Qatari PM says Al-Qaeda would be "happy to see Sudan become like Iraq" - Somali opposition leader quits Eritrea for Sudan

Somalia's hardline Islamist opposition leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys has quit self-imposed exile in Eritrea for neighbouring Sudan and may return to Mogadishu soon, Somali media said on Tuesday.

In an interview with SPIEGEL published on Monday, the emir of Qatar has warned that Sudan could descend into chaos if President Omar al-Bashir is arrested.

March 28, 2009 report from SPIEGEL - excerpt:
Qatari Emir Warns of 'Chaos' in Sudan

The emir of Qatar has warned that the international warrant for the arrest of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir could destablize the entire region. "If anything happened to Omar al-Bashir and Sudan ended up in chaos, the whole of Africa will sink into chaos," Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani said in an interview with SPIEGEL [published on Monday].

He said that the terrorist group al-Qaida would be "happy to see Sudan become like Iraq."

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March 31, 2009 report from Reuters by Ibrahim Mohamed:
Somali opposition leader quits Eritrea for Sudan

(MOGADISHU) - Somalia's hardline Islamist opposition leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys has quit self-imposed exile in Eritrea for neighbouring Sudan and may return to Mogadishu soon, Somali media said on Tuesday.

Aweys, 62, is on a U.S. list of terrorism suspects. He is a former chairman of the Islamic Courts Union that ruled Somalia's capital in 2006 until being ousted by Ethiopian troops.

He worked alongside his country's moderate Islamist president, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, in the Islamic Courts and they later founded the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia.

Earlier this year, Ahmed was elected president by lawmakers at U.N.-hosted talks in Djibouti.

Radio stations in Mogadishu said Aweys was in Khartoum and held talks on Tuesday with two senior Sudanese officials. They said he was expected to fly to the Somali capital later to offer his support to Ahmed's new administration.

The endorsement of Aweys would be a boost for Ahmed, who faces the daunting task of trying to establish a new national security force and persuade heavily-armed Islamist guerrillas to back his government in the interests of peace.

But it could prove difficult for the United Nations and Western countries, which were once wary of Islamists being in power but now see Ahmed as the best hope for bringing peace to the failed Horn of Africa state after 18 years of violence.

A close ally of Aweys in Mogadishu, who asked not to be named, told Reuters Aweys was expected to arrive in the city within two weeks. The ally said Awey's plans were not yet clear, but he denied he had met any Sudanese officials.

One senior Somali source in Sudan confirmed Aweys was in the country, and said it was possible Ahmed might travel to Khartoum to meet him there. He gave no other details.

In a Reuters interview by telephone from Asmara earlier this month, Aweys denounced Ahmed as just another Ethiopian stooge and said he was a traitor to the Islamic faith.

Aweys is on the U.S. list of foreign terrorists, as is the hardline Islamist insurgent group al Shabaab, which controls much of southern and central Somalia. Ahmed has been pushing to have Aweys removed from the list.

Washington accuses Somalia's hardline Islamists of having ties to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda and fears the chaotic country could be used by foreign groups to destabilise the region.

(Additional reporting by Abdiaziz Hassan in Nairobi; Writing by Daniel Wallis; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Sudan's Bashir rules out retreat from explusion of NGOs

U.S. President Barack Obama is urging Sudan's government to let recently expelled humanitarian aid groups return to the country. Mr. Obama is sending an envoy to Khartoum this week to make his case.

On his way back home today (Wednesday, 01 April) from an Arab summit held March 30-31 in Doha, Qatar, Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir visited the Islamic holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia to implement Ummar (informal pilgrimage) and met Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz.

"We will not retreat from the expulsion of the organizations because they were a front of the western intelligence," the Sudanese president told reporters at the Khartoum airport while returning from the Qatari capital Doha after attending an Arab summit.

April 2, 2009 report by Xinhua (Web Editor Xu Liuliu):
Sudanese President Rules Out Retreat from Expulsion of Foreign NGOs

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir ruled out Wednesday a retreat from his decision to expel 13 foreign nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) accused by Khartoum of passing false information to the International Criminal Court ( ICC).

"We will not retreat from the expulsion of the organizations because they were a front of the western intelligence," the Sudanese president told reporters at the Khartoum airport while returning from the Qatari capital Doha after attending an Arab summit.

Al-Bashir launched again a violent attack on the NGOs which had been ordered by the Sudanese authorities to leave the country after accusing them of being involved in activities threatening the national security of Sudan.

"These organizations were not humanitarian, but sought to destabilize the country and some had signed confidentiality agreements with the International Criminal Court," he said.

He reaffirmed that the arrest warrant issued against him by the ICC would not limit his internal and external movements, saying " we participated in the Arab summit to confirm that the decision of the court would not limit our actions, and I'm leaving for anywhere when it is necessary."

He described the Arab summit in Doha as "successful", adding that "this summit has deepened the Arab reconciliation and created a mechanism for a joint Arab action after overcoming some of the differences that have negatively impacted the Arab world in the past."

On his way back home, the Sudanese president visited the Islamic holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia to implement Ummar (informal pilgrimage) and met Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz.

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March 31, 2009 Voice of America report by Kent Klein, White House:
Obama Urges Sudan to Allow Aid Groups to Return

U.S. President Barack Obama is urging Sudan's government to let recently expelled humanitarian aid groups return to the country. Mr. Obama is sending an envoy to Khartoum this week to make his case.

Despite the urgency of the global financial crisis and the failing U.S. auto industry, President Obama says attention must be paid to the humanitarian disaster in Sudan's western region of Darfur.

"I wanted us to make sure that we were not losing sight of something that has been an ongoing international crisis, and that is the situation in Darfur," he said.

The International Criminal Court recently issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on charges of crimes against humanity in Darfur. Afterward, Mr. Bashir expelled 13 non-governmental organizations he accuses of plotting with the court.

Before leaving for Europe, Mr. Obama said Monday the Sudanese leader's actions have caused a crisis.

"We have an immediate crisis prompted by the Khartoum government's expulsion of non-governmental organizations that are providing aid to displaced persons inside of Sudan," he said.

Mr. Obama said immediate action is needed to prevent the humanitarian situation from growing worse.

"We have to figure out a mechanism to get those NGO's back in place, to reverse that decision, or to find some mechanism whereby we avert an enormous humanitarian crisis," he said.

The president has appointed a special envoy, retired Air Force Major General Scott Gration, and is sending him to Khartoum this week to urge the Sudanese government to allow the aid groups to return.

Mr. Obama discussed the issue in meetings with activists and members of Congress.

Arab League rejects ICC Bashir warrant

Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir was given a boost by the Arab League at the conclusion of its two-day summit, which he attended in Qatar on Monday.

“We reiterate our solidarity with Sudan and our rejection of the measure of the ... International Criminal Court against his Excellency,” it said in its final statement.

A one-day Second Summit of Arab-South American Countries closed on Tuesday with the adoption of a declaration that welcomes the initiative of the Arab League and the African Union to resolve the Darfur crisis, and calls on all the Sudanese factions to respond positively to the initiative to ensure its success.

Source: reports from The Times and Xinhua, copy here below.



Photo: Sudan's Omar al-Bashir (L) chats with Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz as they pose for a photo prior to the 21st Arab League summit, in Doha March 30, 2009. (Abaca Photo via Newscom bia Middle East Times)



Photo: Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, left, is accompanied by Qatari Emir Sheik Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani upon his arrival at Doha airport, Qatar, Sunday, March 29, 2009, for a summit meeting. The main topics to be addressed at the summit include ongoing Palestinian feuding and crafting an Arab response to the Hague-based International Criminal Court's arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for alleged crimes against humanity in the suppression of a rebellion in the Darfur region. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammarl) Associated Press



Photo: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas attends the final session of an Arab summit in Doha Monday, March 30, 2009. The summit voiced support for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on Monday, rejecting an international arrest warrant issued against him for alleged war crimes in Darfur. REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah

March 31, 2009 report by Xinhua - excerpt:
Arab-South America summit ends with declaration

DOHA, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The one-day Second Summit of Arab-South American Countries closed here Tuesday with the adoption of an 11-point declaration on politic affairs, the Middle East peace process, and financial and economic cooperation. [...]

On the Sudan issue, the declaration welcomes the initiative of the Arab League and the African Union to resolve the Darfur crisis, and calls on all the Sudanese factions to respond positively to the initiative to ensure its success.

However, it falls short of mentioning the International Criminal Court’s (ICC’s) arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for alleged war crimes in Darfur.

See April 2, 2009 report from The Times: World court under threat as President al-Bashir of Sudan defies warrant

China urges UN-AU joint action in Sudan

Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping urged the rest of the world to "listen carefully" to the AU and the Arabic countries, so as to not "harm" peace and stability in Sudan.

Report from China Daily by Zhang Haizhou and Li Xiaokun, 28 March 2009:
China urges UN-AU joint action in Sudan

China said on Friday that the right solution for the Darfur problem would be to push forward a joint operation between the United Nations and the African Union, but not arrest the Sudanese president.

"Currently, the international community should push forward the joint operation and political process to ensure humanitarian intervention goes on wheel in the Darfur region," Vice President Xi Jinping said, at a meeting with Awad Al-Jaz, special envoy of the Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, in Beijing.

Xi urged the rest of the world to "listen carefully" to the AU and the Arabic countries, so as to not "harm" peace and stability in Sudan.

In response Al-Jaz said his home country would be cooperative in the deployment of UNAMID's peacekeepers, but won't accept the International Criminal Court's (ICC) arrest warrant against President al-Bashir.

"Sudan will continue cooperation with the UN and the AU, and take concrete measures to improve the humanitarian situation in the Darfur region," Al-Jaz said, wishing an early solution to the problem.



Photo: Awad Al-Jaz, special envoy of the Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, in Beijing

Syria rejects ICC's warrant against Sudan's President

Syria's President al-Assad pointed out to the danger of the warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, affirming Syria's rejection of this warrant.



From United Nations in Syria website 30 March 2009:
President Bashar al-Assad Meets Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon (2009-03-30)

Doha, (SANA) – President Bashar al-Assad Received on Sunday at his residence in Doha Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon, and discussed with him the regional situation and the role which can be played by the UN for establishing stability in the Middle East, praising the Secretary General's stance regarding the Israeli aggression on Gaza.

He underlined that the problem is in the credibility of the UN and international bodies which claim caring for human rights in Sudan while remaining motionless towards the tragic humane situation in Gaza caused by the Israeli occupation crimes and siege imposed on the Palestinian people.

For his part, the Secretary General praised Syria's efforts to bolster positive atmosphere in the region, hoping that the Arab Summit 21st session will result in decision that will boost the positive atmospheres.

The meeting was attended by Vice President Farouk al-Shara, Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, Presidential Political and Media Advisor Dr. Buthaina Shaaban, and Special UN Envoy to Lebanon Michael Williams.

In a statement following the meeting, Ban Ki-moon said the meeting with President al-Assad was useful, and that they discussed several issues related to peace and stability in the region.

He expressed appreciation of President al-Assad's role in achieving Arab reconciliation and his contribution to reaching a ceasefire in Gaza Strip, stressing the need for Israel to open the Sector's crossing points and contribute to a permanent peace process in the region.

If UN Security Council does not cancel ICC proceedings against Sudan's Bashir, ICC or its Prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo must go

According to a recent article by Julie Flint and Alex de Waal (copied here below) the International Criminal Court (ICC) can act only if a country is unwilling or genuinely unable to investigate or prosecute, and the UN Security Council has the power to suspend any case for a renewable twelve-month period. The ICC is an independent court with a prosecutor elected for a single nine-year term, accountable only to his own conscience and an Assembly of States Parties (ASP) consisting of the countries that have ratified the Rome Statute. The ASP is the only body with the power to remove the prosecutor.

Based on the miles of reports that I have read on Sudan over the past five years, it seems to me that if members of the UN Security Council are unable to agree on using the Council's powers to suspend (or, better still, cancel) the ICC's proceedings against Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, the ASP might have no alternative but to remove the ICC's Prosectuor Luis Moreno Ocampo or, failing that, disband the ICC. Considering that the U.S. government will find it almost impossible to support a cancellation of the warrant because the savedarfurcrowd have got it (namely, US President Obama, VP Biden and Secretary of State Clinton) sewn up with a signed pledge, I think that the ICC's reckless and untimely move to issue an arrest warrant for Sudan's sitting Head of State, just as the Darfur peace talks in Doha were underway, sounds the death knoll for the ICC's Prosecutor and/or the ICC itself.

Here is a copy of the article, dated Spring 2009. My guess is that it was published at World Affairs Journal within the last day or so. Julie Flint is a journalist and researcher, and Alex de Waal is a researcher, writer, and activist on African issues. They are co-authors of Darfur: A New History of a Long War and deserve plaudits and accolades for their brilliant and, in my view, highly courageous reporting. I have used red to highlight text for my own reference.

From World Affairs Journal (www.worldaffairsjournal.org)
Date: Spring 2009
Title: Case Closed: A Prosecutor Without Borders
Authors: Julie Flint and Alex de Waal

Cutting Corners

Eleven years ago, celebrating the creation of the world’s first permanent International Criminal Court, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan spoke of “a gift of hope to future generations, and a giant step forward in the march towards universal human rights and the rule of law.” Reflecting on the birth of the United Nations amidst the struggle against genocide, war crimes, and aggression half a century earlier, Annan noted how the idea of a world criminal court had been stillborn, strangled by the superpower rivalry of the Cold War. Only with the triumph of Western liberalism, and the horrors in former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, had this changed. The International Criminal Court (ICC), Annan said, “is an achievement which, only a few years ago, nobody would have thought possible.”

Inevitably, much in the Rome Statute that established the ICC was diplomatic compromise. As finally agreed, the statute gives jurisdiction over genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The Court, however, can act only if a country is unwilling or genuinely unable to investigate or prosecute, and the UN Security Council has the power to suspend any case for a renewable twelve-month period. Nonetheless, the ICC is an independent court with a prosecutor elected for a single nine-year term, accountable only to his own conscience and an Assembly of States Parties (ASP) consisting of the countries that have ratified the statute.

Nine months after the Rome Statute came into effect, in April 2003, the Argentinian lawyer Luis Moreno Ocampo was elected as the Court’s first Prosecutor. He promised a “sexy court” that would dispense swift and telegenic justice comprehensible to faraway and often uneducated victims.1 Three countries referred themselves to the ICC over the next two years—Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Central African Republic—and in March 2005 the Security Council referred the case of Darfur. But it was not until March 2006 that the ICC took its first suspect into custody, a hitherto obscure Congolese militia leader named Thomas Lubanga Dyilo.

Kofi Annan spoke for many when he said, “Until now, when powerful men committed crimes against humanity, they knew that as long as they remained powerful no earthly court could judge them.” The Nuremberg trials were victors’ justice—the prosecution of those already fallen from power. The ICC is different: it promised to be a turning point in the struggle for human rights and against impunity, a landmark in the advance of global ethics. Some of the world’s most committed lawyers and investigators converged on The Hague, relishing the challenges that lay ahead. The ICC’s mandate was not only to identify the perpetrators of the worst crimes ever codified in international law; it was to arrest and prosecute them. Yet the Court had no police force, three of the Permanent Five at the Security Council did not support it, and the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations didn’t want its overstretched and vulnerable peacekeepers conscripted as ICC enforcers. It also had Luis Moreno Ocampo as its lead prosecutor.

Despite the challenge of building and operating an institution in an uncertain and evolving field of law, Moreno Ocampo had a strong wave to ride—the goodwill of publics across the globe, including a powerful American human rights constituency, and some of the ablest legal minds in the business. But three years into his tenure, many in the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) were questioning his ability to do the job. A further three years on, and the Court is in trouble—a trickle of resignations has turned into a hemorrhage, and cases under prosecution and investigation are at risk of going calamitously wrong. The Lubanga trial has come to court under a cloud of controversy over the Prosecutor’s handling of evidence and charges, and an arrest warrant issued for Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, has set in motion a chain of events that threatens a humanitarian disaster for the victims of the war in Darfur.

The first public signal of dissatisfaction with the Prosecutor was registered in July 2006 when the Court invited Antonio Cassese, the first president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), and Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, to submit amicus curiae briefs, a kind of peer review. Both challenged Moreno Ocampo’s performance. Addressing the Prosecutor like a teacher dressing down a particularly inept student, Cassese assailed every aspect of Moreno Ocampo’s investigations but especially his failure to undertake even “targeted and brief interviews” in Darfur.2 Moreno Ocampo argued that Darfur was too dangerous for investigations and that victims and witnesses couldn’t be protected from the wrath of the Sudan government. Cassese disagreed. He had led a UN Commission of Inquiry into Darfur in 2004 and had vigorously sought out and interviewed numerous witnesses in Darfur and Khartoum.3 Unlike Cassese, who mentioned Moreno Ocampo 36 times, Arbour made no personal reference to the Prosecutor.4 But she too told him how to do his job. She called for “an increased visible presence of the ICC in Sudan” and made clear her belief that Moreno Ocampo was proceeding down the wrong track. Speaking with the authority of experience, she said, “It is possible to conduct serious investigations of human rights during an armed conflict in general, and Darfur in particular, without putting victims at unreasonable risk.”

Colleagues said Moreno Ocampo was enraged. He asserted that he was already “successfully carrying out an investigation” based entirely on evidence that could be gathered in safety outside Sudan.5 The Prosecutor dug in. From then on, senior staff said, it was “utter lunacy.”

Although the Sudan government’s minimal cooperation with the ICC ground to a halt in early 2007, court sources say that in 2006 an ICC delegation visiting Khartoum was invited to travel to Darfur. The invitation, like so many of the government’s promises, may well have come to nothing. But Moreno Ocampo didn’t call Khartoum’s bluff. He didn’t push at the door. The ICTY had made a point of opening branch offices in precisely the areas most hostile to it. Cassese’s experience was that, with due care and courage, witnesses could be protected and evidence assembled. But Moreno Ocampo insisted that investigations inside Sudan were neither safe nor necessary. The OTP’s original senior trial attorney for Darfur, Andrew Cayley, described the difference with the UN inquiry: “Cassese went personally to Kober prison and interviewed very sensitive witnesses. He demanded access with nothing more than a Security Council resolution. The OTP got no further than the Hilton Hotel.”6 By the end of 2008, the Court had granted victim participation rights to just eleven Sudanese, as opposed to 171 Congolese and 57 Ugandans, and not a single case for witness protection on behalf of Darfurians had been presented to the judges.7

The Prosecutor’s next step was to issue a summons for two Sudanese whom he alleged were responsible for massacres. On February 27, 2007, he demanded that Ahmed Harun, minister of state for the interior and head of the “Darfur desk” that coordinated military and security operations in the region, and Ali Kushayb, a militia commander, present themselves in The Hague. Unlike in a domestic court, the ICC has a “Pre-Trial Chamber” of three judges who decide whether cases meet a relatively low threshold of reasonable grounds to conclude that a crime has been committed within the Court’s jurisdiction. The Prosecutor has the option of public or sealed applications, with the latter offering the possibility of surprise arrests. A summons is the most modest step of all. The Pre-Trial Chamber considered the Prosecutor’s request and, deciding that the men would never turn up of their own accord, issued arrest warrants.

Cassese damned the prosecutor’s initiative with faint praise, saying “Better tiny steps than total inertia.”8 Many in the OTP were dumbfounded by what several called Moreno Ocampo’s “idiotic” insistence on summonses. The ICTY had shown how effective sealed warrants could be, and the ICC professionals believed that secrecy was their best, and possibly their only, chance of having Harun arrested—when he traveled abroad, as indeed he did in the very month the summons was issued.

Was Moreno Ocampo still trying to win some cooperation from Khartoum? Colleagues find that hard to believe. Said one, “By the time Harun and Kushayb were named there had been several visits to Khartoum”—although not by Moreno Ocampo, who has yet to set foot in Sudan—“and it was abundantly clear that the Sudanese are masters at stonewalling, world-class prevaricators. It was obvious that the only way to get people delivered was a sealed warrant—unless you wanted to be seen to be doing something but not actually to be doing anything.”

The role of ICC Prosecutor was always going to be extraordinarily difficult, under competing pressures from supporters and powerful detractors like the United States. Moreno Ocampo’s greatest asset was an exemplary cadre of professional staff for whom working at the ICC was more than a career—it was a vocation. “I loved this job,” an early recruit to the OTP told us. “It was my life.” The Prosecutor had the opportunity to draw upon the accumulated expertise of existing international tribunals and some of the world’s finest lawyers and investigators. This asset was rapidly squandered. Increasingly, Moreno Ocampo’s staff found it difficult to agree with their own Prosecutor, whose penchant for publicity and extravagant claims rather than fine detail was the polar opposite of their own work ethic.

As the pressures on him mounted, Moreno Ocampo, in the opinion of many of his colleagues, began to “cut corners.” They were incredulous when he announced publicly that he planned to intercept a plane on which Harun was scheduled to fly to Saudi Arabia for the Haj.9 If he really sought to arrest Harun, why advertise his own plan? The Prosecutor’s harshest critics accused him of grandstanding: he knew, they said, that if the cases he was building ever came to court, and proved to be flawed, it wouldn’t be on his watch. Some wondered if he was “making peace with the fact that he is never going to get these people arrested.” Others suggested he was taking a maximalist position, very publicly, as the only way of showing the impact of the crimes committed.

As internal criticism grew louder, Moreno Ocampo listened less and took closer personal charge than ever. Many in the Investigations Division felt sidelined; in the Prosecutions Division, insufficiently consulted. A senior team member said the Prosecutor was “the most complicated and difficult” manager he had ever worked for, emotionally volatile and obsessed with micromanaging. Some tried to raise concerns, privately deploring the absence of “a culture in which objectivity and a critical review of the evidence with all its shades drives the institution.” A key member of the OTP left, saying privately that he was fearful of having to defend an indefensible position a few years down the line. A second followed, saying the Prosecutor ran the OTP like a medieval kingdom. A third told us the OTP was run “like a police state,” with a “culture of fear” that was “very real,” and “sapping.” He quit too.

Senior ICC staff who had worried over Moreno Ocampo’s earlier caution were now puzzled by his zealous pursuit of the biggest culprits he could identify—and especially his determination to charge President Bashir with genocide, including for his policies toward the displaced camps in Darfur. Their concern was not so much that the Prosecutor was aiming too high, but the cavalier way in which he went about it. “The Prosecutor doesn’t have the reflexes of a prosecutor, bringing to bear a sound judgement as to what is legally doable,” one told us. Another said: “He cut corners in the Court’s core business.” Several felt he would have been better advised to confine his charges to the events of 2003-04, when, according to the Court’s own crime base data, about 90 percent of the killings took place.

Non-attributable criticism became a feature of ICC culture, to the extent that the “Hague Justice Portal” Web site published, for the first and only time, an anonymous critique by a legal scholar who, from internal clues, had probably been a member of the Prosecutor’s staff.10 Using words like “inept,” “pernicious,” and “unrealistic” to describe Moreno Ocampo’s strategy, the author deplored “a crisis of maturity within the Prosecutor’s own office” and called for urgent attention to the crisis, including by the ASP, the only body with the power to remove the prosecutor.

The most strenuous public advocates of the Court also began to express their worries, albeit mainly in private. In September 2008, Human Rights Watch (HRW) wrote to the Executive Committee of the ICC to express serious concern over poor management practices in the OTP and about the effect this was having on the Court’s investigations (and to criticize the prosecutor’s “due process violations” in a matter relating to his own behavior, of which more later). HRW said the departure of senior staff in the OTP was having “a direct impact on the efficiency of investigations, and is particularly regrettable where due at least in part to the failure to develop a sufficiently supportive work environment.” “Many experienced investigators have left the ICC since 2005,” it said, for two reasons: “burn out” caused by the fact that there were “simply not enough of them to handle the rigorous demands for conducting investigations,” and the “perception that the input of investigators is not sufficiently valued within the OTP, leading to dissatisfaction.” Despite the attention the Prosecutor lavished on NGOs, there is no sign that he took this criticism seriously.11

The HRW letter does not tell the whole story. It was not only investigators who were leaving. Those who left included Silvia Fernandez de Gurmendi, the first cabinet chief of the OTP; senior legal adviser Morten Bergsmo; legal adviser Gilbert Bitti; DRC team leader Bernard Lavigne; Uganda team leader Martin Witteveen; Andrew Cayley—in the opinion of a former ICTY colleague, “the most effective lawyer I have ever seen”; chief analyst Paul Seils; and Deputy Prosecutor Serge Brammertz, now Prosecutor of the Yugoslavia tribunal.

Argentinians would have been less surprised at the controversies swirling around Moreno Ocampo. His international face is that of the man who helped put the Argentine junta behind bars, a fearless prosecutor who followed the chain of command to its zenith. As a young man aged just 32, he had been assistant to chief prosecutor Julio César Strassera in the trial of nine senior figures of the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983. It was the first prosecution of senior government officials for the mass killing of civilians since the Nuremberg trials, and it resulted in five convictions. But even in those heady days of the mid-eighties, Moreno Ocampo had his critics. Strassera disliked his love of the media spotlight; many prosecution witnesses, victims of some of the worst human rights abuses on the continent, shied away from him.

“No survivor wanted to talk to him,” says Miriam Lewin, a distinguished investigative journalist who is herself a survivor of the Naval Mechanics School, the most brutal of the dictatorship’s torture centers. (Of the more than 5,000 people interrogated there, only 150 survived.) “It was only a year after democracy came to Argentina after a long and cruel dictatorship. We were all afraid because nobody knew if the military were going to come back. Many of us carried our passports in our pocketbooks. We wanted guarantees we were not going to be taken and tortured again. Moreno Ocampo didn’t understand how difficult it was to come back to the country after being tortured and held in a concentration camp. We felt he didn’t respect us at all. We found him distant and unaware of what was going on. He was never supportive. He never accompanied us as victims.”

The weekly news magazine Noticias has described the 1980s as Moreno Ocampo’s “human rights period” and quotes him as saying he finished it “without a peso.”12 It was then, he told the magazine, that he said to himself: “I want to work for worthy causes, but I also want to make money.” As a young man, Moreno Ocampo had funded his legal studies by working as a carpenter, his family having fallen on hard times two generations earlier. Now he made a fortune, according to Noticias, by continually seeking “new commercial niches.” First, he took on corruption in business and public administration, making extensive use of secret cameras; then what a colleague called “gender discrimination” cases, representing some of Argentina’s wealthiest women in family disputes; until finally, in the new millennium, twice married and with four children, he became “the lawyer of the powerful,” representing some of Argentina’s most controversial public figures, including the former Economy Minister Domingo Cavallo, on whose watch the Argentine economy collapsed,13 and a Catholic priest, Julio Grassi, charged with 17 counts of sexual abuse of young boys in his care.

The Grassi case has been characterized by threats, violence, attempted bribery, and severe criticism of Moreno Ocampo’s comportment.

“I was disgusted by Moreno Ocampo’s behavior in the months he worked for Grassi,” says psychiatrist Enrique Stola, who treats two of the boys who accused Grassi. “My patients, ‘Ezequiel’ and ‘Gabriel,’ were attacked on radio and television, threatened, and beaten, and Moreno Ocampo did not say a single word.” Stola said he was “deeply ashamed and saddened that a homeless child who had dared to accuse a powerful priest like Grassi should be afraid of a man who claimed to defend human rights.”

More than six years after Moreno Ocampo’s involvement with the Grassi case ended, prosecuting attorney Juan Pablo Gallego continues to speak out against the methods he used while on the priest’s high-powered legal team. “Without any evidence whatsoever, Moreno Ocampo falsely accused Gabriel of attempting to blackmail Grassi and of bearing false witness,” he told us. “He also provided Grassi with secret cameras. One of these cameras was used to identify the place where Gabriel was staying, and soon after he was brutally attacked there by persons unknown.”

From his earliest days in the public eye, Moreno Ocampo has massaged his public image and since moving to the ICC has done his best to ensure that internal controversies do not get outside airing. Court sources say that several former colleagues have received letters from his legal adviser threatening legal action if they speak to the media. Despite this, there has been a growing chorus of criticism of the Prosecutor’s handling of cases. The first to come to trial has been that of Thomas Lubanga, leader of the Congolese Patriotic Union (UPC) accused of widespread rape and killing in northeast Congo. Lubanga was arrested in his own country and charged with genocide and crimes against humanity. But the Congolese authorities made no serious effort to investigate the case and, when it became clear that he was likely to be released, the ICC pounced. In March 2006, Lubanga was taken from prison under UN armed escort in the dead of night and flown to The Hague in a French military plane.

The ICC had something to celebrate: a suspect in custody at last. Congolese human rights groups and women’s groups joined in the celebrations. But when the charges against Lubanga were restricted to recruiting and deploying child soldiers, they expressed surprise at “the limited charges brought” and warned that “these charges risk offending the victims and strengthening the growing mistrust in the work of the International Criminal Court in the DRC and in the work of the Prosecutor specifically.”14

The Lubanga case quickly became an embarrassment. When the ICC opened its Congo investigation, the UN Mission in Congo (MONUC) provided thousands of documents—such as weekly situation reports and child protection reports—to the OTP. Because they were mostly routine first-line reporting, MONUC officials expected the Prosecutor to use them as “lead evidence” only—signposts of what had happened, where and when, so that ICC investigators could follow up. Files like these are not the product of rigorous criminal investigations and none of those who compile them would expect them to stand up to courtroom scrutiny. But because they contained sensitive information including named sources, MONUC insisted that they stay confidential.

Moreno Ocampo’s investigative strategy relies on a “small team” approach—defended by the Prosecutor on grounds of economy, but criticized by investigators, governments, and victims. Thus the Prosecutor relied heavily on the MONUC reports for his case against Lubanga. In November 2007, the judges demanded that these confidential reports be shared with the defense—obliging the OTP to go back to the UN to ask it to revisit the confidentiality agreement. MONUC duly set staff members to work screening each and every document to see if it contained sensitive information. After seven months and three missed deadlines, Judge Sir Adrian Fulford ran out of patience and halted all proceedings, ruling that “the trial process has been ruptured to such a degree that it is now impossible to piece together the constituent elements of a fair trial.” He ordered Lubanga’s release. Moreno Ocampo appealed, seeking a compromise under which the judges—not the defense—would see the confidential documents. The UN agreed, the Appeal Court conceded, and Lubanga stayed in prison.

Moreno Ocampo had scraped through. But the drama revealed a recurrent weakness: the Prosecutor had cut corners. He had orchestrated a drumbeat of public expectation, and had set trial dates before his case was ready. Moreno Ocampo was preoccupied with the wrong court—that of public opinion.

Listening to Moreno Ocampo’s opening statement on January 26, 2009—“Lubanga’s group recruited, trained and used hundreds of children to kill, pillage and rape”—one might have been forgiven for thinking that killing, pillage, and rape were on the charge sheet. They weren’t. The charges were still recruiting and deploying child soldiers. Moreno Ocampo’s presentation reminded one observer of “a student who hadn’t prepared properly for his final exam.”15 More importantly, it raised expectations among victims that would never be addressed in court. To the dismay of many ICC staff, Moreno Ocampo had removed the chief trial attorney for the case—Ekkehard Withopf, an experienced trial lawyer—a month before the trial opened. Now he left The Hague without listening to the defense’s opening statement and headed for the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he made headlines by reversing an earlier position and announcing that he was examining the possibility of prosecuting Israeli commanders over alleged war crimes committed in Gaza.16

Like all human rights activists, women’s rights groups are reluctant to do anything that might undermine the ICC. Their determination to prosecute crimes against women makes them especially determined to see the Court succeed. The Court has an excellent record in gender equality in its hiring practices and the Prosecutor goes out of his way to emphasize the importance of prosecuting and deterring rape. But gender activists have their own special reasons for mixed feelings about Moreno Ocampo. Their worries are not pedophile priests in Argentina, but the Prosecutor’s personal conduct at the Lord Charles Hotel, in the verdant hills of South Africa’s wine country.

The scandal came to light on October 20, 2006 when the Prosecutor’s Public Information Adviser, Christian Palme, filed an internal complaint alleging that Moreno Ocampo had “committed serious misconduct . . . by committing the crime of rape, or sexual assault, or sexual coercion, or sexual abuse” against a South African journalist nineteen months earlier.17 Palme argued that the Prosecutor’s conduct had caused serious harm to the reputation of the Court and called on the States Parties to remove him.

The full story of what happened in the Lord Charles Hotel, three days before the Security Council referred the conflict in Darfur to the ICC, is unlikely ever to be known. Moreno Ocampo has denied committing rape. But there is no evidence that he has denied the veracity of a recording which suggests that his behavior in the hotel fell far short of the “high moral character” demanded by the Rome Statute.18

For Yves Soroboki, Moreno Ocampo’s spokesperson, March 28, 2005, began with a phone call from the journalist, thanking him for having arranged an interview with Moreno Ocampo but saying the Prosecutor was making her “a little nervous.” “I have a problem because he doesn’t want to leave,” she told Soroboki, who later reported the conversation to Palme. “I’m trying to leave and go to the beach but the Prosecutor wants to come with me, so what should I do? . . . I think he has ulterior motives.” Later that day, the journalist called Sorokobi again and told him that the Prosecutor had, in Sorokobi’s words, “forced himself on her.” Two days later, the two spoke for a third time and Sorokobi recorded the conversation. Although the journalist is weeping, and often unintelligible, she can be heard saying: “He took my [house and car] keys . . . Had to do that to get out of this . . .” Soroboki told Palme, who recorded their conversation: “She said that was the only way he would let her go.”

In December 2006, after interviewing the Prosecutor and the journalist, a panel of ICC judges found Palme’s complaint “manifestly unfounded” and asked him “to obtain all copies of taped conversations between Ms […] and Mr Sorokobi and hand them to the President for destruction.” Soon after, Moreno Ocampo dismissed Palme, summarily and immediately, for “serious misconduct.” Palme appealed to the Court’s internal Disciplinary Advisory Board, which recommended that he be reinstated. Moreno Ocampo ignored the recommendation. Palme then appealed to the Administrative Tribunal of the International Labor Organisation (ILOAT), which has jurisdiction to settle labor disputes in many international organizations.19 The ILOAT judgment,20 made public on July 9, 2008, was harshly critical of the Prosecutor and fully exonerated Palme, quashing his dismissal. It found that his complaint was neither made falsely nor with malicious intent. Rather, the Tribunal said, Palme had “reasonable grounds” for believing sexual misconduct by Moreno Ocampo: the journalist, it said, had “indicated unambiguously that the prosecutor ‘took [her] keys’ and she had consented to sexual intercourse ‘to get out of [the situation].’” Sorokobi’s evidence was “secondary evidence but, depending on the circumstances, it may have been probative in criminal proceedings.”

The ILOAT found that Moreno Ocampo had committed a “breach of due process” in firing Palme and ordered the ICC, on behalf of the Prosecutor, to pay Palme 248,000 euros. Human Rights Watch’s letter of September 2008 drew attention to the ILOAT ruling, the economic costs to the court—“already under strain to account responsibly for its budget to states parties”—and the impact on staff morale. The rights group said it was “disturbed” that the Prosecutor had ignored the recommendation of the Court’s own Disciplinary Advisory Board.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers had resigned in February 2005 following allegations of sexual harassment less grave than those against Moreno Ocampo—and many in The Hague believed the Prosecutor ought to follow his example. Details of the affair had emerged just as the OTP was drafting a code of conduct for investigators, and some were dismayed when Moreno Ocampo made clear he intended to fight on. But the Palme case was obscured, the day after the ILOAT judgement was made public, by Moreno Ocampo telling the Washington Post of his most ambitious application yet: to have the Sudanese president arrested on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. We have been told, by several sources, that Moreno Ocampo at first ruled out pursuing the Sudanese leadership. By the autumn of 2007, however, he had his sights on the president. In the words of one former colleague, “He jumped to the very top. He did not wish to have advice from attorneys.” In addition, investigations into the Darfur case had diminished rather than expanded, and the Prosecutor was continuing to rely heavily on secondary material, including the 2005 Cassese Commission’s sources—many of whom were unnamed and could therefore never be produced in a courtroom.

In December 2007, Moreno Ocampo signaled his direction publicly in a briefing to the Security Council. Before going to New York, he had drafted a presentation outlining his theory that Bashir had designed a “two-stage” genocide—massacres in the villages in 2003-04, and then the “slow death” of the Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa tribes in displaced camps. Colleagues had expressed concern, questioning the strength of his argument for genocide in the camps, and Moreno Ocampo reluctantly accepted a revised text. To their dismay, he repeated his original claims when he spoke in New York. “This is typical Moreno Ocampo,” says Palme. “He would constantly tear up and destroy texts, forcing sometimes all night sessions working and re-working texts. The worst times were before the ASP and before the UNSC Darfur reports.”

There is much speculation, inside and outside the ICC, at how Moreno Ocampo arrives at his figures for death rates in Darfur. Unpublished UN monitoring figures for 2008 range from 60 to 350 violent fatalities a month, for an average of about 130. The activist group Genocide Intervention Network has a similar number, of around 150 a month.21 Moreno Ocampo has a very different figure. Speaking at a conference at Yale University on February 6, this year, the Prosecutor claimed that “as of today, 5,000 people are dying each month in Darfur,” including through “slow death” by hunger and disease.22 The OTP itself possesses no specialist epidemiologists or demographers who might generate such figures, and no one working in Darfur proposes figures even remotely close to these. While some estimates for mortality during the peak of the crisis in 2004 generated figures this high, a specialist review of mortality data undertaken by the U.S. General Accountability Office23 wrote off high-end estimates as unreliable. In the last two years, relief agencies have warned of increasing malnutrition whenever the World Food Program cuts its rations or fighting erupts, but there is no evidence of a generalized famine on the scale that the Prosecutor insists is underway. Moreno Ocampo’s arithmetic is simply fantastical.

Most of the controversy over the Bashir case has focused on the prudence of indicting a head of state in a fragile country prone to conflict. After a decade of attempts to coerce or overthrow the regime, the U.S. and European governments decided in 2001 to pursue the path of negotiation, leading in January 2005 to a peace agreement that brought a commitment to democratic elections and an end to twenty-one years of war between north and south. Slowly and painfully, with many setbacks and much resistance from the Sudan government, the key provisions of the “Comprehensive Peace Agreement” are now being implemented. There are serious problems still, especially over delineation of the north-south border, but a ceasefire has held most of the time, the northern army has withdrawn from almost all parts of the south, and a power-sharing government is functioning. Elections have been scheduled for this year and a referendum on self-determination for South Sudan for 2011. In Darfur, international efforts have focused on sustaining humanitarian access and deploying an international peacekeeping force, now approaching its mandated size of 26,000 men.

All this could be endangered by targeting Bashir directly. Many Sudanese fear that an arrest warrant could make things significantly worse, perhaps bringing about the very sorts of atrocities that the ICC is meant to deter. Moreno Ocampo disagrees. “For people in Darfur, nothing could be worse,” he toldForeign Policy magazine.24 “We need negotiations, but if Bashir is indicted, he is not the person to negotiate with.” Not even Darfur’s rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) has a position as militant as this—in Doha, Qatar, on February 17, JEM signed a “Declaration of Intent” with the government for a peaceful settlement of the conflict.

During the seven months that the ICC judges deliberated, Bashir made his position perfectly clear: “We are not looking for problems, but if they come to us we will teach them a lesson they won’t forget.” Moreno Ocampo dismissed this and other warnings in his speech to the Security Council in December: “The facts are that victims of crimes committed in Darfur are 3 million African citizens, that justice will promote peace . . . Threats against victims, peacekeepers, and aid workers should be seen for what they are—criminal intent—and not rewarded with promises of impunity.”25 Although the Prosecutor is obliged to consider the interests of victims when bringing a prosecution, this section of his report ran to just four lines and failed to consider that the three million had a very obvious interest in a humanitarian operation that was keeping them alive. Minutes after the arrest warrant was issued, Khartoum began expelling relief agencies, threatening at least 70 percent of humanitarian aid to 4.7 million people.

Less attention has been paid to the substance of the arrest warrant and the fact that the Pre-Trial Chamber threw out the genocide charges, Moreno Ocampo’s principal reason for prosecuting despite the obvious risks. The judges wrote that “the Prosecution acknowledges that it (i) does not have any direct evidence in relation to Omar Al Bashir’s alleged responsibility for the crime of genocide and (ii) its allegations concerning genocide are solely based on certain inferences that, according to the Prosecution, can be drawn from the facts of the case.”26 In a remarkable humiliation for Moreno Ocampo, they proceeded (with one dissenting opinion) to dismiss those inferences.27

This will not have come as a surprise to the Prosecutor’s most informed critic, his former senior trial attorney for Darfur. “Serious disagreement remains as to whether Al Bashir and the Sudanese government intended actually to destroy, in part, the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa peoples of Darfur,” Andrew Cayley wrote beforehand in a commentary on the genocide charges.28 “It is difficult to cry government-led genocide in one breath and then explain in the next why 2 million Darfuris have sought refuge around the principal army garrisons of their province. One million Darfuris live in Khartoum where they have never been bothered during the entire course of the war.” Rony Brauman, a founder and former president of Médecins Sans Frontières—which has teams on the ground in Darfur—heaped scorn on the Prosecutor. “Can one seriously imagine Tutsis seeking refuge in areas controlled by the Rwandan army in 1994?” he asked. “Or Jews seeking refuge with the Wehrmacht in 1943?”29

For Western nations committed to the ICC, and with interests in political stability and cooperation, Moreno Ocampo looks a lot less attractive than he once did. The political efforts required to halt ICC activity at the Security Council would be great, and few Western governments wish to risk the wrath of domestic human rights constituencies by appearing to wobble on an abusive regime. The effort needed to convince States Parties to remove the Prosecutor would be even greater, requiring them to admit that they appointed the wrong man to begin with.

Africans were once the most passionate supporters of the ICC: half of the countries that first ratified the Rome Statute were African, and three of the first four cases were referred by African governments. Now they, too, are having second thoughts. They don’t see the Court dealing with cases outside Africa. They worry that warrants like those against Bashir and the Congolese opposition leader Jean-Pierre Bemba (seized in Belgium with a sealed warrant in May 2008) may be turning criminal prosecution into a selective political instrument. Many who struggle for human rights fear that abusive governments have been handed exactly the pretext they need for refusing any international cooperation. Sudanese whose vocation is human rights find themselves torn: they want to see Moreno Ocampo pursue the highest ranking suspects and establish the principle that there can be no impunity for the most horrific crimes, but they remain fearful of a backlash in which ordinary Sudanese will once again find themselves in the firing line. They also fear that their hopes for a relaxation of Sudan’s security laws and expectations for moderately free elections will be dashed when Bashir concludes that the Republican Palace is his safest, and perhaps only, safe house.

Moreno Ocampo is a man who diminishes with proximity. Six years after he became Prosecutor, the priceless human capital invested in his office is draining away. Lawyers and investigators who served in the OTP, and who count among the brightest and the best of their profession, say they believe the Court’s reputation, and perhaps even its life, is at risk. Their desire to make a success of the court remains as strong as ever it was—but not under the current Prosecutor. “My time in the ICC was a mixture of a fascinating time and a terrible time,” one of these exiles said shortly before Moreno Ocampo demanded Bashir’s arrest. “The Prosecutor was erratic, so irrational sometimes that you felt despair. He uses his charisma in a negative way. Everyone in the OTP felt disrespected. But I still have a dream that one day—along with some other good people—I will be able to return.”

1. Jess Bravin, ‘For Global Court, Ugandan Rebels Prove Tough Test,’ Wall Street Journal, June 8, 2006.
2. Antonio Cassese, ‘Observations on Issues Concerning the Protection of Victims and the Preservation of Evidence in the Proceedings on Darfur Pending Before the ICC,’ ICC-2/05, August 25, 2006.
3. Cassese compiled a list of 51 individuals he considered should be investigated for crimes. But he held back from genocide, ‘the crime of crimes’, and later said Moreno Ocampo should have done the same, ‘filing charges that are more appropriate and easier to prosecute, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity.’ Antonio Cassese, ‘Flawed International Justice for Sudan,’ The Daily Star, July 16, 2008.
4. Louise Arbour, ‘Observations of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights invited in Application of Rule 103 of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence,’ ICC-02/05, October 10, 2006.
5. ‘Prosecutor’s Response to Arbour’s Observations of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Invited in Application of Rule 103 of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence,’ ICC-02/05, October 19. 2006.
6. Andrew Cayley, ‘Witness Proofing—The Experience of a Prosecutor,’ Journal of International Criminal Justice, 6, 2008, p. 780
7. Women’s Initiative for Gender Justice, ‘Gender Report Card of the International Criminal Court 2008,’ The Hague, 31 December 2008, pp. 54 and 76.
8. ‘Ma i massacri continuano con la complicità del Sudan’, La Repubblica, February 28, 2007.
9. Harun somehow got wind of the plan—it is believed through an Ocampo aide was who being less than discreet in New York—and cancelled his flight.
10. The Controversial Actions of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court: a ‘Crisis of Maturity’? The Hague Justice Portal, September 15, 2008.
11. The Prosecutor did not respond to letters written by others, including one of us (Alex de Waal) in June 2008.
12. ‘Los Veraderos Negocios de Moreno Ocampo’ (The Real Business of Moreno Ocampo), Noticias, December 7, 2002.
13. Like Moreno Ocampo himself, Cavallo was never as popular in Argentina as he was abroad. As minister, he presided over a crippling recession and 66% devaluation of the peso. After resigning in 2001, he was accused of approving more than $100 million in illegal arms sales while in office.
14. Beni Declaration by women’s rights and human rights NGOs from the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the Prosecutions by the ICC, Beni, North Kivu, DRC, September 16, 2007.
15. Lisa Clifford, ‘Ocampo Underwhelms in Landmark Trial,’ Institute for War and Peace Reporting, January 29, 2009, http://www.iwpr.net/?p=acr&s=f&o=349621&apc_state=heniacr2009
16. Israel is not a party to the Rome Statue and most lawyers say the ICC could only become involved if someone with dual nationality was responsible for crimes and his other nationality made him subject to ICC jurisdiction. Moreno Ocampo himself ruled out ICC involvement just two weeks earlier. http://www.rnw.nl/internationaljustice/icc/theicc/090115-icc-gaza
17. Christian Palme, ‘Complaint against ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo Concerning Serious Misconduct,’ October 20, 2006. www.innercitypress.com/ocampocomplaint.pdf
18. Article 42.3 of the Rome Statute: “The Prosecutor and the Deputy Prosecutors shall be persons of high moral character, be highly competent in and have extensive practical experience in the prosecution or trial of criminal cases. They shall have an excellent knowledge of and be fluent in at least one of the working languages of the Court.”
19. The ICC response to the ILOAT is remarkably intemperate, accusing Palme of ‘pernicious and self-serving misappraisal of his own “evidence”,’ and ‘bewildering arrogance’. It also claims that ‘the alleged rape victim denied unambiguously that she had been raped by the Prosecutor.
20. See http://www.ilo.org/public/english/tribunal/fulltext/2757.htm
21. Genocide Intervention Network, ‘GI-Net End of 2008 Summary,’ February 2009, http://www.genocideintervention.net/files/u1/GINET_-_Year_End_Review_-_2008.pdf . The GI-Net figure includes deaths in JEM’s attack on Omdurman, which are excluded from the UN data because they did not occur in Darfur.
22. Possibly Moreno Ocampo has taken the UN’s headline figure of 300,000 death and divided it by 60 months of crisis to arrive at 5,000 per month—but this would not be a credible approach given that all data indicate that the vast majority of those deaths occurred between 2003 and early 2005. The ICC’s own investigators produced a figure of 35,000 violent deaths in 2003-04 and many fewer since.
23. General Accountability Office, ‘Darfur Crisis: Death Estimates Demonstrates Severity of Crisis, but Their Accuracy and Credibility Could Be Enhanced,’ GAO-07-24, November 9, 2006.
24. ‘Seven Questions: Luis Moreno-Ocampo,’ Foreign Policy, February 2009. http://www.foreign
policy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4698&page=0
25. Eighth Report of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to the UN Security Council Pursuant to UNSCR 1593 (2005), December 2008, para 85.
26. ICC, Pre-Trial Chamber I, “Decision on the Prosecution’s Application for a Warrant of Arrest Against Omar Hassan Ahmad Al Bashir,” March 4, 2008, Para 111.
27. It was followed the very next day with Pre-Trial Chamber III comprehensively revising the charges laid against Jean-Pierre Bemba. Each of Moreno Ocampo’s three highest-profile cases has been savaged by the respective judges.
28. Andrew Cayley, ‘The Prosecutor’s Strategy in Seeking the Arrest of Sudanese President Al Bashir on Charges of Genocide,’ Journal of International Criminal Justice, Vol. 6, 2008, 829-840.
29. Rony Brauman, ‘The ICC’s Bashir Indictment: Law Against Peace,’ World Politics Review, July 23, 2008, http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/article.aspx?id=2471.

Julie Flint is a journalist and researcher. Alex de Waal is a researcher, writer, and activist on African issues. They are co-authors of Darfur: A New History of a Long War.

(Hat tip 'Just World News' with Helena Cobban March 31, 2009)

UNAMID: Security situation in Darfur March 30, 2009

From United Nations - African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID)
EL FASHER (DARFUR), Sudan
March 30, 2009 Daily Media Brief via APO March 31, 2009

Security Situation in Darfur

During the past 72 hours, the security situation in Darfur has remained relatively calm; however, banditry activities and car-jacking incidents were reported in North and West Darfur.

A UNAMID vehicle was car-jacked on 26 March by unknown armed men in the Kifah area, about 500 metres from UNAMID headquarters in El Geneina, West Darfur. The men stopped the vehicle and ordered the staff members out of the car. The car-ackers drove away in the direction of El Geneina’s market. The incident was reported to Government of Sudan police and National Security.

A vehicle belonging to an NGO was car-jacked by unknown armed men on 28 March in the vicinity of Hamadia, near the town of Zalingei in West Darfur. The car-jacker ordered the driver, who was not injured, out of the vehicle. The incident was reported to GoS Police.

Meanwhile, UNAMID conducted 25 confidence-building patrols, 16 escort patrols and six night patrols covering 46 villages/IDP camps. Similarly, UNAMID Police conducted 90 patrols in and around the villages and IDP camps.

Fire causes damage at IDP camp in West Darfur

A fire broke out last night at Al Riyad camp for internally displaced Persons (IDP) camp, near El Geneina in West Darfur, causing heavy damage to about 35 shelters, the loss of many animals, and leaving a large number of people homeless. A UNAMID investigation team was dispatched to the camp to probe the cause of the fire.

UNAMID receives advance party of the 2nd Egyptian Infantry Battalion

The advance party of the 2nd Egyptian Infantry Battalion, consisting of 100 personnel, arrived in Nyala today to join UNAMID. Another 100 personnel are expected to arrive tomorrow. The advance party consists mainly of engineering personnel with light capability to prepare the location for the arrival of the main body of the Battalion.

The main body is scheduled to arrive within four months, bringing the battalion’s expected total to 850 peacekeepers. They will be deployed in Ed El Fursan and Tulus in South Darfur.

Egypt’s contribution to the Mission already includes one infantry battalion, one engineering unit, one signal company and one heavy transport company. This brings the total number of Egyptians serving with UNAMID, including the new arrivals, to 1,771.
UNAMID Force Commander visits troops in North Darfur

UNAMID Force Commander, General Martin Luther Agwai, today paid a visit to the troops deployed in Tawilla and Sortoni, North Darfur. The trip is part of the Force Commander’s routine visits to the troops stationed around the region.

It was not Sudan's “janjaweed” who killed their own comrades in eastern Chad, or took over Muhajiriya, or destroyed Wadaa

From Alex de Waal's blog Making Sense of Darfur
Double Standards?
By Julie Flint
Sunday, March 29, 2009

Abd al-Wahab Abdalla (25 March) [Making Sense of Darfur] says “The worst massacre of the last 12 months was by JEM! It killed 128 Meidob over 2 days.”

There have been a number of allusions on this blog to the unrest at JEM’s base in eastern Chad on January 1 this year, but hard facts and clearly identified sources are signally missing — and no rights group appears to think the incident worthy of remark and/or investigation. (How different it would be if the “massacre” had been committed by the government — a comment that will no doubt be trumpeted out of context by the Sudan government’s pet “intellectual” and paid apologist, David Hoile, but that needs making nonetheless.)

The following is what I have been told, by Meidob contacts who have proved reliable in the past. At the end of 2008, JEM’s leader, Khalil Ibrahim, promoted four or five officers to the rank of general. All belonged to his own Zaghawa Kobe group. Other tribes protested — especially the Meidob, who had contributed young fighters in support of JEM’s attack on Omdurman last May (not always voluntarily). Khalil refused to rethink. At this point, accounts differ. Some sources say non-Kobe withdrew from JEM and were ambushed as they left the camp. Others say the commander of JEM’s northern forces, himself a Meidob, provoked the violence by drawing his weapon. All sources agree that the dissidents were subsequently disarmed, and some were then killed in cold blood. Abd al-Wahab says the victims were all Meidob. My information is that while Meidob were the majority, other tribes were affected — Berti among them.

Meidob sources have circulated a list of 123 people they say were killed and imprisoned by JEM. At the time the list was made, almost two months ago, only five of the 123 were confirmed as dead — Salih Abdulgadir Suliman, Abaker Ahmed Hassan, Abdul Aziz Adam Kharif, Adam Abdul Rahman Idris and Abaker Omer Ageed. Five is a far cry from 128. Perhaps El Tahir Adam El Faki, who so often graces this blog, could give JEM’s version of events and help facilitate investigation by an independent group. JEM has been dignified in the US and Qatar in recent months, and now portrays itself as the representative of the people of Darfur. This matter demands clarification. Was there a “massacre”, or not?

Whatever the truth of January 1, it is undeniable that the “worst massacre” of 2009, at least, was committed by rebels. Or, to be more precise, by individuals who portray themselves as rebels but who, as the original rebel movements continue to disintegrate, are little more than common criminals. In the second week of February, a group of “rebels” led by Ali Carabino attacked the village of Wadaa south-east of Fasher and, according to deputy shartai Abdullahi Hamid, a member of the Mima tribe that is Wadaa’s largest, killed 35 civilians, wounded 39 and burned 825 huts. Wadaa market was looted and burned, men and women whipped, and animals slaughtered. A UNAMID team that saw the destruction in Wadaa — and two newly-dug sites they were told were mass graves — believes the numbers given me are a “ballpark figure”, more or less correct.

The Mima of Wadaa did not mobilize for the government in 2003. They attempted to remain neutral. By 2004, according to Abdullahi Hamid, rebels had attacked villages in the area 22 times, killing approximately 220 non-combatants and looting many animals. In 2004, the Mima say, SLA-Minawi occupied the village, imposed a 10% tax on market traders and began a reign of abuse over local people characterized by rape, beating and looting. After further abuses in February this year, the Mima decided they had had enough. They killed the Zaghawa commander in Wadaa and expelled his forces. Carabino’s revenge came within days. “Disproportionate” does not begin to describe it. Wadaa looks like any number of Zaghawa villages I visited after they were attacked by government forces in 2003-04. It differs only in that it was almost completely unreported.

Once a senior commander in SLA-Minawi, Carabino tried to join SLA-Unity after the signing of the Darfur Peace Agreement. Most recently, he has been spotted in Deribat, which is under Abdel Wahid’s control. Rebel, or opportunist? Others may count Carabino and his comrades as a “rebel faction”. I do not. Why should his gang be dignified as “rebels” and government-backed militias who kill, burn and loot be denounced as “janjaweed”?

The Mima do not conceal the fact that the Zaghawa occupying Wadaa were driven out “in full coordination” with the Sudanese army, which is manipulating the widespread animosity towards the Zaghawa (an animosity that is lamentably extended to all Zaghawa, combatants and non-combatants) to push Zaghawa forces out of South Darfur. Today it is the Sudan army that controls Wadaa, a strategic location on the road linking El Fasher to El Deain. First Gereida, then Muhajiriya, and now Wadaa. All Zaghawa-controlled since 2004. All subjected to persistent abuses by commanders linked (or once linked) to Minni Minawi. All now government-controlled.

Horrific crimes were committed by government forces and their militia allies in 2003-04, on a scale without comparison in the Darfur war. But insufficient attention has been paid to the reasons why the Arabs of Darfur were so ready to take up arms against the rebels. Two weeks in Darfur, meeting Arab military and tribal leaders, have convinced me that Arabs believed the rebellion was first and foremost anti-Arab. Non-Arab tribes led the rebellion. Non-Arab tribes refused to support the government against the rebels. In several areas, Arab civilians were targeted. There were other reasons for the Arab mobilization — impoverishment, lack of political awareness, localized resource conflict. But fear of a campaign against the Arabs, although over-emphasised perhaps in these ICC days, was undoubtedly genuine.

In 2009, the prevailing narrative is still that of the “victims” in the displaced camps and the marauding “janjaweed” outside them, who are blamed for almost everything. Some of the accusations are correct; some are not. A lot of the reporting from/of Darfur is frankly horrible.

A recent article in The Times of London is a piece of propaganda for JEM, making no mention of January 1 but waxing lyrical about a leadership that “boasts an impressive array of doctors and lawyers and a sophisticated agenda that extends to redistributing power among Sudan’s oppressed and marginalised peoples.” A blogger is suitably impressed by the correspondent’s take: “I am extremely grateful JEM have taken up the task of defending the poor victims of Darfur and other oppressed people in Sudan. If anyone can bring Al-Bashir to be judged by the ICC, they can and I wish them all the very best of luck in achieving this feat!” For heaven’s sake!

The Christian Science Monitor reports that “people like Yacoub Suleiman Hari are still staring death in the face [in Muhajiriya], forced to flee their homes after recent attacks by the notorious government-backed Arab janjaweed militia.” But the latest trouble in Muhajiriya began when JEM, the only rebel force with an offensive military capability (courtesy of the support of neighbouring countries) attacked and occupied the town. Since 2004 Muhajiriya had been occupied by SLA-Minawi and omdas there told UNAMID they preferred JEM to the constant abuses of the previous commanders. It was, nevertheless, JEM’s advance that triggered the trouble in Muhajiriya: the government and its proxy forces only moved into Muhajiriya to move JEM out. The UNAMID force commander estimates that 20-30 civilians were killed by all sides. Hardly a “janjaweed rampage”.

There is, of course, some careful, and informed, reporting. For the complex reality of Muhajiriya, see Edmund Sanders in the Los Angeles Times. He navigates a fractured picture deftly. As he says, “according to witnesses and victims, janjaweed played a relatively minor role here.”

The mere use of the word “janjaweed” evokes 2003-04, the firestorm that drove millions into exile and displaced camps. It should be used with care. Some Darfurian Arabs have committed appalling abuses and, like the commanders who give the rebels a bad name, refuse to acknowledge the breadth and depth of their crimes. But Darfur’s Arabs have been collectively vilified and their kinsmen, admittedly often hard to access, have been excluded from international relief operations that have focused on the “victims” — the largely non-Arab IDP camp-dwellers. At the edge of Nyala, at the exact point where the capital of South Darfur state meets the desert, an estimated 3,000 displaced Arab pastoralists are camped less than 100 yards from the impoverished home of their omda. None of these Darfurians have seen an international NGO; none have received relief — medical care, water, education etc. In their culture, to seek succour in a displaced camp would dishonour the tribe. It is the collective that must care for the individual. But the collective was impoverished before the first shot in this conflict was fired.

In the seventh year of the war (I count from the second half of 2002, when government-backed Arab militias attacked Jebel Marra massively) the situation in Darfur is so complex, so fragmented and so uncontrollable as to inspire despair — not only for the camp-dwellers, some of them apparently under orders from comfortably self-exiled leaders to refuse aid in the wake of the recent agency expulsions, but also for the Arab victims of the war, stigmatized, along with their wives and children, as “janjaweed”. The antipathy towards President Bashir and in his inner circle has been transposed onto a group of impoverished nomads on the other side of the country. Yet it was not the “janjaweed” who killed their own comrades in eastern Chad, or took over Muhajiriya, or destroyed Wadaa. It may not be apparent from afar, and it may not be comfortable to those who still see the Darfur conflict as a Lord of the Rings struggle between Good and Evil, but it’s the truth.

Response to “Double Standards?”
Julie Flint:
Monday, March 30, 2009

Word comes today, 30 March, that a senior JEM official has confirmed to a tribal elder, identified only as Omda Salih, the deaths of 19 men. Twelve were reportedly Meidob. The identity of the other seven was not mentioned.

"Pulitzer Prize" winning photo taken in 1994 during the Sudan famine

This photo is the "Pulitzer Prize" winning photo taken in 1994 during the Sudan famine. The picture depicts a famine stricken child crawling towards a United Nations food camp, located a kilometer away.

The vulture is waiting for the child to die so it can eat it. This picture shocked the whole world. No one knows what happened to the child, not even the photographer Kevin Carter who left the place as soon as the photograph was taken.

Three months later he commited suicide due to depression.

[This photo from Sudan Watch archives has been viewed 4,554 times. I am leaving it at the top of this page while I take a short break to catch up on resting, reading and emails. Please forgive me if I owe you an email or reply. I receive so many requests for help and information that it is impossible for me to keep up with it all. I regret not having composed a standard reply that I could have sent out as an acknowledgement and thanks. I fear that people think badly of me for not replying to their emails. Meanwhile, I hope that this photo will remind readers of Sudan Watch to think of all the children in Sudan and Chad and pray that the UN Security Council takes advice from Djibril Bassole, the joint African Union and United Nations Chief Mediator for Darfur, to take heed of the African Union's concerns and use the council's power to suspend the ICC's proceedings against Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir]

P.S. Former Sudanese child soldier Emmanuel Jal was a young teenager in southern Sudan when the above photo was taken. He was taken from his family home in 1987 when he was six or seven years old, and sent to fight with the rebel army in Sudan’s bloody civil war. For nearly five years, he was a “child warrior,” put into battle carrying an AK-47 that was taller than he was. Click here to read his incredible true story and view short video clips.

South Sudan DDR: UN says militants re-integrating in Sudan is now underway

Friday, March 27, 2009 report by PANA via afriquejet.com
UN says militants re-integrating in Sudan

New York, US - A process to reintegrate more than 180,000 former Sudanese militants back into civil society is now under way, the United Nations said on Thursday.

The Pan African News Agency (PANA) reports that a statement issued by the UN, stated that the ex-fighters were taking part in a disarmament, demobilisation and re-integration programme backed by the UN mission in Sudan (UNMIS).

It said the programme provided former militants, once involved in the 22-year civil war in Sudan, with technical and material assistance to support the transition back into civilian life.

"While a violent insurgency continues between rebels and the Sudanese government in the western Darfur region of Sudan, the UN is supporting the process of helping more than 180,000 ex-fighters reintegrate into the society,'' it noted.

The statement also said that the process was starting in the central-eastern city of Ed Damazin, Sudan.

"Reintegration is the last and most crucial phase of the multi-million-dollar process known as disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration called for by the Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement,'' it added.

Further reading:

UNMIS Information Sheet and map on Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) in Sudan.

March 26, 2009 UNMIS report via ReliefWeb: Sudan DDR programme progresses into reintegration phase

March 26, 2009 UN News Centre report: Sudan: UN assists ex-combatants in north-south conflict to return to civilian life



Photo: Ex-combatants from north and south symbolically handed over their weapons and then registered and received a DDR ID card. (UN News Centre)

Making Sense of Darfur: Grading the ICC Prosecutor-And the Bench (Alex de Waal and Julie Flint)

From Alex de Waal's blog Making Sense of Darfur:
Grading the Prosecutor–And the Bench
By Alex de Waal
Thursday, 26 March 2009

My posting on the ICC Prosecutor’s application for leave to appeal against the Pre-Trial Chamber’s decision to reject the genocide charge drew some fierce criticism from some quarters (notably Kevin Heller of www.opiniojuris.org). So I paused to consider.

Article 58 of the Rome Statute provides that the Pre-Trial Chamber shall, on the application of the Prosecutor, issue an arrest warrant if ‘there are reasonable grounds to believe that the person has committed a crime within the jurisdiction of the Court.’

Two of the three judges of the PTC decided that in the case of the application for an arrest warrant against President Bashir, the Prosecutor had not met the standard. One judge dissented, and the Prosecutor sought leave to appeal. The most significant part of the request is the claim that the judges were not applying the right standard of proof: they were seeking a substantially higher level of proof rather than ‘reasonable grounds to believe.’

My own view is that the Public Application contained plentiful evidence that specific criminal acts had been committed during 2003 and 2004 that might constitute the actus reus of genocide, but that acts committed since January 2005 were most unlikely to fit that requirement. The prosecution’s case rests on demonstrating intent and mode of perpetration. Let us focus on intent. The way the Prosecutor constructs the case is an argument that genocidal intent is the only reasonable inference from the facts of the case. This implies that he is trying to prove the case beyond all reasonable doubt—as he would during a trial. He clearly doesn’t succeed because there are other reasonable inferences from the facts.

But that is not the test that the Pre-Trial Judges should apply. They need to be satisfied only that there are reasonable grounds to believe there was genocide—in both act and intent.

Was I right? I asked three lawyers who are familiar with the issue to comment, independently and anonymously. I didn’t ask anyone who has taken a clear stand on the issue one way or the other. The question broke into two parts.

First, did the PTC apply the correct standard of proof? Reviewer one gave the judges a poor grade. “I think the PTC got it wrong on the standard of proof and did so at a pretty basic level and I would be relatively surprised if the OTP is denied leave to appeal and equally if it were to lose the appeal on that point.” Reviewer two thought that the judges were right to reject the charge. “Whereas ‘reasonable grounds to believe’ is not absolute, the factor ‘only’ (in reasonable inference) is absolute. The question is, which one ‘wins’: should one lower the standards of ‘only’ because it is a pre-trial stage? I wouldn’t say so. If it is evident at this stage already that all the evidence produced leaves open other interpretations, then there are no reasonable grounds to believe…. The philosophy of this stage of the proceedings is to avoid unreasonable charges. If the Prosecutor does not have the right evidence now, will he have later? He should not rely on insufficient material.” But reviewer three asked: “Did the judges err in their application of the evidentiary standard? Probably, yes. … They state several times that genocidal intent must be the only reasonable inference from the actions of GoS in order for the threshold to be met. This is probably untrue, and it is certainly new law.”

So, in deference to a majority of two-to-one, I concede that the Prosecution is right to consider that the PTC got it wrong. Round one to Heller.

Reviewers number one and three (my critics) also considered the wider question: if the judges applied the correct standard, would the prosecution’s case pass the bar?

Number one continued his assessment of the PTC: “There were a million other ways they could have rejected the genocide case but the reasoning they chose was in my view simply an error in law. I think there is a good argument to say that at the very least the public application did not demonstrate even on the lower standard that Al Bashir was involved in the commission of genocide which would have required more showing how he participated in a genocidal plan—about which there is really nothing more than suspicion in my view.”

Reviewer three agreed that the judges had erred unnecessarily, and went on to write, “The reason I say this is unnecessary is that, in the decision as a whole, I think the evidence does not even support reasonable grounds to believe there was a genocidal intent. It just isn’t there. … In fact they are all arguing over the wrong issue—the evidence doesn’t come close to satisfying even Judge Usacka’s diluted ‘reasonable grounds’ test.”

So, on the quality of the Prosecutor’s case, there was a three-to-nothing majority in my favour. Round two to de Waal. A tie. (Albeit not a strictly fair contest, as I got to choose the panel. Kevin: treat this as an invitation to appeal the decision!)

My reviewers also reflected on some other dimensions of the case. Number three suggested that I should have argued against the appeal on the basis of “the test for allowing an appeal to proceed” which is Article 82(1)d, which requires “there to be a real issue, the resolution of which will impact the fairness and expeditiousness of the proceedings and the resolution of which is necessary at the present stage.” This reviewer went on, “in the context where a warrant has been issued and where charges can be amended later there is no real-world impact of a reversal of the decision on genocide in terms of fairness, expeditiousness etc. This is where the application for leave to appeal really flounders.  There is a warrant out there, and adding genocide matters not one jot to its enforcement.” In short, if evidence arises in the course of further investigations, the Prosecutor always has the right to introduce any additional charges—or re-introduce the genocide charge—at a later stage. In the meantime, the only impacts of adding the charge of genocide would be symbolic and political, which should not influence the Court.

The final conclusion is sad and ironic. The tussle weakens an already weak court. My instant reaction to the PTC decision was that the ICC as an institution had been vindicated—its judges had shown independence and rigour. The Prosecutor’s loss was the Court’s gain. As a supporter of the Court on principle I was happy about this. But, it seems, my confidence was misplaced. This was summed up by one of my reviewers: “A bad decision all round—a bad bench and a bad prosecutor. Mon Dieu!”

From Alex de Waal's blog Making Sense of Darfur:
Response to Grading the Prosecutor–And the Bench
By Julie Flint
Friday, 27 March 2009

A fourth reviewer, one of the many senior lawyers and investigators who have left the ICC in disagreement with Moreno Ocampo, argues that the main weakness of the application lies in going for President Bashir alone. Many who have worked on the Darfur referral have been concerned by the prosecutor’s simplistic presentation of the conflict and his failure to grasp the fact that much of what has happened in Darfur since 2004 is the bitter but not necessarily criminal fruit of war. As Moreno Ocampo talks of an ongoing government plan to ‘exterminate’ Darfur’s displaced — an assertion that has deepened the anger currently directed against foreigners in Darfur, making life even harder for the relief workers who remain there — seeking a warrant for the president alone plays straight into the hands of those who seek to defend the Sudan government by arguing that the Prosecutor is making a poorly-disguised attempt at regime change by judicial means.

It is no secret that some of the best legal minds in the ICC have quit, the vast majority of them in disagreement with Moreno Ocampo. They feel the Darfur investigation has been characterized by a series of disastrously bad strategic decisions, each one compounded by the next. The first was the decision, by the Prosecutor, to issue a summons for Ahmad Haroun, who was in Jordan at the time and could have been arrested with a sealed warrant. Moreno Ocampo justified his decision on the ground that a summons was the only way to have an impact on the ongoing crimes. The greatest impact, surely, would have been to arrest Haroun. But in 2006 Moreno Ocampo had been severely criticized in two amicus curiae briefs — by Prof. Antonio Cassese and Louise Arbour — and was set on proving them wrong. This demanded headlines. Never mind whether he got results or not. And he did not: neither Haroun nor Ali Kushayb has been arrested three years on, and Khartoum has not been cowed into cooperation with the Court. Quite the opposite: Haroun makes daily headlines as minister of state for humanitarian affairs, Ali Kushayb has reportedly been recruiting near the Chad border, and President Bashir is thumbing his nose at the ICC, jumping on planes at the drop of a hat while the displaced begin to feel the pinch of the arrest warrant against him.

After the first warrants, against Haroun and Ali Kushayb, the Prosecutor had a range of options. A strong feeling inside the Court was that the best move — politically, legally and strategically — would have been to charge a number of senior ranking military and militia figures, insisting on a critical review of evidence in all its shades. The worst possible second step, many insiders felt, was to go for Bashir alone — risking the repercussions against humanitarians that Alex and I warned of (to cries of ‘doom and gloom’ and ‘chicken little’, and assertions that our fears were ‘overblown’). In ignoring his colleagues’ advice and targeting the president in isolation from other ranking figures, Moreno Ocampo has strengthened the perception that he seeks regime change as the ultimate justice. The immediate result is twofold: a rallying of political and popular opinion around President Bashir, which has strengthened his position at least in the short term, and renewed criticism of the already-beleaguered ICC.

I have just spent two weeks in Darfur and do not recognize the place depicted either by the Prosecutor or a substantial part of the media. (More of that in a later posting.) It is true that the war-affected in the camps want Bashir indicted, and want him indicted for genocide — the buzz word of the last five years, which has reached every corner of the camps, and the cornerstone of a multi-million-dollar activist movement. But it is equally true that every other Sudanese I spoke to has profound misgivings about the arrest warrant — ranging from fears of uncontrollable instability if this government falls apart to ‘genocide against the Zaghawa’ tribe of Minni Minawi. In the words of one astute Darfurian: ‘The real genocide will happen if Bashir is removed. Zaghawa, and to a lesser extent Fur, will face a very critical position if Bashir is removed.’

- - -

Note from Sudan Watch Ed: I have used red to highlight text for my own reference. This part got me thinking:

"There is a warrant out there, and adding genocide matters not one jot to its enforcement. [...] the only impacts of adding the charge of genocide would be symbolic and political, which should not influence the Court."

After the miles of reports on Sudan that I have read over the past five years, I have a vague recollection of reading about compensation for war affected individuals. Now I am wondering if rates of compensation differ for survivors of genocide. I have just Google searched "compensation for genocide survivors" and found the following article at the top of the search result.  The article gives clues to the scope of the issue:  survivors of the Rwanda genocide are still awaiting reparations.  This tells me that a genocide ruling benefits survivors.  I shall copy this note and post it in the comments box at Alex de Waal's blog post Grading the Prosecutor–And the Bench and ask if he thinks that adding the charge of genocide might benefit war affected individuals in Darfur. I hope this all makes sense. I know what I am trying to say but it is now 23:08 Friday night here in England and I am overtired. Too tired to re-read and check all of this before posting.

From Human Rights Tribune (www.humanrights-geneva.info)
Genocide survivors tired of promises
Aimable Twahirwa - IPS

20 April 2006 - KIGALI - More than a decade after the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, the need for compensation to victims of this tragedy continues to present difficulties for government and genocide survivors alike.

Upwards of 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus lost their lives in the killing spree, which began after a plane carrying Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and his Burundian counterpart, Cyprien Ntaryamira, was shot down over Rwanda’s capital - Kigali - on Apr. 6 1994.

Since then, a court - the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) - has been set up in the northern Tanzanian town of Arusha to bring the alleged masterminds of the genocide to book, while Rwandan courts have struggled to try the huge number of persons accused of carrying out the killings.

Hutu militants and members of the Rwandan army are held largely responsible for conducting the massacres.

Those who survived the genocide are still awaiting reparations, however, says François Ngarambe, president of Ibuka ("Remember", in English) - one of the main non-governmental organisations for genocide survivors.

This is despite numerous promises of help from government regarding school fees for orphans, medical assistance and accommodation for poor survivors.

Unrealistic promises

"We are sick of continuing to hear unrealistic promises made by politicians who have little sense of our suffering," said Marie Claire Murorunkwere, a Tutsi genocide widow from Ngoma, a district in the east of the country.

Adds Jean Glaubert Burasa — director of publication for ’Rushyashya’, a bi-weekly newspaper published in Kigali — "This refusal to compensate the survivors is another way of humiliating victims, and supporting those responsible for the genocide."

Rwanda’s authorities admit that the need for reparations has confronted them with a dilemma.

"The Rwandan government is not in a position today to promise what it will never have the means to deliver," Edda Mukabagwiza, minister of justice and institutional relations, told IPS.

Simply listing the victims, and damages sustained in terms of physical and psychological injuries, as well as goods destroyed — is a huge task that the Rwandan government cannot take on alone, notes Mukabagwiza.

Faced with government’s limitations in the matter of compensation, certain associations for genocide victims have started income-generating activities. These include the Association of Genocide Widows of April 1994 (l’Association des veuves du génocide d’avril 1994, AVEGA) which last year began making small baskets for decoration — and export to the American market.

Named ’Basket of Peace, the project has received support from Canada. At present some 200 women are participating in the initiative, including genocide widows and women whose husbands are in prison on genocide charges — AVEGA president Bellancille Umukobwa told IPS.

Joséphine Nyirantwali is one of those who has benefited from ’Basket of Peace’. Previously, she depended entirely on aid of 60 dollars a month provided by the Assistance Fund for Genocide Survivors, set up by government in 1998.

Husbands in detention

Today, however, Nyirantwali is able to support herself. "It’s the sad experience of the past that gave me the courage to stand in solidarity with my other colleagues," she said.

Donatille Mukagakwaya, a Hutu woman whose jailed husband stands accused of helping to carry out the genocide, voices similar sentiments.

"We are not responsible for what happened in Rwanda. Our husbands are in detention, and we cannot predict what will happen tomorrow. We therefore need to join forces to meet the needs of our families."

According to Mandiaye Niang — special councilor at the ICTR — the United Nations Security Council has discussed setting up a special fund to compensate genocide victims, on the basis of individual or collective demands.

"The ICTR could eventually be given a new responsibility…to co-ordinate compensation to victims who have appeared before it, as witnesses," he explained.

The tribunal has already launched a programme of assistance for witnesses, in Rwanda.

The first phase of this initiative, which began in September 2000, included legal advice, psychological counseling and physical rehabilitation.

A second phase involved financial aid for a resettlement programme.

According to ICTR spokesman Tim Gallimore, the tribunal has contributed 15 percent of financing (about 52,000 dollars) towards the initial cost of construction for 23 houses in the "Village of Peace" in Kamonyi - a district in central Rwanda.