War Crimes

We’ve rightly been focused on the Boumediene decision for the last few days, but the good people at the Enough Project were before the UN Security Council today. Co-Chair John Prendergast’s testimony is here. In a column Prendergast wrote on Huffington Post, he emphasized the continuing spillover of the Darfur conflict into neighboring Chad. In this case, the spillover was allegedly due to the Sudanese military.

In a declaration drawn up two weeks ago, the Security Council called on Sudan to turn over suspects to the ICC, and threatened to sanction Sudanese who do not cooperate.

The ICC’s first trial, against Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, will be delayed.

Lubanga, a leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots, is accused of command responsibility for hundreds of civilian deaths and the large-scale recruitment or impression into service of child soldiers. Critical case documents are available here, though the judges’ written explanation of their decision to delay the trial will probably not be issued until next week.

Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon spoke on Darfur today, arguing that the joint UN/African Union peacekeeping mission is seriously hampered by a variety of logistical problems.

In Sudan, rebels reached Omdurman, a suburb of Khartoum, this weekend. AP reports 200 people died in the attack. Sudan blames Chad, and has cut diplomatic ties.

The rebel movement may have been retaliating for the recent airstrikesby the Sudanese government, which rebels claim targeted civilian gathering places in North Darfur.

The United Nations on Thursday condemned an attack on civilians in West Darfur by forces backed by the Sudanese government.  The U.N. report said aerial attacks accompanied ground forces on raids on several villages, resulting in over 100 dead and several thousand displaced. The United Nations is only as strong as its member states; very little action can proceed through the international body without the consent of its members.  This is significant on a theoretical footing.  The most powerful nations form the normative benchmark by which success as a nation is measured.  As go the elite nations, so go the remainders - or they are left aside.  This is basic evolutionary logic.  Where this logic fails is in places like Darfur, where repeated statements of condemnation are just words.  In order to resolve issues like Darfur and other places where repeated violations of international law occur, the world needs a new body to resolve these issues where action beyond language can effectively take place.

Deadly attacks in West Darfur breached international law – UN report

20 March 2008 –Recent attacks by militias and the Sudanese army on four villages in West Darfur that left at least 115 people dead and some 30,000 displaced violated international humanitarian and human rights law, a United Nations report released today has found. The report, issued by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), in cooperation with the United Nations–African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), describes attacks on four villages north of El Geneina, the regional capital.

The attacks on the villages of Saraf Jidad, Sirba, Silea and Abu Suruj were carried out as part of a push by the Sudanese Government in late January and early February to drive back an insurgent group, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).

The 8 February attacks involved aerial bombardments by helicopter gun ships and fixed-wing aircraft, accompanied by ground offensives by soldiers and armed militia on horses and camels, the report says.

The report describes extensive looting during and after the attacks, and catalogues “consistent and credible accounts” of rape committed by armed men in uniform.

“These actions violated the principle of distinction stated in international humanitarian law, failing to distinguish between civilian objects and military objective,” the report concludes.

“Moreover, the scale of destruction of civilian property, including objects indispensable for the survival of the civilian population, suggests that the damage was a deliberate and integral part of a military strategy,” it adds.

UNAMID human rights staff were unable to investigate reports that similar ground and air offensives carried out on Jebel Moon and nearby areas on 18, 19 and 22 February also resulted in the killing of civilians, as the Government denied the UN access to Jebel Moon until 1 March.

According to the report, this was “in breach of its obligation to allow UNAMID officials freedom of movement under the Status of Forces Agreement signed between the UN and the Sudanese Government in February 2008.”

The attacks of the JEM rebel group, which precipitated the Government offensive, had previously been determined by the Darfur Ceasefire Commission to be in violation of the 2004 N’Djamena Ceasefire Agreement.

Meanwhile, UNAMID Deputy Joint Special Representative Henry Anyidoho travelled to one of the villages, Silea, to assess the security situation on the ground and to look at the possibility of the mission’s deployment there.

“The protection of civilians is our priority,” Mr. Anyidoho told community elders. “We will not abandon you. The UN will continue working to improve your living conditions,” he said, affirming that UNAMID would soon have a permanent presence in the area.

Currently, UNAMID conducts daily patrols from El Geneina to the conflict-affected areas, allowing humanitarian agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) access to the population.

UNAMID took over from a previous AU force at the beginning of the year in a bid to quell the fighting and humanitarian suffering in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have been killed in the past five years and at least 2.2 million displaced.

The man describing himself as the chief of operations for former Liberian President Charles Taylor, Joseph Marzah, or “Zigzag,” told the United Nations-backed Special Court for the Sierra Leone that Taylor encouraged his fighters to “play with human blood.” Marzah told the court about roving bands of death squads terrorizing the civilian population at checkpoints by displaying severed human heads at roadblocks. “We executed everybody – babies, women, old men. There were so many executions. I can’t remember them all,” Marzah said.

Marzah told the court that weapons were flown into Sierra Leone on foreign cargo planes using “blood diamonds” for financial support. Marzah said he collaborated with a “white guy with a big stomach” to smuggle weapons and diamonds for Taylor. He later described an assassination attempt on a militia leader, Issa Sesay. He also described an order from Taylor to execute then-President Samuel Doe by intercepting his convoy. Marzah said Taylor gave him order “to execute them with knives.” Not finding Doe, Marzah and his soldiers executed 72 members of Doe’s convoy with knives later that day.

Taylor faces 11 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes for allegedly cooperating with militants to gain access to the diamond trade, recruiting child soldiers, and other atrocities.

From UPI.

Uganda and LRA close to cease-fire deal

Published: Feb. 19, 2008 at 1:40 PM

KAMPALA, Uganda, Feb. 19 (UPI) — Ugandan officials agreed to let domestic courts try alleged war criminals as part of negotiations for a final peace agreement with rebels, a report says.

The Ugandan national newspaper, New Vision, said Monday Ugandan officials said a final cease-fire agreement could be signed between the Ugandan government and the LRA by the end of February. A Ugandan official is quoted in the BBC Tuesday saying a final deal will be signed “soon.”

The LRA so far refused to lay down their weapons because the International Criminal Court has warrants out for three of its top leaders. The ICC charged LRA chief Joseph Kony in 2005 with ordering attacks against civilians.

Ugandan negotiators said they will use a division of the Ugandan High Court to deal with grave matters instead of the ICC. The lower traditional systems of justice will handle lesser crimes, the BBC said.

Negotiation teams consider the dismantling of the LRA part of the final cease-fire, though New Vision said many LRA rebels left their strongholds in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo for the Central African Republic.

Uganda has asked for a monitoring team to find rebel strongholds, calling the movement to CAR a violation of cease-fire agreements.

An opposition leader with Kenya’s Orange Democratic Movement, David Kimutai Too, was killed in what police officials described as a “crime of passion.”  ODM leader Raila Odinga called the killing an execution targeting ODM members. “David Kimutai Too was killed by a policeman. I condemn this second execution of an ODM member of parliament. The purpose of this killing is to reduce the ODM majority,” he said.

This is the second suspected assassination this week.  Melitus Were, a legislator with the ODM, was shot to death outside his Nairobi home in an event that opposition leaders describe as a “political assassination.”   Were’s death sparked rioting and ethnic killings in the streets, with various reports citing villagers hacked to death, stoned and poisoned in the street.  Conversely, the BBC Monday showed video depicting a police officer shooting a protester dead in the street when he taunted the officers.

The ethnic rivalry between Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki’s Kikuyu tribe and Odinga’s Luos, Luhyas and Kalenjins supporters erupted following a disputed presidential election Dec. 27.  Human Rights Watch issued a report alleging opposition members ordered the attacks against Kibaki’s Kikuyu tribe, who in turn launched retaliatory attacks against Odinga’s supporters.  Many observers describe the violence since Dec. 27 that resulted in 850 deaths as an ethnic cleansing campaign.

Former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan is in the region and Wednesday, both parties met for discussions on the way forward.  The U.S. envoy to Africa, Jendayi Frazer, said Wednesday that the region would spiral into further ethnic conflict unless the rival leaders could agree on “some kind of power-sharing and some kind of coalition government.”

The beginnings of this conflict invoke images of Rwanda.  The death of regional leaders in a plane crash removed the central authorities that united ethnic rivals under a tense peace resulting in one of worst genocides in the modern era.  Kenya once served as a model for democracy and a hub of African tourism for Westerners.  On Wednesday, many of the wire services ran stories about a German tourist hacked to death in a Kenyan resort.  The situation is quickly spiraling out of control.  Frazer, the U.S. envoy, said Wednesday that she hoped to see a power-sharing arrangement develop in the next four weeks.  In states where an unstable sub-national power structure is abruptly left without a strong supporting central government, the struggle to fill the power vacuum quickly escalates to violent atrocities.  Waiting four weeks to start over may not be soon enough for Kenya.

Reuters

The war crimes tribunal for former Liberian president Charles Taylor proceeded for its third straight day at the U.N.-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone seated at The Hague, Netherlands. The court heard Wednesday details from one of Taylor’s associates in the Special Security Service who said he had direct evidence suggesting Taylor financed and armed Revolutionary United Front rebels operating in Sierra Leone.

Varmuyan Sherif told the court Taylor ordered him to accompany RUF leader Sam “Mosquito” Bockarie on a trip to Liberia in the late 1990’s. Sherif recounted that Bockarie told him Taylor had financed his operations and provided him with a satellite phone with which to communicate with Taylor directly. Sherif said that Taylor told him to bring “whatever arms and ammunition” he ferried into the Liberian capital, Monrovia, directly to Bockarie and provide rebels with safe passage from Sierra Leone into Liberia.

Sheif said that during one trip with Bockarie, the rebel leader had a “mayonnaise bottle” on him filled with diamonds.

Just the other day, I was commentating that the Taylor trial should move beyond the horrible stories of dismemberment and child soldiers strung out on heroin and move to directly implicating this guy in the civil conflict there. Let’s hope testimony like this continues, especially if the prosecution hopes to wrap this one up by 2009. I wonder what they’re going to do with Taylor when and if they find him guilty anyhow? Let him spend his final days in his “prison” cell equipped with a private kitchen and conjugal visits? Not too bad for the overseer of some of the worst war crimes in the modern era. Hmmm … maybe he’s onto something.

The war crimes trial for former Liberian President Charles Taylor resumed its second day of testimony Tuesday. The hybrid Special Court for Sierra Leone seated at The Hague, Netherlands, heard testimony from a pastor who witnessed some of the atrocities that occurred during Taylor’s tenure as president during the 1991-2002 civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone. Taylor allied with the leader of the Revolutionary United Front, Foday Sankoh, operating in Sierra Leone to hijack the regions lucrative diamond fields.

RUF rebels conscripted child soldiers, often employing harsh narcotics to condition adolescents into service, to wage gruesome war on its villages and communities.  The pastor, Alex Tamba Teh, told the court Tuesday he witnessed one RUF commander named “Rocky” fire on 100 civilians and only spared his life because he was a clergy member.  

“After he killed the civilians… he gave the instruction that they should be decapitated. Rocky gave the order to the small boy units,” Tamba Teh said.

Tamba Teh recounted horrific details of how rebels carved RUF initials into its kidnapped victims. He said the “boy units” rounded up another boy, chopped his hands off, then chopped off his arms and feet before tossing him, screaming, into a sewage pit.

Now here’s the twist. Taylor’s defense team do not deny these horrific events took place, but they do dispute the level of his involvement.  They said bringing Taylor to The Hague smacks of a show trial to add a certain level of horror to the charges.  I tend to agree (just hold on before you start flaming me).  I’m no legal expert by any means, but it seems that conspiracy seems to be the charges that pertain to Taylor at this point of the trial.  It will be interesting to see how the testimony moves beyond these horrible accounts of child soldiers and so on.  I want to see if Taylor ordered these atrocities.  He certainly knew about it and obviously did nothing to stop it, but I would wonder what the relative level of acceptability is present on the ground in Africa.  It reminds me of a story Tom Friedman relays in his book on Beirut.  He tells the story of a guy whose chickens are stolen.  He complains to his sons that they need to find the perpetrators and his sons blow him off.  The next day, thieves steal the guys bike or something like that.  He tells his sons they need to find who stole the chickens and his sons blow him off again.  The next day, his daughter is raped.  The father says if they would have exacted revenge against those who stole the chickens, the daughter would not have been raped.  Friedman calls it “Hama rules” and I wonder if that’s the face of justice on the ground in Africa.

Let’s hope the Taylor trial moves beyond these horrific accounts and toward a strong case implicating Taylor’s oversight of this gruesome tale.  If the prosecution hopes to get this wrapped up by 2009 by blowing through nearly 150 witnesses, presumably with the majority of those witnesses like Tamba Teh, it needs to vet out the gory details and get to the heart of the matter; a national leader reigned over an 11-year civil war that resulted in the deaths of a quarter million people. The world has gone to war for much much less.

The war crimes trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor resumed at the international court in The Hague, Netherlands Monday. The trial is the first such case involving charges brought against a then-acting head of an African government.  Taylor is charged with 11 counts of crimes against humanity, war crimes, conscripting child soldiers and sexual slavery  Taylor allegedly backed the Revolutionary United Front rebels in Sierra Leone with “blood diamonds” in an effort to control the regions lucrative diamond trade.

Prosecutors brought in a Canadian witness, Ian Smillie, who is an expert on conflict diamonds.  Smillie testified he met with Taylor as part of a U.N. investigation in 2000.  He said Taylor told him it was “highly probable” that RUF-smuggled diamonds passed through Liberia, but denied any involvement in the trafficking.

Prosecutors expect to pull in over 100 witnesses such as Smillie along with scores of others who make up a generation of amputees who survived the 1991-2002 conflict in the region.  The international system in this case is a joint collaboration between the International Criminal Court and the U.N.-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone. Officials decided to handle high profile cases such as Taylor’s at The Hague rather than at the SCSL’s seat in Freetown, Sierra Leone out of judicial and security concerns.

Prosecutors said they hoped the court would reach a judgment by 2009, but note the appeals process could last into 2010. I’ve been watching some of these trials for over a year now. The Iraqi’s waste no time stringing their officials up and take great glee in “leaking” executions over the internet (as the shameful shameful Saddam Hussein execution indicated.)  Last time we did this at an internationally sanctioned system (note Iraq is not included in that), the lead guy, Slobodan Milosevic, died in custody.  There are reports out that good ol’ Charles Taylor has himself a nice little kitchen and all sorts of perks at his “prison” cell at The Haque.  And I won’t even mention how much it costs to put this guy up everyday.  Meanwhile, the boys at Gitmo … 

Let’s hope that this time, this time, the international community can conduct a fair, impartial, speedy trial for one of the worst perpetrators of mass atrocities in the modern era.  With the former poster-child of African development, Kenya, descending into case, the African continent could certainly use a degree of reconciliation.