuchea regime when the ultra-Maoists attempted to turn the country into an agrarian utopia devoid of money, markets or social classes.

Cambodian pupils to learn about Killing Fields
The Independent
Andrew Buncombe
June 20, 2007

For all the evidence of the horrors of the Khmer Rouge regime, children in Cambodia know remarkably little about this dark episode in their country's history when at least 1.7 million people died. While the international success of the film, The Killing Fields, draws tourists to places such as Tuol Sleng prison to see the remains of those tortured to death, in schools virtually nothing is taught.

That is set to change with the publication of a new textbook aimed at the country's teachers and designed to fill in many of the blanks about the period.
Written by a researcher investigating the regime's atrocities, the book, A History of Democratic Kampuchea, will not generally be available in the classroom but 3,000 free copies will be given to libraries, students and teachers. More will be printed when funds become available.

"Nothing can compensate for the Cambodian people's sufferings during the Khmer Rouge," the author, Khamboly Dy, who works for the Phnom Penh-based Documentation Centre of Cambodia, told the Associated Press. "[But] learning about the regime's history is the best compensation for them." To date, most books about the Maoist regime and its leader, the late Pol Pot, have been written by foreigners and very few have been translated into Khmer.

Some of the regime's history featured in a school textbook that appeared in 2002 before being withdrawn as it caused a political row between the Prime Minister, Hun Sen, and his former ally, Prince Norodom Ranariddh. The book had mentioned the victory of Hun Sen's party in the 1998 national election but failed to mention Prince Ranariddh's defeat of Hun Sen in the 1993 polls.

The publication of the new book comes as Cambodia prepares to confront, at least partially, some aspects of its past. In recent weeks, Cambodian and international judges have agreed the underlying rules they will use for a special tribunal, with a $56m (£29m) budget, to try surviving members of the regime. While that may represent progress, it is unclear which surviving members of the regime will be brought to trial. Some former regime members serve in senior positions in the current government.

Some of that tension between the present and the past can be seen in the failure of the authorities to endorse formally the textbook for the classroom. Sorn Samnang, the president of the government-run Royal Academy, who was on a committee that scrutinised Khamboly Dy's book, said it would act as a core reference for writing future history books but would not be used in a general classroom. Without elaborating, he said that while the book contained useful information, it could still affect the many people still alive who were involved with the regime.

Robert Petit, who is one of the prosecutors, said that lawyers would send prosecution files to investigative judges within weeks. The hearings are expected to start at the end of the year.

Among those likely to be charged are Khang Khek Ieu, better known as Comrade Duch, and the man who ran Tuol Sleng; Nuon Chea, the former Brother Number Two and second in command to Pol Pot; Ieng Sary, the former foreign minister; and Khieu Samphan, the president of the Khmer Rouge government.

Terror under the Khmer Rouge

* Between 1975 and 1979, between 1.7 million and 2.3 million from a population of seven million were killed.

* Anyone showing the slightest links to the previous government or opposition to the new regime was exterminated. Possessing a pair of glasses could result in death.

* Prisoners at extermination camps were beaten to death and their bodies thrown into mass graves. The regime rarely chose to waste a bullet.

* The best known of the Killing Fields is Cheung Ek

* The Khmer Rouge was ousted in 1979 by invading Vietnamese forces but operated as a rebel movement - recognised as Cambodia's government by Thailand, China and the US - in the west. Its most famous leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998. By the following year, the group's leaders had surrendered and the organisation had in effect ceased to exist.

[back to contents]

Central African Republic

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

Director of the Trust Fund met with victims’ communities in Uganda
ICC Press Release
June 13, 2007

The Executive Director of the Secretariat of the Trust Fund for Victims (TFV) of the International Criminal Court, André Laperrière, visited Uganda from 3rd to 10th June 2007, to promote awareness about its mandate and activities. Mr. Laperrière also conducted an initial assessment of the assistance being provided to victims that have suffered from the effects of the conflict in Northern Uganda. He consulted and discussed with key stakeholders and laid concrete foundations for funding of the first projects of the TFV in the region.

The TFV is an independent body created by the Rome Statute and established by the Assembly of States Parties in order to complement the work of the International Criminal Court on reparations for victims of the crimes that fall under its jurisdiction (genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes). The TFV can also use the contributions it receives to finance projects for the benefit of victims and their families. The TFV has a Board of Directors, with Archbishop Desmond Tutu representing the African region.

Throughout the visit, Mr. Laperrière met with representatives of victims’ communities in Adjumani, Gulu, Lira, Oyam and Pader districts. He also met with religious and traditional leaders, government officials, civil society organisations, representatives of donors and international organisations.

In the ICC, victims have the right to participate in all stages of the proceedings by putting their views and concerns to the judges. If a case proceeds to trial and the accused person is convicted, victims may ask the Court to make an order of reparations for the harm they have suffered. The judges may order individual or collective reparations. The type of reparations will also be decided by the judges and may include compensation, restitution, rehabilitation and symbolic measures such as public apology or a commemoration or memorial. Victims’ participation in proceedings is entirely different from a victim’s possible role as a witness called to testify before the Court for the Prosecution or the Defence.

Child soldiers swap guns for pens in CAR
Reuters
By Jean-Magloire Issa
June 16, 2007

GORDIL, Central African Republic - More than 200 child soldiers swapped guns for schoolbooks in Central African Republic on Saturday after being released by rebels.

The Union of Democratic Forces for Unity (UFDR) had used the children in a low-intensity war against President Francois Bozize's forces, backed by French troops, in the remote northeast until they signed a peace deal in April.

The movement's founder, General Damane Zakaria, handed over the underage fighters -- some in military fatigues, others in civilian clothes -- at a ceremony following a deal with the government and the United Nations.

"We are no longer going to use weapons, we are going to use pens to return to school," said Mahamoud Ataib, 16, designated by the children as their spokesman.

Officials from U.N. children's agency UNICEF handed out schoolbooks and pens at the ceremony in Gordil, a former rebel stronghold almost 700 km (435 miles) from the capital Bangui, sandwiched between two huge wetland reserves.

The landlocked country, languishing near the bottom of just about every development ranking, has suffered decades of instability and military coups, exacerbated recently by the spill-over of conflicts from neighbouring Sudan and Chad.

Central African Republic did not sign the Paris Principles in February which call upon states to demobilise child soldiers.

But the handover was part of a May agreement between Zakaria, the Central African Republic's government and UNICEF to return the underage fighters to their families.

Relief workers say violence by rebels, government troops and bandits has driven 300,000 civilians from their homes in the north, creating a "forgotten" humanitarian crisis.

A quarter of the country's 4 million population have suffered the effects of civil war or spillover from conflicts in Sudan's Darfur region and Chad, according to UNICEF.

The former French colony hosts 10,000 refugees fleeing a rebellion in eastern Chad and the crisis in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have been killed in four years of fighting.

The United Nations suspended humanitarian operations in the northwest on Tuesday after a French aid worker was gunned down in her car during a trip to assess sanitary conditions.

Central African Government, rebels sign UN deal on reintegrating child soldiers
UN News Service
June 18, 2007

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Central African Republic (CAR) and the country’s major rebel group have signed an agreement that will allow some child soldiers in the northeast – the scene of fierce fighting in recent months – to return to their families and become reintegrated with their former communities.

In an accord signed with UNICEF in the Central African town of Gordil on Saturday, the Government and the rebel Assembly of the Union of Democratic Forces (UFDR) agreed to allow the child soldiers in the local area to demobilize.

UFDR has already agreed to release some 400 children from its ranks in the Vakaga region, while under the deal UNICEF will also help prevent the future recruitment of children into armed groups.

Although the CAR is not one of the countries that endorsed the so-called Paris Principles in February, which call upon States to reintegrate all children enrolled in armed groups, UNICEF said the agreement indicated that the nation’s warring parties were making their own voluntary steps towards respecting children’s rights.

“This important process will allow the restoration of children’s rights in Gordil,” said UNICEF representative Mahimbo Mdoe. “The demobilized will now be able to go to school and to take advantage of health-care facilities. UNICEF hopes to use Gordil as an example to renew such initiatives in other regions and do so on a larger scale.”

The programme is set up to work at the community level, with UNICEF offering support to those communities accepting former child soldiers and also helping to re-establish social services after years of war or misrule.

The deal comes as a UN team led by François Dureau, Director of the Situation Centre in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), conducts a three-day of the CAR and neighbouring Chad to help assess whether a mission of blue helmets should be established in the troubled countries.

The 12-member team is expected to hold talks with authorities in both Chad and the CAR and with local representatives of the international community during the visit, which starts today.
Meanwhile, UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman voiced deep concern over the spate of deadly attacks in the past week against aid workers around the world, from Lebanon and the occupied Palestinian territory to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the CAR.

The attacks and threats “have a double impact,” Ms. Veneman said in a statement issued on Saturday. “People whose only motive is to help others are being killed and wounded. And, as a result, aid that is essential to the survival of millions of civilians, many of them women and children, is often scaled back in the wake of the attack.”

She called for every effort to be made to ensure that relief workers can carry out their activities as safely as possible.

[back to contents]

Democratic Republic of the Congo (ICC)

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

Republic of Congo has nearly 2,000 children victims of human trafficking
Xinhua via People's Daily Online
June 21, 2007

Republic of Congo 's minister for health, social and family affairs Emilienne Raoul has said there are nearly 2,000 children who are victims of human trafficking in the country, according to local press.

"We can affirm today that human trafficking targeting children exists indeed in Congo. Our country has become a destination for children coming mainly from West Africa and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The children brought to Congo are aged from nine years on average and few of them, if any, are taken to school," Raoul said Tuesday, adding her country "will do whatever possible to curb this degrading phenomenon." Once they arrive in the country of destination, the children are exploited in production factories, selling merchandise in the streets or in prostitution. The problem of human trafficking was highlighted in the Republic of Congo, following a survey carried out by Raoul's ministry in partnership with United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF).

Some of the causes of this phenomenon, include poverty scourge afflicting families and depravity of moral standards. "Traditional values which used to guarantee close-knit family solidarity have been eroded, and protective environment for children weakened," said Raoul.

[back to contents]

Darfur, Sudan (ICC)

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

Report: U.S. may help international court
UPI, reprinted at Earthtimes.org
June 12, 2007

WASHINGTON, June 12 The U.S. government has made an unprecedented offer of helping the International Criminal Court in The Hague investigate war crimes in Sudan's Darfur region.

While the United States is not a signatory to the Rome Statute that created the court and challenges its claim of jurisdiction over citizens of non-member states, a U.S. State Department legal adviser said in a speech at The Hague that the country would offer help based on ICC requests, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

"One cannot say yes in advance to receiving a request," adviser John Bellinger said in the Post report. "Depending on what it is and if it is something that we have and is in accordance with our own laws and did not undermine our own intelligence work, we would be prepared to say yes." In an interview with the Post after the speech last Wednesday to the Atlantic Commission of jurists, Bellinger said the move was not a reversal of policy.

"If we have differences with the ICC, we share its goals of accountability in crimes against humanity, particularly in Darfur," he told the Post. Fighting in Darfur since 2003 between government-backed Islamist militias and tribal people has killed more than 200,000 people and displaced millions of others, aid agencies report.

Hunting down war criminals
The Times (London)
By Frances Gibb
June 12, 2007

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has the butchers of Darfur in his sights, writes Frances Gibb

The scenes may have been chaotic but last week's opening of the trial against Charles Taylor, the warlord indicted on 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity in both Liberia and Sierra Leone, marks a key moment. The trial, which Taylor refused to attend, is the first in which an international forum has held a former African president accountable for his conduct while in office.

By coincidence, also last week the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC) told the United Nations Security Council that Ahmad Harun and Ali Kushayb, alleged Darfur war criminals, must be arrested. Luis Moreno Ocampo urged the council: "We count on every state to execute an arrest should either of these individuals enter their territory." Harun is the Sudanese minister responsible for providing humanitarian assistance to more than four million people in Darfur, while Kushayb is a leader of the Janjawid. Together, they are charged with 51 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. In April a panel of three judges at the ICC issued warrants for their arrest.

The pair systematically pursued civilians; Harun organised a system for recruiting, funding and arming the Janjawid to supplement the Sudanese armed forces and then incited them to commit murder, rape and other crimes against the civilian population, the prosecutor argues. The situation in Darfur, he says, "remains alarming".

The investigation by the office of Moreno Ocampo is the third involving long-running conflicts: the others are those in northern Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Each involves thousands of killings, as well as "large scale sexual violence and abductions" and together they have resulted in the displacement, he says, of "more than five million people".

But the Darfur investigation could lead to the first prosecution by the court since it was set up in 2002, involving a member of an African state. The trial of Taylor is taking place in the ICC's own court in The Hague, but it is not an ICC case: the trial, being held at a safer venue than Sierre Leone, is being conducted by the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone, set up to deal with the crimes arising from that country's civil war. Moreno Ocampo says: "The Rome Treaty that set up the court is not just about accountability -bringing people to justice for these massive crimes. It is setting up a global legal system. And it is a back-up, a court of last resort where a state can't or won't act. We are exporting the idea around the world that if someone commits genocide, they can be prosecuted for it.

That's why it's so important. It's developing a framework, a legal constraint."

The task has been enormous. The prosecutor, who was elected by all parties to the Rome treaty in 2003, was referred the case by the UN Security Council. "That's important. It connects a peace and security system with a justice system." Moreno Ocampo runs the investigation himself. He has no powers to indict -the evidence goes to a panel of ICC judges who decide if charges should be brought. After 20 months the files went to the panel in February. Both men are in Darfur: Kushayb is thought to be in detention but with little prospect of a trial. The prosecutor's office collected statements from some 100 witnesses after screening 600 over 70 visits in 17 countries. More than 200,000 refugees have fled to other countries.

It was important to trace those who had fled, the prosecutor says: "We have a legal duty to protect witnesses and had no chance of doing that in Darfur."

Moreno Ocampo, 54, has an outstanding track record: be-tween 1984 and 1992 he was a prosecutor in his homeland of Argentina, where he was involved in precedent-setting prosecutions of top military commanders for mass killings and other human rights abuses. He was the assistant prosecutor in the junta trial against army commanders, including three former heads of state -the first case against commanders responsible for mass killings since Nuremberg. Then, in 1992, he set up his private law firm specialising in corruption control for large firms and in criminal and human rights law. His work included acting for the victims in the extradition of the former Nazi officer Erich Priebke to Italy, the trial of the chief of the Chilean secret police and several cases involving political bribery, journalists' protection and freedom of expression.

In his present role, he emphasises that not all cases will result in a trial hearing. He recently ruled out an investigation into alleged abuses in Iraq, which is not a state party to the treaty; nor did allegations meet the criteria in the Rome treaty; crimes of aggression (the legality of the conflict) falls outside the remit of the ICC and other evidence did not amount to war crimes against humanity.

But even if, he says, atrocities are halted, as in Rwanda, then "that is a result: for me it's the idea that justice can help to prevent crime, even if it does not come to trial".

In his update to the UN Security Council last week, Moreno Ocampo urged every state to ensure pressure on Sudan to arrest and refer the pair to the ICC.

Meanwhile, "indiscriminate and disproportionate" air strikes by the Government there continue. It appears that "parties to the conflict continue to violate international humanitarian law. Those bearing the greatest responsibility must be brought to justice."

Like Iraq, Sudan is also not signed up to the ICC, but it is a member of the UN Security Council. Moreno Ocampo is hopeful of co-operation. "For the first time we have the UN Security Council and the ICC working together -the first time a new global legal system is tested. It will be a huge step -a legal revolution."

Sudan: U.S. Says Africa Should Not Be Sole Source of Darfur Peacekeepers
United States Department of State, reprinted at AllAfrica.com
By Stephen Kaufman
June 12, 2007

Washington, DC

Sudan's insistence that only African troops participate in a hybrid African Union-United Nations peacekeeping force in Darfur would render the force ineffective since the continent cannot supply the number of needed troops, the Bush administration says.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters June 12 that Sudan's reported agreement with the African Union (AU) to accept the deployment, mandate and structure of a peacekeeping force includes "fine print" that "the force should be limited to African troops."

Under that condition, he said, it would be "very difficult" to achieve the full 17,000 to 19,000 troop level, as called for under the deployment plan to help implement the peace framework established in November 2006 by leaders meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

"[I]t's not a lack of will or a lack of desire on the part of the African countries, but the assets simply aren't there," McCormack said, adding that Sudan's offer "is in effect to say that you are not agreeing to the full 17,000 to 19,000 troops, which ... the experts believe is what you need in order to perform the mission."

McCormack said the United States is "still waiting" for Sudan to agree to an effective hybrid force.

The spokesman also said the Bush administration has been continuing its diplomatic efforts to deploy the force. It also is providing direct funding to the AU to keep its existing peacekeeping mission operating in Darfur, and is contributing to the United Nations for its peacekeeping force.

"I know that we're the largest donor to the peacekeeping operations. I can't tell you what amount would be required for this particular force," McCormack said.

Emerging from a closed-door Security Council meeting at the United Nations June 12, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said council members are waiting for official clarification of Sudan's acceptance of troops.

"If this is an unconditional acceptance, this would be a positive step that we would welcome, but if it is conditional -- as we hear there will be only African troops involved and no non-Africans -- that would be unacceptable," said Khalilzad, the chief U.S. envoy to the United Nations.

The United States and other members of the council warned recently that if Sudan does not accept quickly the African Union-United Nations plan for the hybrid force, they will propose additional sanctions on Khartoum. Khalilzad said that policy has not changed.
Sanctions "are still very much under consideration," the ambassador said. "If we don't get an unconditional acceptance of the AU-U.N. concept on the hybrid force then ... we have to go with additional sanctions, tightening sanctions" to provide an incentive for the government to cooperate.

Khalilzad added that the United States and other council members are advocating a comprehensive approach to the situation in Darfur. "We understand the violence is not only from the government, but from the rebels. Therefore, all sides have a responsibility to cooperate with U.N. Security Council resolutions, to cooperate with U.N. humanitarian assistance, and to cooperate with the peacekeeping," he said.

(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

VOA News: U.N. Experts Hold Sudan Accountable for Attacks in Darfur
Voice of America
By Lisa Schlein
June 13, 2007

U.N. human rights experts say Sudan should be held accountable for massive human rights violations in Darfur. The experts have submitted a report that calls for the Sudanese government to take specific steps to improve conditions in war-torn Darfur. Lisa Schlein reports for VOA from Geneva.

The experts have presented the Sudanese government with what amounts to a code of conduct. They say the occurrence of human rights violations in Darfur is widely known and sending another fact-finding mission to Darfur is not necessary. What is needed, they say, is finding practical ways to stop the abuse.

Simi Samar is UN special investigator on Sudan who chaired the group of experts. She says the report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council is trying to find practical ways to implement recommendations that have been made in previous fact-finding missions.

"The few issues that we have to highlight," said Simi Samar. "One, the protection of human rights for civilians is the responsibility of the government. And two, we do not see any military solution for the Darfur problem. So, it should be more political and dialogue and inclusive in order to end the suffering of the people. Three, we insist on accountability and justice. The people who committed the crime, they have to be brought to justice in order to build the confidence between the public and the government in Sudan."

The United Nations estimates more than 200,000 people have died in Darfur since war between the Sudanese-backed Arab janjaweed militia and rebel African groups broke out four years ago. Another 2.5 million people have been driven out of their homes.

The experts have presented more than 30 detailed recommendations that they want Sudan to meet within three to 12 months. A Swiss expert on internally displaced persons, Walter Kalin, says the Sudanese government must halt all attacks against civilians in Darfur.

"What is needed in the short-term and can be done is first a high-level order given to the security forces not to attack civilians, to distinguish between civilians and military objectives," said Walter Kalin. "And, then to translate that kind of political commitment and order into the operational orders given, for instance, to pilots that go out."

The report also demands Khartoum orders its armed forces to stop rapes, disappearances and torture. It warns these actions may amount to war crimes. It also urges immediate protection and unimpeded access for humanitarian workers.

The U.N. report says the Sudanese government has pledged to implement the recommendations.

Working together to save Darfur
Christian Science Monitor
By Desmond Tutu and Jody Williams
June 21, 2007

Earlier this month, we participated in a discussion on Darfur in the European Parliament, having been invited to offer suggestions of concrete actions that the European Council and European Union could take to alleviate the misery endured by the people of Darfur. We very much appreciated the passionate concern expressed in the room and believe that that passion can and must result in stronger action to end the conflict. We hope the discussion and thoughtful suggestions by many there will influence the EU to take decisive action to protect Darfurians and bring the government in Khartoum back to the negotiating table.

Along with many parliamentarians, we are dismayed that despite much rhetorical concern in many world capitals, little has been done to end the conflict, now in its fifth year. Hundreds of thousands are dead, hundreds of thousands are in refugee camps in Chad, and millions are displaced inside Darfur. Rape, endured by countless thousands of women, continues to be used as a weapon of war. Thousands of villages have been razed, crops and livestock have been stolen or destroyed, and water has been polluted in a scorched-earth policy of ethnic cleansing carried out by Khartoum and its allied janjaweed militia. Splintered and splintering rebel groups are no saints either when it comes to human rights, but the overwhelming responsibility for the war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur rests with the government.

While our suggestions were made to the EU, other governments and international bodies must come together in coordinated action to stop the carnage. Sudan should be treated like apartheid South Africa and be isolated politically and economically. Those clinging to power in Khartoum must feel real consequences for what they are doing to Darfur. Every time Khartoum hears hollow threats, its belief in its impunity is bolstered. It is time to stop accepting Sudan's promises and excuses and hold that government accountable for its actions and its inaction.

Khartoum's counterinsurgency war rages on, and the entire region is increasingly drawn into the conflict. No one believes that a military solution is possible; renewed negotiations that meet the needs and aspirations of all Darfurians are the only answer. It is time for the international community to try a carrot-and-stick approach to resolve the crisis. Some of us believe that there has been too much carrot and not nearly enough stick.

It is time to make demands of Khartoum with deadlines for action; officials must suffer meaningful consequences if they do not respond. Cease-fire and humanitarian-access agreements made in 2004 must be honored. United Nations forces must be allowed unimpeded access to the region. Khartoum must fulfill its obligation to disarm its janjaweed militia, including those who have merely changed uniform to become part of its "border intelligence," "defense forces," or "police."

Khartoum's window of opportunity to respond must be weeks, not months. Any further stonewalling must result in targeted sanctions, politically and economically isolating those in power. Governments, corporations, and others investing in businesses in the Sudan should also divest their holdings.

Until the UN "hybrid force" is fully deployed, it is imperative that African Union forces be given the equipment and other resources they need to carry out their mission. And their mandate should clearly include the ability to defend Darfurian civilians. They accepted a thankless mission with insufficient support, and it is the people of Darfur who are suffering for it.

The international community, including civil society, must increase pressure on China to take forceful action to bring Khartoum back to the negotiating table - or risk the further tarnishing of the upcoming Beijing Olympics. China has demonstrated that it can be sensible on climate change; it must show real leadership when it comes to Khartoum and Darfur.

There will be no peace in Darfur until Khartoum opens the Darfur Peace Agree?ment to new negotiations. There will be no peace until fractured rebels unite around a common position. Negotiations must include representatives of the people of Darfur - especially women, who suffer the most in war and gain the least in "peace." There will be no peace in Darfur until the historic marginalization of its people ends and they receive their share of political representation and economic resources. There will be no peace until victims of the counterinsurgency are com?pensated - particularly the women of Darfur.

We heard European parliamentarians express their frustration that dozens of statements of concern expressed in the EU and European Council have not been followed by meaningful action. The EU can and must play a leadership role in bringing this war to an end. Despite our collective outrage, frustration, and sometimes despair, we cannot give up on Darfur. Its people are counting on all of us.

* Desmond Tutu received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his work against apartheid South Africa and Jody Williams received the prize in 1997 for her work to ban antipersonnel landmines. Ms. Williams headed a UN high-level mission to Darfur in February and March of 2007.

Sudan: UN mission reports continuing attacks on aid convoys in Sudan
UN News Service, reprinted at AllAfrica.com
June 21, 2007

The United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) reports that attacks are continuing on humanitarian convoys operated by international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the country's strife-torn Darfur region.

On Tuesday, an unknown armed man shot at a vehicle in South Darfur hired by an international NGO, while in West Darfur, two men stopped an international NGO convoy made up of two vehicles with five staff members, and robbed them of personal effects and communication equipment.

Also in West Darfur, an international NGO vehicle with four staff members was carjacked on Tuesday. All staff members were rescued by Government police, UNMIS said.

Meanwhile, the Mission also reports that Acting Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Sudan, Tayé-Brook Zerihoun today concluded a two-day visit to the capitals of the three Darfur States.

During the trips to Nyala, El Geneina and El Fasher, he met with UN staff to brief them on the recent agreement on the deployment of a hybrid operation in Darfur and on the coordination of UN support to the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) in preparation for the hybrid operation.

Mr. Zerihoun also met with local Government officials to discuss the security and humanitarian situation in Darfur and recent political developments.

Last week, the Sudanese Government announced its acceptance of a proposal for a hybrid UN-AU peacekeeping operation to be deployed in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have been killed and at least 2 million others displaced since clashes erupted in 2003 between Government forces, allied Janjaweed militias and rebel groups.

[back to contents]

Uganda (ICC)

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

SUDAN-UGANDA: Equatoria - reluctant host for the LRA
IRIN
June 13, 2007

Zachariah Nzari says the rebels camped a few kilometres from his village in Southern Sudan overstayed their welcome the day they turned their guns on his people - looting property, destroying homes and abducting villagers.

That was in January 2006. Fighters with the Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) entered Nzari’s village of Nabanga in Western Equatoria, after looting and destroying 75 homes, took away four people to carry their booty.

"Their bodies were [later] found," said Nzari, the village chief of Nabanga, just a few kilometres from the border between Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. "But the bodies of seven [other] people who went into the forest to collect honey have not been found."

The forest is now a no-go area for Nzari's community, yet they depend on it for honey and building materials. Also missing, the chief added, were six girls who were abducted; cereals, chickens, goats, radios and other valuables were looted.

The rebels, say locals in the state capital of Yambio, have continued to threaten them despite ongoing efforts by the Southern Sudan government to broker a peace agreement with the Ugandan state. The on-off peace talks, mediated by Southern Sudanese Vice-President Riek Machar, are set to resume in Juba.

While the world focuses on the talks, Nzari said, his people continue to suffer from their unwanted neighbours. "The Vice-President used to say there was going to be peace between the people of Uganda and the LRA, but we want peace between the people of Nabanga and the LRA first," he told IRIN.

The rebels, he added, should return the girls they abducted from Nabanga: "When the Vice-President came to Nabanga we presented him with their names on paper [and] he asked [Joseph] Kony [leader of the LRA] where are these girls. [Kony] said they were there in the bush with them at their camp. We want them to bring our people back, [then] just leave our country."

New report

Nzari was in Yambio on 13 June to attend the launch of a report, Reluctant Hosts, by the humanitarian agency, World Vision, highlighting the devastating effect of the presence of Ugandan rebels in Western Equatoria.

"It is not just northern Ugandan communities that have been affected - the international community should broaden its scope," said Sophie Gordon, author of the report, which describes how attacks on villages and towns in the region have continued in 2006 and 2007.
The report quotes the governor of Western Equatoria, Samuel Abu John, saying the local population had suffered a wave of abductions, displacement and looting during the 2006 long lull in talks when the LRA delegation refused to return to Juba for security reasons.

"We as the people who have been most affected ... are not being given the space to talk of what has happened to our people and participate in these talks in Juba," the governor notes in a forward to the report.

Much-needed development, following the north-south Sudan peace agreement in 2005, ending more than 20 years of war, has been limited by LRA activity. Cultivation of crops and schools was also disrupted.

"There is no official number, but we found 10 children abducted – of whom nine were girls – just in one county," said Gordon, adding that further reports of abductions had been made in the last months after the study was conducted.

Abu’s deputy, Joseph Ngere Paciko, said more than 50 people had been killed by the LRA since they arrived in Western Equatoria in 2005. At least 16 children were abducted and their whereabouts still unknown.

"Although killings have reduced since the talks began, looting has continued; two weeks ago they looted in Mundri," he said, adding that it was frustrating to hear the LRA denying attacks the state authorities knew to have taken place. "We are giving a chance for peace but the LRA must stop harassing our people," he emphasised.

Another resident, Albino Clement, was more blunt: "We were not consulted about the LRA coming to our area. They should go to their land, to Uganda; if they stay here they should be like refugees, without arms."

Living in fear

World Vision said funding for protection and an early warning system for Western Equatoria was desperately needed to help prevent widespread looting, murder and rape in case of another LRA 'rampage' in that area.

It described the people of Western Equatoria state as living in an "atmosphere of fear" despite the ongoing talks in Juba.
"In February 2007, the LRA left its hideout in the DRC and traveled north into Southern Sudan, after peace talks between the government of Uganda and the LRA collapsed," said Seth Le Leu, programme director of World Vision Southern Sudan. "Its soldiers wreaked havoc on the populations of Eastern and Western Equatoria, repeatedly attacking communities, abducting, looting, allegedly raping and killing its citizens."

On the resumption of talks, he said: "This has not put an end to the fear felt by people in Western Equatoria. Under the terms of the renewed talks the LRA must assemble in one single place - which is within Western Equatoria. These communities have once again been forced to become the reluctant hosts of this movement. Men, women and children are living in constant fear of attacks."

According to the report, the LRA has also victimised humanitarian workers in the region. It cites the killing in November 2005 of two staff members of an international mine clearance agency south of Juba and an attack in February 2006 on a United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) compound in Yambio.

In December 2005, UN compounds in Yambio and Yei were attacked, with two staff killed in Yei. "The rise of attacks in southern Sudan has led to communities being harmed on two levels: their own communities have been pillaged and terrorised and their access to international aid and relief has been greatly hindered," said the report.

However, when peace talks between the LRA and the Ugandan government began in July 2006, the frequency of attacks in Western Equatoria greatly reduced.

Among atrocities listed in the report is the plight of abductees. They were normally loaded with looted goods, tied to one another, and made to walk in convoys to the DRC through the compounds of other residents in order to loot more goods and take more hostages. Goats were tied with ropes to the captives' waists and chickens attached to their arms.

Accountability issues

The current round of talks is focusing on "accountability and reconciliation", the third of five agenda points in a process that had stalled since December when LRA confidence in Machar’s mediation dropped. Intervention by UN special envoy Joachim Chissano helped get the talks back on track in April.

The issue of accountability is particularly sensitive given the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court against LRA leaders, which the LRA has said must be withdrawn. Discussions will look at a range of options in traditional, national and international justice to provide some measure of accountability and justice for victims of abuses committed by both sides during the long conflict.

But as the talks resume, Sudanese officials said rebel movement from Eastern Equatoria to the Ri-Kwangba base on the DRC border had not been completed as required, adding that 1,000 rebels were thought to remain in Eastern Equatoria.

Offers of help from Sudan with transport and pre-positioned food had been refused, a senior official said, because the LRA feared ambush by Ugandan soldiers. They also “don’t want their numbers to be known”, he said.

In Nimule hospital in Eastern Equatoria, Junal Logira, a father of eight, was recovering from an infected bullet wound. He recalls the night the LRA came to his house, in April, in the Labone area, east of Nimule: “Thank God I wasn’t drunk that night.” His wife woke him up when she heard shooting; he crawled outside and the family fled in different directions. He was hit in the ankle.

"The LRA fighters took all the food and some money," he said. "They uprooted my cassava crop and ran away."

Orieyn Okara, an elderly man displaced several times by the rebels, strapped a bag of sorghum rations distributed by an NGO in Nimule on to his bicycle, then angrily snapped: "Where is this Kony? I have lost all my 12 children … he has done a lot of damage … Have you found him? If you have, kill him."

No Consensus in North on War Crimes Justice
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
By Patrick Okino
June 15, 2007

Northerners divided over ICC warrants for LRA and calls for the army to be investigated.

Some victims of the 21-year war by the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army, LRA, in northern Uganda have urged the New York-based Human Rights Watch, HRW, to moderate its remarks on the conflict, alleging that harsh critiques could undermine the Ugandan government’s struggle to bring peace to the region.

People interviewed by IWPR were reacting to a recent commentary by HRW which said, "The conflict has been characterised by serious crimes under international law and other human rights abuses committed by the LRA and to a lesser extent government forces."

HRW welcomed warrants issued by the fledgling International Criminal Court, ICC, in The Hague for the arrests of the LRA's five top leaders "as an important step to ensuring justice for some of the most serious crimes committed during the course of the conflict".

But the human rights organisation's May 30 memorandum also said, "Prosecutions of members of the Ugandan armed forces responsible for the most serious human rights violations must also take place, along with efforts aimed at more comprehensive accountability."

Only partially reported or understood in northern Uganda, it is this latter part of the HRW document that seems to have stirred feelings among a local population that has seen some 100,000 people killed since the LRA uprising began 21 years ago. In addition, some 1.7 million people have been displaced from their homes and more than 20,000 children have been kidnapped by the LRA to become child soldiers, sex slaves and porters.

“The idea of investigating the Uganda People’s Defence Forces, who have fought the LRA and saved our lives, should be dispelled completely," David Oyena, head of the Omoro IDP (internally displaced persons) camp in Lira district, told IWPR.

"Our aim is to reconcile with everybody who committed the atrocities in the north. We are tired of war. Our children were abducted. Relatives and friends were massacred in cold blood. Why should the international bodies waste time demanding for investigations and prosecutions of our national army just as we are moving to bring peace through peace talks?”

In July 2005, the ICC issued warrants for the arrest of the LRA's leaders – Joseph Kony, the overall leader; Vincent Otti, Kony's number two; the third-in-command Raska Lukwiya; and Okot Odhiambo and Dominic Ongwen – for crimes against humanity and war crimes. However, Lukwiya was killed in August 2006 during a fight between the LRA and Ugandan military forces.

HRW urged the prosecution of the LRA leaders' "most serious crimes in accordance with international standards" as the best means of "achieving a meaningful, durable peace in northern Uganda".

The 11-page memorandum continued, "The men are charged with crimes of the utmost gravity: crimes against humanity including murder, enslavement, sexual enslavement, and rape; and war crimes, including murder, intentionally directing an attack against a civilian population, pillaging, inducing rape, and forced enlisting of children.

"Failure to hold perpetrators of the most serious international crimes to account helps to fuel future abuses.

"In other countries, communities have experienced how measures conferring immunity from prosecution for serious offences have had devastating consequences. In Sierra Leone in 1999, the rebel leader Foday Sankoh, who had been implicated with his Revolutionary United
Front in many war crimes, received an amnesty in exchange for signing the Lomé Peace Accord.

“Only months later, Sankoh’s RUF went on to attack government forces and UN peacekeepers, and continued to commit war crimes by taking hundreds hostage and committing rampant sexual assault. The collapse of the accord also brought about a marked increase in human rights abuses by government forces."

But these arguments did not wash with Salim Oryem, a senior official at Aloi IDP camp, also in Lira District, which has been home at various times to between 30,000 and 60,000 internal refugees.

“Our views as the victims are of more importance than the ideas the international bodies like the HRW and the ICC are demanding," Oryem told IWPR. “We want the HRW and other international agencies to come and support the peace talks in Juba [the capital of South Sudan where negotiations are taking place between the Ugandan government and the LRA] but not to preach the gospel of investigation, which never benefited a single Ugandan.”

It is impossible, in the final analysis, to say what proportion of people in the north want the ICC to press on with its warrants and bring Kony and his men to justice in The Hague, and how many want the LRA to be forgiven after going through traditional reconciliation rituals.

A poll carried out among the Acholi people of northern Uganda by the International Centre for Transitional Justice in New York highlighted the problem. Some 76 per cent of people questioned wanted wrongdoers "held accountable", yet 65 per cent supported amnesty for ex-LRA members, while 22 per cent said they would forgive even Kony and his top aides. Only five per cent of those interviewed unequivocally said peace could be achieved "through justice".

While men such as Oyena and Oryem support the Uganda army, and reject criticisms of its conduct of the war, Professor Morris Ogenga-Latigo, a member of parliament for the northern Acholi district of Agago, on the Sudan border, and leader of opposition in the Ugandan parliament, is critical of the government, led by a southerner, President Yoweri Museveni, and of the Ugandan army.

"As the opposition, our aim is that the government should talk to the LRA," said Professor Ogenga-Latigo in a recent interview with the United Nations-funded IRIN news agency. "All along we have been telling the government, look, this is a political issue, you can best resolve it through dialogue."

Ogenga-Latigo, who has an observer role at the peace talks, went on, "We had a government [Museveni's] in Uganda that was so embraced when it came into power [in 1986] by the West that the conflict in the north was a blemish that many people didn't want to talk about. In that silence, the conflict escalated and became a real humanitarian disaster that should have been addressed much earlier.

"When President Museveni turned to the ICC, when they came into Uganda to do the preliminary investigations, we told them, you are entering a trap from which you will not emerge unscathed.

"The indicted leaders, particularly Joseph Kony and Vincent Otti, are central to delivering peace in northern Uganda. The demand for peace is so strong that the communities affected - particularly ours, the Acholi - are prepared to forgive through the traditional process for the sake of sustainable peace. And this runs counter to the ICC demand for these people to pay through the justice system.

"We are in a situation where the ICC will have to somehow find a common way of backing out of where they are."

ICC Warrants Threaten Peace Deal
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
By Henry Wasswa
June 15, 2007

Peace talks still deadlocked by rebel demands that international court indictments be dropped.

The Ugandan government has never been more intent on using peace talks to end a devastating insurgency that has been simmering in the north of the country for 20 years.

But, in the same vein, it has probably never felt its hands more tied. Nearly a year since the peace negotiations began, the Lord's Resistance Army, LRA, guerrillas are insisting that the International Criminal Court, ICC, drop indictments it issued for its five top leaders to stand trial for crimes against humanity and war crimes.

The talks began under the mediation of neighbouring Sudan in July 2006 to end a 21-year rebellion that has resulted in more than 100,000 deaths and the displacement of more than 1.7 million people from their homes. A landmark ceasefire agreement was signed a month after the talks began.

“We are not fighting the ICC because this is an established institution," the LRA’s delegation head at the talks, Martin Ojur, told IWPR. "What we are only saying is that the indictments should be dropped so that the LRA leaders can go back to the community.”

Appalling atrocities have been inflicted on the civilian population in northern Uganda during the LRA insurgency, mostly at the hands of the rebels but also by the Ugandan army.

Many hundreds of civilians have had their hands, lips, noses and ears chopped off and more than 20,000 children have been abducted by the rebels who forced them to fight and sometimes kill their own relatives. Captured girls have been shared out as "wives" among the rebels and they have given birth to many children in the guerrillas' bush bases.

As the military solution to the war dragged on and on and looked ever more impossible, the Ugandan government requested the ICC to indict the LRA for war crimes. The Hague-based court issued arrest warrants for the top five LRA leaders in July 2005. They are Joseph Kony, his deputy Vincent Otti and Okot Odhiambo, Dominic Ongwen and Raska Lukwiya. None have so been arrested although Lukwiya, the movement's number three, died in a gun battle last year with Ugandan army soldiers deep in the forests of northern Uganda.

Having persuaded the ICC to issue charges and arrest warrants, the Ugandan government then sprang a surprise by offering amnesty to the LRA in June 2006 and announcing that it was ready to talk peace in a bid to end the war.

The LRA now insists that it will not sign a final peace agreement until the ICC drops the warrants of arrest against its leaders.

The LRA is also demanding that the Ugandan government approach the ICC to drop the warrants. The government, however, says that it will heed the LRA demands only after a final peace agreement is signed, and meanwhile it is threatening to return to war if the rebel position remains inflexible.

“The government position is still the same; in the interest of peace, reconciliation and security in northern Uganda, we are committed to the peace talks but at the same time we cannot ignore the ICC indictments," Barigye Ba-Hoku, spokesman for the government negotiating team, told IWPR.

"The indictments were given in accordance to the Rome agreement [the ICC's founding 1998 Statute of Rome, whose clauses set out the court's operating rules]. It is difficult for us to go to the ICC at this point and tell them to drop the indictments because there is nothing tangible out of the talks yet. The issue of the indictments is not in the hands of Uganda. Once the agreement is signed, there are arrangements to pass through the UN and engage the ICC into dropping the indictments.”

According to a recent addendum to the interim warfare truce reached between the rebels and the government in August last year, LRA fighters are supposed to begin assembling west of the river Nile, in the Sudanese village of Ri-Kwangba where the borders of Sudan, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, meet. There they would be documented and screened for future resettlement, but by June 12 not one LRA fighter had assembled at Ri-Kwangba, with the current truce agreement due to expire at the end of June.

The rebel leaders are themselves holed up in the 4920 square kilometre Garamba National Park in the north east of the DRC where they fled in late 2004 from their former bases in southern Sudan. The Garamba's vast grasslands, savannahs and forests are a UNESCO World Heritage site and form the last refuge in the wild of the critically endangered northern race of the African White Rhino. The rhinos have been heavily poached by the LRA and other marauders. At the last count, only five of the animals remained, down from an estimated 1200 in 1960, meaning the species is almost certainly doomed to extinction.

The UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC - Monuc (Mission des Nations Unies en République Démocratique du Congo) - is establishing a unit near the LRA's Garamba base. The aim is to "convince the LRA to assemble in Ri-Kwangba", Uganda’s defence minister Ruth Nankabirwa told reporters in Kampala, Uganda’s capital. "This will also help in protecting the population surrounding Garamba National Park."

It is difficult to say how the deployment will turn out, but when a Monuc peacekeeping contingent from Guatemala attempted to dislodge the LRA from the Garamba in January 2005, Kony's men fought back, killing eight Guatemalans and wounding 16 others. Conservationists have accused the Ugandan rebels of killing 12 Garamba game rangers to date.

The rebel negotiators in the southern Sudan capital of Juba are also questioning the legitimacy of the ICC arrest warrants, arguing that Ugandan government forces should also take the blame for atrocities against northern civilians during the civil war.

“We are going to discuss the accountability item of the peace agreement, but what we are going to ask is that when the LRA began fighting, did they have a genuine cause?" the LRA's delegation head Ojur told IWPR. "What forced them to go to war? We are saying that since the LRA and the UPDF (Uganda People’s Defence Forces) have been fighting each other for 20 years, you cannot say that the LRA committed atrocities and the UPDF did not.

“We should look for a healing process so that the indictees are excused because they are the leaders of the LRA which is at the same time engaged in peace talks. The Ugandan government took the case to the ICC and it should go to the ICC and tell them to drop the warrants.”

Although the talks have not broken off over the question of the ICC indictments, it is not yet clear what would happen if the rebels refuse to sign the final peace agreement on the grounds that arrest warrants remain outstanding.

However, the Ugandan government is already indicating what it will most likely do in the event that the LRA remains intransigent. Information minister and government spokesman Ali Kirunda Kivejinja told IWPR, “The rebels should be more objective. If they insist on dragging in the indictments issue, that would be their problem. That would be the end of the road and government will look for other options.

"First we would remain vigilant and protect the people so that they are not attacked by the rebels. Another thing we will do is get in touch with the international community so that the rebels are ostracised.”

New Study Gives Huge Figure for LRA Abductions
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
By Samuel Okiror Egadu
June 19, 2007

Research data suggest that northern Uganda’s rebels kidnapped and forcibly conscripted nearly 80,000 people over the years, including twice as many children as previously believed.

A new report documenting violence in the 21-year-long conflict between Ugandan government forces and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army indicates that as many as 38,000 children and 37,000 adults have been abducted and forced to join the insurgents.

"Many of these children and adults are still unaccounted for, and more work is needed to identify the whereabouts of those still missing," said Patrick Vinck, who led the study conducted by two American universities, when the 47-page report was released in Gulu, northern Uganda, on June 15.

The report, "Abduction: the Lord's Resistance Army and Forced Conscription in Northern Uganda," was compiled by researchers from the University of California Berkeley's Human Rights Centre and Tulane University's Centre for International Development.

These estimated figures for LRA abductions are much higher than previous estimates, and the whereabouts of most of the people involved remains unknown.

Until now, the best estimates for the number of children forcibly taken to serve as fighters, porters and sex slaves to rebel soldiers previously stood at around 20,000, while the total number of people taken to LRA guerrilla camps remains unknown.

Teams of researchers collected data from reception and rehabilitation centres for former child soldiers and other abductees in war-torn northern Uganda. These centres were established by human rights organisations and the Ugandan government in the Nineties to rehabilitate children who had escaped from the LRA or had been captured by the Ugandan army.

While many abductees still remain with the rebels, others have died on the battlefield or at the hands of their LRA captors, according to the report. Still others have rejoined their families without passing through reception centres.

“More work is needed to identify the number of people who have gone missing in northern Uganda and to investigate their whereabouts," said the report. "Cross-cultural studies have shown that most families wish to know the fate of their missing relatives and, if they have died, to receive their remains.”

The LRA's camps are currently located deep inside the 4,920 square kilometre Garamba National Park in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where they fled in late 2004 from their former bases in southern Sudan.

Confirming findings from many other sources, the Berkeley-Tulane study said that rebel commanders had forced girls, some as young as 12, to serve as sexual partners and domestic servants. Both boys and girls have been compelled to inflict horrific injuries on civilians by cutting off ears, noses, lips and limbs. Some as young as seven have been forced to kill and mutilate members of their own families and village communities.

The report is the result of a Berkeley-Tulane project launched in December 2005 to set up a data base and provide better documentation about the phenomenon of abduction in northern Uganda. The researchers also trained local leaders for eight reception centres in Gulu, Kitgum, Pader, Apac and Lira districts how to collect and analyse information on former LRA abductees.

The report noted that the majority – 61 per cent – of former abductees were between ten and 18 when they arrived at a reception centre. Females aged 19 to 30 stayed longer with the LRA than males - they served as long-term sexual partners, and those who gave birth to children feared to take the risk of an escape attempt.

“Fourteen per cent of females who passed through a reception centre in the district of Apac self-reported that they had been given to commanders and ten per cent reported giving birth while in captivity,” the report said. “Women forced to serve as ‘wives’ are likely to be kept in encampments and villages located a distance from combat zones, offering less opportunity to escape, surrender or be captured by [Ugandan] army troops.”

The International Criminal Court, ICC, in The Hague, the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal, has warrants outstanding for the arrest of LRA leader Joseph Kony and three other commanders.

The Berkeley-Tulane team said its report could be made available to ICC prosecutors if the rebel leaders are eventually brought to trial.

Uganda willing to see officials tried at ICC
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
By Goodluck Musinguzi
June 19, 2007

Minister says government ready to hand over army members and officials to the international war crimes court, should the need arise.

Ruhakana Rugunda, the Ugandan government's chief negotiator in peace talks with the rebel Lord's Resistance Army, LRA, has told IWPR that Ugandan soldiers and political leaders who committed crimes during the LRA's 21-year insurgency must also face justice.

"Not a single person will be shielded in pursuance of long-lasting peace for northern Uganda," said Rugunda. "Patience continues to guide the government delegation, and everything will be explored because each side has to account for what happened in the war."

Rugunda, Uganda's interior minister, was reacting to comments by Vincent Otti, the LRA's second-in-command, who told IWPR that he was ready to hand himself in to the International Criminal Court, ICC, in The Hague to answer charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes – but only if the court charges Ugandan army soldiers on similar counts.

Rugunda was speaking in his home town of Kabale, in the far southwestern corner of Uganda, after flying from Juba, the South Sudan capital where the peace talks are taking place, to attend the funeral of his 93-year-old mother Norah Rugunda.

He hinted that the government might be prepared to hand to the ICC - the world's first international war crimes court – any politicians or members of the Ugandan People's Defence Force, UPDF, who were suspected of war crimes but had not been indicted and tried by the country’s own legal system.

But the minister made it clear at the same time that the chances of government soldiers or national politicians being sent to The Hague was extremely slim.

"Really, the problem of impunity [from justice] has been with the Lord's Resistance Army," he said. "The LRA has committed a lot of crimes and not a single person has appeared for justice or before the legal system."

Speaking to IWPR correspondent Samuel Okiror Egadu by satellite phone from a base deep inside the Garamba National Park in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the LRA maintains its main guerrilla bases, Otti had said, “I am ready to go and face ICC in The Hague to answer the charges if the ICC also investigates government soldiers and commanders. If UPDF are included on the list of indicted commanders, I will definitely go to The Hague. Short of that, I will never go.”

Otti explained, “It’s not only LRA alone who committed atrocities in northern Uganda.
It’s both LRA and UPDF. Why did ICC indict us alone? It's very one-sided.”

Reacting to the alleged lack of balance in the indictment process, Rugunda said Uganda's own criminal laws had dealt harshly with UPDF officers who "committed mistakes" in the course of warfare with the LRA.

He said that under item number three on the peace talks agenda - "accountability and reconciliation" - the LRA has the opportunity to back up its allegations against UPDF soldiers and national politicians. The Ugandan government will analyse LRA claims and take action wherever justified, the minister added.

Uganda's president Yoweri Museveni referred the country's 21-year civil war in the north to the ICC in December 2003. In July 2005, the court issued arrest warrants for five senior LRA figures - its leader Joseph Kony and top commanders Otti, Raska Lukwiya, Okot Odhiambo and Dominic Ongwen. Lukwiya died in combat last year, so the list is now down to four.

In inviting the ICC to start work, Museveni's government wanted it specifically to investigate the LRA's part in the conflict. Rugunda's hint that the ICC might be able to indict non-LRA participants in the war seems to run counter to reports from Juba which say that, if a peace deal is reached, Kony, Otti, Odhiambo and Ongwen will not be handed over to the ICC.

According to a report in Uganda's New Vision newspaper from Juba, negotiators reached an agreement after Rugunda departed for Kabale last week, which said, "The parties believe that the [Ugandan] national legal and institutional framework provide a sufficient basis for ensuring accountability and reconciliation in Uganda with respect to crimes and violations committed during the conflict."

The agreement was signed by the LRA's chief negotiator, Martin Ojul, and by Steven Kagoda, permanent secretary of the Ugandan Internal Affairs Ministry, who commented, "Gradually, we have been moving closer. Now there is easy communication."

The agreement also provides for the use of alternative traditional justice systems in the main Acholi, Lango and Teso ethnic areas affected by the conflict and for the establishment of a South Africa-style truth and justice commission in Uganda.

Asked which Ugandan army officers he would like the ICC to investigate and charge with war crimes, Otti told IWPR, “I don’t need to mention them. Ugandans know them very well. If the ICC wants me to tell them, I can."

Otti's ICC arrest warrant lists 33 counts of war crimes violations since July 2002, including attacks on civilians and the enslavement and forcible conscription of child soldiers.

LRA accept responsibility for war crimes
New Vision
June 22, 2007

LRA rebels have accepted responsibility for atrocities committed against the people of northern Uganda during more than 20 years of bloody insurgency.

In papers presented to the mediator and the Government delegation at the talks in Juba on Thursday, the rebels said they were waiting for the Government’s response to determine their next move.

The Government plans to ask the International Criminal Court (ICC) to drop the charges against the rebel commanders for war crimes and crimes against humanity once a peace agreement is signed and an alternative justice system agreed.

The talks, which have been on and off since last year, have been debating how both sides should account for their role in the conflict and how to reconcile. Senior Sudanese and Ugandan clergy praying in Juba last week, called on Ugandans to forgive the rebels as a means to lasting peace.

The technical adviser of the rebels on ICC matters, David Matsanga, said yesterday Ugandans and the peace talks process would decide the punishment for the rebels, who are accused of brutal and savage acts such as cutting off the limbs of their victims, rape, murder and sexual slavery. “There is a general consensus in Uganda that the ICC’s is more of a retributive justice than a restorative justice. We want the justice that will give us long-lasting peace so that our people don’t hear of any rebellion and war again,” he explained.

Speaking on the US-based Voice of America, Africa programme, Matsanga explained that the papers outline the rebels’ views on how the ICC should proceed and suggests alternatives to the indictments.

He criticised the way the ICC has handled the case, and regretted that it had singled out the rebels for punishment.

“One side has been indicted. We are able to account on our side. But what about the UPDF (Ugandan People’s Defence Force) that has failed to account for the role that it played in the northern Uganda conflict?” Matsanga asked.

“There is no way that one side can be taken and the other side is left,” he noted.

He argued that while the ICC must start from somewhere, it should start “from the top, instead of starting from the bottom.”

Matsanga argued that it was the responsibility of the Government to resolve the issue of the ICC.

“They are the people who referred this matter (to the ICC), and at the same time, they are the people who have suggested an alternative mechanism of justice. So the ball is in the hands of the government of President Museveni to take this matter and show us a framework.”

[back to contents]

International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)

Official Website of the ICTY

UN court sentences Croatian Serb ex-rebel leader to 35 years
Turkish Press
June 12, 2007

THE HAGUE (AFP) - The UN war crimes court on Tuesday convicted former rebel Croatian Serb leader Milan Martic over atrocities committed against Croat civilians and sentenced him to 35 years in prison.

Martic, 52, was a close ally of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic and held various leadership positions in the rebel Serbs' self-proclaimed autonomous Krajina region in Croatia between January 1991 and August 1995.

The judges ruled that Martic, as the "most important and influential political figure" in Krajina knew of the "multitude of crimes committed against non Serbs" that led to hundreds of thousands of Croat civilians fleeing the area.

He was found guilty on nine charges of crimes against humanity and seven counts of war crimes including persecution, murder, torture, deportation and attacks on civilians.

In his efforts to "create an ethnic Serb territory" Martic "promoted an atmosphere of fear and mistrust between Serbs and non-Serbs particularly Croats" in Krajina, judge Bakone Justice Moloto said.

According to the judges Martic "ordered the shelling of (the Croatian capital) Zagreb on May 2-3, 1995. They dismissed defence arguments that the attack was a justified reprisal against Croatian aggression.

"There is absolutely no doubt that Milan Martic was aware that the non-Serb population was driven out (of the Krajina region) as a result of the coercive atmosphere and widespread acts of violence," the judges said in their ruling.

Martic turned himself in to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in May 2002. His trial lasted from December 2005 to January 2006.

Croat generals plead not guilty at warcrimes trial
Reuters
By Zlata Zsolnay
June 18, 2007

ZAGREB (Reuters) - Croatia opened a high-profile war crimes trial on Monday of two generals indicted for atrocities against rebel Serbs, seen as a test case for the judiciary in the European Union candidate country.

Dressed in dark suits and ties, Mirko Norac and Rahim Ademi -- an ethnic Albanian -- pleaded not guilty to six charges, including failure to prevent killings, torturing prisoners of war and destroying their property.

The two appeared edgy and nervous at the start of the trial, which western and human rights officials will watch closely to see how far Croatia has come in its ability to handle such cases from its recent past.

There were no protests outside the courthouse in downtown Zagreb -- in stark contrast to violent demonstrations by thousands of war veterans and nationalists after the arrest of Norac for another war crime in 2001.

Norac and Ademi have been charged with commanding troops who killed some 30 Serb civilians and prisoners of war during a swift incursion into the so-called Medak pocket in southern Croatia in September 1993.

The government troops, helped by heavy artillery, quickly drove out the Serbs and retreated, leaving behind scorched earth and dead bodies, to be found by United Nations peacekeepers.

The case was first investigated by the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, which forwarded it to the local judiciary. So far, it is the only case the tribunal has handed over to Zagreb.

KILLING AND PLUNDER

Croatia fought a 1991-95 independence war against rebel Serbs backed by Belgrade, during which government troops or militia sometimes killed Serbs and plundered their property with impunity. Such cases were rarely tried.

The trial will hold nine hearings before the summer break, with witness testimonies scheduled only from September. Prosecutors plan to call 137 witnesses, including 34 witnesses whose identity will be protected. That might take almost a year.

Norac is already serving a 12-year sentence over the deaths in 1991 of some 50 Serb civilians in the frontline town of Gospic, where he was in charge of defences.

Ademi, who surrendered voluntarily to the Hague tribunal, was not jailed while awaiting trial, but must not leave his residence, talk to the press or influence witnesses.

Croatia, which started processing its own war crimes after reformers first took power in 2000, hopes to join the European Union around 2010.

But it must first step up the pace of reforms in public administration and the judiciary -- which has a huge backlog and is seen by most Croatians as too slow and corrupt.

Serbia May “Trade” Mladic for Concessions in Kosovo
BIRN
By Aleksandar Vasovic
June 19, 2007

Belgrade is increasingly convinced it can extract important international concessions over Kosovo and EU accession for the handover of top war-crimes suspects to the Hague tribunal.

Serbia feels the wind is in its sails following the release of a favourable report to the UN on Monday on Serbia’s cooperation with the international war crimes tribunal for former Yugoslavia, ICTY.

A high-ranking Serbian government official who spoke on condition of anonymity said it was increasingly clear that “Mladic is still an asset”.

The official added: “We can get him and hand him over easily but only when we get Kosovo-related assurances from major powers, specifying what Serbia and Kosovo Serbs will receive in return.”

On Monday, Carla del Ponte, the chief prosecutor at the ICTY, said she had seen “general progress in Serbia’s level of cooperation with the international tribunal” ever since the country’s new coalition government took office last month.

The report to the UN follows the arrest of two key war-crimes suspects in less than a month, Bosnian Serb General Zdravko Tolimir, a close aide to the top war-crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic, and Serbia’s former police general, Vlastimir Djordjevic.

In her report, Del Ponte singled out Serbia’s role in helping to arrest General Tolimir on June 1 and General Djordjevic on Sunday.

It was not all undiluted praise. Del Ponte also criticized Serbia (and Bosnia and Herzegovina) for lacking the political will to apprehend the two top wanted suspects, Mladic and his political partner, Radovan Karadzic.

“We believe that these fugitives are currently in Serbia or within Serbia’s reach,” she said, acknowledging that the tribunal had no information on Karadzic’s whereabouts.

The Dutch-based tribunal has indicted Karadzic and Mladic for orchestrating the 1995 killing of some 8,000 ethnic Muslims in the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica, Europe’s worst massacre since the Second World War, and for laying siege to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo and other atrocities during the 1992-1995 conflict.

State security agents say the whereabouts of Mladic are more or less an open secret and that his detention remains a purely political question.

“We are closing on him and if we get the clearance from the top, the closure of the operation might be a matter of days,” a state security agent told Balkan Insight on condition of anonymity.

The same source insisted that the arrest would be “a mere technical matter” and that “political will is determining everything”.

The security agent added: “Some people at the very top still are very reluctant [to arrest him] despite all incentives, and others, also from the top, believe Mladic is still an asset, rather than a liability.”

Meanwhile, Rasim Ljajic, minister responsible for coordinating the arrest of war criminals, recently said security forces were “focused on the location” of Mladic and two other important suspects, Goran Hadzic, a former leader of the Croatian Serbs, and Stojan Zupljanin, a wartime Bosnian Serb police commander.

“The search for war crimes fugitives is more intense than three months ago,” Ljajic said. “We are making steps in the right direction… coming closer to fulfilling our obligations toward The Hague tribunal.”

The arrest of Tolimir has already brought Serbia important rewards. The EU has resumed talks on a Stabilization and Association Agreement, SAA, which Brussels suspended last year over the government’s inability to apprehend Mladic.

Now there are moves on the part of some European countries to offer Serbia a 120-day extension to talks on the future of Kosovo – delaying the dreaded onset of Kosovo’s formal independence.

Both issues are of critical importance for Serbia, which sees its long-term future within the EU and NATO but is deeply reluctant to concede the final lost of Kosovo, even though it has had no control over the province since 1999. Moreover, Russia, a veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council, supports Belgrade in opposing Kosovo’s independence.

Analysts say Belgrade now hopes to use the arrest of key remaining war crimes fugitives as a bargaining chip for getting more international concessions over Kosovo.

James Lyon, a Belgrade-based analyst of the International Crisis Group think-tank, said that Mladic’s arrest was “a part of the Kosovo game… He is a bargaining chip.”

On Monday, del Ponte greatly alarmed Kosovo Albanians by publicly calling for a delay to an immediate decision on Kosovo’s independence in the interests of the Hague court.

“It [a UN status resolution] could interfere with [Serbia’s] cooperation with us,” she said. “It would be better if the decision on Kosovo is not coming out now.”

While some Serb officials take a pragmatic view of the price they can expect to extract for Mladic’s hand-over, analysts say that others more straightforwardly oppose surrendering a national hero.

Zoran Cirjakovic, an analyst with the Belgrade-based weekly NIN, said that “some circles in Serbia are still helping out Mladic for ideological reasons”.

“It is quite clear that the government is serious about its intentions to arrest Mladic but that it cannot deal with Mladic’s popularity,” Cirjakovic told Balkan Insight.

The commentator said a difference needed to be drawn between Milosevic and Karadzic who had “discredited themselves before their own nations for various reasons including alleged frauds and embezzling people’s money” and Mladic who was increasingly “a part of national mythology” - a soldier who never backed down before foreign oppressors.

Graffiti hailing Mladic’s heroic exploits is a frequent sight in Serbia while T-shirts with Mladic’s photograph and musical CDs praising his wartime career are openly sold at traditional summer fairs in most villages.

Biljana Kovacevic Vuco, of the Belgrade-based Committee of Lawyers for Human Rights watchdog, said the government’s fear of the public reacting badly to Mladic’s detention had forced the authorities into adopting “a schizophrenic policy”.

“They want to complete their cooperation with the Hague tribunal, but at the same time to show Serbia has nothing to do with it,” she told Balkan Insight.

According to official statements from both Serbian and Bosnian police, Tolimir was arrested at a border crossing on Bosnian soil.
But the Serbian media and opposition politicians have alleged that Tolimir was in fact apprehended in Belgrade and then handed over to the Bosnian Serb police.

Djordjevic was arrested by Montenegrin police in the resort of Budva. But on Tuesday, the Serbian media alleged that the arrest was the fruit of a concerted effort by Serbian, Montenegrin and Russian state security agencies.

Kovacevic Vuco said Serbia’s fear of being publicly identified with the arrest of war-crime suspects showed “nothing has changed in Serbia’s system of values” since the wartime years.

“No one would dare to go public and say we will arrest Mladic because he is a war criminal, but [only] because it suits us on our path to Europe,” she said.

Ov?ara war crimes trial continues
B92
21 June 2007

BELGRADE -- The trial against those suspected of committing war crimes in Vukovar in 1991, continues in Belgrade today.

Three witnesses will take the stand during today’s proceedings. The retrial is being conducted against 17 persons indicted for the alleged execution of 200 Croatian prisoners at the Ov?ara farm.

The first verdict was reversed by the Supreme Court and the process was restarted.

Commader of the Vukovar Territorial Defense Miroljub Vujovi?, his deputy Stanko Vujanovi?, commander of the “Leva Supoderica” volunteer unit Milan Lan?užanin and territorial army personnel Predrag Milojevi?, Predrag Dragovi?, ?or?e Šoši?, Miroslav ?ankovi?, Ivan Atanasijevi? and Saša Radak received 20 year jail sentences.

Vujo Zlatar, Milan Vojinovi? and Jovica Peri? were sentenced to 15 years in prison, while Predrag Madžarac was given a 12 year sentence.

The only female among the indicted, Nada Kalaba, received a nine year sentence and Goran Mugoša was sentenced to five years.

Indictees Marko Ljuboja and Slobodan Kati? were freed of the charges of participating in executions that took place on November 20-21, 1991.

All of the indictees pled not guilty to the war crimes charges at the restart of the trial on March 13, 2007.

Former VRS soldier moves Hague judge
B92
June 21, 2007

THE HAGUE -- General Dragomir Miloševi?’s trial at the Hague Tribunal heard testimony from a former Bosnian Serb Army (VRS) soldier.

Predrag Carki?, who fought in the VRS Sarajevo-Romanija Corps, testified about the battle of Pofali?i and his detention in the Sarajevo Central Prison, in what Judge Robinson dubbed “one of the most moving” testimonies he had heard so far.

As Carki? described in his examination-in-chief, he was issued the first weapon at the roadblocks near the School of Economics in Sarajevo.

He had gone there to demonstrate against the murder of a Serbian guest at a wedding in Baš?aršija in May 1992.

After that, he and about 200 to 300 of his neighbors took their families to Pale and went back to Pofali?i to “defend our homes.”

The battle of Pofali?i, on May 16, 1992, is marked by the Bosnian Army as the day when it prevented the city from being divided in two and from being overrun by the enemy.

The witness described it as the struggle of “unarmed Serb people” against the Muslims from Sandžak who “killed 63 men” before his eyes.

He claims there were no JNA troops in Pofali?i, contrary to what the prosecution is alleging.

The witness then recounted how he had been captured on that same day and taken to the Sarajevo Central Prison, where he had been beaten with “wooden and iron rods.”

He told the court he had glass and salt shoved into his mouth. He was exchanged on May 28, 1992, and then volunteered to join the VRS.

On June 1, 1992, he was deployed on the “defense” lines at Strojerad at Grbavica, where he spent the entire war “shooting at all those who shot at me.”

Presiding Judge Patrick Robinson called his testimony one of the most moving he had heard in the past eight and a half years of his tenure at the international war crimes tribunal.

The court already heard, during the prosecution case, a number of victims of the terror campaign General Miloševi? is charged with, including the mothers whose children, aged six or seven, were killed by snip