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Re: تلخيص: From war to peace and reconciliation in Darfur منتدى عماد الأمين (Re: Elmuiz Haggaz)
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Dealing with Darfur war crimes: Whether peace in Darfur is imminent or not remains open for debate. What is certain is that the sustainability of peace in Darfur and the guarantee of harmonious post-conflict co-existence require careful handling of Darfur war crimes. Despite ample international attention paid to atrocities committed in Darfur, there is little consensus regarding the number of fatalities, the incidence of rape, the extent of villages burnt and property destroyed or looted. However, and by whatever measures, the atrocities committed involve numbers that far exceed the capacity of formal legal systems to handle. In this regard, we have a great deal to learn from other similar conflicts in the Sudan as well as in other African countries. Thus we have the war of south Sudan, the Rwandan experience, the South African experience and many others.
In approaching Darfur war crimes, Sudan must learn from mistakes committed at the Naivasha negotiations that led to the current CPA. In Naivasha, the negotiators adopted the dictum of “forgive and march on” and opted for a blanket amnesty for all north –south civil war criminals. Eminent Sudanese lawyer Magdi AlGazouli maintains that the “failure to probe into atrocities committed in GoS-SPLM war encouraged a repeat of the same crimes in Darfur and a blanket amnesty in the Darfur war is simply untenable” (Algazouli, 2009). One does not have to subscribe to the Rwandan principle of “maximum accountability for crimes of genocides and crimes against humanity”. Suffice is to follow Amnesty International that “peace depends not only on absence of war but also on the existence of both justice and truth, with both justice and truth depending on one another” (Amnesty International, 2002b). The ICC has already issued arrest warrants for six individuals, a small number compared to the unofficial list of 55 culprits whom International Human Rights Watch wants investigated (HRW, 2005). The government itself has followed suit and claims it has commuted death sentences on 36 soldiers charged for committing atrocities and armed robberies in Darfur. Given the scale of crimes committed in Darfur, the ICC and Sudan’s official justice system (NJS) will not have the capacity to deal with all cases within a time frame that is fair and just for victims and culprits alike and it is here that Darfur must learn from the Rwandan experience.
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