Darfur genocide charges will be sought
The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor will ask for an
arrest warrant for Sudan President Ba****r next week, diplomats say.
By Maggie Farley, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 11, 2008
UNITED NATIONS -- The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor
will ask judges to issue an arrest warrant for the president of Sudan
next week on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity,
diplomats and an official close to the case said Thursday.
The prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, issued a statement Thursday
announcing that he would submit evidence of crimes committed against
civilians in Sudan's western region of Darfur over the last five
years, though he will wait until Monday at the pretrial chamber to
name names.
If the judges issue an arrest warrant, Sudanese President Omar Hassan
Ahmed Ba****r would be the first sitting or former head of state to be
charged with genocide by the 6-year-old international court in The
Hague.
The prosecutor may seek the arrests of other senior Sudanese officials
later, said the official close to the case, who requested anonymity
because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the proceedings.
U.N. officials are concerned that the request for warrants could cause
the Sudanese government to retaliate against peacekeepers and aid
workers in Darfur -- or even eject them. But they have not asked
Moreno-Ocampo to soft-pedal his charges against Ba****r, said U.N. and
court officials.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had tried to keep the court's quest
for justice in Darfur on the margins of negotiations with Sudanese
officials, concerned that it would disrupt the deployment of
additional troops for a United Nations-led peacekeeping force. But
Thursday, he told re****ters that "in principle, I believe that peace
and justice should go hand in hand."
The Sudanese envoy to the world body fueled fears that a request for
Ba****r's arrest would jeopardize U.N. operations in Darfur. "All
options are open," Ambassador Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem said. "It is
playing with fire."
Darfur has been racked by violence since a rebellion against the
central government began in 2003. At least 200,000 people have been
killed, according to most estimates, most of the deaths blamed on
militias that critics charge were unleashed by the government to put
down the insurrection.
The U.N. in January took command of an African Union peacekeeping
effort in Darfur. The force is expected to eventually consist of
26,000 troops, though it has grown only slightly from the original
9,000 African troops because of delays in deployment and supplies.
U.N. peacekeepers and aid workers, who have faced repeated attacks
from gunmen, began retrenching in Darfur after an attack Tuesday on
U.N. forces that killed seven and injured 20. The Sudanese ambassador
blamed the Sudanese Liberation Movement/Unity rebel group, but U.N.
officials say they suspect that the Sudanese army was linked to the
attack.
Humanitarian groups have been withdrawing staff members from remote
areas and preparing for demonstrations or attacks in response to
Moreno-Ocampo's actions Monday.
"We take the situation quite seriously," said a humanitarian
coordinator for Darfur, especially because nongovernmental
organizations and the U.N. have faced frequent violence over the last
six months. The coordinator requested anonymity for security reasons.
Sudan probably will not turn over its leader if a warrant is issued.
Sudan has ignored arrest warrants issued last year for an official and
a rebel leader, and even promoted the official, Ahmed Haroun, to
oversee humanitarian affairs for the people he is charged with helping
displace in Darfur.
"I swear to God, I swear to God, I swear to God, we will not hand over
any Sudanese to the International Court," Ba****r recently told a
gathering of Sudan's Popular Defense Forces.
Moreno-Ocampo's strategy is risky, human rights groups and diplomats
say. Besides potentially alienating the head of state who controls
U.N. access to Darfur and triggering a retaliation, proving the crime
of genocide is very difficult, said Richard Dicker, director of the
International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch.
Moreno-Ocampo will have to show that the systematic killings in Darfur
were ordered by Ba****r with the specific intent to eliminate the
Massalit, Zaghawa and Fur groups on the basis of their ethnicity.
The government claims that the conflict was triggered by rebels from
those groups, and that the government and allied militias responded in
self-defense. Any casualties occurred in the course of a counter-
insurgency operation, and in intertribal warfare, officials have
repeatedly said.
"If genocide is the charge that the ICC prosecutor is pursuing, he has
set himself a high hurdle to get over," Dicker said.
Though warrants against Ba****r would be a first for the ICC, its
prosecutor would be following a path blazed by other tribunals.
A special court backed by the U.N. indicted Liberian President Charles
Taylor in 2003 for atrocities committed during a 10-year civil war in
neighboring Sierra Leone. His trial is underway.
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was indicted by the
international war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in 1999,
while he was still in office, and was turned over to authorities after
he was overthrown in a popular uprising. He died of heart failure in
2006 during his trial in The Hague.
Moreno-Ocampo, an Argentine who helped put his country's former ruling
junta behind bars, has been called quixotic in his quest for justice
while at the International Criminal Court. He has opened
investigations of violent campaigns in the Democratic Republic of
Congo, northern Uganda, Darfur and the Central African Republic. The
court has issued 12 arrest warrants.
Moreno-Ocampo will be making his new far-reaching case against a
backdrop of criticism after the recent collapse of his prosecution of
a Congolese warlord accused of using child soldiers. The trial chamber
suspended the trial of Thomas Lubanga after the court ruled that the
prosecutor withheld evidence that could help the defense.
The Darfur case could help shore up Moreno-Ocampo's credibility, or
undermine it.
"Charging a sitting head of state is going to generate a lot of
commentary and controversy," Dicker said. "But given what has happened
in Darfur since 2003, it is hardly a surprise that the trail of
evidence leads to the head of state. It is an im****tant step toward
the end of impunity."
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