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)

Groups Ready Court Briefs Following Tribunal Announcement
VOA Khmer
By Mean Veasna
September 4, 2007

A day after the pre-trial chamber announced it would accept auxiliary briefs in the case of Tuol Sleng prison chief Duch, civic groups say they will submit documents to the tribunal courts on whether he should stay in jail ahead of his trial.

Groups or individuals now have less than 30 days to submit their "friends of the court" briefs to the pre-trial chamber of the tribunal in Duch's case.

Duch has been held without trial since 1999, and the pre-trial chamber's first task will be to rule on the legality of his detention in tribunal's case against him. He was charged with crimes against humanity in July and turned over to the tribunal from the custody of the military courts.

Several former Tuol Sleng prisoners and an opposition party member said Wednesday they would not file, while other community leaders praised the announcement that the public would have some degree of participation in the trials of former Khmer Rouge leaders.

"We must rely on the legal experts, and we are waiting to see what the public has to say about Duch," said Seng Theary, head of the Center for Social Development.

Sok Samoeun, Cambodian Defender's Project director, said his organization was considering whether they would submit a brief or not.

Cambodia can 'terminate' genocide tribunal if ex-king prosecuted: official
The Jurist
By Caitlin Price
September 3, 2007

A Cambodian cabinet minister has said that the Cambodian government could "terminate" the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) if it "illegally" attempts to charge former King Norodom Sihanouk [official website; BBC News profile] with crimes committed during the Communist Khmer Rouge's control of Democratic Kampuchea [BBC News backgrounder] from 1975-79, according to Cambodia Daily [media website] Monday. Sihanouk was the symbolic head of state for the regime of Pol Pot until he was forced out of office in 1976. Information Minister Khieu Kanharith said that because the ECCC operates under Cambodian law [text as amended 2005, PDF], it may be disbanded if it attempts to violate the immunity granted to Norodom Sihanouk by Article 7, Paragraph 3 of the Cambodian constitution [text]. The now-retired king resumed office again in 1993 and then stepped down in 2004 in favor of his son; he has not been questioned or investigated by the ECCC, but last month a letter from the US-based rights group Cambodian Action Committee for Justice and Equality called for Sihanouk's immunity to be stripped so that he could be charged. The government immediately issued a statement rejecting the idea [People's Daily Online report], emphasizing that the issue was "clearly and definitively excluded at the time of the former king's retirement." The People's Daily has more.

The UN-backed ECCC was established in 2001 to investigate and try those responsible for the Cambodian genocide that occurred between 1975-1979 and resulted in the deaths of approximately one-third of the Cambodian population. To date, no top Khmer Rouge officials have faced trial. Last month, the ECCC brought its first charges against Kaing Khek Iev, better known as "Duch", who was in charge of the notorious S-21 prison in Phnom Penh.

Photographers claim foreigners killed in Pol Pot's prison
Earth Times
September 12, 2007

Phnom Penh – Although 79 foreigners and hundreds more Vietnamese prisoners of war are known to have died in Pol Pot’s secret prison, the real toll is even grimmer, two former photographers from S-21 claimed this week. From his present provincial home south of the capital, former photographer Nim Im, charged with documenting in pictures the thousands of prisoners who were tortured or killed at S-21 or Toul Sleng, remembered a New Zealander, a Cuban, a Swiss, their Thai boat driver and more who he says may have simply disappeared from the records.

“There were a lot. I particularly remember the Cuban. It was 1977. He had a camera and they seized it. He was young. He had a beard. They took him from the sea,” Im says. “Mostly I remember he looked sad. Just sad, not screaming ... he was killed and burned.”

Also known as Nim Kimsreang, Im, 55, was believed by many, including Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC Cam) director Youk Chhang, to be dead. Instead, he was serving a jail sentence for beating a neighbour to death in 1997 and has just been released.

DC Cam’s painstaking records show one New Zealand victim in 1978, as well as US, Australians, Lao, French, Thais, a Javanese and Indians. However, no Cubans or Swiss nationals are recorded, though historians admit some records are missing or incomplete.

Im’s claims and his recollections of life at the former high school converted into one of the most notorious prisons in the world by the Khmer Rouge during its 1975-79 Democratic Kampuchea rule sheds new light on life in the capital under the insular regime.

They may also give some families closure who have wondered what happened to their disappeared for three decades.

Nim Im’s former colleague Nhem En corroborated Im’s claims that more foreigners disappeared, apparently without trace, inside S-21.

“I believe not all the documents were left. I remember the group of foreigners in 1977. They were seized off the coast with a detailed map and cameras. There was a Thai with them too,” Em says.

At his home in an interview this week, Im oolly detailed how the documentation at S-21 became more sophisticated and the consequences of passing through its gates more dire as the regime progressed.

“In 1977 we didn’t hang plaques around most of their necks. We just photographed them. Later, we documented them much more carefully. In 1977, many, many of them were sent to jail in Prey Sar if Duch decided they had no mistake. Later, more came, and more had mistakes,” Im says.

Duch, alias Kang Kech Iev, was the commandant of S-21. He has been formally charged with crimes against humanity by the 56-million-dollar joint UN-Cambodia Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia which has been set up to try a handful of surviving leaders and is expected to face court next year.

Historian and author of Voices from S-21, David Chandler, has estimated around 14,000 people were processed at the prison. Only a handful of survivors remain.

But Im remembers his revolution differently to the thousands who died after entering S-21 and the million or so more who were starved or worked to death around the country. He lived beside one of Phnom Penh’s main markets, Psar Thmei, and a stroll from a bakery which provided fresh pastries and rolls for the elite.

He went to work by bicycle or motorbike. “Most days you would only see one car,” he remembers. After work, he would take dinner and go home to his apartment.

Up to 2 million Cambodians died during the Democratic Kampuchea regime of starvation, disease, overwork, torture or execution. Im, who served in a provincial village militia before becoming a photographer and whose Phnom Penh base was ironically titled the International Photo Shop, claims he saw none of the crimes against humanity.

The ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge virtually emptied the cities and sent millions to the fields in an attempt to turn the country into an agrarian utopia.

Im says he doesn’t have any opinion on the regime now. He remembers Duch as a man who, like himself, followed orders and did what he was told. From whom he says he doesn’t know.

But he does recall the strange foreigners at S-21. He says he still remembers them, even if the documents that prove they were once there have disappeared. “A lot of people disappeared,” he shrugs.

Cambodian royal shirks Khmer Rouge trials
Asia Times Online
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
September 12, 2007

BANGKOK - Cambodia's colorful former king Norodom Sihanouk has emerged as the central figure in the latest controversy to plague the special tribunal established to prosecute the surviving members of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime.

The 85-year-old royal, who has carved a name for himself as a man who relishes the spotlight, has waded into the dispute in his own inimitable way. He chose to reveal his thoughts on the question that has gripped Phnom Penh: whether Sihanouk should or should not be called to appear before the United Nations-backed war-crimes trial.

On August 30 he made his first thrust by issuing an unusual invitation to the UN officials associated with the tribunal, including its international spokesman, Peter Foster, to visit the palace for a conversation on "the affairs of the Khmer Rouge and Sihanouk". The method of communicating the invitation was typical Sihanouk: it was posted on the personal website that he maintains. The rendezvous in the royal court was set for September 8 and scheduled to last for three hours.

Sihanouk - who stepped down as monarch in October 2004 in favor of his son, Norodom Sihamoni - took the liberty on the Web posting to reveal how he views the Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia (ECCC), as the tribunal is officially called.

"After this [meeting] it will no longer be necessary for me to present myself before the UN's ECCC," Sihanouk stated in his invitation. And if the UN officials failed to show up, he noted, he "will not accept to see, speak or correspond with the UN's ECCC".

As was expected, the UN officials did not participate in this royal conversation on the tribunal.

"I was not authorized to participate in this meeting, nor were other UN officials," Foster said during an interview from Phnom Penh. "We responded by saying that only the judges involved in the trial will be able to determine who will be a witness. The judges will do so based on procedural rules."

But like a character from a Shakespearean drama, Sihanouk continued to protest. In standing up for his cause, the former monarch ''complained that the ECCC wanted him to 'take an oath to tell the truth [and] nothing but the truth on the subject of arch-criminals'", the English-language Phnom Penh Post newspaper reported last Friday. "'I do not have to swear an oath after [the one I swore] with Buddha, to debase myself to take an oath in front of the ECCC.'"

Those familiar with Sihanouk's penchant for grand gestures and a life peppered with drama are hardly surprised by this latest offering. After being crowned monarch in 1941 at the tender age of 18 years, he abdicated twice, served as king twice, held the post of prime minister twice and served as president once. His record in the world of the arts and entertainment has been as varied, dabbling as a filmmaker, songwriter, painter, saxophonist and crooner of ballads.

What is equally well known is the link Sihanouk maintained with the Khmer Rouge, which was responsible for an orgy of death from 1975, when it took control of Cambodia after a prolonged battle with a pro-American puppet regime in Phnom Penh, to 1979. The extreme Maoist group killed close to 1.7 million Cambodians, nearly a quarter of the country's population at the time. The victims were executed or died from forced labor or starvation as the Khmer Rouge tried to turn the country into an agrarian utopia.

Sihanouk himself lost family members to the Khmer Rouge and was kept under house arrest by the genocidal regime between 1976 and 1979. Yet against those details are the roles he played in the four years up to the Khmer Rouge triumph in 1975 - urging the Cambodian people to join the group, in addition to serving as the head of state for the regime in the first year it held power. And when the Khmer Rouge was driven from power by invading Vietnamese troops, Sihanouk fled to the forests with the ousted rulers and took on a new role as the global defender of the regime-in-exile.

It is this phase of Sihanouk's life that has been brought into focus and raised the possibility of him going before the ECCC, which officially began work this July after long delays and hurdles placed in its way, including regular challenges posed by Prime Minister Hun Sen.

The push to get Sihanouk to appear before the ECCC was triggered by a relatively unknown non-governmental organization based in the United States, the Cambodian Action Committee for Justice and Equity. Late last month, it made a request to authorities in Phnom Penh to strip Sihanouk of his immunity as a former monarch so he could be called before the tribunal.

The Hun Sen administration rose to Sihanouk's defense by delivering a harsh rebuke. The prime minister called the request to strip Sihanouk "very barbaric" and one that "could have the result of jeopardizing the peace and unity" of the country. But rights groups questioned the government's motives, arguing that war-ravaged Cambodia's quest to create a society governed by the rules of law and justice will be undermined if the former monarch is placed above the law and insulated from the ECCC.

"This could set a bad precedent, since the ECCC is expected to set new and high standards of justice for Cambodia," said Lao Mong Hay, senior researcher on Cambodia at the Asian Human Rights Commission, a regional rights lobby. "The request does not mean he has to face trial as a defendant or as an accused, but it is to remove an unconstitutional clause in the constitution and make the former king available if the judges need him to appear.

"This is very important for the trial, since many Cambodians who lost family want to know about the past - how and why the Khmer Rouge pursued their murderous policies," Lao Mong Hay said. "It is a chance for the former king to clear his name if he did nothing wrong. And he has been on the record in the past saying that he would be willing to face the trial like the former Khmer Rouge leaders."

Revisiting the genocide: For immigrants, Cambodian tribunal awakens painful memories
Boston Globe
By Russell Contreras
September 13, 2007

ACTON - Mention the Khmer Rouge and Thida Loeung stops speaking. The 42-year-old Cambodian-American looks away and takes deep breaths before she can talk about the dark abyss in her motherland's history when an estimated 1.7 million people were killed by mass execution and starvation under the extreme regime of tyrant Pol Pot.

Her father, Houry Loeung, was one of them. After he starved to death, Thida Loeung, then a teenager, and her family were forced to flee their decimated homeland, ending up eventually as refugees in Lowell. And although it's been a quarter of a century, Loeung, who now lives in Acton, still has trouble revisiting that experience.
"It's hard for me to talk about it, even today," she said.

But for Cambodians everywhere, including the thousands who have settled in this area, the past has come back. A genocide tribunal in Cambodia is now targeting former Khmer Rouge leaders accused of crimes against humanity during Pol Pot's reign from 1975 to 1979. So far, the judges have indicted one of five suspects, "Duch," or Kaing Guek Eav. He was the head of the communist Khmer Rouge's S-21 prison and torture center, investigators allege. The others have not been named publicly and remain free.

The prosecution of the five former leaders - Pol Pot died in 1998 - has grabbed international headlines and the attention of human rights advocates as the United Nations-based tribunal attempts to bring to justice those who may have been involved in an investigation that already has seen many delays and turns.

For many Cambodians in this area, though, the subject of the trial is painful and rarely discussed, said Vong Ros, executive director of the Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association in Lowell, a city with an estimated Cambodian population of 30,000.

"Cambodians don't get excited about it because they'll have to relive it," Ros said. "We're not celebrating to find out who is responsible for our displacement."

Loeung, for one, isn't following the case closely. But her husband is. George Chigas, a visiting political science professor at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell and a scholar of Cambodian literature, reads news out of Phnom Penh, sends out updates via e-mail, and lectures about the day-to-day happenings of the court proceedings 10,000 miles away and decades in the making.

The 49-year-old professor and poet, who grew up in a Lowell Greek-American family, said that the prosecution of Pol Pot's lieutenants is being met with skepticism and distrust by Cambodians because they are occurring some 30 years after the start of the Khmer Rouge regime. That's very different from the South African and Rwandan reconciliation trials that occurred soon after the end of the brutal regimes in those nations.

"There's a huge gap in time," Chigas said. "That really complicates the response to these trials. People have become cynical about there being some sort of real legal response. People are a little wary about getting personally invested."

Still, Chigas said that there is hope among Cambodians that the trials might bring to light some acknowledgement by the world of what happened.

A study published two years ago in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that nearly all Cambodian immigrants had suffered trauma before reaching the United States. The study also found that 99 percent came close to death from starvation and 90 percent reported knowing a family member or friend who was killed.

During the Khmer Rouge's reign, around a quarter of the population died, with most buried in mass graves.
"There were no formal funerals," Chigas said. "There was no public display of acknowledgement that this person died for this reason and is buried in this place. Having that unfinished business of the funeral hanging on for 30 years makes it something that people feel needs to be done."

Chigas said the closest analogy would be like not having the many memorials and funerals held to remember and honor the victims of the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. After the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the public memorials allowed families to put the event in context and place.

"That place doesn't exist for the family members of people who died in these mass graves," Chigas said. "The trials will almost function as a kind of state- and international-sponsored funeral. It will put a name and place to those who died."
Chhan D. Touch, a nurse practitioner at the Lowell Community Health Center-Metta Health Center, agreed.
"It's a history of Cambodia that needs to be closed," said Touch, who is on Chigas's e-mail list and follows the tribunal's proceedings daily. "This has to take place so we can stop hurting each other."

Touch said his center treats many Cambodians who still suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder or have a mental health issue. He said some have come in recently asking for general information about the tribunal while others just don't want to talk about it.

"It's something we have to come to terms with," Touch said. "Many of us are still angry, and don't even know why."

Russell Contreras can be reached at rcontreras@globe.com.

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Central African Republic

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

Rights Group Wants EU Troops to Protect Civilians in Central African Republic
VOA News
By Kari Barber
September 14, 2007

As the European Union moves forward with plans to deploy several thousand troops to the Central African Republic and neighboring Chad, rights group Human Rights Watch is calling for the force to focus on protecting civilians in CAR who it says are being attacked by rebels and government troops. Kari Barber has this report from VOA's West and Central Africa bureau in Dakar.

While most of the up to 4,000 EU troops to be deployed in the coming months will be operating in Chad, Human Rights Watch says the forces must also protect civilians in the Central African Republic.

The group says government troops in northern CAR have been terrorizing civilians over the past two years, killing hundreds and burning down villages in an anti-insurgency effort against rebel movements.
CAR officials have not responded to these accusations.

Olivier Bercault with the emergencies program at Human Rights Watch in Paris was in CAR investigating earlier this year. He says hundreds of thousands of refugees have been displaced, further destabilizing an already tumultuous region.

"The villages are located on main roads, so when you are going through these villages that have been attacked they are totally destroyed, burned down," he said. "The problem is that it triggers a big displacement of civilians while living in dire conditions."
Central African Republic borders Chad and Sudan, where the Darfur conflict has left hundreds of thousands dead and millions displaced.

Bercault says the CAR government of President Francois Bozize needs to take control over its army before the country is plunged into a more serious conflict.

"We hope that the government will be able to bring those who committed abuses to court and to be able to reform the regular army of the country," he said.

Of the EU deployment, a few hundred troops are expected to be based in CAR. A large U.N. force is already operating in the Darfur region in efforts to prevent the fighting from spilling over into other areas.

Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies analyst Paul Simon Hendy says though CAR's conflict is exacerbated by the war in Darfur, it will be important for international forces to recognize the unrest has local roots.

"The whole international community should ensure that military troops sent there are not just dealing with part of the conflict," he explained. "This conflict has to be considered in its totality. That means in its transnational character, but also considering the national character of each crisis. Because if we just consider the conflict in CAR and in Chad as a spillover of the Darfur conflict, then we miss the point."

The United Nations has confirmed child soldiers are among the ranks of the rebel groups fighting in CAR, one of the poorest nations in the world. Rebels, who have not been clear about their demands, have been staging attacks in the north since 2006.

Central African Republic: Tens of Thousands Uprooted By Violence in North
All Africa
September 14, 2006

Increased violence has driven tens of thousands of people from their homes in the north of the Central African Republic (CAR) near the border with Chad, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said today.

Some 12,000 people - the entire population of the area between the towns of Markounda and Silambi - have been uprooted, according to UN Humanitarian Coordinator for CAR Toby Lanzer.

Civilians have been caught in fighting between various armed groups, including both State and non-State factions from CAR and neighbouring Chad, in recent months. Late last month, it was reported that the population had escaped the violence into the bush.

The UN expressed concern for the 12,000 living along the Markounda-Silambi axis, approximately 500 kilometres north of the capital Bangui. In July, less than half of that number of people was displaced in the area, but now the entire population of the axis has been forced to flee their homes.

"Conditions are abominable - marked by constant driving rain and night-time temperatures dipping to 15 degrees Celsius," said Mr. Lanzer, who led a UN mission to the area from 7 to 10 September. "All this comes at the height of the lean season, when people are at the end of their ropes."

These internally displaced persons (IDPs) have no shelter, safe water, health care or basic necessities such as cooking utensils and soap, and a marked increase in acute respiratory infections has been reported among the displaced.

"We are approaching the harvest in the coming weeks, and people need to get to their fields. If not, hunger will inevitably follow," said UN Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes, who called for all parties in the country's north to create an atmosphere conducive to the IDPs returning home.

The UN and its partners' $83 million appeal to assist those in need is only half funded, and Mr. Holmes, who also serves as Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, is considering allocating Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) resources to the CAR.

Appealing for increased assistance, the UN highlighted the limited capacity of local authorities to protect and help those impacted.

In the past 18 months, nearly 300,000 people have been uprooted from their homes because of conflict within the CAR's borders, and problems in both Chad and the Darfur region of Sudan threaten to further destabilize the situation in northern CAR.

The International Community has the duty to protect civilians
FIDH
September 14, 2007

On the occasion of the Global Day for Darfur, on 16 September, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and its member and partner organisations, affirm their solidarity with the populations of Sudan, Chad and Central African Republic who are victims of the current conflict and urge the international community to respect its duty to protect them.

Since 2003, Darfur has been set ablaze by armed conflict between the Sudanese authorities, its Janjaweed militia and rebel movements, leading to the death of nearly 200,000 people. The conflict is characterised by grave violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, the criminals benefiting from complete impunity. The civilian population is victim of indiscriminate air bombings, of killings, rapes, torture, systematic looting, considered by the UN as war crimes and crimes against humanity. In nearly five years of fighting, almost two million people have been forcibly displaced and some 250,000 Sudanese civilians have had to take refuge in Chad and the Central African Republic. Recent attacks against the personnel of humanitarian organisations and the African Union (AU) forces impede assistance to civilian populations.

The Darfur conflict has had grave consequences on the security situation in the neighboring countries. Rebels from Chad and Central African Republic have taken advantage of the conflict to launch attacks from Western Sudan. The Janjaweed incursion on the Chadian territory and the exacerbation of inter-ethnic rivalry have lead to the internal displacement of close to 170,000 persons, a humanitarian catastrophe.

Following a long period of inertia condemned by our organisations, the international community, through the UN Security Council, finally decided to deploy a hybrid African Union-United Nations force to Darfur, called upon the International Criminal Court (ICC) to fight impunity of perpetrators of the most serious crimes committed in the region. The UN is now supporting the political negotiations for a peace agreement. However, in view of the refusal of the Sudanese authorities to respect their international obligations, the international community must remain vigilant and take strong action for the resolution of the conflict, in accordance with international law.

Our organisations call upon,
The Sudanese authorities and Sudanese rebels
To establish an effective ceasefire and stop all attacks against civilians, humanitarian organisations and the AMIS forces ;
To abide by the joint AU-UN Road Map for Darfur Political Process, dated 8 June 2007 ;

The Sudanese authorities
To facilitate the immediate operationalisation of the UN-AU hybrid force ; to abide by Tripoli and Riad agreements signed by Sudan and Chad, by stopping all support to the Chadian rebels in Sudan and by conducting a disarmament programme ;
To stop all support to the Janjaweed militia, disarming them, and proposing a social reintegration programme ;
To facilitate the movement of humanitarian organisations ;
To facilitate the voluntary return of Sudanese refugees and displaced persons ;
To take all effective measures to combat impunity for the most serious crimes by the national courts, working in a complementary manner to that of the International Criminal Court ;
To implement fully the recommendations of the Group of Experts on Darfur created by the United Nations Human Rights Council ;
To cooperate fully with all the services of the International Criminal Court, in particular by transferring Ahmad Muhammad Haroun and Ali Muhammad Al Abd-Al-Rahan (alias Ali Kushayb) suspected of war crime and crim against humanity for whom international arrest warrants were issued on 27 April 2007 ;

The International Community
To support fully the immediate deployment of the a hybrid African Union-United Nations force to Darfur, pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 1769 ;
To advocate for before the United Nations Security Council and the European Union to deploy urgently an international intervention force to Eastern Chad, with a mandate to protect refugees and displaced persons, as well as civilians living at the Darfur border and to facilitate safe movement of humanitarian organisations ;
To urge the United Nations Security Council to deploy urgently a UN police force to Eastern Chad to support the European Union force

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Democratic Republic of the Congo (ICC)

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

DRC: Concern as Violence Causes More Displacement
IRIN via www.alertnet.org
September 3, 2007

NAIROBI, 3 September 2007 (IRIN) - The UN Refugee Agency has expressed concern over the plight of thousands of civilians forced to flee worsening tension and fighting in North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on 3 September that an inter-agency team had, the day before, met groups of displaced people fleeing from Rubaya and villages in Masisi district walking towards Sake and Mugunga, where there is a site for internally displaced persons (IDPs), about 15km west of Goma.

"They had a few belongings packed in bundles. Mugunga IDP site, which had some 9,000 people at the beginning of August, continues to receive a daily trickle of new arrivals. According to the site leader, himself an IDP, this figure may have doubled in the past three weeks," UNHCR noted in a statement.

The agency said that in Masisi district, an estimated 2,000 newly displaced people had sought shelter around a school building in the centre of Mushake village. Some of the displaced had moved in with their cattle, it added. The displaced lacked blankets and there were concerns they were vulnerable to disease.

Another school close to Mugunga was already hosting an estimated 600 newly displaced people by the end of last week.

"There are fears that more displaced people may be trapped in areas inaccessible to humanitarian agencies. Some of the IDPs have reported … rape and killings of civilians by armed men", according to the UNHCR, whose teams found unaccompanied children among the displaced, as well as parents desperately looking for their children.

The number of people newly displaced because of frequent outbreaks of violence in North Kivu has risen to more than 180,000 and continues to rise, according to UNHCR.
"UNHCR remains concerned that the pursuit of a military solution to the problems in North Kivu would plunge the province into a humanitarian crisis with a potential displacement of hundreds of thousands of Congolese. UNHCR hopes that the current problems in North Kivu can still be resolved through negotiations," the statement continued.

Violence between armed groups and the national army or clashes between rival militias in North Kivu have exacerbated the humanitarian crisis in the war-torn region in recent years. Civilians were often targeted by armed groups fighting each other.
The latest outbreak of fighting has pitted the national army against fighters loyal to dissident General Laurent Nkunda.

Call for More Ituri Warlords to Face Trial
IWPR
By David Rupiny
September 3, 2007

Local activists argue that justice will not be served if only one man is prosecuted for the bloodbath in eastern Congo.

Kodjo Singa could not have foreseen the scale of the bloodshed that would ensue when, in the late Nineties, he attempted to evict farmers of the Lendu people from land he claimed as his own.

Singa’s move against thousands of farmers in the Djugu district of Ituri region in the northeast corner of the vast Democratic Republic of the Congo, DRC, triggered a conflict involving his own Hema ethnic group, their Lendu neighbours and many others that led to the loss of more than 60,000 lives and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people in a province with an estimated population of four million.

News of the ferocious fighting was slow to emerge from Ituri, a densely-forested and under-developed region. As the scale of the bloodbath became clearer, the International Criminal Court, ICC, in The Hague began focusing on the roles of some of the key players in the carnage.

To date, the ICC has issued one indictment in DRC, against Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, one-time leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots, UPC, a Hema militia active in this complex civil war.

Lubanga was arrested by the DRC authorities and placed in custody in Kinshasa following the killing in February 2005 of nine Bangladeshi United Nations peacekeepers in the Ituri region. The ICC issued an arrest warrant against him in February 2006, accusing him of conscripting children under the age of 15 to fight as guerrilla soldiers with the UPC.

He was transferred to The Hague in March 2006, and is currently awaiting trial. Human rights groups have campaigned for the charges to be widened to encompass crimes of sexual violence, for which they say there is evidence.

Lubanga is the only wanted person whom the ICC has managed to apprehend in its first five years of work.

The geopolitics of northeastern DRC are fluid and of tortuous complexity.

After Mobutu Sese Seko was deposed as dictator in 1997, a power vacuum was created across what was then Zaire, since renamed DRC. That created fertile ground for myriad political, social, economic, ethnic and military interest-groups to jostle for power, especially in the backwood tracts of a country the size of Western Europe.

Despite its size, DRC has only 500 kilometres of tarred road, and no road or rail links at all through the more than 2,000 kilometres of dense rainforest that lies between the capital Kinshasa in the far west and the neglected “wild east” of which Ituri is part.

Soon after Laurent Kabila toppled Mobutu in 1997 and seized power, he fell out with his backers, Uganda and Rwanda. Both of these countries then embarked on a new war, conducted via local proxies, in a bid to oust him.

In the east of the country, Kabila was opposed from 1998 by the Congolese Rally for Democracy, RCD. By the following year, the diverging interests of Uganda and Rwanda led to this group splitting into the RCD-Kisangani, supported by Kampala, and the Kigali-backed RCD-Goma. To complicate matters further, the former group subsequently divided into a faction led by Ernest Wamba dia Wamba and another renamed the RCD-Movement for Liberation, RCD-ML and headed by Mbusa Nyamwisi, now a minister in the DRC government.

It was while RCD-Kisangani was in control of Ituri that the Hema-Lendu conflict erupted, after Wamba dia Wamba – backed by Uganda – appointed a Hema, Adele Mugisa Lotsove, as provincial governor.

The presence of a fellow-Hema as governor of Ituri was one of the factors that encouraged Kodjo Singa to stake his land claim in April 1999 and seek to evict thousands of Lendu residents he now regarded as squatters.

Another important factor was a land law dating back to 1973 that legalised private ownership and made it possible for the political elite to claim lands previously classed as “vacant”. What exactly Mobutu’s government had meant by “vacant” was never entirely clear, but the Congo’s tiny privileged elite used the ambiguity to good effect. They laid claim to lands long regarded as ancestral holdings, and after two years’ owneship they had the right to remove people who happened to be living there.

Another factor in Singa’s favour was that Zaire’s former Belgian rulers had always given the Hema priority access to education and employment within the local colonial administration and the mining industry.

The Belgians introduced the racial myth that the Hema were intellectually superior to their neighbours, in much the same way as they fostered the idea of the pre-eminence of the Tutsis over the Hutus in Rwanda. The Hema found themselves in a favoured position after independence in 1960, as Mobutu continued the policy of supporting their dominance of economic and political affairs in the region.

In Rwanda, the Belgian’ divide-and-rule policies were to lead eventually to the Rwandan genocide in 1994, in which Hutu extremists targeted Tutsis. The same was to happen in Ituri in the late Nineties.

In contrast to the traditional pastoralist Hema, the Lendu are agricultural farmers. Those living on the land claimed by Singa said they had been there since time immemorial. The dispute became the flashpoint for the Lendus’ century-old resentment of discrimination. Declaring that they must fight to stop the seizure of their farmlands, they rose up in arms.

“Increasingly, the pattern was one by which wealthy Hema landowners-cum-businessmen brought in the Ugandan army to fight alongside Hema militias,” said Johan Pottier, an expert on Rwanda and DRC who is professor of anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. “Lendu militias then retaliated with mass murder.”

By August 1999, some 5,000 people, both Lendu and Hema, had met violent deaths. The conflagration also engulfed the many other ethnic groups living in Ituri.

During the first intense wave of killings and reprisals between 1999 and 2002, the conflict went largely unreported, and the little that was known about it was scarcely understood by much of the international community.

Meanwhile, protagonists on both sides committed acts of violence on a huge scale with impunity. The New York-based watchdog Human Watch Right has collected testimony relating the brutality with which civilians were targeted, mutilated and killed.

Jacques Nobirabo, a political activist who belongs to the Babira ethnic group in the Bunia area, argues that the Ituri conflict was symptomatic of the failure of the entire Congolese state.

“It’s no secret to any one that our country lost its statehood since 1997 and it is… far from regaining it,” Nobirabo told IWPR.

Nobirabo’s home was destroyed by Lendu militiamen and most of his relations were killed because he supported Wamba dia Wamba’s faction.

In this war of many players, the conflict gradually polarised into a showdown involving Lubanga’s Hema-dominated UPC, the Alur-dominated Congolese Popular Army, the Lendu-led Nationalist Integrationist Front and Jerome Kakwavu’s Armed Forces for the Pacification of Congo, as well as other groups.

At present, a tenuous peace is in place and the United Nations is monitoring a disarmament and demobilisation programme for the various paramilitary groups. Members of the last three formations to make peace with the government have reportedly been surrendering their weapons in recent weeks.

Many problems remain yet to be resolved before the peace takes hold. According to Nobirabo, “The Ituri players don’t yet agree on whether the country should prioritise peace or justice; or general amnesty; or peace-general amnesty; or peace-justice; or justice-partial amnesty.”

But Nobirabo asserts that unlike these local leaders, the civilian population does have a common view on the question of justice – he says people want all those accused of crimes of war to go on trial “at all costs” and “regardless of who did what or what they are today”.

Nobirabo said it was right that Lubanga should be tried by the ICC, but there are many “big men” who participated in the Ituri bloodbath and subsequently did political deals with Kinshasa in exchange for peace. Some are now members of government institutions.

“They have achieved impunity and will not face justice for their villainy. The people are barely able to swallow these things,” he said.

Putting such individuals on trial would be “in line with the population’s will and with calls for international justice,” said Nobirabo. “Thomas Lubanga simply appeared to be more notorious than the rest at the time.”

Nobirabo said many other figures should follow Lubanga to The Hague if the international community is truly determined to bring justice to the people of Ituri and the DRC.

In addition, he said, the ICC should also be pursuing those external actors who sponsored the conflict, whom he described as “several big international names… who dealt in arms, lootings, dubious business contracts, war strategies, fighters’ training and so forth”.

Under its founding statute, the ICC cannot investigate war crimes or crimes against humanity committed prior to 2002. Since the Ituri conflict began in 1998, Nobirabo argues that the ICC’s mandate is too restricted to achieve any kind of closure.

He would therefore like to see the establishment of a special, United Nations-run criminal tribunal for DRC with a wider remit making it “able to cater for the big number of suspected criminals pointed out by the population”.

“It’s important to investigate cases dating as far back as 1997 when the uprising against Mobutu started,” said Nobirabo. “To achieve real justice, crimes from at least ten years back need to be investigated, and that’s why we need a targeted United Nations criminal tribunal.”

He warned that failure to act against the long list of alleged war criminals in Ituri could lead to another cycle of armed violence.

In interviews with people in Ituri, this IWPR contributor was told the names of many politicians and militia commanders who they believed should be brought before either the ICC or the kind of tribunal Nobirabo is proposing. In addition, they also pointed the finger at senior figures in the Ugandan military, which has been accused of training some of the DRC militia groups and plundering Ituri of gold and other natural resources.

Louis Omirambe, a Congolese journalist in Mahagi, a trading town on the border with Uganda’s northwestern Arua province, agrees that DRC needs its own special court because of the ICC’s limitations.

He said that despite last year’s internationally hailed presidential and parliamentary elections in DRC, Ituri cannot move on from the conflict until the issue of justice is addressed squarely, without glossing over past crimes for the sake of political expediency.

“There are so many crimes that have been committed in Ituri that it will be disastrous if they are all left out and not taken to the ICC, in the name of national unity,” he said.

“The fact is that these players have politicised all the crimes they committed, and now they are in the military, in politics, in the economy and even in the judiciary, influencing a lot of happenings in the country.”

David Rupiny is an IWPR contributor.

ICC may move Lubanga war crimes trial to DR Congo
The Jurist
By Leslie Schulman
September 4, 2007

[JURIST] The International Criminal Court (ICC) is investigating whether to move the war crimes trial of Congolese militia leader Thomas Lubanga to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), ICC judge Adrian Fulford said Tuesday. The announcement was made at pretrial hearings held at the ICC at The Hague, and comes more than a month after the ICC initially expressed a desire to have the trial moved to the DRC. Fulford has said that, despite security concerns, he believed that the trial should be moved from The Hague to the DRC because it would resonate more with the people of that country if they could witness it first-hand. The trial is not expected to commence before the end of 2007.

The International Criminal Court confirmed war crimes charges against Lubanga in January, making him the first ICC defendant to face trial. As founder of the militant Union of Patriotic Congolese, Lubanga is accused of enlisting child soldiers [in the Democratic Republic of Congo's violence-plagued Ituri district.

UN Humanitarian Affairs chief meets Congolese, aid officials in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
United Nations office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs via Relief Web
September 4, 2007

In Kinshasa today, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Mr. John Holmes, met with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, with whom he discussed the current situation in Kivus, the protection of civilians, and sexual violence. The Minister of Foreign Affairs reiterated his willingness to help resolve administrative issues as required. The ERC also met United Nations agencies, with whom he discussed the major humanitarian challenges confronting the country. Earlier in the day, he met the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC), with whom he discussed the current situation in the country and the need to support local and national institutions. With the International Committee of the Red Cross/Red Crescent and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), he emphasized the need for protection of civilians in the country. He is also scheduled to meet various donor representatives.

On 5 September, the ERC is scheduled to meet Congolese government officials and also travel to Bukavu in South Kivu. Later in his mission, he is scheduled to travel to North Kivu. He will visit camps for displaced persons (mainly made up of women and children), centres for children formerly associated with armed groups and health centres specialized in caring for victims of sexual violence.

The ERC arrived in the DRC on Monday, 3 September. In his mission, Mr. Holmes will focus on issues including sexual violence, the fight against impunity, protection of civilians, assistance to internally displaced persons, and the implementation of humanitarian reform.

Today more than one million people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have become internally displaced due to insecurity created by armed confrontations and the presence of armed groups. The majority of the displaced are in the provinces of North Kivu (640,000) and South Kivu (266,000) and the District of Ituri (152,000) in Province Orientale. In North Kivu, since the beginning of this year, as many as 224,000 people have been displaced. Another factor that further unsettled the region has been the initiation, in January this year, of a new reintegration process (“mixage”) of armed groups into the Congolese armed forces (FARDC). The current level of extreme insecurity in certain areas has significantly reduced humanitarian access, meaning that thousands of vulnerable civilians in need are not getting the help they require.

Mr. Holmes' mission to the DRC constitutes the first since his nomination as UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator on 3 January 2007. In this capacity he has already visited Darfur in Sudan, Chad, the Central African Republic, Somalia, Kenya, and Sri Lanka. His mission to the DRC will end on Saturday, 8 September, when he is scheduled to leave Goma for Nairobi, Kenya.

Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC): Escalating Violence in North-Kivu Deepens Risk of Mass Ethnic Killings
Amnesty International
September 10, 2007

In the wake of recent intense fighting in North-Kivu province between government forces and fighters loyal to renegade general Laurent Nkunda, Amnesty International today accused the DRC government and international community of having failed the people of eastern DRC.

"Despite peace agreements, landmark national elections, and the continued deployment of more than 17,000 UN peacekeepers, the people of the Kivus have known no end to the conflict that has blighted their lives for more than a decade," said Erwin van der Borght, Director of Amnesty International's Africa Programme.

The organization warned of a growing danger that the violence could develop into a renewal of mass ethnic killings and other human rights abuses. Amnesty International is receiving reports from those fleeing the fighting of rapes and killings of civilians. Recruitment and use of children by armed groups in the Kivus has continued.

Amnesty International called on all forces involved in the fighting to respect international human rights and humanitarian law, stop attacking civilians and allow humanitarian access to all civilians caught up in the violence. MONUC should prioritize protection of civilian life over providing support to DRC government military operations

The organization also called on the Rwandan government to act immediately to stop the recruitment on its territory of individuals, including children, as fighters for Laurent Nkunda's forces, and to comply with the UN arms embargo by ensuring that no military equipment crosses its frontier into the DRC.

"Reports that the Rwandan government is, at the very least, conniving in the supply of manpower, arms and ammunition to an alleged war criminal like Laurent Nkunda are deeply worrying," said van der Borght.

Amnesty International believes that the continued violence in eastern DRC stems directly from the failure by the government and international community to tackle entrenched impunity for human rights crimes.

"An international warrant for the arrest of Laurent Nkunda was issued nearly two years ago -- if it had been acted on, we might not be seeing the terrible violations we are seeing today," said van der Borght. "There must now be clear international, DRC and Rwandan government commitment and collaboration to bring him to justice."

"The DRC government has rewarded other alleged war criminals with senior command positions in its army. There can be little confidence that the government army will ever be capable of protecting civilians professionally and impartially as long as no action is taken to remove these individuals from their positions and bring them to justice. The international community, which is providing considerable financial and technical assistance to the country's security sector reform programme, should be insisting on this."

Background
Fighting between the DRC army and Laurent Nkunda's forces has been ongoing for more than a week in the Masisi and Rutshuru territories of North-Kivu. A fragile cease-fire has been negotiated but may not hold. More than 40,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in recent days, adding to the more than 200,000 displaced by insecurity in the province since the beginning of the year.

Laurent Nkunda, a former senior RCD-Goma officer, is accused of having committed war crimes including in Kisangani in 2002 and Bukavu in 2004. He is the subject of an international arrest warrant issued by the DRC government in September 2005. The UN has accused him of breaking the arms embargo on DRC. To date, no DRC government or UN operation has been initiated to arrest him. He has been able to move freely in parts of North-Kivu province and Rwanda.

Laurent Nkunda claims that his forces are protecting the province’s ethnic Tutsi population from attacks by the Rwandan insurgent armed group, the FDLR (Forces Démocratiques de Libération du
Rwanda). He accuses the DRC government making insufficient effort to dislodge the FDLR from eastern DRC. The FDLR has also been responsible for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the DRC.

The DRC government has pursued a policy of appointing to command positions in the government army and police force individuals who are suspected of involvement in war crimes, crimes against humanity and other grave human rights abuses. Such crimes include ethnic massacres, the widespread recruitment and use of child soldiers, mass rape and torture.

In late 2006 the government reached an agreement with Laurent Nkunda allowing for the deployment in North-Kivu of "mixed brigades" composed jointly of Nkunda's fighters and regular government soldiers. A supposed confidence-building measure, the mixed brigades were instead responsible for numerous human rights violations and served only to deepen the insecurity and humanitarian crisis in the province.

In June and July 2007 UN investigators reported that fighters for Laurent Nkunda's forces had been recruited in Rwanda by "networks sympathetic to Nkunda." Many of the recruits were children.

Nkunda revolt stokes ethnic hatred in east Congo
Reuters
By Joe Bavier
September 11, 2007

MUGUNGA, Congo, Sept 11 (Reuters) - When Congolese Tutsi fighters led by a renegade general attacked the eastern town of Sake last week, 35-year-old Mutoka Kakomire and thousands more non-Tutsis fled with whatever he could carry.
"It was war ... They want to kill us," he said.

Kakomire fled to the safety of government lines before a U.N.-brokered truce halted the clashes that threatened once again to tear apart the volatile mix of ethnic groups living in east Democratic Republic of Congo.

Human rights groups fear the latest violence, whose origins lie in neighbouring Rwanda's 1994 genocide and Congo's own 1998-2003 war, will polarise communities among tribal lines and lead to even more ethnic slaughter.

The shaky ceasefire in North Kivu province between Congo's government army and Tutsi soldiers loyal to rebel General Laurent Nkunda appeared to be holding this week after nearly two weeks of fighting that killed dozens on both sides.

But analysts fear the absence of political negotiations means it could easily flare again, threatening to touch off wider conflict in a Great Lakes region that is a tinderbox of wars, border disputes and ethnic hatred.

"The big problem of significance right now is the increase of ethnic tensions," Anneke Van Woudenberg, a Congo researcher with New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), told Reuters.

"This current situation is only feeding it even more. And it's dangerous for the long term," she added.

Nkunda says he is fighting to protect his Tutsi people in east Congo against attacks by largely Hutu Rwandan FDLR rebels accused of involvement in Rwanda's 1994 genocide, in which 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slain.

Rwanda has pressed Congo's President Joseph Kabila to expel the rebel FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda), who backed Kinshasa during the most recent war.

Nkunda accuses Kabila's government of directly supporting the FDLR insurgents, who are blamed for repeated murders and rapes across eastern Congo.

MANIPULATION AND DISCRIMINATION
"Nkunda's alleged defensive acts on behalf of the Tutsis have actually fanned the flames of anti-Tutsi hatred, even though his own community sees him as a protector," said Jason Stearns, an independent analyst of central Africa.

"But ... there are individuals on both sides manipulating these ethnic tensions for their personal ambitions," he added.

At Kichanga, on the rebel side of the North Kivu battleground, several hundred recently displaced Tutsis have fled to one of Nkunda's principle strongholds.

Eugenie Muronunkwere and her five children left their home last week in fear of an assault by the FDLR.

"Nkunda's troops protect us. The government soldiers are only there to rob us. They discriminate against us," she said.

U.K.-based Amnesty International warned the recent violence could spawn fresh ethnic massacres and other abuses and said it was already receiving reports of rapes and killings of civilians and renewed recruitment of child soldiers.

A Rwandan-brokered peace deal signed by Nkunda with Kabila's government in January began reintegrating thousands of his Tutsi fighters into special mixed brigades of the national army. It was hoped this would help to pacify North Kivu after Congo's nationwide elections last year, which Kabila won.

But the brigades dominated by Nkunda's Tutsis unleashed a campaign of terror against civilians they suspected of collaborating with their old enemy, the FDLR.
When Congolese army commanders announced the suspension of operations against the FDLR last month, intending to replace the mixed brigades with regular army forces, Nkunda's soldiers deserted in droves and went back to the bush with their weapons.
"Inevitably, if you've got ethnic groups self-selecting where they are going to live, its only going to create more land disputes, more ethnic hatred in an area where weapons are still buried in the back yard," Van Woudenberg said.

UN says three mass graves found in east Congo
Internationals Herald Tribune via The Associated Press
September 14, 2007

KINSHASA, Congo: Three mass graves have been discovered in an eastern Congo area formerly controlled by a rebel warlord that has been the scene of recent clashes, the United Nations said Friday.

Maj. Gabriel De Brosses, a spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping force in Congo, said the graves were found Monday in Rubare, a village about 65 kilometers (40 miles) north of the regional capital, Goma.

Few details were available. De Brosses did not know how many bodies had been found or who killed the victims.

Rubare was controlled by fighters loyal to former army Gen. Laurent Nkunda until earlier this month, when clashes broke out in the region between Nkunda's men and the army. Nkunda left the army several years ago and now commands thousands of his own combatants in the area

Michel Bonnardeaux, a spokesman for the U.N. mission in Congo, said the graves were found by residents, who reported them to U.N. officials.

The region has been the scene of fighting between the army and militias loyal to Nkunda, who commands thousands of combatants in the area. Clashes eased over the last week, but the area remains tense.

The U.N. food agency said Friday it had delivered emergency food rations to about 35,000 people at a camp at Mugunga, just north of Goma.

But "poor security has severely limited access beyond Mugunga to the worst-affected areas," including parts of Masisi district, where "at least 7,000 people are believed to be living in the bush in urgent need of food," the U.N. World Food Program said.

"Across the east, the situation is getting worse every day for innocent civilians caught up in this conflict," said the agency's Congo director, Charles Vincent. "There are too many we are currently unable to reach."

Tens of thousands of people have fled the latest round of violence, bringing the total number of displaced in the eastern provinces of North and South Kivu from years of conflict to nearly 1 million, WFP said.

Once controlled by rival rebel factions who eventually signed a peace deal in 2002 to end a four-year war, Congo's east has been wracked by fighting between local militias, renegade soldiers and the army for years.

In a bid for calm, President Joseph Kabila called on fighters loyal Nkunda to join the national army, warning that the government would no longer tolerate militias and needed to re-establish its authority over the lawless, far-flung east.

Referring to Nkunda's army, Kabila said Thursday: "We will keep up the pressure, diplomatically and politically, and we will also continue to build the capacity of the army to contain them. The time has come to accept integration" into the national army.
Nkunda left the army and formed his own militia soon after Congo's war ended in 2002, claiming he needed to fight to protect ethnic Tutsis from Rwandan Hutu rebels who took refuge in east Congo following Rwanda's 1994 genocide.

In 2004, Nkunda briefly captured the city of Bukavu. His troops have been accused of torture and rape, and he is named in an international arrest warrant for war crimes.
Kabila's government has struggled — with little success — to establish authority over eastern regions thousands of kilometers (miles) from Kinshasa. Kabila has the backing of a U.N. peacekeeping mission that is the world's largest, with about 18,000 troops.

[back to contents]

Darfur, Sudan (ICC)

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

Keep Watch From Space
Inter Press Service
By Sabina Zaccaro
September 3, 2007

Rome

The use of satellite images earlier this year to document human rights violations in Darfur has strengthened interest in wider use of satellites for humanitarian purposes.

The project in Darfur, Sudan, by Google Earth, a virtual programme that maps the earth by superimposition of images obtained from satellite imagery, has brought a new dimension to public monitoring of abuses.

Satellites first showed their potential as human rights watchdogs when the U.S. State Department and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) started using images from free channels in 2004 to reveal the unfolding violence in Darfur. Before then, such images could only be tracked by military satellites.

But now such tracking has become open to the public. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum teamed up with Google's mapping service in April to track violence in the region. The initiative called 'Crisis in Darfur' lets Internet users look at more than 1,600 destroyed villages and towns in northeast Africa, pictured before and after attacks, and hear testimonies collected by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and other groups along the Chad border.

According to Google, the programme counts more than 200 million users.

Experts estimate that more than 200,000 people have been killed in this Sudanese region, and a reported 2.5 million displaced since the conflict started in 2003. Late July the UN Security Council passed a resolution establishing the world's largest peacekeeping mission in Darfur.

During the first phase of the conflict reports by relief agencies met denial by the government, and public scepticism. But now satellite images showing the true picture with dates leave no room for doubt.
The images have amplified the highlight on Darfur, though they may not help prevent attacks since the information is not presented in real time.

To track attacks as they happen, Amnesty International has launched its own web-based service in June called 'Eyes on Darfur', which uses satellite imagery to monitor 13 villages in Darfur and eastern Chad considered at risk. Users can zoom in on pictures of the villages and read accounts from residents who explain why they are at risk.

"Watching these sites in real time will enable us to document atrocities as they occur," said Ariela Blätter, director of Amnesty International's Crisis Prevention and Response Centre.

"Thanks to satellites," she says on the website, "human rights groups can now raise the alarm and mobilise millions of people even before governments admit that something worrying is occurring." Through this technology human rights organisations can extend their traditional role of monitoring violations to an unprecedented level, says Blätter.

After Darfur, the satellite eye is now monitoring Burma, following reports of attacks on civilians in the eastern part of the country. And Human Rights Watch has been able to show attacks on civilians in the Iraq war, and to demonstrate illegal demolition of Palestinian houses in the Gaza strip.

"This kind of technology helps us monitor crisis areas where events are often unpredictable," Alessandro Guarino at the Rome-based NGO Intersos told IPS. The NGO has been working in Sudan since 2004.

The Intersos satellite-based project focuses on displaced people rather than on human rights issues. It has developed a WebGis platform integrating the Geographic Information System (GIS) which looks at precise geographical data with the Internet to monitor the path of displaced persons to refugee camps.

Guarino said that the WebGis (GIS on Internet) interactive system "supplies the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in Sudan, the local authorities and NGOs with detailed information on the condition of 550 villages in southwestern Darfur and their habitants, updated in real time." The ultimate aim is refugees' gradual return home.
The information shows whether the villages are inhabited or destroyed, the availability of water, health points, the presence of relief personnel, schools, and the state of the fields.

Local organisations' access to online data is facilitated by the use of open source software.

The supportive role of satellite technology is emerging in a variety of successful projects focusing on war-affected populations. "Through the technical assistance of the European Space Agency (ESA), we also organise a two-hour weekly telemedicine consultation session between medical staff of the main hospital in Rome, the Policlinico Umberto I, and colleagues of the Children Welfare Teaching Hospital of Baghdad," Guarino told IPS.

This assistance helps in diagnosis and treatment in Iraqi hospitals deprived of diagnostic equipment. A similar e-health satellite bridge is being considered between the Regional Oncological Centre at the Fontem Hospital in Cameroon, and some Italian centres.

"Use of the bi-directional satellite communication system would allow diagnosis and treatment at a distance, particularly those related to cervical cancer, representing 70 percent of malignant gynaecological cases leading to death from cancer in Cameroon," Cesare Borin, Africa projects coordinator for Act Now Alliance, an international alliance of NGOs told IPS.

War crime suspect heads human rights inquiry
The Times (London)
By Rob Crilly
September 7, 2007

An indicted war criminal suspected of funding and arming Janjawid militias who have killed tens of thousands of civilians in Darfur is now leading an investigation into human rights abuses in the province.
His appointment by the Government of Sudan is seen by analysts as a deliberate snub to the West and its attempts to bring to justice those responsible for the slaughter.

It was announced as Ban Ki Moon, the the UN Secretary-General, who was in Sudan, and President Omar el-Bashir, announced that the Government would meet Darfur rebels for peace talks next month.

Human rights activists said that the appointment of Ahmed Haroun, wanted by the International Criminal Court for allegedly inciting Janjwid militias to kill civilians in Darfur, was the latest example of Khartoum thumbing its nose at the West. “The timing is no coincidence,” said Elizabeth Hodgkin, Sudan researcher with Amnesty International.

“It’s a snub to the UN, a snub to international justice. It means that those in the leadership of Sudan don’t care for justice and that impunity will continue for war crimes.” Mr Haroun was named this year by the ICC as a war crimes suspect. He is accused of recruiting, funding and arming Janjawid militia while Deputy Minister of the Interior in 2003 and 2004.

Prosecutors say that they have witness accounts of Mr Haroun ferrying guns and ammunition into Darfur in his own helicopter. The militias were used in a scorched earth policy against villages which were believed to back rebel movements.

More than 200,000 people have died and more than two million people have fled their homes during four-and-a-half years of fighting.

Since then Mr Haroun has been appointed junior minister of humanitarian affairs and jointly chairs a two-year-old commission monitoring security between Sudan’s north and south. Last weekend the commission’s remit was extended to cover allegations of human rights abuses committed anywhere in Sudan, including Darfur. An analyst in Khartoum, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “It’s an attempt to say to the ICC that the Government doesn’t need anyone else to prosecute war crimes ? we’ll do it our way.” The decision comes at a time of heightened diplomatic activity focused on speeding the deployment of a 26,000-strong international peace-keeping force.

Yesterday Mr Ban met Mr Bashir in Khartoum. Afterwards they issued a joint statement saying that a new round of peace talks would be held in Libya next month between government officials and rebel leaders. “The Government of Sudan pledges to contribute positively to secure the environment for the negotiations, fulfilling its commitment to a full cessation of hostilities in Darfur,” it said.

But Salih Mahmoud Osman, a Darfuri human rights lawyer and opposition MP, said that Mr Haroun’s new role was a clear indication that Khartoum was not serious about peace.

“This is a message to the victims of Darfur and the international community that the Government of Sudan is still intent on not cooperating or complying with their demands to seek peace,” he said by telephone from Khartoum.
In June the Sudanese Government agreed to the presence of UN peace-keepers in Darfur ? so long as they were part of a hybrid force with African Union soldiers. The agreement was hailed as a breakthrough in bringing order to the troubled region.

Since then security forces have rounded up opposition figures, expelled two Western diplomats and told the head of the aid agency Care that he was no longer welcome in Sudan.

Prosecutor points the finger of guilt; International Criminal Court counsel frustrated in his bid to bring Sudanese minister to The Hague
The Toronto Star
By Olivia Ward
September 9, 2007

Sudan has launched the second phase of a campaign against the people of Darfur, spearheaded by a wanted war crimes suspect, says the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor.

"Ahmad Haroun has to be removed, arrested and sent to The Hague," says Luis Moreno-Ocampo. "The system has to be dismantled. Otherwise, we are watching a new Rwanda."

Haroun is accused of directing systematic attacks on the people of Darfur while he was Sudan's minister of state for the interior in 2003 and '04, when some of the most serious atrocities were committed.

But Moreno-Ocampo says past atrocities are not his main concern.

"I'm worried about the current situation and I will be focusing on current crimes."

Haroun is now the secretary of state for humanitarian affairs, in charge of the camps where some 2 million desperate Darfurians sought refuge when they were forced out of their homes by pro-government militias.
Haroun has been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity, but no genocide charges have been laid against him – although the United States has used that term for the attacks on Darfur's people.

Moreno-Ocampo is in Toronto for screenings of the documentary film Darfur Now, in which he is featured as one of six people committed to ending the conflict that has become the worst of the 21st century.

Today at 5 p.m., he is to take part in a public forum on Darfur at the Isabel Bader Theatre, 91 Charles St. W., with panellists including actor Don Cheadle, director Ted Braun and producer Mark Jonathan Harris. The forum is part of the Toronto International Film Festival.

Moreno-Ocampo has conducted a two-year investigation of crimes committed in Darfur, where about 200,000 people have died and millions have been driven from their homes by Arab militias known as the janjaweed.
In May, the international court issued arrest warrants for Haroun and janjaweed leader Ali Kushayb, but Sudan has ridiculed the charges and refused to hand over the suspects.

It denies it ordered atrocities, claiming that it responded to rebel attacks, while war crimes were committed independently by the janjaweed.

"Haroun has been interrogated about the allegations and there is no case" Interior Minister Zubeir Bashir Taha told reporters. "The evidence does not stand scrutiny."

Last week, in what Human Rights Watch called "a stunning affront" to Darfur victims as well as the court, Khartoum nominated Haroun co-chair of Sudan's committee for investigating human rights complaints for Darfur.
Moreno-Ocampo says that assigning such a man humanitarian roles is more than a slap in the face to the rule of law.

"It's the continuation of the plan ... to corner these people. Basically, Haroun is there to control these people and those who have access to them. In the past year, the situation was worsening."

Moreno-Ocampo says attacks co-ordinated by Haroun forced millions into the camps, where "they live in really awful conditions, where women are raped and men are killed."

The 55-year-old Argentine – who helped prosecute generals responsible for the disappearance of some 30,000 people during his country's "dirty war" – says that in his two years of gathering testimony he was shaken by the Darfur witnesses' suffering.

"It was incredible. But they said: `I knew you would come. I knew one day you would call me.' They felt their duty was to provide testimony."

Among the stories he heard was that of a woman "who said they first killed her baby then they raped her."

And there was a man who said: "They forced me to see that they were raping my 8-year-old daughter.' This is the kind of pain they suffered."

In the case against Haroun, built from the testimonies of hundreds of witnesses, Moreno-Ocampo says he is convinced that the former security minister developed and implemented a campaign of violence against Darfurians with the help of local and state officials, and that he armed and incited the janjaweed to attack villages.

As Sudan denies the charges and ignores the court, Haroun travels freely through the ruined villages of Darfur in defiance of the prosecutor's warrant.

The United Nations Security Council asked the court to investigate the Darfur allegations in 2005 and it has the power to slap sanctions on Sudan if it fails to co-operate.

Moreno-Ocampo hopes world leaders meeting at UN headquarters in New York his month will step up the pressure for the surrender of Haroun.

"The court did its work, and there is a case," he says. "Now, to enforce the case requires a consistent approach from the international community."

Children Still Enduring Grave Human Rights Violations - UN Report
UN News Service (New York) via AllAfrica.com
September 13, 2007

Sudanese children continue to face grave violations of their human rights, from being recruited and used by armed forces and groups to suffering rape or sexually abuse at their hands, according to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's latest report on children and armed conflict in the African country.

Mr. Ban says the situation in general for Sudanese children "is showing small signs of improvement," but cases of killings, abductions and rapes are still being recorded and the ongoing conflict in the Darfur region means there is limited humanitarian access to children at risk.
The Secretary-General urges all the parties to the Darfur conflict - where more than 200,000 people have been killed and at least 2.2 million others made homeless - "to take concrete steps" to protect the rights of children in the war-torn and impoverished region on Sudan's western flank.

Given that, the report welcomes the action plan on child recruitment and reintegration that the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reached with the Minawi wing of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), the faction of the rebel group that signed the Darfur Peace Agreement with the Sudanese Government last year.

But he calls on the signatories to the agreement to carry it out immediately so that child soldiers can be released and allowed to reintegrate with their families.

In the report Mr. Ban voices deep concern that "sexual violence against women and girls continues with impunity throughout the country," and especially in Darfur, where rebel groups have been fighting Government forces and allied Janjaweed militia since 2003.

He calls on Khartoum to step up its efforts to enforce the rule of law, including by establishing child and women protection units within the police force and by training social workers and judicial officials.

In the south, where a comprehensive peace agreement in January 2005 ended a 21-year civil war, Mr. Ban says rights violations are more of an inter-communal nature, resulting from years of conflict and the consequent breakdown of the rule of law.

He urges both the Government of National Unity and the Government of Southern Sudan, which were formed following the peace accord, to end the recruitment and use of children in their armed forces in line with the provisions of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict - which Sudan has ratified.

The two Governments should also undertake an independent verification exercise with the support of UNICEF and the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) to assess and identify those children currently in the armed forces or their allied groups and to set up a regular monitoring system, Mr. Ban says.

He also reiterates previously expressed concerns that children continue to be systematically abducted or kidnapped in both the south and in Darfur, and urges the Government and armed groups to end that practice immediately.

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Uganda (ICC)

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

Ugandan Court for LRA Planned
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
By Bill Oketch
September 7, 2007

Kampala officials say final decision on court to be taken after consultations with rebel victims.

The Ugandan government is planning to establish a special war crimes court to try the top leaders of the northern Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Amy, LRA.

The court would function as an alternative to the International Criminal Court, ICC, which has indicted and issued arrest warrants against LRA leader Joseph Kony, his deputy Vincent Otti and three other senior commanders - Raska Lukwiya, Dominic Ongwen and Okot Odhiambo. Lukwiya, however, died in combat in 2006.

Dr Ruhakana Rugunda, Uganda’s home affairs minister, who is the lead government negotiator at peace talks in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, told IWPR that a final decision on the formation of a special court will be taken after consultations with victims of the 21-year civil war in northern Uganda.

“We have discussed this issue with legal experts - local and international - and there is a possibility of government forming a unique legal system designed to achieve lasting peace and accountability,” Dr Rugunda said at the end of a two-day meeting in the northern town of Lira on the accountability and reconciliation proposals in the provisional peace agreement.

Peace talks between the Ugandan government the LRA began in August 2006. At the end of June this year, government and LRA representatives put ink on a crucial draft protocol that would allow suspected war criminals to be tried under traditional tribal justice systems. While the protocol on Accountability and Reconciliation, the third of five items on the peace negotiators' agenda, proposed allowing LRA suspects to be tried under tribal procedures, it suggested that Ugandan army suspects could be tried under the formal justice system.

Both sides in the negotiations have taken leave until mid to late September to consult their constituents on the implementation mechanisms of their draft Accountability and Reconciliation agreement, which seems to sideline the ICC indictments. But Dr Rugunda said, "Those who think the ICC is a stumbling block are missing the point. We want the LRA to sign the peace agreement, be disarmed, come out of the bush and then the government will engage the ICC on the way forward."

The LRA leaders have been indicted by the ICC, based in The Hague, on 33 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including abduction, sexual enslavement, mutilation, the killing of civilians and forcibly using children as guerrilla fighters.

The LRA rebellion drove more than 1.7 million people into internal refugee camps throughout northern Uganda. Some 100,000 people have died and as many as 38,000 children have been abducted and forced to join the insurgents.

“We have decided to come up with a special court for certain individuals if the victims wish,” Dr Rugunda told IWPR. His team met several groups of war victims from Lira and also from the three other northern Ugandan districts, Gulu, Pader and Kitgum. The meeting was part of a two-week long consultative tour undertaken by the minister and his team to war-ravaged areas.

Teso and West Nile Districts are next on their itinerary. “While there we will be asking affected communities how best we can deal with the issue of accountability and reconciliation, including which laws we need to change,” said Dr Rugunda. “We’ll also ask what processes the LRA people must undergo to reconcile with those they harmed, and how we should manage victims and offenders.”

Richard Dicker, the international justice programme director at Human Rights Watch, has warned that “if [Uganda’s] national courts hand down a slap-on-the-wrist sentence in the event of convictions for the most serious crimes, it would simply not pass muster. Such trials would be tainted even if they were otherwise fair and credible”.

Dr Rugunda also said he had invited the LRA to join him in his programme of consultations in the north, but none from the rebel side had joined in. He added that ICC representatives were also closely monitoring the LRA-government peace negotiations.

The LRA, however, is carrying out parallel consultations in Ri– Kwangba, an interim base in southern Sudan, with hundreds of Ugandans who have been flown there.

The government has invited observers from the African Union, South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to witness the remainder of its consultations with victims of the northern war.

After these consultations have concluded, the parties are scheduled to return to Juba to conclude their work on accountability and reconciliation.

They will then debate agenda item four on establishing a permanent ceasefire to replace the current provisional ceasefire.

The last item on the five-point agenda is disarmament, demobilisation and re-integration of LRA guerrilla fighters.

Ceremony underlines Uganda peace
BBC News
By Sarah Grainger
September 11, 2007

A ceremony has taken place to mark the first closure of a camp for internally displaced people in northern Uganda.

Officials of Uganda's government, the UN's refugee agency (UNHCR) and diplomatic missions joined in as huts were destroyed at Otwal camp in Oyam.

At the height of the conflict between the government and Lord's Resistance Army rebels, more than 1.5 million people sought refuge across the north.

But security has improved since peace talks began more than a year ago.
Many people have now begun to return to their homes.

Camps emptying

Uganda's Minister of State for Disaster Preparedness, Relief and Refugees, Musa Ecweru, symbolically knocked down a hut with a pick and shovel.

Many of the dwellings in the camp are now empty - the UNHCR estimates that of the 12,000 people who used to live there, 90% have gone back to their villages.

The same is true in many of the camps in this district - 39 more are due to be closed by the end of 2007.
Peace talks between Lord's Resistance Army rebels and the government have brought a level of security in northern Uganda unseen for years.

At the height of the conflict, more than 1.5 million people were living in camps, herded there by the government to avoid attack by LRA rebels.

But the UNHCR says the number of people living in camps is now below one million.

There is no final agreement yet at the peace talks but Mr Ecweru says this is not a cause for concern.

"We have had to bend backwards to make sure that this peace is achieved and we are committed to seeing this peace becoming a reality," he said.

"But in this part of the country people have already gone home anyway, and we think we should build on that."
But the problems are not over for the people of northern Uganda.

Many here who have left the camps complain of a lack of basic necessities, such as access to clean drinking water and medical services.

And the road infrastructure across northern Uganda remains poor.

Uganda rebels say attack in Congo would invite war
Reuters
By Daniel Wallis
September 12, 2007

NAIROBI, Sept 12 (Reuters) - Any attack on Ugandan rebels based in eastern Congo will be an invitation for the group to resume its war in northern Uganda, the fugitive Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) said on Wednesday.
The LRA, whose leaders are wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, terrorised the north for 20 years. But they are now based in northeastern Congo and their representatives are in peace talks with the government.

On Tuesday, Uganda began closing camps for the 1.7 million people uprooted by the conflict. But an agreement this week between Uganda and Congo to stamp out militias plaguing eastern Congo, including the LRA, has infuriated the rebels.

"Any attack on our military positions ... shall be strictly treated as a declaration of war, resumption of war and above all an invitation to bring war back to Uganda," LRA spokesman Godfrey Ayoo told a news conference in Nairobi.

He said Saturday's deal between Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and his Congolese counterpart Joseph Kabila, which calls for action against the rebels within 90 days, violated the spirit of the ongoing peace talks in Juba, southern Sudan.

Ugandan government and military officials were not immediately available to comment, but in recent months they have questioned the LRA's military capacity to resume hostilities.

Under the deal between Museveni and Kabila, whose relations have often been fraught, the two countries will also review their borders and open embassies to boost diplomatic ties.

Uganda says LRA rebels should have quit Congo
Reuters
By Francis Kwera
September 13, 2007

KAMPALA, Sept 13 (Reuters) - The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) is violating the terms of a truce deal with Kampala by being in neighbouring Congo, Uganda's military said on Thursday after the rebels vowed to resume war in Uganda if attacked.

An agreement reached on Saturday between Uganda and neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) called for action to stamp out several militias plaguing eastern Congo, including the LRA, has infuriated the rebels.
The LRA, who fought a two-decade conflict in northern Uganda, said the agreement jeopardised peace talks under way with the Ugandan government and warned that any attack on them would be an invitation to war.

But Uganda's military spokesman, Major Felix Kulayigye, told Reuters that according to a cessation of hostilities deal reached at the peace talks, LRA fighters were meant to have left Congo months ago and assembled at Ri-Kwangba in southern Sudan.

"So they have no business worrying about the Arusha Agreement, which is about rebel groups in Congo," he said.
"If the LRA violates this truce we will hold it against them ... We are determined to defend the gains made in northern Uganda. We will not let that region slide back into insecurity."

Hopes for peace have been raised by more than a year of peace negotiations between LRA representatives and Ugandan officials in Juba, the capital of neighbouring south Sudan.
As calm returns to the north, Uganda's government began closing camps this week that once housed 1.7 million people uprooted by 20 years of fighting.

But the LRA, whose leaders are wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, was infuriated by the deal reached at the weekend in Arusha between Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni and his Congolese counterpart Joseph Kabila.

An LRA spokesman told a news conference in Nairobi that any attack on the group's military positions would be "strictly treated as a declaration of war, resumption of war and above all an invitation to bring war back to Uganda".

The LRA are just one of a number of shadowy guerrilla groups that have set up shop in lawless eastern Congo, which has long been a tinderbox of wars and ethnic conflicts. Uganda has invaded twice in the past saying it wanted to flush out rebels.

Uganda: Interahamwe Charged for Murder in Uganda
New Times (Kigali)
By Charles Kazooba
September 13, 2007

Two Interahamwe militias have been convicted for murder in western Uganda.
Interahamwe are the Hutu extremists who are largely blamed for the 1994 Rwanda Genocide, which claimed a million people.

The Masindi district Deputy Resident District Commissioner, Jack Odur Lutanywa, said the Chief Magistrate's court in Masindi convicted the two, and that they were serving their sentence.

Speaking from Kampala, the RDC, declined to name the convicts but said security had been trailing a number of suspected Interahamwe who were involved in a number of violent crime.

Lutanywa said suspected Interahamwe militias are usually hired for murder by local businessmen and politicians.
He said security in his district had been stepped up to counter the militias' activities.

Most of the Interahamwe are camped in eastern DR Congo, where they joined hands with members of the former Rwandan army, ex-Far, to form FDLR rebel group.

The Interahamwe have also infiltrated Kiryandongo refugee camp in western Uganda, from where they have committed murder and theft crimes against the local population, mostly Banyarwanda communities.

Lutanywa said a police post had been established in the vicinity of the camp, and a number of local vigilantes have been recruited to watch out for suspicious elements.

Refugee camps are usually under the direct authority of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.
The New Times has in the past reported the presence of Interahamwe in different refugee camps in western Uganda.

Meanwhile, Lutanywa revealed that Banyarwanda pastoralists, who were expelled from Apac by the district authorities, have joined their indigenous colleagues in Masindi.

He said 45 families started arriving from the northern part of the country across River Nile since early August, and that the latest group arrived on August 28.

Masindi borders Buliisa district where Banyarwanda pastoralists recently clashed with the local population over land.

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International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)

Official Website of the ICTY

ICTY: BiH Army Knew About Mujahedin Crimes
BIRN Justice Report
September 8, 2007

A former Mujahedin concludes testimony in the case of Rasim Delic with fresh revelations about the foreign fighters' actions during the war.

The Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina knew about the crimes committed by the Mujahedin but did nothing to punish them, a former Arab fighter in Bosnia said at the trial of general Rasim Delic on Saturday.

During the two-day session heard by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in Sarajevo, witness Ali Ahmed Ali Hamad spoke about the relationship between the Army of BiH and the Mujahedin fighters who came to Bosnia during the first year of the 1992-95 war.

General Rasim Delic is charged with command responsibility for crimes committed in central Bosnia over Croat and Serb civilians and soldiers.

On the second day of his testimony, Ali Hamad said that, "as far as he knews", the Army of BiH never undertook any actions to punish the Mujahedin or to prevent them from committing the crimes.

"It is impossible that the Army could not stop a small group of Mujaheeds," Ali Hamad said. "I am referring to the military and political leadership. We were accepted here in Bosnia although we did many bad things."

According to him, the Mujahedin had "protection and police immunity" in Bosnia.

Although the Mujahedin fought together with the Army of BiH, they never received orders from them, Ali Hamad said. This was because of preconditions set by Al-Qaeda leaders.

"We agreed to take part in military operations but only if we could be the commanders ... and only after the Al-Qaeda leaders approved the action," Ali Hamad said.

The witness confirmed that he was an Al-Qaeda member and that he voluntarily came to Bosnia having gone through training and after participating in the war in Afghanistan.

As he soon became a unit commander in Bosnia Ali Hamad claimed that he "informed his chiefs, and then also the Army of BiH commanders" about the attacks undertaken by his men.

Asked by the Trial Chamber if he was familiar with the Geneva Convention on the Laws and Practices of Warfare, the witness said that he "was not interested in it at the time".

"In the course of our training in Afghanistan, we rejected all those regulations. We pronounced them as ' tagut' regulations, which means they contradicted Islam. Al-Qaeda had its own rules that were contradictory to these regulations," Ali Hamad explained.

Defence council Vasvija Vidovic tried to discredit the witness by suggesting that he had slept with an underage girl at the beginning of the war. Ali Hamad denied this allegation.

Vidovic also tried to bring his identity in question suggestion that his real name was "Mr Abdali". At this point the witness said he was no longer "in a mood" to answer the questions. The defence did not insist on continuing the examination.

The trial of Rasim Delic will be continued in The Hague. This is the first time since the establishment of the tribunal that a witness has been examined outside the the ICTY's seat in The Hague.

Ali Hamad testified at a special session held at the Court of BiH as he was unable to travel to the Netherlands.

His visa request was denied because the witness is currently serving a 12-year sentence in Bosnia for involvement in a terrorist attack committed in Mostar in 1997.

Belgrade Trial Reopens Vukovar Case
Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR)
by Aleksandar Roknic in Belgrade
September 10, 2007

Retrial takes place against backdrop of a last year’s controversial decision to overturn guilty verdicts, which led some to question Belgrade’s commitment to trying war crimes.

The re-trial of 17 individuals indicted for the 1991 killings of 200 Croat prisoners at a farm near Vukovar has reignited the controversy over why the verdict of the first trial was overturned by Serbia’s Supreme Court.

The new trial opened in Belgrade on September 3.

The original trial, which ended almost two years ago, was annulled by Serbia’s Supreme Court in 2006, and a re-trial was ordered due to procedural flaws and discrepancies identified by judges.

Serbia’s War Crimes Prosecutor Bruno Vekaric has told IWPR that as the new trial opens, he remains concerned about the Supreme Court’s treatment of war crimes cases.

All the accused are Serbs who were serving in paramilitary groups and the Territorial Defence force, TO, of Vukovar when this town in Croatia was captured by the Yugoslav National Army, JNA, in late 1991. They are charged with killing Croat civilians and wounded soldiers taken from Vukovar hospital on November 20 that year when the town fell.

According to the indictment, the victims were executed at the Ovcara farm after JNA troops handed the prisoners over to the TO.

The first trial ended in December 2005, when judges at the War Crimes Chamber of Belgrade’s District Court sentenced 15 people to prison terms ranging from five to 20 years, and acquitted two other defendants.

The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the verdict a year and order a re-trial had a mixed reaction in Serbia. Some observers, including legal experts and non-government organisations, thought the Supreme Court made the right decision.

Others believed it was wrong because, in their view, the suspects did get a fair trial and the convictions were based on sound evidence. They said the decision raised doubts about Belgrade’s readiness to face up to its past and prosecute war crimes successfully.

War Crimes Prosecutor Vekaric says he hopes judges will confirm the previous verdict. However, he adds he remains worried about the Supreme Court’s tendency to overturn judgements handed down by lower courts.

“We are very concerned with the Supreme Court’s attitude towards war crimes, but I think the situation is improving,” said Vekaric. “It is very important that Serbian politicians send a clear message that war crimes trials are vital for reconciliation and for a better future for the Serbian people.”

Since 2003, Serbia’s Office of the Prosecutor has issued more than 15 indictments relating to alleged war crimes during the Balkans conflicts , and more than 20 cases are currently at the investigation phase. In addition, the Hague tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has sent Serbian prosecutors many documents relevant to local war crimes proceedings, although so far it has only referred one case to Serbian courts.

According to Andrej Nosov from the Youth Initiative for Human Rights, “Courts in Serbia are ready to process war crimes, but what is missing here is a positive atmosphere that would enable prosecutors and judges to investigate and prosecute all members of state institutions who are suspected of participating in these crimes.

“Unfortunately, there are still too many people in Serbia who enjoy impunity and lead normal lives despite their past.”

Nosov told IWPR that despite certain shortcomings, the original Ovcara case was “one of the best organised trials in Serbia to date”, and so the Supreme Court’s decision caused many negative reactions.

Nosov said he now expects prosecutors to use the re-trial to bring additional evidence to support some of the allegations from the indictment which they failed to prove the first time round.

Belgrade lawyer Dragoljub Todorovic from the Humanitarian Law Fund, a group that is representing the victims of Vukovar at this trial, told IWPR that the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the first verdict does not mean the judiciary is unprepared to handle war crime cases.

In fact, he said, the new trial may result in more severe sentences because prosecutors now have more evidence to support their case.

Ivan Jovanovic, legal adviser with the OSCE mission in Belgrade, believes war crimes trials taking place in Serbian courts are very important, because they can significantly contribute to reconciliation in the region and change this country’s perception of its recent past.

“When a historic record is established in domestic institutions, people are more likely to accept it - which is not always the case when those facts are served to them by some foreign court,” he sad.

The re-trial started last week with testimony from retired general Aleksandar Vasiljevic, who was in charge of security affairs in the JNA at the time of the events detailed in the indictment.

Vasiljevic told the court that he first heard about war crimes at Ovcara two months afterwards, in January 1993, when JNA officer Zjaje Murisa told him he had been sent to the area and had personally seen 186 prisoners held by the TO.

He said Murisa informed him that he heard gunshots coming from the farm, but left after receiving an order from his superiors to return to base.

Vasiljevic said he passed on this information to his own superiors in the JNA Security Command in 1994.

Also last week, Vasiljevic referred to Mile Mrksic and Veselin Sljivancanin, two of three men whose trial for the Vukovar killings ended in March 2007.

The tribunal is expected to pass judgement on Mrksic, Sljivancanin and Miroslav Radic later this year.

In the Belgrade courtroom, Vasiljevic said he asked Mrksic, former commander of the Vukovar Guard Unit, about events in Ovcara when he met him in 1997. Mkrsic replied, the witness said, by saying that it was the Territorial Defence who carried out the killings and that he would never have handed over the prisoners to them if he had known what they would do to them.

Vasiljevic also said he talked about the killings