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 The Guardian interviewed Ahmed H. Adam
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ICC chief prosecutor shelves Darfur war crimes probe
Fatou Bensouda prompts triumphant response from Sudanese president and concerns over viability of Hague-based institution
Fatou Bensouda
ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced on Friday that she was shelving the Darfur probe. Photograph: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images
David Smith, Africa correspondent
Sunday 14 December 2014 14.12 EST
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The war crimes investigation in Sudan’s Darfur region had already been stagnant for five years when the international criminal court formally suspended it last week, a lawyer representing the victims has claimed.
Chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced on Friday that she was shelving the Darfur probe, prompting a triumphant response from Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir and renewed concerns over the viability of the Hague-based institution.
But ICC defence counsel Nick Kaufman, acting on behalf of victims in Darfur, described Bensouda’s move as “grandstanding” and an attempt to put pressure on the UN security council.
“There has been no substantial investigation of the Darfur case since 2009,” he said by phone from the Hague in the Netherlands on Sunday. “I’m surprised the victims were not consulted before the chief prosecutor went to the UN.”
Kaufman claimed that in 2009 he offered the prosecutor victims willing to testify but was advised that no further investigation was taking place. “They were told their evidence would not be required,” he said.
Bensouda had decided to speak out now, he added, because of frustration at the security council’s failure to enforce the ICC’s five-year-old arrest warrants against Bashir and three allies. “Bashir is walking around Africa and no leaders are doing anything about it,” Kaufman said.
The ICC was unavailable for comment on Sunday. The beleaguered court has no army and no police and so is reliant on the security council to take coercive measures that could compel Bashir and his co-accused to stand trial.
Darfur, a region in western Sudan, has been racked by conflict since marginalised mainly non-Arab tribes took up arms in 2003 against the Arab-led government in Khartoum. The fighting has killed at least 300,000 people and displaced two million, according to the UN.
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The ICC ordered Bashir to face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity – a first for a sitting head of state – and later added three counts of genocide. It also charged his defence minister, interior minister and a militia leader.
Bensouda warned on Friday that the security council’s inaction would only “embolden perpetrators to continue their brutality”.
She said: “Given this council’s lack of foresight on what should happen in Darfur, I am left with no choice but to hibernate investigative activities in Darfur as I shift resources to other urgent cases… What is needed is a dramatic shift in this council’s approach to arresting Darfur suspects.”
She also said allegations that Sudanese forces raped 200 women and girls in a Darfur village in late October “should shock this council into action”.
The indictment has curtailed 70-year-old Bashir’s ability to travel lest he be arrested, but proved politically useful domestically, enabling him to portray the ICC as a tool of western imperialism. He has been in power for a quarter of a century and did not miss his chance to gloat over Bensouda’s setback.
“They wanted us to kneel before the international criminal court but the ICC raised its hands and admitted that it had failed,” he said in a speech on Saturday. “The Sudanese people have defeated the ICC and have refused to hand over any Sudanese to the colonialist courts.”
Away from the rhetoric, however, little has changed in practice, since the charges against Bashir and the others have not been dropped. “On the day Bashir is arrested, the investigation will reopen,” Kaufman noted.
Elise Keppler, associate director of the international justice programme at Human Rights Watch, said: “President Bashir should think again in claiming ‘victory’ over the ICC. The ICC’s warrants for the Sudanese president are in full effect.
“The chief prosecutor is not closing the case. She’s just making clear that she needs more support from the security council because she’s stuck without it.”
The security council’s inaction is the root of the problem, Keppler continued. “It is betraying the victims. It referred the case but referral is not the end of the line. If the security council is serious about victims, it needs to step up its game to see that the fugitives are surrendered. This is a huge stain on its credibility.”
Arrests can take a long time to enforce but that is not reason to give up, Keppler added, citing the case of former Liberian president Charles Taylor, who spent years in a safe haven before facing the special court for Sierra Leone. “Bashir is trying to put a spin on it but this is not some kind of defeat. This is the tough reality of trying to ensure justice for the worst kind of atrocities.”
Despite ongoing claims of human rights abuses, including a security crackdown last year in which nearly 200 protesters were killed. Sudan has been protected from further action at the 15-member security council by China, a permanent member with a veto. China is a prominent investor in Sudan and has long advocated non-interference in the politics of African countries.
Ahmed Hussain Adam, a politician and scholar from Darfur, urged the UK and France to act. “The security council is so divided when you look at the positions of China and Russia,” he said. “I say it is better to win the hearts and minds of the people of Sudan rather than just Bashir. We call on the security council to be united.
“Without that, the people in Darfur are going to be very disappointed and that is going to deepen the crisis in Sudan and that will lead to more violence. That is very dangerous for Sudan. The ICC and security council should give the people of Sudan more hope and show they care and that justice will be served. Right now we need to give Bashir a clear message: he did not defeat the ICC.”
Bensouda was also recently forced to drop charges of crimes against humanity against Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta. Last week Yoweri Museveni, the president of Uganda, declared that he will encourage African leaders to quit the court, describing it as a “tool to target” the continent, but numerous African countries pledged support to the ICC at an assembly of states parties in New York.
Adam, visiting fellow at the Institute of African Development at Cornell University in the US, accused European governments of not doing enough. “They just pay lip service and make statements rather than taking action. I think they have a false perception that if they push Bashir it might lead to total chaos or war in the country. But it’s without change that Sudan’s going to descend into chaos.”
(عدل بواسطة فقيرى جاويش طه on 12-17-2014, 04:43 PM)
(عدل بواسطة فقيرى جاويش طه on 12-17-2014, 04:45 PM)
(عدل بواسطة فقيرى جاويش طه on 12-17-2014, 04:46 PM)
(عدل بواسطة فقيرى جاويش طه on 12-17-2014, 04:51 PM)
(عدل بواسطة فقيرى جاويش طه on 12-17-2014, 04:52 PM)
(عدل بواسطة فقيرى جاويش طه on 12-17-2014, 04:54 PM)
(عدل بواسطة فقيرى جاويش طه on 12-17-2014, 04:55 PM)
(عدل بواسطة فقيرى جاويش طه on 12-17-2014, 08:05 PM)
(عدل بواسطة فقيرى جاويش طه on 12-17-2014, 08:12 PM)
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Re: The Guardian interviewed Ahmed H. Adam (Re: فقيرى جاويش طه)
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ICC’s decision to freeze Darfur investigations raises fears and disappointments
and#8203;Ahmed H. Adam's and#8203; commentary to Sudan Tribune on the ICC's Prosecutor decision of shelving Darfur's case at the Court.
ICC’s decision to freeze Darfur investigations raises fears and disappointments
December 14, 2014 (WASHINGTON) - The decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC)’s prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to suspend new investigations into the Darfur situation has raised concerns among Darfurians who expressed disappointment and angry saying it would generate more violence and chaos in the region.
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ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda briefs the UN Security Council on 13 December 2014 (Photo: UN/Yubi Hoffmann)
“Given this council’s lack of foresight on what should happen in Darfur, I am left with no choice but to hibernate investigative activities in Darfur as I shift resources to other urgent cases,” said Bensouda in a briefing to the UN Security Council on 13 December.
The prosecutor underscored that this decision is the result of UNSC indifference towards her repeated demands for international cooperation with the ICC to hold account Sudanese officials including president Omer al-Bashir charged with genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
A visiting fellow at the Institute for African Development at Cornell University, Ahmed Hussein Adam told Sudan Tribune that the prosecutor’s decisions may deepen the Sudan’s crisis and descend the country into more violence and chaos.
Adam further said the decision has given Bashir and his clique of hardliners a reason to celebrate what they called “a victory against the ICC.”
“May be this is not the kind of situation that the Prosecutor wanted to see, but the hibernation of the Darfur’s case has created a state of triumph among Bashir’s supporters,” he further stressed.
Also, the secretary general of the IDPs and refugees in Darfur, Abdallah Adam Abakar, told Sudan Tribune that the ICC decision “to freeze the investigation on Darfur cases was shocking to the aspirations and the desire of the victims to try all the criminals who committed crimes against humanity and genocide”.
Abakar added that it will encourage new massacres against civilians in the troubled region, and accused the international community of conspiring against the victims in Darfur, pointing out to the failure of international justice after the Sudanese Justice.
Adam also insisted on this point but more blamed the Security Council than the war crimes tribunal.
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Ahmed Hussain Adam (Flicker)
“The lack of political will in UNSC has encouraged the perpetrators to continue with their scorched earth campaigns against the innocent civilians in Darfur and other conflict regions of Sudan,” he said.
Several activists in Darfur region reached to comment on the ICC recent decision agree that it may pave the way for more violence particularly attacks on civilians, pointing that all the tribal groups are armed with sophisticated weapons.
Observers say that the UN Security Council, according to its 1593 Resolution under Chapter 7, has to provide the ICC with the needed political and diplomatic support to implement the outstanding arrest warrants, launch new investigations and bring more perpetrators to justice.
During the 13 December briefing, few countries like United Kingdom and South Korea expressed their support to the ICC in its efforts to bring justice in Darfur and called on the Sudanese government to enforce all the arrest warrants issued by the Court.
(ST)
(عدل بواسطة فقيرى جاويش طه on 12-17-2014, 08:39 PM)
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فقيرى جاويش طه
علي عبدالوهاب عثمان
محمد المسلمي
Deng
فيس بوك
تويتر
انستقرام
يوتيوب
بنتيريست