Showing posts with label ICC Ali Mohamed Ali Abdel-Rahman Ali Kushayb Ahmed Haroun. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ICC Ali Mohamed Ali Abdel-Rahman Ali Kushayb Ahmed Haroun. Show all posts

Sunday, July 09, 2023

Sudan: Darfur rebellion in 2003 was not genocide

NOTE from Sudan Watch Editor: This is my attempt to clarify that anyone who refers to the Darfur rebellion and counterinsurgency of 2003 as genocide is in fact, most likely unwittingly, spreading US propaganda.

African (and European) leaders did not say that the Darfur rebellion started in 2003 was genocide because it wasn't. For the sake of simplicity, and to save trawling through the extensive archives of this 20-year-old site, here is an excerpt from Wikipedia on the international response to the rebellion:

"The ongoing conflict in Darfur, Sudan, which started in 2003, was declared a "genocide" by United States Secretary of State Colin Powell on 9 September 2004 in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Since that time however, no other permanent member of the United Nations Security Council has followed suit. In fact, in January 2005, an International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur, authorized by UN Security Council Resolution 1564 of 2004, issued a report to the Secretary-General stating that "the Government of the Sudan has not pursued a policy of genocide." Nevertheless, the Commission cautioned that "The conclusion that no genocidal policy has been pursued and implemented in Darfur by the Government authorities, directly or through the militias under their control, should not be taken in any way as detracting from the gravity of the crimes perpetrated in that region. International offences such as the crimes against humanity and war crimes that have been committed in Darfur may be no less serious and heinous than genocide." - Wikipedia June 26, 2023.

A handful of US activists online were the first to shout genocide in Darfur. They and many others used Darfur and South Sudan as political footballs for personal gain and work. After the Bush administration (Republican) left office, most of the Save Darfur crowd faded away or moved on to pastures new, in media, govts, NGOs, UN, charity startups related to genocide etc. 

In 2003, social media platforms Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, Tik Tok, Bing etc., didn't exist. Global citizens took to the Internet and 4-yo Blogger like ducks to water. Power to the people. It was wild and exciting.

Thousands of bloggers put the spotlight on Darfur by piling enormous non-stop pressure on politicians and the UN to send aid to Darfur, stop genocide in Darfur and stop (mainly black) Darfuris being slain, starved or forced to flee by gun-toting (mainly Arab) militia on horses, camels or trucks. 

The Internet, home computing and smartphones now used by billions worldwide, have taken massive leaps with Artificial Intelligence. Evidence of atrocities can be gathered, checked and verified to stand up in a court of law.

Going by the report below, it's easy to see why Sudan's military junta is against Kenyan President Ruto helping to bring peace to Sudan: it quotes President Ruto as saying "there are already signs of genocide in Sudan". 

Now in 2023, ill informed people and others with vested interests, media included, write of genocide in Darfur in 2003 based on conjecture without doing any homework or citing verifiable sources and facts. 

Social media is mainly a free for all soapbox from which anyone can say almost anything. Recently, I saw some displaced Darfuris interviewed on camera (English subtitles) using activists' buzz words and "genocide". 

AI wizardry is moving at lightening speed and is now used to spread propaganda and fake news online to great effect. Experienced journalists with access to fact-checking technology are needed now more than ever.  

In Sudan, fighters from several different countries (and prisons) use heavy weapons and custom-made trucks to help the belligerents grab land and power. There is no functioning government in Sudan, anarchy reigns.

From what I can gather, the only way to stop Sudan's collapse is for a unified civilian-led government to claim its right to govern now, even in exile, backed by the AU, IGAD, NAM, LAS, UN and the international community. African solutions to African problems, African land for African people.

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Report at France24

By Marc Perelman 

Published Friday 23 June 2023 - here is a full copy:


Kenyan President William Ruto: 'There are already signs of genocide in Sudan'

In an interview with FRANCE 24 on the sidelines of the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact, Kenya President William Ruto said the world's multinational financial architecture needs to be "fixed". He also reacted to the ongoing conflict in Sudan, saying "there are already signs of genocide". More than 2,000 people have been killed there since fighting broke out on April 15.


"We pay, especially those of us from the Global South and on the African continent, up to eight times more for the same resources, because of something called risk," Kenya's Ruto said. Calling the current system "broken", "rigged" and "unfair", Ruto said the multinational financial architecture needs to be "fixed". He also insisted on the importance of clarifying climate financing in order to deal with poverty and the "existential threat" of climate change.


Ruto narrowly won re-election in August 2022, but his opponent Raila Odinga claims to have won instead and has since been organising protests. Ruto said: "I don't have a problem with Raila Odinga, we are competitors. I have no problem with Raila Odinga organising protests (...) It's part of democracy." 


Turning to the deadly conflict in Sudan, he said: "There are already signs of genocide. What is going on in Sudan is unacceptable. Military power is being used by both parties to destroy the country and to kill civilians. The war is senseless, the war is not legitimate in any way."


Ruto said he had a regional meeting about the situation in Sudan two weeks ago in a bid to stop the war. But he added: "The issue will not be resolved until we get General al-Burhan, General Hemedti, political leaders and civil society – women's groups and youth groups – to the table." He insisted that this was "feasible".

View original: https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/the-interview/20230623-kenya-president-william-ruto-there-are-already-signs-of-genocide-in-sudan


[Ends] 

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Further reading


Sudan Watch - April 08, 2006

What is the difference between genocide and ethnic cleansing?

https://sudanwatch.blogspot.com/2006/04/what-is-difference-between-genocide.html


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From ICC website - Darfur, Sudan - excerpts:


Situation referred to the ICC by the United Nations Security Council: March 2005

ICC investigations opened: June 2005

Current focus: Alleged genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur, Sudan, since 1 July 2002 (when the Rome Statute entered into force)

Current regional focus: Darfur (Sudan), with Outreach to refugees in Eastern Chad and those in exile throughout Europe.  ...

The situation in Darfur was the first to be referred to the ICC by the United Nations Security Council, and the first ICC investigation on the territory of a non-State Party to the Rome Statute. It was the first ICC investigation dealing with allegations of the crime of genocide. 

Former Sudan's President Omar Al Bashir is the first sitting President to be wanted by the ICC, and the first person to be charged by the ICC for the crime of genocide. Neither of the two warrants of arrest against him have been enforced, and he is not in the Court's custody. 

See the ICC Prosecutor's reports to the UNSC on the investigation.

Read more: https://www.icc-cpi.int/darfur

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Darfur: A Short History of a Long War and Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2006


Extract

Darfur: A Short History of a Long War. By Julie Flint and Alex de Waal. New York: Zed Books, 2005. 176p. $60.00 cloth, $19.99 paper.

In the last two years, the Darfur region in western Sudan has moved from relative international obscurity to become a symbol of humanitarian crisis and mass violence. Political scientists who research genocide, ethnic conflict, civil war, humanitarianism, and African politics all have taken interest in the region, and Darfur is likely to command scholarly attention in years to come. Yet the academic literature on the region remains thin. To date, scholars have relied primarily on journalistic accounts and human rights reports, which detail the violence but, by their nature, provide only cursory historical background. With the publication of these two short but informative books, Darfur's political history and the path to mass violence are substantially clearer. That said, the books are not designed to build theories of ethnic violence or genocide, nor do the authors explicitly engage in hypotheses testing. The books are useful primarily as detailed, lucid case histories from two sets of well-informed observers. 

View original: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/abs/darfur-a-short-history-of-a-long-war-and-darfur-the-ambiguous-genocide/49A0DF3736227EA14A61989D66F98D14

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Darfur, the Ambiguous Genocide
By Gérard Prunier
212pp, Hurst, £15

Review by Dominick Donald published in the Guardian - here is a full copy:

During 2003, occasional reports emerged in the international media of fighting in Darfur, a huge tract of western Sudan bordering Chad. Over the next year the picture became confused, as - depending on who was doing the talking - a minor rebellion became a tribal spat, or nomads taking on farmers, or Arab-versus-African ethnic cleansing, or genocide.

An outside world that understood political violence in Sudan through the simplistic lens of the unending war between Muslim north and Christian/animist south - a war that seemed to be about to end - had to adjust. And nothing that has emerged since has made that adjustment easy. If Darfuris are Muslim, what is their quarrel with the Islamic government in Khartoum? If they and the janjaweed - "evil horsemen" - driving them from their homes are both black, how can it be Arab versus African? If the Sudanese government is making peace with the south, why would it be risking that by waging war in the west? Above all, is it genocide?

Gérard Prunier has the answers. An ethnographer and renowned Africa analyst, he turns on the evasions of Khartoum the uncompromising eye that dissected Hutu power excuses for the Rwanda genocide a decade ago. He is never an easy read. While his style is fluid, there's too much brilliant, obscure but pivotal erudition, too much confident summarising, and not enough readiness to compromise for the reader cramming in another five pages on the tube.

He isn't helped by the fact that he is usually offering an incisive user's manual for a machine most of us have never seen before. But stick with him. For he deploys his fierce logic to a powerful moral purpose. He builds an understanding of a community and a culture in all its complexity to then strip away the convenient truths and confused equivocations that guilty or disinterested politicians use to explain why nothing should be done. Read Darfur and you will be in no doubt at all that the government of Sudan, whatever it says, is responsible for what is happening there. The killings are the consequence of a logical, realist's policy, stemming from a racial/ cultural contempt. You will also wonder whether anything substantive will be done to stop them.

Prunier's Darfur is a victim of its separateness - not just from Khartoum, but from everywhere else in Sudan. Geographically, culturally and commercially it always looked west, along the Sahel, rather than east to the Nile, north to Egypt, or south to Bahr El Ghazal. Its Islamic practices fused Arab with African, unlike the more ascetic, eschatological Muslim brotherhoods prevalent along the Nile, or the animism or polytheism adhered to in the south. Above all it retained a political and cultural identity apart from the homogenising forces of what became Sudan. The Sultanate of Darfur tottered on, essentially independent, until 1916; the Ottomans never established a foothold there, the Mahdists were resisted and co-opted, while once the British brought it into the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, they ruled through paternalistic neglect.

Even when Darfur was key to politicians in an independent Sudan - for instance, as a bedrock of support for the neo-Mahdists who ruled the country for much of its first two decades - it was ignored. Ravaged by the 1985 famine - Khartoum effectively denied it food aid - and proxy battles for Chad, it saw in the new century with a marginal economy and a government which, when it paid attention to Darfur, did so through the medium of militias encouraged to define tribal or cultural groups as the enemy.

As Prunier shows, it is the economics and the militias that lie at the heart of the atrocities in Darfur. The Sudan Liberation Army, recognising that the Naivasha power-sharing peace process between Khartoum and the SPLA/M in the south was going to leave Darfur even further behind, took up arms in 2002. All the government could do was unleash the militias in the hope that it could deal with the problem before southerners arrived in government and vetoed any repression. Now probably half of Darfur's population has been driven into camps for internally displaced persons (IDP), beyond the reach of international food aid, where malnutrition and disease are carrying them off at the rate of perhaps 8% a year. This suits Khartoum just fine. For while the international community havers about what it cannot see, Khartoum is free to pay lip service to the Naivasha peace process that will ensure regime survival, keep the Americans off its back, and allow the élite to exploit Sudan's oil.

It is this peace process that ensures the tragedy of Darfur goes on. The UN Security Council has passed powerful-sounding resolutions demanding the Sudanese government behave in Darfur. But it doesn't have the physical tools to coerce anyone. The African Union force it dispatched there is small, immobile, unsighted and with a weak mandate, and neither the US, UK nor France has the troops to send in its place. Above all, it won't apply too much pressure on Khartoum for fear of scuppering Naivasha - the deal that will end 50 years of on-and-off fighting, and bring a recalcitrant Sudan back into the embrace of the international community.

Yet Naivasha will almost certainly fail anyway. The Sudanese government probably has no intention of sticking to the Naivasha deal; it has never stuck to its deals before, choosing to obscure non-compliance with sorrowful tales of lack of control and warnings that enforcement will bring in the bogeyman. The process is driven by external actors, and so is hostage to their brief, easily distracted political attention spans. And it will bind the international community to Khartoum as tightly as vice versa - who will be coercing and who will be coerced? The international community believes it can't pull out of Naivasha in the face of Sudanese non-compliance for fear of losing oil deals, or an Islamic supporter in the war on terror, or of ushering in something worse. In reality it has saddled up a spaniel and sent it over the sticks, ignoring the sturdy point-to-pointer waiting in the wings.

Is what is happening in Darfur genocide? As Prunier points out, in the terms of the 1948 Genocide Convention ("deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part"), it is - particularly what is happening in the IDP camps. Yet in his superb book on the Rwandan genocide, Prunier argued for a different definition, namely "a coordinated attempt to destroy a racially, religiously, or politically pre-defined group in its entirety". Why quibble about definitions? After all, they're irrelevant to Darfuris - their suffering will be the same, whatever tag is used. They're a concern for the international community alone. But for them, he concludes, the "G" word really matters.

In the west, "things are not seen in their reality but in their capacity to create brand images ... 'Genocide' is big because it carries the Nazi label, which sells well." Unfortunately what is happening in Darfur doesn't look like Treblinka. So the international community finds itself fixated on a distraction - a legal genocide, that doesn't look like a genocide.

Instead it should ignore the "G" word and focus on the key issue. The Sudanese government is responsible for the deaths of perhaps more than 200,000 Darfuris as an instrument of policy. It is weak, profoundly unpopular, and hugely vulnerable. It needs the pretence of Naivasha. It can be coerced. Let's get on with it.

· Dominick Donald is a senior analyst for Aegis Research and Intelligence, a London political risk consultancy

[Ends]

Monday, October 13, 2008

Darfur militia leader, Ali Mohamed Ali Abdel-Rahman aka Ali Kushayb, will be tried in Sudan’s courts - Sudan may dismiss Ahmed Haroun

A Sudanese militia leader wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes in Darfur is in custody, a minister has confirmed.

The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Ali Mohamed Ali Abdel-Rahman - known as Ali Kushayb - in February last year.

Sudanese Justice Minister Abdel Basit Sabderat said an investigation into alleged crimes committed by Ali Kushayb was now drawing to an end.

Ali Kushayb was arrested several months ago, the minister said.

Full story by BBC Mon 13 Oct 2008 - Darfur militia leader in custody.

Related reports

Mon 13 Oct 2008 Sudan Tribune report - Sudan detains militia leader wanted by ICC in preparation for trial - copy:
Oct 12, 2008 (KHARTOUM) – The Sudanese government revealed today that a militia leader wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) has been detained and will stand trial for his alleged role in Darfur war crimes.

The Sudanese justice minister Abdel-Basit Sabdarat told the Associated Press from Cairo that militia commander Ali Mohamed Ali Abdel-Rahman, also know as Ali Kushayb “is in government custody”.

“Kushayb will be tried in Sudan’s domestic courts. He is under investigation. He will be held accountable” Sabdarat said.

The move come almost three months after the ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo announced in mid-July that he requested an arrest warrant against Sudanese president Omar Hassan Al-Bashir.

Following that Sudan has been looking into ways that would allow it to avoid confrontation with the international community over the ICC through conducting trials for lesser suspects.

The judges of the ICC issued arrest warrants last year for Kushayb and Ahmed Haroun, state minister for humanitarian affairs on 51 counts of alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes. But Khartoum has so far refused to hand them over.

Khartoum had long claimed that Kushayb was in custody since November 2006 for investigations into allegations of violations he committed during the peak of the Darfur conflict in 2004.

Sudan’s former Justice Minister Mohamed Ali al-Mardi told a news conference in Khartoum in February 2007 that “Ali Kushayb, along with two other individuals, was sent for trial. He was detained as a suspect, questioned, his statements were evaluated and witness statements recorded, and then the decision was taken to refer him to court”.

But in March 2007 Kushayb’s trial was delayed when the defendants filed an appeal with the Justice ministry after which Abu-Zeid told reporters that Kushayb’s appeal was denied that there is “sufficient evidence to proceed with the case”.

Shortly afterwards the Sudanese justice ministry ordered a ban on publishing reports or details relating to criminal cases on Darfur conflict and many observers at the time voiced skepticism over Khartoum’s seriousness to try perpetrators of crimes in the war ravaged region.

In October 2007 Sudan’s former foreign minister Lam Akol told the pro-government daily Al-Rayaam from New York that Kushayb was freed “due to lack of incriminating evidence against him”.

However Al-Mardi issued a quick denial to the Al-Rayaam report describing it as “false” without directly commenting on Akol’s statements.

The former Justice Minister was asked again by Al-Rayaam last November on the whereabouts of Kushayb and he reiterated that the militia leader was “never released” before saying that he refrained from commenting on the issue “because it is under investigation”.

In April the spokesman for the Sudanese embassy in London, Khalid Al-Mubarak was quoted by Voice of America (VOA) as saying that Haroun and Kushayb were not prosecuted “because there is no evidence against them”.

Again in June Amin Hassan Omar, a leading figure in the National Congress Party (NCP) and a state minister also confirmed Kushayb’s release.

Sabdarat did not say on what charges will Kushayb be prosecuted despite earlier assertions that he has been cleared from any wrongdoings.

The ICC Statute prevents investigation into crimes that were looked into by local judiciary under the concept of “complementarity”.

Sudan must prosecute Haroun and Kushayb for the same accusations brought against them by the ICC in order for the latter to lose jurisdiction over their cases.

Sudan has not ratified the Rome Statute, but the UN Security Council (UNSC) triggered the provisions under the Statute 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. (ST)
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Mon 13 Oct 2008 Sudan Tribune report by Wasil Ali - Sudan offered to remove minister accused of war crimes: diplomat - copy:
October 12, 2008 (WASHINGTON) – The Sudanese government told French officials that they are willing to remove a minister wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), a senior European diplomat told Sudan Tribune.

The diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity said that the proposal was made during a visit by a Sudanese delegation last week to Paris headed by senior Sudanese presidential adviser Nafi Ali Nafi.

Nafi met with French officials including foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, Claude Guéant, the secretary general of the French Presidency and the presidential adviser for African Affairs Bruno Joubert.

French officials have said that it is “unacceptable” that an individual indicted of war crimes to be part of the Sudanese cabinet.

According to the diplomat the delegation told French officials that they could possibly dismiss Ahmed Haroun, state minister for humanitarian affairs and investigate his alleged role in Darfur war crimes.

Sudanese officials insisted however, that any prosecution of Haroun is contingent upon coming up with evidence implicating him. They further said they will not cooperate with the ICC in conducting national proceedings as demanded by Paris.

In a surprise move the Sudanese justice minister Abdel-Basit Sabdarat told the Associated Press from Cairo today that militia commander Ali Mohamed Ali Abdel-Rahman, also know as Ali Kushayb “is in government custody”.

“Kushayb will be tried in Sudan’s domestic courts. He is under investigation. He will be held accountable” Sabdarat said.

The judges of the ICC issued arrest warrants last year for Kushayb and Haroun on 51 counts of alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes. But Khartoum has so far refused to hand them over.

Sabdarat did not say on what charges will Kushayb be prosecuted despite earlier assertions that he has been cleared from any wrongdoings.

Khartoum has been lobbying world countries to freeze a move by the ICC to indict president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir.

In mid-July the ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo announced that he is seeking an arrest warrant for Al-Bashir.

The ICC’s prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo filed 10 charges: three counts of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and two of murder. In early October ICC judges have officially started reviewing the case in a process that could possibly drag on to next year.

Sudan and a number of regional organizations including the African Union (AU), Arab League, Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) condemned Ocampo’s request and called on the UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution deferring Al-Bashir’s indictment.

But the UNSC has been divided on the issue particularly the Western countries on the council hesitant to support such a move.

France has been the only country to publicly offer Sudan a suspension of charges in return for concessions on the ground with regard to the Darfur crisis and relations with neighboring Chad.

The French president Nicolas Sarkozy speaking in New York during the UN General Assembly meetings last month made it clear that his country will not support a deferral resolution unless certain conditions are met.

“France wants the Sudanese authorities to radically change their policies. It is now up to Mr. Al-Bashir to determine what exactly he wants” Sarkozy said.

“We want to deploy the international force in Darfur to stop the scandalous situation in which tens of thousands are dying in this part of Africa. We want peace in Sudan as well as peace and the territorial integrity of Chad… people in Darfur have the right to live and we cannot accept the situation as it is currently” he added.

Sarkozy warned Sudan that France wants to see concrete steps taken before it would support a suspension of ICC move.

“There would be no recourse to invoking Article 16 unless there is radical and immediate change in Sudanese policies” he said.

“If Sudanese authorities do change; totally change their policies then France would not be opposed to using Article 16” the French president added.

But the visiting Sudanese delegation failed to reach an agreement with France on conditions needed to invoke an Article 16 resolution in the UNSC.

Khartoum has recently appeared increasingly resigned to the fact that they will not be able to convince Western powers on the UNSC to drop their opposition to a deferral.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met briefly with Sudan 2nd VP Ali Osman Taha in New York last month where they discussed the ICC row. The Sudanese official inquired on what is needed to lift Washington’s oppistion to Article 16 resolution.

Rice provided Taha with a list of conditions including facilitating the deployment of African Union-United forces in Darfur (UNAMID), lifting restrictions on aid workers and reaching an understanding with all opposition forces.

The US top diplomat said that Washington wants to see progress made on these benchmarks within a specific timeframe that expires mid-December.

Only then will the US be willing to discuss a deferral of Al-Bashir’s indictment with Sudan, Rice told Taha.

The Sudanese VP contested that the UN is the party to blame in the delay of UNAMID deplyment. Rice agreed with Taha on this but said that the US will fill the gaps and offered to airlift peacekeepers into Darfur.

The US Secretary of State also said that Washington is working with its allies to secure the helicopters for UNAMID.

Last month US special envoy to Sudan Richard Williamson told the US Commission on International Religious Freedom that Washington will veto any Article 16 resolution introduced in the UNSC.

“If asked—if forced to vote today—the United States, even if it was 191 countries against one, would veto an Article 16 [resolution],” Ambassador Richard Williamson said.

The US is not a party to the ICC and has remained hostile to it. Washington had threatened to veto resolution 1593 referring Darfur case to the ICC adopted in March 2005 but eventually bent down to domestic and international pressure and abstained from voting.

The US has recently showed signs of warming up to the court despite its long standing fears that it may be used to bring frivolous cases against its troops. (ST)