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)

Cambodian tribunal rejects Khmer Rouge official's appeal against detention
Associated Press via The Irrawaddy
By Ker Munthit
March 20, 2008

Cambodia's genocide tribunal rejected an appeal Thursday by a former Khmer Rouge leader against his pre-trial detention on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

A five judge panel at the tribunal ruled that Nuon Chea, the Khmer Rouge's former ideologist, must remain in custody ahead of trials scheduled to begin later this year.

Nuon Chea, who has been detained since Sept. 19 by Cambodia's U.N.-backed court, is one of five former Khmer Rouge leaders in custody for their alleged involvement in the group's brutal 1975-79 rule.

The Khmer Rouge's radical policies caused the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people from starvation, diseases, overwork and execution.

The tribunal's investigating judges charged Nuon Chea last year with involvement in crimes including "murder, torture, imprisonment, persecution, extermination, deportation, forcible transfer, enslavement and other inhumane acts."

They said Nuon Chea faces life imprisonment if convicted and that the detention was necessary to prevent him from pressuring witnesses, destroying evidence and escaping.

Nuon Chea's own safety could also be at risk, if he were released, they said.

On Thursday, Judge Prak Kimsan upheld the detention order, saying, "The grounds for (Nuon Chea's) provisional detention still remain sufficient."

Nuon Chea, 81, did not show any reaction to the ruling. He yawned as the judges read out the facts and deliberations of the appeal.

After the ruling, two security guards helped Nuon Chea up from his seat. Walking with a cane, he was led back to his cell.

Nuon Chea's Cambodian lawyer, Son Arun, called the ruling "quite regretful" and expressed concern about his client's health.

He said he asked the court to provide counseling to check on Nuon Chea's state of mind "because he appears to have experienced some memory loses."

Nuon Chea has a history of heart trouble and "has only one kidney," his lawyer said.

Nuon Chea has denied any guilt. He has argued that the judges did not have sufficient grounds to detain him and called himself "a patriot and not a coward" trying to run away.

In December, the judges ruled against a similar appeal by Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, who headed the Khmer Rouge's notorious S-21 prison and torture center.

The other three defendants are Ieng Sary, the former Khmer Rouge foreign minister, his wife Ieng Thirith, who was the minister for social affairs, and Khieu Samphan, the former Khmer Rouge head of state.

A torturous road to nation-building
The International Herald Tribune
By Barbara Crossette
March 20, 2008

When the U.S. State Department's voluminous global human rights report appears each year, as it did last week, the temptation is to dive into the sections on hot-topic nations such as China, Iraq or, lately, Pakistan. Not a lot of readers would turn first to Cambodia. Yet this poor and psychologically wounded country is a prime object lesson in the perilous, unending business of nation-building. With a national election coming in July, Cambodia needs some attention well in advance.

In 1992-1993, the United Nations led a multimillion dollar effort to remake this Southeast Asian nation, which in barely two decades had been whipsawed into the American war in Indochina, brutalized by the Khmer Rouge and ground down and isolated by a Vietnamese occupation.

Fifteen years later, the country is among the world's most badly governed and politically corrupt. The State Department's report summarized it concisely: "Corruption was considered endemic and extended throughout all segments of society, including the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government." It is made all the worse, the report added, by a "culture of impunity."

Corruption is not just money; it is a corrosive mentality that debases national life in a country still not sure of itself. It deters aid and investment except by people from predictable (mostly Asian) nations who don't care - or who benefit from pervasive graft. But in a broader sense, what corruption has done to Cambodia is create a culture of easy wealth and casual lawlessness, a sad example to young people born into a broken society that was stripped of its intellectual middle class and Buddhist leadership under the Khmer Rouge.

Even the quality of architecture, scholarship, literature and the Khmer language has eroded. A measure of success nowadays is a garage full of late model Lexus SUVs and Toyota Land Cruisers, most of them acquired by government officials or their cronies at public expense.

Life in the graceful capital, Phnom Penh, is good. There are French restaurants and fine hotels that cosset tourists. But the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen, a crafty and uncompromising leader who was able to corner political and military power in the 1990s, abetted by misguided UN decisions, has no coherent social policies.

People in the countryside live perennially on the edge of hunger. The World Food Program is still feeding about 1.8 million of the country's 14 million people. Health services in rural areas are all but non-existent; unqualified midwives cause the maternal mortality rate to rank among the worst in Asia.

Corruption also threatens the credibility and indeed the future of a UN-backed tribunal designed to bring to trial, finally, some of the remaining Khmer Rouge leaders who terrorized the country and reduced it to human and physical ruin from April 1975 to January 1979. In tribunal custody are four top former Khmer Rouge officials: Nuon Chea, Brother Number 2 to Pol Pot, who died in 1998; Khieu Samphan, the former head of state; Ieng Sary, the foreign minister, and his wife, Ieng Thirith, who held, bizarrely, the portfolio of social affairs. Also in jail is the Khmer Rouge chief torturer, Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, the commandant of the notorious Tuol Sleng interrogation center, which is now a tourist attraction.

The tribunal, at the insistence of Hun Sen and against the wishes of UN legal officials, was designed not to be independent but a hybrid called the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. That has brought a corrupt judiciary and political patronage practices into a judicial process that distinguished and experienced international lawyers, prosecutors and judges struggle to keep on track.

The Cambodian government, reacting to outside reports detailing corrupt or questionable tribunal staffing, has refused to open an investigation of its own. Donors - most of all the United States, which pressed Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary general, to agree to a flawed tribunal - are withholding money needed to carry cases to their conclusion. Trials are expected to begin this year.

Many Cambodians distrust the tribunal, not only because they do not understand why any of those in custody deserve a day in court, but also because they suspect that political chicanery by the Hun Sen government, with its share of former Khmer Rouge figures, will see to it that the process is carefully controlled, or thwarted. Mindful of its own history, the government abjures the terms Khmer Rouge or Communist and labels the disaster that overtook the country simply the "Pol Pot regime" absolving itself of guilt.

The State Department noted in its current report that there do not appear to be any politically motivated killings or political prisoners in Cambodia. But the report does acknowledge, citing work by courageous Cambodian human rights groups, that abuses by the military and police, often in league with governing party officials, occur widely around the country. Journalists can attest to that. There is also vigilante justice in the absence of a judicial system that Cambodians can trust. The UN human rights office in Phnom Penh has documented brutal land seizures by the well connected that drive out thousands of poor farmers with no means of recourse. This is a major deterrent to rural development.

The corruption and violence in the countryside should be a warning. During the Khmer Rouge years, as discussion around the tribunal is making ever more evident, Cambodians suffered most at the hands of local zealots and barely thought about a national movement or knew its name. The level of horrors that killed about 1.7 million Cambodians - through slave labor, dislocation, disease, starvation and execution - varied from place to place. In the eyes of most Cambodians there was no central government then. There is little more now.

As the July election approaches, the governing Cambodian People's Party knows how to stage a vote that monitors will likely find reasonably fair. What visitors will not see is the maneuvering already under way to buy off potential opposition figures with government jobs or bring bogus charges against others, to sow dissent within and among what few independent political groups that survive, and to use the party's ubiquitous neighborhood committees to bring voters into line. This is not the democracy the world thought it had installed. Cambodia's nightmare is not over.

Cambodia's Khmer Rouge Tribunal Threatened By Funding Crisis
VOA News
By Rory Byrne
March 21, 2008

There are growing concerns that a lack of funds could threaten the future of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge tribunal, just months before the first trials are expected to begin. The burgeoning costs of the joint United Nations/Cambodian court have not been met with fresh funds from donor countries, which means that the long-awaited tribunal will run out of money by the end of April. Court officials however, are hopeful that the international community will come up with the millions of dollars needed to keep the court running. Rory Byrne reports for VOA from Phnom Penh.

Like a slow burning fuse, the threat to Cambodia's Khmer Rouge Tribunal has been building for months. The projected cost of the court has more than tripled from $56.3 million to about $170 million. At the same time, concerns about alleged mismanagement and corruption at the court have left donor countries slow to donate more money.

Helen Jarvis is a spokeswoman for the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, officially known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia.

"We are really down to a pretty tight situation because on the Cambodian side we expect the funds to run out at the end of April - on the international side some months later," she said. "And indeed, even when the Cambodian funds run out we can't expect that the court would operate only with international staff. After all we are a mixed-court, and in the courts of Cambodia we really need both sides. As our director says: a bird needs two wings to fly, and that certainly applies to us."

The Khmer Rouge Tribunal has struggled to raise donor funds from the beginning mainly because of concerns about political interference in the trials.

Some leading members of the current Cambodian government, including the prime minister Hun Sen, are themselves former Khmer Rouge members. However, Reach Sambath, the press officer for the tribunal, says the Cambodian government deserves credit for supporting the trials.

"In the beginning, they got bullets of accusations saying that [the] Cambodian side had no commitment to let this court move forward because many of them were former Khmer Rouge, but on the contrary, within four months the five suspects were brought to the court, and that is why we have to express our satisfaction with the commitment of the Cambodian side of the court," he said.

The funding shortfall comes at the same time as the projected cost of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal has skyrocketed.

According to court officials, the trials are now expected to take about five years - not the three years allocated for in the original budget.

Plus the tribunal belatedly set up a Victims Unit to allow thousands of victims of the Khmer Rouge to take part in the trials as civil parties. The cost of gathering and processing evidence from the large number of potential plaintiffs is expected to run into the millions of dollars.

In addition, the expansion of the role of the pre-trial chamber to include pre-trial appeals, plus the cost of translating thousands of documents into English, French and Khmer have worsened the court's money woes.

Evidence of the tribunal's predicament came last week, when the Cambodian side of the court told its 200-plus staff that they would not be paid beyond April.

To prevent the court from closing, court officials are urgently appealing to donors to pledge more money. Press Officer Reach Sambath.

"I think funds should be provided as urgently as possible because otherwise we don't want - and the Cambodian people - none of them want to see the defendants get free," Sambath said. "Because they waited for this chance [for] thirty years and now we don't want to see they are suffering more because there would be no budget and the court is going to close."

Almost two million people died under the Khmer Rouge's brutal 1975-1979 rule. Prosecuting those deemed 'most responsible' has taken decades.

For court officials, and for many Cambodians, the thought that the trials could collapse at this stage from a lack of funds is unimaginable. Court spokeswoman Helen Jarvis.

"We really can't imagine that we would close our doors in a month from now - I don't think anyone is really entertaining this possibility," Jarvis said. "I think it has been recognized that we have made substantial achievements, and our work is too important to just let go at this point."

Donor countries, known as the Group of Interested States, are scheduled to meet in New York on March 27. Court officials are hopeful that fresh funds will be pledged at that meeting, or shortly after.

Millions more requested to fund Khmer Rouge genocide trials
International Herald Tribune/Associated Press
March 24, 2008

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: Officials from Cambodia's U.N.-backed genocide tribunal traveled Monday to the United Nations in New York to request US$114 million (?74 million) in additional funds for trying the Khmer Rouge's surviving leaders.

The tribunal told donor countries in January it would need US$170 million (?110 million), a sharp increase from the originally budgeted US$56.3 million (?36.5 million).

A three-person delegation from the tribunal planned to answer questions about funding during meetings Thursday, said Helen Jarvis, the tribunal's chief spokeswoman.

The long-delayed trials are expected to start this year, but many fear the Khmer Rouge's aging leaders could die before facing justice.

The Khmer Rouge is accused of responsibility for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians during its 1975-1979 rule. So far, none of the regime's senior leaders has gone on trial.
The tribunal opened its offices in early 2006 after years of wrangling between the Cambodian government and the U.N. Trials were originally projected to end by 2009, but are now expected to run through March 2011.

The funds currently allotted for the tribunal are projected to run out by the end of this year, Jarvis has said. The tribunal's revised budget proposal says it needs more money to expand its services and nearly double its staff to some 530 to allow it to operate through March 2011.

"It's crucial (since) the deadline for continuing funding, especially on the Cambodian side, is very close," she said.

The tribunal's originally budgeted US$56.3 million (?36.5 million) was split into US$43 million (?28 million) for the U.N. and US$13.3 million (?8.6 million) for the Cambodian side.

But the situation has become somewhat critical for the Cambodian side as its operational funds will run out at the end of April. Jarvis said the US$13.3 million (?8.6 million) budgeted for Cambodia was still short US$4.9 million (?3.2 million).

Five former senior Khmer Rouge leaders are under detention awaiting trial. They have been charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The major donors to the tribunal so far are Japan, France, Germany, Britain and Australia.

Donors have called for reforms to address allegations of corruption and lack of transparency at the tribunal.

CAMBODIA: Locus Standi For Victims at Khmer Rouge Trials?
IPS
By Andrew Nette
March 25, 2008

Since the start of this year, a team of local researchers has been travelling the Cambodian countryside trying to revive two-decade old petitions in the hope they will form crucial evidence at the international tribunal into the crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge.

In the process they are also seeking to give a voice to those Cambodians whose lives were shattered when the Maoist guerrilla group took control of the country in 1975, and encouraging their participation in the Khmer Rouge tribunal currently underway in Phnom Penh.

In an international first, unlike similar tribunals, the internal rules of the tribunal allows victims to be parties to legal proceedings giving them in-principle rights that extend well beyond those afforded to victims in the International Criminal Court.

While many legal commentators and civil society groups in Cambodia are supportive of the inclusion of civil parties in the court’s proceedings, there are concerns it could bog down or even derail the tribunal, still in its pre-trail phase and already running significantly behind schedule.

One of many civil society groups working to publicise the tribunal and the rights of victims to participate is the Documentation Centre of Cambodia (DCCM), an organisation dedicated to studying and documenting the Khmer Rouge’s three and a half year rule.

It is focusing its efforts on the so-called "Renakse Petitions", a collection of stories signed or bearing the fingerprints of over a million victims of the Khmer Rouge, collected by officials from the Vietnamese-backed People’s Republic of Kampuchea government in the early eighties.

Part of a massive effort to discredit the Khmer Rouge and persuade the United Nations to deny the group recognition as the government of Cambodia, they were never sent and are now held in the DCCM archives.

Terith Chy, leader of the DCCM Victim Participation Project, calls the petitions "the closest thing to a truth commission on the Khmer Rouge that Cambodia has had".

The project aims to track down as many of the signatories of these petitions as possible, confirm their stories, and encourage them to participate in the tribunal.

"We were in Kampot (southern Cambodia0 in January this year to find people who had signed the original petition. Some had moved, some had died, but we found many."

"We quizzed these people about their stories and asked them are they true. People stuck to their stories a hundred percent. They say if you want me to write it down again I can do it. The memories are still there, they have not faded."

Numerous civil society groups are involved in outreach activities relating to the tribunal, including running information workshops on how it functions, informing victims of their rights and helping those interested to draft complaints.

In doing so, they are tapping into what observers agree is a huge desire on the part of many Cambodians to be involved in the trial.

These activities received a boost last week when the tribunal reaffirmed the value of civil party participation in all phases of its activities.

A small number of civil parties, represented by lawyers, participated in the pre-trial hearing of one of five defendants currently being held for trial, Noun Chea, or ‘Brother No 2’ as he was known in the Khmer Rouge hierarchy.

Dismissing Noun Chea’s appeal last Thursday, Pre-Trial Chamber President Prak Kimsan was quoted in the English language Cambodia Daily as saying "Civil Parties have active rights to participate, starting from the investigation phase."

"The Pre-Trial Chamber notes that the inclusion of civil parties in procedures is in recognition of the stated pursuit of national reconciliation."

The involvement of civil parties in the tribunal has been the subject of hot debate over the last few months.

Among the issues discussed by the prosecution, defence and civil society groups have been how to balance the rights of defendants and victims and to what degree the court should confine itself to questions of the guilt and innocence of the defendants, as opposed to pursuing the broader goal of national reconciliation.

Defence lawyers for the five accused Khmer Rouge leaders maintain that the participation of civil parties biases the court against their clients.

Civil society groups and prosecutors state that the victims are likely to know the most about the crimes being judged and their human toll, and that their participation will be a crucial step towards national healing.

But even those supporting last week’s decision are cautious.

"I am in favour of victims participating but it must be controlled or it will do more harm than good," said Youk Chhang, DCCM Director and himself a Khmer Rouge survivor. "It must be clear for example what proportion of the court’s time will be taken up by victims otherwise you could have a thousand people in there all wanting to participate and express an opinion."

The current process is that those interested have the right to file a complaint to the tribunal in which they can volunteer to be a witness, contribute information to the court or, most significantly, apply to be recognised as a civil party to the proceedings.

"To be a civil party to the proceedings you must prove that harm happened to you is a direct result of the commissioned crime that is the jurisdiction of the court," said Gabriela Gonzales Rivas, deputy head of the tiny ‘Victims Unit’, administering the process.

"If so proven, this will give you the same rights as any one taking part in the proceedings. Victims have the right to choose legal representation, to participate actively in all stages of the proceedings, including asking questions through their lawyers, and access to all documentation."

Five civil parties have so far been recognised. But the KRT Victims Unit which has only been open since January is currently processing upwards of 700 complaints, "the majority of them expressing an interest in being a witness or civil party," said Rivas.

"These have come from people who have been made aware of their right to be involved in the process through outreach activities of NGOs. It is our aim to ensure that every complaint is analysed and responded to."

The exact rules regulating civil party participation were not touched on in last week’s decision.
Rivas admits the current definitions are "pretty open" and the Victims Unit is currently preparing documentation that will clarify and tighten the definition of civil party, as well as issues such as their confidentiality and security.

Both prosecution and defence have offered suggestions on how to regulate victim participation to prevent the tribunal from being flooded with complaints.

In addition to being short staffed, the Victims Unit is operating within a tight budget, part of a larger financial shortfall facing the tribunal.

Tribunal officials are heading to New York this week for discussions with the United Nations and donors and a request for 114 million US dollars as additional funding. This is to cover significant increases in judicial staff, including a team of lawyers to represent victims.

Terith Chy, who was born after Khmer Rouge rule, said that regardless of whether or not the Tribunal uses the material, the DCCM Victim Participation Project has already fulfilled one important need.
"These stories are important to building a comprehensive national history of what happened. We tell everyone that we interview this, and tell them that just by talking to us they are playing a vital role in national.

Cambodian-Americans asked to testify about Khmer Rouge atrocities at hearing in California
The Associated Press via International Herald Tribune
March 28, 2008

As a child in Cambodia, Sara Pol-Lim lost her father, three brothers and a cousin to the Khmer Rouge and spent four years in a youth concentration camp.

Pol-Lim was finally able to deal with her past when her mother wrote a book, but the community organizer works daily with refugees who repress their own horrific memories.

Now, those exiles will have a chance to reveal those tales — and participate, in their own small way, in an international quest for justice.

A workshop at California State University at Long Beach on Saturday is one of the first U.S. events to target Cambodian-Americans and solicit their participation in an international war crimes tribunal for the Khmer Rouge that's under way in their homeland.

The daylong event will feature a panel of experts on the Cambodian genocide who will discuss the Khmer Rouge's physical and psychological effects on survivors, as well as a second panel of younger Cambodians, many of whom were born in the U.S. or fled with their families as young children. The speakers will include doctors, immigration attorneys, economists and artists.

Organizers hope exiles will share their memories and plan to review the stories for possible submission to the joint United Nations and Cambodian court that was established two years ago.

They also will urge attendees to apply for formal victim and civil party status and volunteer as translators or witnesses. A representative from the State Department will attend, as well as international experts on the Cambodian genocide and members of a watchdog group that's been monitoring the tribunal.

Many Cambodian exiles don't understand the tribunal process or see the need to get involved — even though almost everyone lost loved ones to the Khmer Rouge, said Leakhena Nou, a Cambodian-American and sociology professor at Cal State Long Beach. Buddhist beliefs about karma also create a cultural resistance toward confronting the past, she said.

"There's still a lot of fear involved and there's no incentive for the survivors to talk about their past," said Nou.

The Khmer Rouge ruled from 1975-79 under Pol Pot and have been implicated in the deaths of at least 1.7 million Cambodians, nearly a quarter of the population. They died from disease, overwork, starvation and execution in the notorious "killing fields."

If the session goes well, similar events could be held in other states with large Cambodian refugee populations, including Massachusetts, Oregon and Virginia, as well as Washington, D.C., Nou said.

Community leaders acknowledge, however, that the biggest challenge may be getting Cambodian refugees to show up at all, let alone tell their stories. Cambodians make up about 10 percent of the population in Long Beach, a city of about a half-million south of Los Angeles, but they remain isolated within a few gritty city blocks known as Little Phnom Phenh.

There, rumors fly about the true nature of the U.N. tribunal and suspicions that it's been infiltrated by Khmer Rouge supporters. Many don't trust the court simply because of the current government's involvement.

A series of delays hasn't helped, even though the first trials are now slated as early as this fall, said Chhang Song, an adviser to the Cambodian government who splits his time between Long Beach and Phnom Phenh.

"The court has become abstract to these people. It's very difficult to get information," he said. "I know how difficult it is to get this going, but people in general are not aware of that. They want to know what's taking so long."

Others worry that even those with an interest in the court may not show up because it's too traumatic. Most older Cambodians rarely talk about Pol Pot's killing fields — even with their American-born children or fellow victims.

"They're still afraid to share their stories with their kids, so how do you think they're going to come out and say, 'Yes, I'll sign up for victim status?'" said Pol-Lim, executive director of United Cambodian Community. "You have to get them to trust that what you do is for the benefit of the closure of that wound."

Still, Pol-Lim and others believe the workshop is an important first step toward the ultimate goal: allowing exiled victims to heal.

"They need to get beyond this mind-set of suffering, that the world owes them something," said Nou, the professor.

Cambodia Tribunal Allows Victims of the Khmer Rouge to Participate in Proceedings
www.fidh.org
March 28, 2008

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), the REDRESS Trust (REDRESS) and Avocats Sans Frontières (ASF), with headquarters in Belgium, welcome the landmark ruling of the Pre-Trial Chamber of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) to allow victims of the Khmer Rouge atrocities to participate in the Courts proceedings.

Although the decision on the 20th March only applies to this specific case and situation, FIDH, REDRESS and ASF believe that the ruling sets an important precedent in the interpretation of the rules applicable to civil party participation before the ECCC. It is a landmark decision in international criminal justice and a major achievement for victims of gross human rights violations, whose voices have long gone unheard.

According to the Courts decision, victims can be full parties to the criminal proceedings. This allows victims to participate in specific proceedings, such as appeals against provisional detention orders. The Pre-Trial Chamber found that the Tribunals rules make it clear that civil parties have the right to participate in the investigative phase of the procedure. Contrary to the arguments of the Defence, the Pre-Trial Chamber found that civil party involvement did not affect the rights of the Defendant to a fair trial.

The decision follows the participation of victims at a hearing on the appeal against the provisional detention of Mr. Noun Chea, one of the five persons so far indicted by the Tribunal. At the hearing, the Defence had challenged victim involvement at that particular stage of the proceedings. Considering the fundamental character of the issue to be decided upon, the Pre-Trial Chamber invited amicus curiae submissions. REDRESS, ASF and FIDH filed an amicus brief on 21st February 2008, arguing that victim participation at this stage is in accordance with international standards.

The Chamber sought guidance in Cambodian law provisions, and found that these were in accordance with international law developments in the area of victim participation.

The ECCC is a hybrid tribunal created as a result of an agreement between the United Nations and the Government of Cambodia. It has jurisdiction to try the top Khmer Rouge leaders who committed serious crimes between 1975 and 1979. The Tribunal’s rules on victim participation are ground-breaking because victims will be permitted to join in the proceedings as civil parties, going beyond the regime of victims’ participation before the ICC. The 20th March 2008 decision is the first ever decision on civil party involvement in proceedings made by this Tribunal.

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Central African Republic

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

Uganda rebels 'kidnapping' in CAR
BBC News
March 28, 2008

More than 100 people are being held in Central African Republic, by armed men who local officials say are rebels from Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).

Most of the villagers abducted were women and girls, and some have been gang-raped, a UN official told the BBC.

The Ugandan government and the LRA are due to sign a peace deal on 5 April.

Earlier this month, the Ugandan authorities said LRA leader Joseph Kony had moved to CAR from his base in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

This move violated the terms of a ceasefire agreement.

Humanitarian sources have confirmed that 150 people have been abducted in south-eastern CAR in recent days, the BBC's Arnaud Zajtman reports.

Reports say about 30 elders, who were used to carry looted goods for their abductors, have now been set free.

About half of those were taken are reported to be girls, some as young as six.

Some of those freed said they heard the girls screaming during the night.
Night-time attacks

The newly released elders say they were taken to a camp where the girls were offered to armed men by the rebel commander.

Mboli Nani, MP for Obo in south-eastern CAR, said that some of those who had escaped from the rebels testified they had been beaten by their abductors.

He said the armed men spoke English, Arabic and Lingala.

"The style they used is the style of the LRA," Mr Nani told the BBC.

"They attack in the night slowly and quietly - they take people and they steal goods."

The head of Ocha, the UN's humanitarian affairs agency in CAR, Jean-Sebastien Munier, told the BBC that the area where the kidnappings occurred was extremely remote and difficult to access.

"We cannot confirm it is official LRA - it could be a dissident branch," he said, after the return of UN fact-finding team from the region.

The 22-year conflict between the LRA and the Ugandan government in northern Uganda has left thousands dead and nearly two million displaced.

The LRA insists that the war crimes indictments placed on its leaders at the International Criminal Court are lifted before they sign the deal.

Uganda's government says the LRA leaders should face justice locally, not in The Hague but it does not have the power to get the arrest warrants cancelled.

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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

Former DR. Congolese warlord to stand trial before ICC in Hague
Xinhua News Agency via ReliefWeb
March 18, 2008

KINSHASA, Mar 18, 2008 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- The trial of former Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)'s rebel leader Thomas Lubanga will start on June 23 at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague, according to reports.

A statement issued Monday by the ICC said the case will be the first for this court, which was set up in 2002 and mandated to try war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

Lubanga, 46, will be charged with "abducting children under the age of 16," and forcing them to participate in attacks by the armed wing of his political Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC), during wars that ravaged the eastern DRC district of Ituri from September 2002 to August 2003.

Germain Katanga and Mathieu Nguzolo, two other warlords accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ituri, were transferred to the ICC in the Netherlands in October 2007 and January 2008 respectively, soon after they integrated their militias into DRC armed forces (FARDC) in the framework of the disarmament, demobilization, reintegration and reinsertion (DDRR) program.

From 1999, Ituri district which is rich in natural resources, was rocked by bloody clashes between the militias belonging to Hema and Lendu ethnic groups.

According to humanitarian organizations, the inter-ethnic fighting in the district between militias over control of gold mines and other natural resources caused the deaths of 60,000 people.

War Crimes Case Extended
Rwanda News Agency/Agence Rwandaise d'Information (Kigali) via Allafrica.com
March 18, 2008

The war crimes trail by the International Criminal Court of DR Congo militia leader has been moved back to June after prosecution refused to give evidence to the defense, RNA reports.

The trail of former Hema tribal militia leader from North Western DRC - Thomas Lubanga Dyilo had been scheduled to start at the end of this month but will now begin on June 23, the Court announced last week.

The postponement reportedly arises from prosecutorial delay in providing evidence to defense council until the security of witnesses could be assured.
The accused - who founded the Union of Congolese Patriots armed group with support of the Ugandan army, is alleged to have forced hundreds of children to serve as soldiers during military operations in the Ituri region of the Congo from July of 2002 through December of 2003.

Early this month, Mr. Lubanga lead defence counsel Jean Flamme quit the case citing health reasons. Court had to suspend the trail to allow Mr. Lubanga get another Counsel. Now the new team has to be familiarized with the case before it continues.

The Lubanga trail has dragged on since 2003 when he was arrested with submission after another from different groups - large campaign organisations.

Two other Congolese suspected of war crimes, Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui have also been surrendered to the Court for prosecution. Their trial dates have not been set.

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Darfur, Sudan (ICC)

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

More Will Call it Genocide
Institute for War & Peace Reporting
By Blake Evans-Pritchard
March 4, 2008

Less than a year before he leaves office, United States president George Bush used his recent trip to Rwanda, which suffered a genocide in 1994, to draw parallels between it and Darfur.

But, as faltering steps are taken towards a solution to the Darfur crisis, his words seemed isolated as the United Nations and the African Union both refuse to use the “genocide” label.

The US has also failed to win round its closest ally, Britain, which prefers to side with the European Union and employ less harsh terms for the death and destruction in Darfur.

Yet, a prominent Sudanese human rights lawyer Salih Mahmoud Osman, who recently was awarded the European parliament's prestigious Sakharov prize for his work in Darfur, said soon the rest of the world will call the Darfur crisis a genocide.

"No one can deny what is happening in the region and it is only a matter of time before the UN also uses this term [genocide]," Osman told IWPR in an exclusive interview.

Luis Moreano-Ocampo, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, ICC, has never ruled out calling Darfur a genocide, noted Osman.

“Right now, he is filing charges about war crimes because that is what he has evidence on,” said Osman. “I am sure that one day he will be able to gather sufficient evidence to establish that genocide has been taking place.”

But Osman warned that people shouldn’t argue about labels.

“It’s sufficient to know that crimes against humanity are being committed in Darfur, and these should carry the same penalty as those associated with genocide,” he said.

The UN estimates that as many as 200,000 people have died in the region since the crisis erupted in 2003 – the figure includes indirect causes of death associated with the war, such as disease and famine.

Osman believes that this figure, which was cited three years ago, is now likely to be much higher.

“Genocide is not about numbers,” he said, “but about whether crimes are being committed against specific groups of people. This definition is based on the provisions of the Rome Statute.”

The Rome Statute, signed in 1998, gave birth to the ICC. Its definition of genocide is based on an earlier UN convention, adopted in 1948, which states that the term should apply to cases where killing or grievous injury is taking place to a specific group of people as defined according to national, ethnic, racial or religious grounds.

Osman is highly critical of the Sudan government for its role in the killing, which he insisted is part of a wider “Arabisation” strategy. “The government’s aim is ethnic cleansing,” he said. “They are taking land and encouraging Arabs elsewhere, such as from Chad and Niger, to come and do the same. And these Arab tribes are occupying the land that has been depopulated by African communities.”

Last year, the ICC issued indictments against two individuals for war crimes in Darfur: Ahman Muhammad Harun, now Sudan’s minister for humanitarian affairs, and Ali Kushayb, a former leader of the Janjaweed militia, accused of many of the atrocities in the region. Osman welcomed the indictments, but criticised the UN for not pressing Sudan to comply with the court.

Osman also expressed concern with the recent appointment to the government of Musa Hilal, a controversial figure widely believed to have been a key member of the Janjaweed militia. In January, Hilal was appointed chief adviser to the ministry of federal affairs.

Osman has no firsthand knowledge of Hilal, but said, “This person is clearly controversial. Although he has not yet been indicted, there is growing evidence that he is implicated in war crimes in Darfur. He himself has said that he recruited Janjaweed members. His appointment to the government is very provocative. It is adding insult to already grievous injuries.”

Meanwhile, the Sudan government has remained adamant that it will not give up Harun and Kushayb to the ICC.

“Our view on this is quite clear and will not be changed,” said Mutrif Sadiq, Sudan’s deputy foreign minister. “We are not a signatory of the ICC’s protocol so we should not be subjected to its jurisdiction. We refuse to accept double-standards. Others, who have also not ratified the ICC protocol, are not subject to it – so why should we be? The ICC is being used as a political tool.”

The US also is not a party to the ICC agreement.

Osman disagreed with Sadiq that the ICC’s decisions cannot be applied to Sudan.

“It is ridiculous for Sudan to plead that they are not a member of the ICC as a way of justifying crimes against humanity,” said Osman. “War crimes are an international concern.”
Osman has been involved in fighting for human rights in Sudan for over twenty years, despite a poor record by the government for allowing dissent.

“The margin of freedoms is still extremely narrow and the track record of the government is very poor,” he said. “You only have to look at how journalists and politicians are treated – intimidated, harassed, arrested – to see how we have no freedom of speech in this country.”

Osman has been arrested three times and continues to be harassed for his work on human rights. “The intimidation is always there, but you cannot give up,” he insisted. “Being awarded the Sakharov Prize by the European parliament helps strengthen my belief to keep going.

Sudanese officials to be charged with war crimes in 2008: ICC prosecutor
Sudan Tribune
March 12, 2008

March 12, 2008 (GENEVA) — The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) disclosed today that he is finalizing two investigations into the Darfur war crimes by the end of 2008.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo told Swiss Info news portal that one of the investigations relates to involvement of Sudanese officials in attacks against civilians while the other looks at rebel attacks against peacekeepers and aid workers.

“We are looking at who is behind all this. I know that Ahmad Haroun is now the minister for humanitarian affairs and is involved, but he is not alone” Ocampo said on the sidelines of 6th International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights, in Geneva, Switzerland.

The judges of the ICC issued their first arrest warrants for suspects accused of war crimes in Sudan’s Darfur region in early May.

The warrants were issued for Ahmed Haroun, state minister for humanitarian affairs, and militia commander Ali Mohamed Ali Abdel-Rahman, also know as Ali Kushayb. Sudan has so far rejected handing over the two suspects.

The International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) circulated a notice for the arrest of both suspects in mid-2007.

The UN Security Council (UNSC) which asked the ICC to investigate Darfur crimes under a Chapter VII mandate in resolution 1593 three years ago, appears reluctant to force Sudan’s compliance.

Last December China, Russia and Qatar blocked a presidential statement supporting the arrest of Darfur war crime suspect and their extradition to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Ocampo said that the international community has “different views and no common position” with regards to extraditing Haroun and Kushayb.

“At my last Security Council briefing many states requested Haroun’s arrest, but the international community’s lack of consensus and collective action are part of the problem” he added.

The Argentinean born prosecutor has been pressing countries publicly and behind the scenes to press Sudan on the issue of handing over the suspects but with little success.

He made a rare criticism of the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon last October for neglecting the issue of justice in his monthly reports on Sudan.

“Justice was not mentioned in the UNSG subsequent reports on Darfur where the UN secretariat developed a three prong approach with a humanitarian, political and security components only” Ocampo said in prepared remarks to the 11th diplomatic briefing at the ICC headquarters in the Hague.

Ocampo also revealed in the briefing that he has been approached by a number of countries suggesting that he should try and indict “lower level perpetrators, easier to arrest than Ministers or powerful militia leaders”.

Despite all that the ICC prosecutor said he was confident that both suspects will be prosecuted.

“I am Argentinean; I saw Jorge Rafael Videla [head of the junta] take power in Argentina and nine years later he was prosecuted; the same with Pinochet, Taylor and Milosevic. The era of impunity is over” Ocampo said.

Sudan has not ratified the Rome Statue, but the UN Security Council triggered the provisions under the Statue that enables it to refer situations in non-State parties to the world court if it deems that it is a threat to international peace and security.

International experts estimate 200,000 people have died in the conflict. The Sudanese government says 9,000 people have been killed.

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Uganda (ICC)

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

Ugandan Rebel Reaches Out to International Court
Washington Post Foreign Service
By Nora Boustany
March 19, 2008

Kony's Legal Team Explores an Exit That Could Seal Peace Pact

It was an unexpected journey by attorneys for the elusive Joseph Kony, a Ugandan rebel commander with messianic delusions and a ghoulish human rights record. The legal delegation went on an exploratory mission earlier this month to the International Criminal Court, which wants Kony tried on war crimes charges for his role leading the Lord's Resistance Army.

The visit to The Hague came during the final phase of negotiations between Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Kony's brutal and bizarre rebel army to end one of Africa's longest-running and most vicious wars.

In addition to killing thousands, the conflict, which began in 1986, has driven close to 2 million people from their homes to languish in hundreds of squalid refugee camps. More than 25,000 children have been abducted to serve the rebel army -- motivated by a fanatical Christian doctrine -- as foot soldiers and sex slaves.

But before signing the peace accord -- something many Ugandans had hoped would happen later this month, following a permanent cease-fire reached last month -- Kony has demanded that the international court drop the arrest warrants and indictments against him and two deputies now in hiding.

The court's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, has ruled out the request to drop the 33 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity facing Kony and his deputies.

The standoff has highlighted a debate with potentially far-reaching implications for other countries seeking to end civil wars marked by atrocity and displacement: How can international demands for justice be balanced with local demands for peace?

Humanitarian groups such as World Vision, which has a large presence in Uganda's refugee camps, have argued that the court should step aside to allow a peace agreement to take hold across the distressed territory where they work. The groups argue that it is more important to alleviate the suffering of Ugandans, who are dying of malnourishment and disease in the cramped camps, than to prosecute the rebels on the international stage.

"The key for signing an agreement is finding an exit for Kony," said John Prendergast of the Enough Project, an advocacy group seeking to end genocide.

Prendergast has suggested that to prod Kony into signing the agreement and ending his campaigns of violence, he should be offered asylum in a third country other than Uganda or Congo, where Kony has been hiding in a remote northwestern jungle region.

But leading international human rights groups say Uganda does not have a legal system capable of punishing Kony and his deputies, meaning that a waiver of the international court warrants could result in impunity for the rebel army's atrocities.

Kony began his rebellion in northern Uganda to regain the power his tribe enjoyed immediately after Uganda gained independence from Britain in 1962.

He has said his movement's ideology is inspired by the Ten Commandments. But he and his cultish army of several hundred members have employed superstition and rituals, believing they repelled danger, while using crude instruments to sever lips, ears and limbs of people suspected of not being true followers.

Museveni has pledged to create a special unit within Uganda's High Court to manage war crimes trials, but no such unit has been established.

Museveni's government and Kony's army, which resumed negotiations in 2006, had planned to sign the final peace protocol by March 28. As part of the deal, Uganda's government pledged to appeal to the U.N. Security Council to suspend Kony's indictment for a year, once the comprehensive accord was signed.
The Security Council has this authority, but can do so only if it determines, following an assessment by the international court's judges, that Uganda can manage the trials on its own.

Richard Dicker, international justice program director at Human Rights Watch, said Uganda would have to amend its legal code to include laws that address crimes against humanity. Amnesty International has expressed similar views.

"Justice cannot be sacrificed for impunity," Dicker argued. "Impunity comes back in worse cycles of violence, and there will be no lasting peace -- as we have seen in many countries."

In a statement after meeting with Kony's attorneys last week, the International Criminal Court said its officials provided the delegation with an overview of the court and its procedures.

"What worries me is that they are masters at diversion," the prosecutor, Moreno-Ocampo, said in a telephone interview, referring to the rebels. "They are using the negotiations to win time," he said. "There are serious reports that they are still fighting, abducting children and moving more rebels" to Congo.

Michael Poffenberger, executive director of Resolve Uganda, a nonprofit group devoted to ending the conflict, said the legal delegation was seeking to learn how to have the warrants revoked. Others saw the visit as Kony's first recognition of the court's legitimacy.

"This is unprecedented," Dicker said. "This does not mean they will advise Kony to surrender or emerge from his hiding place. . . . But it is a positive development."

Prendergast said it was unlikely that Kony, an erratic and unreliable partner in previous cease-fire agreements, would come out of seclusion in time for a signing ceremony this month.

"We don't know if he is a psychopath or a rational actor," Prendergast said. "Absent some special considerations, the conflict will continue on low intensity for the foreseeable future. The gulf between intentions and actions remains huge."

Uganda, rebels likely to sign deal on April 5
Reuters
By Skye Wheeler
March 26, 2008

JUBA, Sudan, March 26 (Reuters) - Uganda and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army are expected to sign a final peace deal to end one of Africa's longest conflicts on April 5, about a week later than a Kampala deadline, officials said on Wednesday.

Progress has slowed because of the rebels' demand that the International Criminal Court (ICC) drop war crimes indictments against their leader Joseph Kony and two deputies.

Both sides signed documents outlining the final agreement and implementation timetable late on Tuesday in Sudan's southern town of Juba where talks have been held.

"We have completed all the negotiations successfully. We have moved from enemies to be brothers and sisters again," said Ugandan Interior Minister Ruhakana Rugunda.

But the chief negotiator for the Lord's Resistance Army delegation, David Nyekorach Matsanga, told reporters the rebels would not begin to implement the deal until the ICC lifted an international arrest warrant for Kony and his deputies.

"We cannot assemble or disarm when the ICC warrants are still on our heads," said Matsanga.

He said Kony would sign the deal, but not in Juba because of the threat of arrest.

Tens of thousands have been killed in the two-decade-old rebellion, which has also displaced nearly two million people in the coffee-exporting East African country.

How Joseph Kony is keeping his options open
The Guardian
March 29, 2008

Manisuli Ssenyonjo, a senior lecturer in international law at Brunel University, doubts that the Ugandan government ever seriously intended to see the leaders of the Lord's Resistance Army brought to justice by the International Criminal Court.

The arrest warrants against five leaders of the Ugandan armed group the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) for Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes committed in Uganda since July 2002, were made public on 13 October 2005. With the exception of Raska Lukwiya, who is dead, and Vincent Otti (allegedly executed in 2007), the men – Joseph Kony, Okot Odhiambo and Dominic Ongwen – are still at large.

Is it beyond the effective powers of the 106 states that have signed up to the ICC to secure their arrest? And is Uganda violating the treaty by failing to arrest the men, and – since trials in absentia are not permitted – preventing them being held to account? Or is it unable to arrest them?

Under the Treaty of Rome that established the ICC, the Ugandan government like all signatories is obliged to cooperate fully with the Court in any matter related to the investigation and prosecution of crimes within its jurisdiction. In particular, Uganda as a State Party to the ICC must genuinely cooperate in arresting and surrendering any person charged by the Court, without delay.

Nonetheless, recent developments indicate that the Ugandan government is not, at present, pursuing the arrest and surrender obligation. Instead, as part of ongoing peace talks in Juba, the Uganda government signed an agreement with the representatives of the LRA on February 19 2008 to establish a national court to try those alleged to have committed 'serious crimes' during the conflict.

The agreement between the Ugandan government and the LRA provides for, "a special division of the High Court of Uganda, to try individuals who are alleged to have committed serious crimes during the conflict". They also agreed that traditional justice and other unspecified alternative justice mechanisms would be used.

While the agreement doesn't explicitly state that the "individuals" to be tried before a special division of the High Court of Uganda include or exclude those indicted by the ICC, the Uganda President – Yoweri Museveni – was quoted to have stated that: "We can save him [Joseph Kony and presumably his commanders indicted by the ICC] because we are the ones who sought assistance from the ICC".

To "save" Kony from the ICC without fair, credible, independent, and impartial prosecutions (conforming to international minimum standards and appropriate penalties) amounts to a violation of Uganda's obligation to cooperate with the ICC.

This is an attempt to use the ICC as a political tool of the Ugandan government, which the ICC must reject to maintain its relevance and credibility.

If Uganda is allowed to get away with its "special division" of the High Court (without a proper determination of how the Ugandan judiciary, under the existing political and legal framework in Uganda, can organise and independently manage complex trials involving crimes against humanity and war crimes), the ICC might be seen as being vulnerable to other States using it to expose rebel leaders internationally if this suits the political interests of a State. This would undermine the independence of the ICC as a judicial (as opposed to a political) body.

It is also important to note that the ICC's sentences are more lenient than the death penalty in Uganda for the nature of crimes the LRA leaders were indicted. If the LRA leaders are genuine, why should they insist on the withdrawal of the ICC warrants and subject themselves to the Ugandan judiciary?

At present there is no evidence to suggest that the LRA leaders are going to disarm, assemble at the agreed assembly area and present themselves freely to the "special division" of the Ugandan court.
Just as the ICC contributed significantly to move the LRA leaders to the negotiating table and contributed to a focus on accountability at the peace talks, it should maintain its warrants for the indicted leaders.

The efforts of all the signatories to the ICC, and indeed all other members of the United Nations interested in peace and stability, should now be focused on arresting and surrendering these leaders to the ICC, while providing adequate security against the possible commission of other violations by these leaders.

Kony is unlikely to submit himself to national trials or to the ICC as long as an alternative remains.

Might the Lord's Resisters give up?
The Economist
March 13, 2008

A rebel leader is being pressed to give up—but under which system of justice?

AFTER nearly two years of painfully slow progress, a flurry of activity has stirred the peace talks between Uganda's government and the rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) against whom it has fought for more than 20 years. Negotiators say they have signed all remaining documents, including ones providing for demobilisation and a permanent ceasefire. A signing ceremony is said to be in the offing, dates are being discussed and a list of presidents due to attend has been splashed on the front pages of newspapers in Kampala, the capital. But a final deal is still elusive.

That is because the rebels are refusing to sign until the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague drops charges of war crimes against the LRA's leader, Joseph Kony, and two other commanders. Though Uganda's government called in the ICC in the first place, it has since signed a pact with the rebels that is supposed to deliver justice through Uganda's own courts and traditional systems. Visiting London this week, Yoweri Museveni, Uganda's president, said: “What we have agreed with our people is that they should face traditional justice, which is more compensatory than a retributive system.”

The ICC, however, says it will continue to press its own case against the LRA leaders, who have been accused of the most appalling atrocities, unless Uganda can show that it is “willing and able” to try the men in accordance with international standards. It would then be up to the ICC's pre-trial chamber to decide whether to drop its charges. So far, the Ugandan government has not asked it to do so.

The LRA says it has been fighting for the disaffected Acholi people of northern Uganda (see map).
Whatever the cause, it has terrorised the population, ravaged villages and kidnapped children to swell its ranks. Most Acholis loathe it. But many are angry about the ICC intervention too. “This ICC thing, we don't want it—we want peace,” says Grace Oyella, a seamstress in Gulu, the biggest town in the area. “They [the LRA] may have killed many people and we have lost our brothers, but if they refuse to allow them back they will just keep on doing this.”

Many Acholis prefer the idea of their own form of traditional justice, known as mato oput, to tackle crimes committed during the war. Under this system, the accused must recognise their crimes, ask for forgiveness and compensate victims. All involved then take part in a ceremony, drinking a bitter herbal concoction and eating together in a token of reconciliation. Acholi elders say that amid the chaos and lawlessness they have used their old ways to keep order. These, they insist, can deliver justice as well as peace.

But others are eager for revenge. Norbert Mao, a local Gulu official, says he doubts whether Acholis are as forgiving as is often made out. Some former LRA fighters who have tried to return to their villages have been killed. Though mato oput helps deal with certain crimes, it is not designed for the perpetrators of mass atrocities, he says. Human-rights groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Federation for Human Rights agree, calling on Uganda, a party to the ICC, to honour its obligations to the court. Without justice, they argue, there can be no lasting peace.

Under the deal accepted by the rebels, the government is to try those accused of the more serious crimes before a special chamber in Uganda's High Court. But many doubt this will provide justice of a standard to satisfy the ICC judges. Uganda's existing courts are not known for impartiality or independence. In addition, a new law would have to be passed to allow trials for war crimes, and criteria would have to be drawn up to decide who should be tried under which system.

There is also no guarantee that the LRA would keep any agreements. In the past, it has broken them as fast as they have been signed. After more than 20 years in the bush, lording it over his fighters, multiple wives and reputed 200 children, Mr Kony, whom some call mad, might find the prospect of justice in Uganda just as unenticing as justice in The Hague.

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International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)

Official Website of the ICTY

6 Croats charged with war crimes in Pakrac
B92
March 26, 2008

ZAGREB -- Six Croats have been arrested on suspicion of the murders of at least 16 Serb civilians near Pakrac.

Former military policemen attached to the National Guards’ 76th battalion, Damir Kufner, Davor Šimic, Željko Tutic, Tomislav Poleto, Ante Ivezic and Pavle Vancaš, are suspected of the brutal murders of Serb civilians in Marina Selo and Ribnjak, and throughout the Pankrac region in general.

The District Court in Požega has been leading a war crimes investigation against them since 1991.

According to daily Jutarnji List, they were arrested on the basis of information and material submitted to the Croatian State prosecution by the Hague Tribunal in the case against former police chief Tomislav Mercep, who is suspected of crimes against Serbs in Vukovar, Gospic, Zagreb and Pakracka Poljana.

Although the six suspects were not under Mercep’s command, during their investigation of crimes committed around Vukovar and Pakracka Poljana by a Croatian MUP reservist unit commanded by Mercep, Hague investigators came across atrocities carried out by other units, not under his command.

According to the indictment, members of a police platoon commanded by Kufner and Šimic, broke into houses of suspected Serbs, and on the pretext of searching for illegal weapons, arrested them and took them to a detention center in the village of Ribnjak, where, after undergoing physical and mental torture, they were murdered.

It is estimated that a number of the victims were subsequently thrown into fishpond to be fed to perch, while witness testimonies speak of corpses floating on the pond, or being washed up on the banks.

The Serbs were murdered in attempt to appropriate their property, which are the motives behind the murders that the accused and members of Mercep’s unit are accused of , some of whom have already been convicted.

Despite considerable documentation, no charges have, as yet, been pressed against Mercep himself.

Witness describes atrocities committed by "Šešelj’s boys"
B92
March 26, 2008

Witness VS-1013 said "Šešelj’s boys" abused and murdered Muslims in Zvornik, and stole their property.

At the trial of Vojisalav Šešelj at the Hague Tribunal, protected witness VS-1013, a Zvornik Muslim imprisoned by Serb forces after attacking and taking the town on May 4, 1992, told the trial chamber that “Šešelj’s boys“ from Kraljevo, led by “Duke Cele“ had abused prisoners, one of whom died after a beating, while another was slaughtered.

He also described the looting of an abandoned house in Zvornik instigated by a certain “Major Toro“. Furniture, construction material, and a whole workshop were taken away, said the witness, adding that he had been forced to help move things out of his own house.

Šešelj said that he did not deny that “grave crimes were committed in Zvornik“ and that the witness was a victim, though he would challenge his “identification“ of the perpetrators.

The witness said that between May and mid-June 1992, he had been imprisoned in the head office of the Zvornik clothing factory, and then at Ekonomija and Ciglana in nearby Karakaj. The whole time, “Šešelj’s boys“, “Cele’s dukes“ and members of the “military police“ from Loznica, who were known to him formerly as criminals, meted out beatings to the prisoners.

One night at Ekonomija, said VS-1013, “Duke Cele“ came by with some people, threatening to execute the prisoners. They then brought out one older Muslim, accusing him of being an ustasha and of “having a ’U’ tattooed on his body.“

“They beat him, and we listened... we kneeled down, our top halves naked, because Cele ordered us to ’pray to Jesus, because we were Serbs’... The old man was eventually barely able to crawl back and told us: ’Kids, say halal, I’m out of here.’ And he died there and then,“ recalled the witness.

He also described how, later, one of “Šešelj’s boys“, called Pufta, had murdered a prisoner, Ismet Cirak, at a brick factory in Karakaj.

“Pufta came with two other ’Šešelj boys’, Sava and Saša, and took Ismet away, saying that they were going to kill him... I was by the window and heard Sava and Saša laughing and telling Pufta to stop messing about, and that he should stop before it was too late... Saša then came back and said that he could kill a man, but not torture him like Pufta... Sava came after him and said that Pufta was cutting him up with a blunt knife, and that he had offered him a sharp one,“ recalled VS-1013.

A few minutes later, the witness said, Pufta appeared with a bloody knife and ordered one of the prisoners to go out and wash the knife. When he came back, the prisoner was pale and said that Pufta really had slaughtered Ismet.

He said that Pufta had cut a tattoo of a half-moon and a star out of one Muslim’s arm, having previously forced him to set fire to the tattoo himself.

Describing the looting of Zvornik houses in which he had been forced to participate by helping load trucks bound for Belgrade with the plunder, VS-1013 said that, on one occasion, he had seen Major Toro hand Pufta are large bundle of German marks and a Serb Radical Party membership card.

When he was transferred from Zvornik to Batkovic camp near Bijelina in mid-May 1992, the witness was told by fellow prisoners of the atrocities committed by “Šešelj boys“, "Major Toro", Zoks, Pufta, Repic against Muslims in the House of Culture in Celopek.

The defendant will cross-examine the witness when the trial resumes today.

Kosovo: Serbia probes human organ sales
adnkronos international
March 29, 2008

Belgrade, 27 March(AKI) - Serbia is investigating reports that Kosovar Albanians have been selling human organs of kidnapped Serbs to western countries, including Italy, since the 1998-99 Kosovo-Serbia conflict.

The Belgrade Daily Press said on Thursday that a protected witness, known as K-144, had made the allegations to the former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Carla del Ponte.

According to the International Red Cross up to 3,000 Serbs have been reported missing or killed since 1999 and 200,000 fled the province.

The paper said the Serbs kidnapped by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), were transported to northern Albania where their internal organs were allegedly removed and then sold in Italy and western countries.

The KLA was a paramilitary guerrilla organisation that sought independence for Kosovo from the now defunct Yugoslavia and later Serbia in the late 1990s.

Serbian prosecutor for war crimes, Vladimir Vukcevic, confirmed that his office was investigating the reports.

“We are verifying the reports that in 1999 two trucks of kidnapped Serbs were transported to Albania,” Vukcevic said. “We received these reports from the ICTY.”

Del Ponte, who recently left the post of chief prosecutor, is to release a book entitled “The Hunt” in Italy in April 2008.

She reportedly admitted that ICTY investigators came across information that kidnapped Serbs had been transported to Albania and their organs were sold in the west.

Del Ponte is said to have frequently complained that UN officials in Kosovo were uncooperative in investigating crimes against Serbs.

The media quoted K-144 saying that at least 100 Serbs whose organs had been taken out for transplantation have been buried in the northern Albanian town of Burrel.

The papers said at least 400 kidneys and other organs were removed for sale in the west and the victims were left to die.

Semsi Sulja, a spokesman for the Kosovo Protection Corps, a civilian emergency service group composed mainly from former KLA fighters, said there was no truth to the claims.

“Anyone can write what they want, but there is no truth in it,” he said.

Ahmet Isufi, a spokesman for the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AFK), said Del Ponte’s claims were “absurd”.

“These are political accusations which could be seen by anyone, not just by politicians,” he said.

AFK leader Ramush Haradinaj is currently standing trial before the ICTY for crimes against Serb civilians.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in February with the support of western powers, but Belgrade is fighting a diplomatic battle to retain the province.

EUFOR troops raid Karadzic's family homes
Southeast European Times
March 27, 2008

EU peacekeepers in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) raided the homes of family members and a neighbour of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic on Thursday (March 27th) in an attempt to find clues to the top war crimes suspect's whereabouts.

The operation was launched before dawn with simultaneous searches at the homes of the fugitive's wife Ljiljana Zelen Karadzic, daughter Sonja Karadzic Jovicevic and Smiljka Popov, who is believed to belong to a network of supporters helping the wartime leader evade justice. All live in the town of Pale, 16km southeast of Sarajevo.

"The aim of the operation is to find material and information that could assist the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in the ongoing search for persons indicted for war crimes," EUFOR spokesman Phillip Treloar said. "We are putting pressure on networks believed to be involved in protecting these persons."

During the raids, which were supported by NATO forces in BiH, peacekeepers found "items of interest" that will be examined, Treloar said. Bosnian Serb police also provided support.

Earlier this month, local forces searched the houses of Karadzic's former bodyguards Nebojsa Cavkic and Vlatko Lopatic, suspected of helping him elude arrest. Computers, mobile phones and SIM cards were among the items confiscated.

Thursday's operation was conducted at the request of the ICTY, which issued its initial joint indictment against Karadzic and former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic in 1995.

Both are accused of involvement in a host of war crimes committed during the 1992-1995 conflict in BiH. They have also been charged with genocide stemming from the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre of up to 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys, and the 43-month siege of Sarajevo, which left approximately 11,000 people dead.

Karadzic went on the run in 1996. He is widely believed to be moving between Republika Srpska, Serbia and Montenegro.

During his visit to BiH on March 7th, Serge Brammertz, who replaced Carla del Ponte as UN chief prosecutor in January, called for Karadzic and Mladic's arrest.

They top the list of four remaining suspects still sought by the ICTY. The other two are former Bosnian Serb security chief Stojan Zupljanin and Goran Hadzic, a political leader charged with war crimes committed during the 1991-1995 conflict in Croatia.

Acting on a tip, Serbian police raided a house in the southern city of Nis on Wednesday, as part of a "comprehensive search" for Zupljanin, but failed to arrest the fugitive. Officials believe he was tipped off about the operation.

Rasim Ljajic, the head of Serbia's council on co-operation with the ICTY, and Serbian war crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic both confirmed that traces found during the raid showed that Zupljanin had been there.

Serbia promises to arrest war crimes suspect; Cautions EU on Kosovo
International Herald Tribune
March 29, 2008

BRDO PRI KRANJU, Slovenia: Serbia told the European Union on Saturday that it soon will arrest war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic, as the EU insists, but expressed concern that the dispute over Kosovo is driving the country further apart from the bloc.

Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic spoke with EU foreign ministers in the first high-level EU-Serbia encounter since member nations began recognizing Kosovo's secession last month. To date, 18 of the 27 EU nations accept Kosovo's independence.

Jeremic said EU nations' recognition of Kosovo was dangerous, counterproductive and illegal and that it played into the hands of nationalists running in Serbia's May 11 elections.

He told the ministers it was not certain that his own or other pro-EU forces in Serbia could win a legislative majority as long as Kosovo continues to be seen as an independent nation. He also expressed concern about the fate of Kosovar Serbs in overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian Kosovo.

"I am worried that today, Serbia is further away from the European Union than it has been in quite a while," Jeremic said at the ministers' meeting, in comments released to reporters.

Jeremic stressed that Belgrade realized its role in bringing Balkan war crimes suspects to the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague was key to normalizing relations.

"We shall locate, arrest and hand over Ratko Mladic and other remaining (war crimes) indictees," Jeremic told the EU ministers.

Speaking to reporters later he said Belgrade's commitment to cooperate fully with the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague would lead "in the very near future" to handing over the last remaining indicted suspects — "first and foremost Gen. Ratko Mladic." He did not elaborate.

Mladic is wanted on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity, most notably committed at the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995 during the Balkan wars.

The EU foreign ministers met separately with Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci.

Jeremic and Thaci did not meet at a sprawling country estate in northern Slovenia where the EU foreign ministers completed two days of talks Saturday.

Thaci said his country wants good relations with all neighbors "including Serbia," and eventual membership in both the EU and NATO.

Recognition of Kosovo by most EU nations in the past five weeks has been a setback for the EU's already troubled relations with Serbia.

Wary of Serbia falling into Russia's embrace, the EU has made clear the country is welcome to join in the years ahead. But a pre-membership accord is on hold because of differences over Kosovo and what is seen as Belgrade's foot-dragging on handing over Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader during the Balkan wars.

Serbia had previously insisted it cooperated fully with the Yugoslav tribunal but has been unable to locate Mladic or Karadzic.

Within the EU, a rift has widened over Serbia. Belgium and the Netherlands oppose steps to quickly make the Balkan nation an EU candidate, saying Belgrade must first deliver the war crimes suspects. France and Sweden want Serbia to be made a candidate quickly.

To join the bloc, EU candidates must be democracies, have functioning market economies and a clean human rights record.

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The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, War Crimes Chamber

Official Website

Indictment against Miodrag Nikacevic confirmed
Court of BiH
March 18, 2008

On 17 March 2008, the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) confirmed the Indictment against Miodrag Nikacevic, who is charged with the criminal offense of Crimes against Humanity.

As alleged in the Indictment, in mid-April 1992, armed and wearing a uniform Nikacevic entered the apartment of a Bosniak woman, saying he came there to pick up her technical items. Immediately upon entering the apartment, the Accused allegedly started touching the Bosniak woman all over her body, despite her please not to do so. After that, swearing and yelling, the Accused allegedly forced her into sexual intercourse.

The Indictment further alleges that in mid-June 1992, the Accused came to the apartment of another Bosniak woman, which was located right across form the Accused’s apartment, demanding that her daughter come to his apartment, purportedly to clean it, threatening that she would cry for her brother if she did not come. The Accused is then alleged to have raped her after she finished cleaning up his apartment. On 2 August 1992, as alleged in the indictment, armed and together with two other members of the Armed Forces of Republika Srpska, the Accused Nikacevic took part in the abduction, and later on in the unlawful detention of a Bosniak civilian in the KPD Foca. The civilian was afterwards allegedly taken from the Penal and Correctional Facility (KPD) by unidentified persons on an undetermined day, and killed at an unknown location.

Momir Savic pleaded not guilty
Court of BiH
March 19, 2008

At the plea hearing before the Preliminary Hearing Judge of the Section I for War Crimes of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), the Accused Momir Savic pleaded not guilty to all counts of the Indictment. Momir Savic is charged with the criminal offence of Crimes against Humanity.

According to the charges in the Indictment, accused Savic, as the member of an undetermined paramilitary formation at the time when the Užice Corps of the former JNA launched its operations, and later as a commander of the 3rd Company of the Višegrad Brigade of the Army of the Republika Srpska, during the period April through September 1992, he carried out persecution, murders, imprisonment, rapes, torture and other inhumane acts directed against Bosniak civilians in the area of Višegrad municipality.

Among other things, it is stated in the Indictment that Savic, on 29 April 1992, in a group together with several Serb soldiers, in the village of Meremišlje, took part in the interrogation and beating of 4 (four) Bosniak civilians, as well as in plundering and burning down of the houses of 2 (two) Bosniak civilians. Further, the Indictment reads that Savic, on 23 May 1992, in a group with several other Serb soldiers, in the settlement of Drinsko, took 10 (ten) Bosniak civilians out of their houses. Afterwards, allegedly, the civilians were interrogated, beaten up and taken to the hill “Kik”, in the so-called “Pušni Do” forest, were they were deprived of their lives by the use of fire weapon. Further, on 25 May 1995, it is stated in the Indictment, Savic, together with other Serb soldiers, participated in the beating up of captured Bosniak civilians. On the same occasion, the accused Savic, allegedly, when one civilian tried to run away, shot at him from firearms and deprived him of his life. During the period from 7 June 1992 until the end of September 1992, as stated in the Indictment, Savic would often come to the house of one female Bosniak armed and rape her, threatening that she must not tell.

Veiz Bjelic sentenced to compound sentence of 6 years of imprisonment
Court of BiH
March 28, 2008

On Friday, after consideration and acceptance of a plea agreement, the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina delivered the first-instance verdict in the Veiz Bjelic case, by which the accused Bjelic was found guilty of the criminal offenses of War Crimes against Civilians and War Crimes against Prisoners of War and sentenced to a compound sentence of imprisonment for six (6) years. The Veiz Bjelic case is the second Section I case completed by the acceptance of a plea agreement.

By the Trial Panel’s verdict, the accused Veiz Bjelic was found guilty because in the period from June 1992 to 26 January 1993, as a prison guard in the prison known as Štala in the hamlet of Rovaši, he forced another person to sexual intercourse several times.

The Accused Bjelic was also found guilty for having enabled unidentified members of the Vlasenica Territorial Defense (TO) to enter the premises in which Serb prisoners were kept. On those occasions, the members of the Vlasenica TO abused the prisoners physically and mentally, which resulted in the death of one prisoner.

Bosko Lukic and Marko Adamovic arrested
BIRN Justice Report
March 20, 2008

The State Investigation and Protection Agency, SIPA has arrested two Kljuc municipality war crime suspects.

Acting on a warrant issued by the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the State Investigation and Protection Agency, SIPA, arrested Bosko Lukic and Marko Adamovic, suspected of crimes against humanity against the non-Serb population on the territory of Kljuc municipality in 1992. Adamovic (born in 1946) was arrested in the Banja Luka area, while Lukic (born in 1940) was arrested in Prijedor municipality. Lukic was, allegedly, commander of Kljuc Territorial Defence Staffs, while Adamovic was deputy commander of Kljuc Battalion with the Territorial Defence.

Marko Adamovic is mentioned in the indictment filed by the State Prosecution against Vinko Kondic, former member of the Crisis Committee and commander of the Public Safety Centre in Kljuc municipality. The indictment alleges that he participated in the Crisis Committee meetings, which were held almost every day. According to the indictment, the actions of the Crisis Committee of Kljuc municipality were governed by orders issued by the Presidency and the Government of Republika Srpska. These actions included, among others, displacement of the non-Serb population from that municipality. Lukic and Adamovic will be handed over to the State Prosecution, which will examine them and decide on the eventual filing of a custody order motion with the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Kravica: Radovan Karadzic's signature
BIRN Justice Report
March 21 2008

Defence teams of the eleven inductees charged with genocide in Srebrenica cross-examine the military analyst of The Hague Prosecution.

Richard Butler, military analyst with the Prosecution at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ICTY, who was invited to testify as a Prosecution witness before the Court of BiH, said the Special Police Forces, which were situated in the vicinity of Kravica village on July 13, 1995, were under the command of the Republika Srpska Army (VRS). He also said the reviewed documents indicate that inductee Milos Stupar was commander of the Special Police Second Squad up to August 24, 1995.

The indictment alleges that in July 1995 Milos Stupar was commander of the Second Squad, to which nine other inductees belonged. Inductee Milovan Matic was a member of the VRS. They are all charged with the genocide and participation in the murder of more than 1,000 Srebrenica residents in Kravica village on July 13, 1995. Butler was cross-examined by the eleven Defence teams, because, in December 2006 the Trial Chamber admitted, as Prosecution evidence, his two reports commissioned by the ICTY and its Prosecution. The first report refers to the military operations conducted in Srebrenica, while the second one concerns the responsibilities in the VRS Brigade. Both reports were made in late 2002.

As indicated by the witness, he reviewed "tens of thousands" of VRS wartime documents while he was preparing the reports. Butler said that the VRS attacked the protected zone in response to attacks conducted by the 28th Infantry Division of the Army of BiH, which had about 12,000 soldiers and which conducted its activities from Srebrenica. "The VRS forces commenced with their earlier planned operations described in Directive No. 7, which was entitled "Operation Krivaja 95." The Directive was prepared by the General Staffs and it was signed by President Karadzic," Butler said. The Hague Tribunal has ordered the arrest of Radovan Karadzic, former President of Republika Srpska, who is charged with war crimes. Originally, the main goal of this operation was to narrow the protected zone, so that it encircled the town of Srebrenica alone, and to interrupt communication with Zepa.

The witness also said the Ministry of Internal Affairs Units were engaged in those operations only after July 10, "when the VRS forces realised that it was possible to conquer that region." According to the information available to the military analyst, the Special Police Units, including the Second Squad from Sekovici, arrived in Bratunac on July 11. The two following days they were on duty by the road leading from Konjevic Polje to Kravica and they were under the VRS command. "Their task was to confront the members of the 28th Division, who wanted to reach the territory controlled by the Army of BiH. The Interior Ministry Units confronted the Division members and, on July 13, they arrested hundreds, or even thousands, of people as a result of those fights," Butler said. He mentioned earlier that only one third of the 28th Division members were armed. In his report Butler did not mention whether the police had any jurisdiction over those prisoners, but he mentioned the Army in that context. "The Interior Ministry Units could not hold the prisoners of war for a long time but they had to hand them over to the Units which had the capacities for holding those prisoners," Butler said.

Answering questions made by one Trial Chamber member, the witness added that it was indicative that there were no documents on any type of care provided to those prisoners, although there were such documents covering local Srebrenica residents and the wounded. "No documents indicate whether they took care of the prisoners in a lawful manner," the witness stressed. During examination, a few Defence attorneys said the fact that Butler testified as a witness and not as a court expert was "odd", because he was not an eyewitness of the Srebrenica events or any other events that happened in wartime Bosnia. In the course of this week Butler testified at two trials - for crimes committed in Bratunac and genocide in Srebrenica. The mentioned trials are being conducted before the Court of BiH in the case of Bozic et al and Milorad Trbic. He was treated as a court expert at both trials. The trial is due to continue on March 26.

Kovac: Vitez crimes indictment confirmed
BIRN Justice Report
March 26 2008

The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina confirms yet another indictment for crimes committed in central Bosnia area.

The State Court has confirmed the indictment, containing three counts, by which the Prosecution of BiH charges Ante Kovac, former commander of the Vitez Brigade Military Police Squad with the Croatian Defence Council (HVO), with crimes against civilians committed in Vitez municipality in 1993.

The Prosecution charges Kovac with having ordered, approved and participated in unlawful imprisonment of Bosniak civilians in the Radnicki Univerzitet, cinema and public accounting service premises in April and May 1993. According to the indictment, there were more than 250 prisoners, who were held in inhumane conditions and taken to the frontlines to perform forced labor on a daily basis. In mid April that same year Kovac took a female person from the detention center created at the public accounting service premises, physically abused her and then raped her. The Prosecution considers Kovac responsible for the detention of a group of sick civilians, who were transported by the International Red Cross Committee to a hospital in Zenica. The inductee allegedly imprisoned this group of people in the Radnicki Univerzitet premises, where he and other military policemen took their money and jewelry away.

The indictment further alleges that Kovac raped a person under the pseudonym of "A". All these crimes were committed during the course of the armed conflict between the Army of BiH and HVO. In addition to the indictment, the Prosecution also enclosed its evidence presentation plan, which lists 23 witnesses and 24 pieces of material evidence.

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International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)

Official Website of the ICTR

Conference on Media and Genocide to Be Held in Canada
Hirondelle News Agency
March 18, 2008

A conference bringing together Canadian, French and Spanish intellectuals who dispute the official version of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, will take place on 29 March in Montreal .

Pierre Pean, a French writer and journalist; Jordi Palou-Loverdos, a Spanish lawyer; and Robin Philpot, author of a book on the genocide, are awaited at the conference. Peter Verlinden, a Belgian journalist, will express himself via video.

The meeting is entitled "The Media and Rwanda: The Difficult Search for the Truth ".

"We are in a world where there is freedom of expression, we cannot be against that. But, as it is, we disapprove of what these people [intellectuals] advance.", Mrs Edda Mukabagwiza, Rwanda's Ambassador to Canada, told the Hirondelle Agency. "It is always when we near the commemoration period of the genocide (6 April 1994) that these people make themselves heard. It is not even astonishing, it is now always like that", added the ambassador.

According to Robin Philpot, author of several books on Rwandan genocide and whose editor is organizing the event, "more and more, evidence is coming out in trials or newspapers which make it possible to say that the official story does not tell all. It is our duty to find the truth".

The brother of Robin Philpot, John Philpot, is the defence lawyer for Protais Zigiranyirazo, who is on trial before the Arusha-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). Zigiranyirazo, known popularly as "Mr Z" is an ex-businessman and the brother-in-law of the former Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana.

The most awaited person at the conference will undoubtedly be the French journalist Pierre Pean; who has written many popular works, including "Black Furies, White Liars".

The publication of the book resulted in the filing of a complaint by the French association S.O.S. Racism, which claimed that Mr Pean was repeating "presumptions of the genocide ideology". Mr Pean and his editor will be tried next September in Paris over charges of "complicity in racial slander and complicity in provocation to discrimination, violence and racial hatred."

The Spaniard Palou-Loverdos, lawyer of an organization that filed a complaint and led to the issuance of arrest warrants against forty former Rwandan o RPF rebels, is also expected to be present at the Montreal gathering.

"For the survivors and the victims, I find it unacceptable to deny reality", stated to Canadian media Callixte Kabayiza, President of an association of victims of the Rwandan genocide in Canada.

Journalists Want Umuco Newspaper Suspended
The New Times
By James Munyaneza
March 20, 2008

The Rwandan media fraternity has, in an unprecedented move, resolved to sue a local newspaper over publishing "highly slanderous and unfounded articles defaming" President Paul Kagame and other national leaders, and equating the President and the Rwanda Defence Forces (RDF) to Adolph Hitler and Nazis, respectively.

In a crisis consultative meeting between members of the Rwanda Media Ethics Commission (RMEC), media house owners and practitioners, journalists also asked the High Council of the Press (HCP) to withdraw its press card from the vernacular newspaper's owner-cum-reporter Bonaventure Bizumuremyi and to request the line ministry to ban the paper for a year.

"(Journalists) have condemned and disassociated themselves from articles published in Umuco newspaper edition number 45," a statement signed by the commission president, Louis Kamanzi (Radio Flash), states.

In a highly charged meeting held at the Press House in Remera, journalists condemned Umuco's "unprofessional levels" accusing it of dragging the President's credibility and that of the RDF in mud by likening them to Hitler and the Nazis, known internationally for the genocide of six million Jews.

They also said that by equating Kagame to Germany's Hitler, the author and the publication were denying the 1994 Genocide, which was stopped by then rebels of the Rwandese Patriotic Army (RPA ) under Kagame's leadership.

The commission singled out four articles published in Umuco's March 12-27, 2008 edition citing laws that were violated by the publication.

The most "vilifying" article cited was in the edition's headline piece in which the writer, Jason Mukasa, based on recent indictments issued by a Spanish judge against forty RDF officers, claimed that Kagame was trapped between life and death, and offered options to the Head of State, one of them being "to commit" suicide.

The other options the writer gave Kagame "to flee the country, cling to power until death, or to present himself before the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC)."

The article, according to analysts, is full of abusive, demeaning and insulting language, largely buried inside the strong Kinyarwanda language used in the two-page opinion piece in the bi-monthly paper.

"He (Bizumuremyi) has taken the lives of Rwandans for granted. The story has had more destructive impact because it has created panic and speculation among the population. As a result, some people have told me that they were contemplating fleeing the country. These articles are meant to terrorise citizens by depicting a picture that the country is headed for collapse," said a seemingly perplexed Alex Rutareka (City Radio).

The Editor-in-Chief of Imvaho newspaper, Frank Ndamage, compared the publication to the media of 1993 and early '94, which sowed hatred among the masses and later incited one section of the society to kill their neighbours.

"This is just a replica of Kangura (newspaper) and RTLM (radio station)," he said in reference to two pre-Genocide media outlets, which played a central role in the death of one million Rwandans, and whose leaders have since been convicted and sentenced by the Tanzania-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).

Other articles the media fraternity is highly critical of in Umuco are claims that a clique allegedly led by Gen. Jack Nziza 'continues to set Kigali City on fire' and that Rwanda is a lawless country.

And in an editorial on the recent Cabinet reshuffle in the same edition, the paper alleges that Tusti state ministers are appointed to closely monitor the activities of their more senior Hutu ministers, an allegation journalists dismissed calling it sectarian, and intended to create divisions within the Cabinet, and to rekindle hate among Rwandans.

"That is a criminal offence punishable under the laws of our country. It is something no one, at least those with good intentions, should fail to see the underlying motives of this newspaper," one journalist shouted.

RMEC members told journalists that they tried to contact Bizumuremyi to discuss the matter with him, but he instead hanged up on the caller after he was told that the commission wanted a word with him. There were also suggestions that most of the articles in the newspaper targeting the State and the President are actually authored by people belonging to negative forces outside the country, and only use pseudo names as bylines.

Kamanzi said the ethics commission tried to look for Mukasa -the purported author of the article putting Kagame and Hitler in the same basket - but in vain, before the HCP confirmed that the name did not feature in its data bank.

"That is far well beyond the boundaries of a journalist," Jean Bosco Gatete, the Chief Editor of Umurinzi newspaper, said.

But while the editors of Umuvugizi and Rimeg (publisher of Umuseso and Newsline) newspapers, Bosco Gasasira and Charles Kabonero, respectively, say they don't share opinion with the Kagame-Hitler article author, they insist that journalists should have stopped at condemning the newspaper but not pursuing a legal action and specific penalties they wanted the press council or the Information ministry to sanction.

"I don't agree with him but I respect his opinion. As journalists we should have condemned the articles and leave the rest to the judiciary," Kabonero said yesterday.

On his part, Gasasira blamed Umuco for likening Kagame and Hitler's "personalities considering the good things Kagame has done and the grave crimes Hitler is remembered for."

"My opinion is different from his (Bizumuremyi's) probably because of the difference in our reasoning capacity, but what we should understand is that all the nine million Rwandans don't have the same opinion because we all have different backgrounds," Gasasira said.

It was not possible to get a comment from Bizumuremyi as his cell phone was switched off by press time.

Meanwhile, Patrice Mulama, the Executive Secretary of the High Council of the Press, said the council had not officially received the journalists' request but said the case of Umuco was on the agenda of the council's meeting on Friday.

"What I can tell you now is that the Council is scheduled to meet on Friday and determine the way forward," he said on phone last evening.

Hunt for Kabuga Stepped Up
The Nation (Nairobi)
By David Okwembah
March 23, 2008

A senior military officer in former President Moi's administration is the latest person to be grilled by an international tribunal as the hunt for Rwandan fugitive Felicien Kabuga intensifies.

Also lined up for grilling is the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Moses Wetang'ula, who last October told Parliament that Kabuga was allegedly financing some political parties and politicians in Kenya.

And, two weeks ago, the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda (ICTR) chief prosecutor, Justice Hassan Jallow, was in Nairobi in pursuit of Kenya's pledge to have the bank accounts linked to the fugitive frozen.

Mr Jallow is reported to have met senior officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Attorney General's office during his latest visit to Nairobi but no information was divulged from the meetings.

The developments come as the tribunal set up to prosecute those involved in the Rwandan genocide in 1994 revealed that those on its wanted list had reduced from 18 to 14.

The hunt for Kabuga seems to have gone a notch higher following the arrest of another indictee, Callixte Nzabonimana, a former Minister for Youth and Sports in the interim government of 1994 in Rwanda and also a member of the Mouvement Républicain National pour le Développement et la Démocratie (MRND).

Nzabonimana was arrested on February 18, 2008 in Kigoma town, Tanzania. The tracking team of the office of the prosecutor facilitated his arrest.

In the amended indictment dated November 21, 2001, Nzabonimana is jointly charged with six other persons including Augustin Bizimana, Edouard Karemera, Andre Rwamakuba, Mathieu Ngirumpatse, Joseph Nzirorera and Kabuga.

The tribunal accuses Kenya of not co-operating in tracking down Kabuga, one of the four fugitives considered sufficiently high-level indictees.

The Kenyan military officer, who has since retired from the government, was grilled last September by investigators and tracking officers from the Arusha-based (ICTR) after a letter he wrote to a senior immigration officer in June of 1997 surfaced in Arusha.

According to documents seen by the Sunday Nation, Mr Jallow wrote to the minister seeking a meeting before December 10, 2007.

The officer (name withheld) was asked to explain if he knew where the Rwandan fugitive, who has a Sh350 million ($5m) bounty on his head, was hiding.

Efforts by the Sunday Nation to speak to the military officer failed as he did not respond to numerous messages left on his mobile phone.

In the letter, written more than 10 years ago, the officer had pleaded with the immigration department not to expel Kabuga from Kenya until his (officer's) return from a trip in South Africa.

Apparently, the immigration department had given Kabuga a week's notice to leave the country. The letter was written to the Principal Immigration Officer but to the attention of a Mr Amdany. The officer has since died.

The grilling of the military officer is testimony of how well connected Kabuga was in Kenya. The fugitive has been on the run for the last 14 years.

Last June, ICTR officers questioned