The Wheels of Justice Keep Turning in Darfur
As of just over a week ago, there were 2 arrest warrants and 1 request for an arrest warrant hanging on the walls of the International Criminal Court in the Hague that concerned the crisis in Darfur. The first two were Ahmed Haroun, the Minister for Humanitarian Affairs in Sudan, and Ali “Kaushayb”, a known Janjaweed leader; the third is a pending warrant for the arrest of the President of Sudan himself, Omar al-Bashir.
A week ago today, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court at the Hague, added 3 new request for arrests to that stack: three leaders of the rebel movements in Darfur.
The crime? According to CNN, in September, 2007, “a thousand rebel-led soldiers surrounded and stormed an African Union peacekeeping base in Haskanita, in southern Darfur, the ICC said. Twelve peacekeepers were killed and eight were wounded in the overnight attack, the deadliest single attack on AU peacekeepers since they began their mission in late 2004.”
Luis Moreno-Ocampo said there is significant enough evidence to support the indictment of three rebel leaders who allegedly planned, led, and directed the attack on the peacekeepers over a year ago.
The names of the rebel leaders have been kept confidential for now, in the hopes that they will surrender of their own accord. While this remains to be seen, a spokesperson for the SLA-Unity would surrender their leaders to the ICC if indicted because they believed their leaders were innocent and that their innocence would hold up in court.
What does this mean for the international community, and more specifically, the growing global anti-genocide movement?
1. It sends a message to actors in Darfur that anything endangering peacekeepers and the Darfuris they protect should not and will no longer be tolerated by the international community
2. It reminds us that we are in the middle of a complex conflict where there are not “good guys and bad guys” but rather a series of powerful actors who each have their own interests in mind
3. It counters Omar al-Bashir’s argument that the ICC is the West’s attempt at overthrowing his government and that he has been unjustly targeted by the Court.
There has been overwhelming support for this move by the international community. Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch called it "an important step toward protecting those who protect civilians…Civilians rely on peacekeepers for protection, and any hope for restoring security for civilians in Darfur depends on peacekeepers being able to do their job," said "These warrant requests send a strong message that such crimes will not be tolerated."
Stay tuned at STAND’s blog and on our Weekly News Briefs (which you can sign up for by e-mailing education@standnow.org) for all updates about the case.
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I Agree
It seems that countries will have to voluntarily surrender the indictees... In this situation, it would be hard to arrest the people who were allegedly part of the attack since it would have to involve international relations. This is a solution but I really don't see some ways to better improve or at least lift weight from the pressure from the attacks. In my opinion, educating is a very good solution to the problem, but it may be a very long and tedious task but it is a very peaceful and a very sure way to better improve the situation in Sudan. Although I do agree that arresting the people suspected of the attacks but it does not necessarily end the horrible situation. I have been visited a site http://emmaacademyproject.com/ that helps build a school, to help educate the people in Sudan, and eventually ending the war in Sudan.
Wow!
This is a fantastic development. What are the chances that these warrants will actually be approved by the ICC? Are there any precedents to expect this to pass?
Predictions and predicaments for the ICC
The ICC is a very new institution and has only been up and running for a matter of years, and is still running through its first rounds of requests for indictments, indictments, arrests, and prosecutions - so unfortunately there aren't a lot of other precedents for us to base our predictions off of. Yet there is a strong chance that these warrants will be passed, for although we have few precedents, so far, every time the Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo has presented his case he has been given a warrant. However as the names of the potential indictees and the evidence against them has been kept confidential, it's hard to judge on the specifics. However, the biggest challenge for Ocampo remains not whether or not he gets the piece of paper saying the suspects have been indicted by the Court; it is getting his suspects to appear before the Court. Out of the 2 existing warrants for war crimes in Darfur, none have been turned in. The greatest challenge facing the ICC is it has no way of arresting the people it indicts itself and rather relies on the international community or the host countries to surrender the indictee.