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July 14 (Bloomberg) -- The International Criminal Court's prosecutor is seeking the arrest of Sudan's President Umar al- Bashir, alleging he bears ``criminal responsibility'' for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur.
Al-Bashir's indictment on any of the 10 counts would be the ICC's first involving a sitting head of state. Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo asked the court in The Hague today to issue a warrant for al-Bashir, 64, whose government vowed to oppose attempts to arrest him. It may take up to two months before the court decides on Moreno-Ocampo's request, his spokeswoman, Florence Olara, said by phone today.
``If the ICC charges Bashir, it will virtually eliminate the last chance for the country to find a peaceful negotiated way out of the current crisis,'' Andrew Natsios, President George W. Bush's former special envoy to Sudan, said today in an e-mailed response to questions. ``The larger issue is not Darfur; it is the country as a whole and its survival as a state.''
Sudan's ambassador to the United Nations said his country will try to persuade the UN Security Council to block the prosecutor from pursuing charges against al-Bashir, the Associated Press reported. Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamed said in an interview with the wire service that al-Bashir is weighing all options, including a military response.
Peacekeepers at Risk
Al-Bashir has ruled Sudan since 1989, leading the country as conflict enveloped Darfur. As many as 300,000 people have been killed and more than 2 million displaced in the nation's western region since February 2003. Any action against al-Bashir may put at risk peacekeepers from a UN-African Union force in Darfur, China's UN ambassador said.
Government-backed Arab militias, known as the Janjaweed, have been accused of committing atrocities in Darfur. The violence began when rebels seeking a larger role in Sudan's political life and a bigger slice of the country's expanding oil wealth attacked the government.
``Al-Bashir masterminded and implemented a plan to destroy in substantial part the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa groups, on account of their ethnicity,'' the prosecutor's office said today in a statement on the court's Web site. ``For over five years, armed forces and the militia/Janjaweed, on al-Bashir orders, have attacked and destroyed villages. They then pursued the survivors in the desert.''
`Legal Steps'
Sudan will take ``legal steps'' to fight al-Bashir's probable indictment by the ICC, Information Minister al-Zahawi Malek said today before the prosecutor's request for the president's arrest. Sudan's government, which isn't a signatory to the treaty that established the ICC, last month said it won't cooperate with the court.
``The prosecutor of the ICC does not have the right to have the control over the Sudanese people,'' Vice President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha told reporters today in the capital, Khartoum.
The U.S., while not a part of the court's formation, will examine the prosecutor's request and follow the case closely, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
``Make no mistake, we are on the side of accountability,'' McCormack told reporters in Washington today.
A backlash of violence ``certainly is a possibility,'' McCormack said, urging restraint by ``all parties.''
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner urged al-Bashir to ``respect'' decisions of the ICC, Agence France-Presse reported.
`Huge Step'
``This is a huge step in ending the impunity associated with the horrific crimes that have occurred in Darfur,'' Richard Dicker, International Justice Program director at Human Rights Watch in New York, said by telephone today.
``I think the judges will approve the request for an arrest warrant, maybe not for all 10 counts, as genocide is always difficult to prove,'' Dicker said. ``I'm not suggesting we're likely to see President al-Bashir at the ICC soon.''
Even without ratifying the treaty, UN member state Sudan is obliged to cooperate with the ICC, Dicker said.
``It's a legal obligation that flows from the 2005 Security Council resolution that referred the situation in Darfur to the ICC prosecutor for investigation.''
Alex de Waal, a former adviser to the African Union and co- author of ``Darfur: A Short History of a Long War,'' said an indictment of al-Bashir may jeopardize the country's peace process. In 2005, Muslim northern Sudan and the mainly Christian and animist south signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended a 21-year civil war.
`In Jeopardy'
An ICC warrant for al-Bashir might put the UN's peacekeeping, humanitarian and political efforts in Darfur ``in jeopardy,'' Chinese Ambassador to the UN Wang Guangya told reporters on July 11.
The joint UN-AU force has about 9,000 of the 26,000 soldiers it plans to deploy in Darfur, a region almost the size of France. Since the UN took command of the mostly African force from the AU on Jan. 1, no new battalions have been sent to the region and the peacekeepers still lack air support.
The UN will continue its peacekeeping operations and development work in Sudan, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today in an e-mailed statement, adding that he expects the Sudanese government to ensure the safety of all UN personnel.
The court was established under the 1998 Rome Statute, a treaty signed by representatives of 106 states during a UN conference.
The ICC is the only permanent tribunal for prosecuting individuals responsible for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity committed anywhere in the world. Its first judges were installed in 2003.
The ICC has approved 12 arrest warrants that resulted in the custody of four people, said Dicker.
The court was modeled on temporary tribunals set up to try war crime cases stemming from conflicts in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia as well as the first such trials held in the German city of Nuremberg after World War II.
The ICC has investigated allegations of war crimes involving Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.
Source: Bloomberg Report
My students did an extensive research project on Darfur this past Spring, and began a STAND program at our school. They taught me more than I taught them, that is or sure. It is good to see that steps are being taken to stop what is happening there.
Unfortunately, as has been reported today, a UN peacekeeper was killed in Darfur today, so the violence as escalated from the Janjaweed, but hopefully without leadership, they will fall apart, and further steps can be taken to moving this region into a peace.
Al-Bashir's indictment on any of the 10 counts would be the ICC's first involving a sitting head of state. Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo asked the court in The Hague today to issue a warrant for al-Bashir, 64, whose government vowed to oppose attempts to arrest him. It may take up to two months before the court decides on Moreno-Ocampo's request, his spokeswoman, Florence Olara, said by phone today.
``If the ICC charges Bashir, it will virtually eliminate the last chance for the country to find a peaceful negotiated way out of the current crisis,'' Andrew Natsios, President George W. Bush's former special envoy to Sudan, said today in an e-mailed response to questions. ``The larger issue is not Darfur; it is the country as a whole and its survival as a state.''
Sudan's ambassador to the United Nations said his country will try to persuade the UN Security Council to block the prosecutor from pursuing charges against al-Bashir, the Associated Press reported. Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamed said in an interview with the wire service that al-Bashir is weighing all options, including a military response.
Peacekeepers at Risk
Al-Bashir has ruled Sudan since 1989, leading the country as conflict enveloped Darfur. As many as 300,000 people have been killed and more than 2 million displaced in the nation's western region since February 2003. Any action against al-Bashir may put at risk peacekeepers from a UN-African Union force in Darfur, China's UN ambassador said.
Government-backed Arab militias, known as the Janjaweed, have been accused of committing atrocities in Darfur. The violence began when rebels seeking a larger role in Sudan's political life and a bigger slice of the country's expanding oil wealth attacked the government.
``Al-Bashir masterminded and implemented a plan to destroy in substantial part the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa groups, on account of their ethnicity,'' the prosecutor's office said today in a statement on the court's Web site. ``For over five years, armed forces and the militia/Janjaweed, on al-Bashir orders, have attacked and destroyed villages. They then pursued the survivors in the desert.''
`Legal Steps'
Sudan will take ``legal steps'' to fight al-Bashir's probable indictment by the ICC, Information Minister al-Zahawi Malek said today before the prosecutor's request for the president's arrest. Sudan's government, which isn't a signatory to the treaty that established the ICC, last month said it won't cooperate with the court.
``The prosecutor of the ICC does not have the right to have the control over the Sudanese people,'' Vice President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha told reporters today in the capital, Khartoum.
The U.S., while not a part of the court's formation, will examine the prosecutor's request and follow the case closely, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
``Make no mistake, we are on the side of accountability,'' McCormack told reporters in Washington today.
A backlash of violence ``certainly is a possibility,'' McCormack said, urging restraint by ``all parties.''
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner urged al-Bashir to ``respect'' decisions of the ICC, Agence France-Presse reported.
`Huge Step'
``This is a huge step in ending the impunity associated with the horrific crimes that have occurred in Darfur,'' Richard Dicker, International Justice Program director at Human Rights Watch in New York, said by telephone today.
``I think the judges will approve the request for an arrest warrant, maybe not for all 10 counts, as genocide is always difficult to prove,'' Dicker said. ``I'm not suggesting we're likely to see President al-Bashir at the ICC soon.''
Even without ratifying the treaty, UN member state Sudan is obliged to cooperate with the ICC, Dicker said.
``It's a legal obligation that flows from the 2005 Security Council resolution that referred the situation in Darfur to the ICC prosecutor for investigation.''
Alex de Waal, a former adviser to the African Union and co- author of ``Darfur: A Short History of a Long War,'' said an indictment of al-Bashir may jeopardize the country's peace process. In 2005, Muslim northern Sudan and the mainly Christian and animist south signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended a 21-year civil war.
`In Jeopardy'
An ICC warrant for al-Bashir might put the UN's peacekeeping, humanitarian and political efforts in Darfur ``in jeopardy,'' Chinese Ambassador to the UN Wang Guangya told reporters on July 11.
The joint UN-AU force has about 9,000 of the 26,000 soldiers it plans to deploy in Darfur, a region almost the size of France. Since the UN took command of the mostly African force from the AU on Jan. 1, no new battalions have been sent to the region and the peacekeepers still lack air support.
The UN will continue its peacekeeping operations and development work in Sudan, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today in an e-mailed statement, adding that he expects the Sudanese government to ensure the safety of all UN personnel.
The court was established under the 1998 Rome Statute, a treaty signed by representatives of 106 states during a UN conference.
The ICC is the only permanent tribunal for prosecuting individuals responsible for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity committed anywhere in the world. Its first judges were installed in 2003.
The ICC has approved 12 arrest warrants that resulted in the custody of four people, said Dicker.
The court was modeled on temporary tribunals set up to try war crime cases stemming from conflicts in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia as well as the first such trials held in the German city of Nuremberg after World War II.
The ICC has investigated allegations of war crimes involving Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.
Source: Bloomberg Report
My students did an extensive research project on Darfur this past Spring, and began a STAND program at our school. They taught me more than I taught them, that is or sure. It is good to see that steps are being taken to stop what is happening there.
Unfortunately, as has been reported today, a UN peacekeeper was killed in Darfur today, so the violence as escalated from the Janjaweed, but hopefully without leadership, they will fall apart, and further steps can be taken to moving this region into a peace.
