The chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court charges that “the whole state apparatus” of Sudan is implicated in crimes against humanity in the Darfur region, linking the government directly with the feared janjaweed militia.
Luis Moreno-Ocampo says in a report to the UN Security Council, obtained on Tuesday by reporters, that he has uncovered evidence showing “high officials” in the Sudanese government are linked to many horrendous attacks in Darfur.
Atrocities include killing, torture and rape of civilians, even girls as young as five or six, with their parents forced to watch, the report says. It also says senior Sudanese officials are linked to the burning and looting of homes, bombing of schools and destroying of mosques.
The report does not identify any officials or present evidence of specific crimes. A spokeswoman said Moreno-Ocampo would name names and present evidence next month at a pre-trial hearing by three of the court’s judges in The Hague, Netherlands.
Court spokeswoman Florence Olara said this is the first time that the chief prosecutor has linked the entire Sudanese government to abuses in Darfur.
“It’s based on evidence from ongoing investigations in Darfur,” she said. “He’s looking at ongoing crimes, especially crimes targeting the 2.5 million already displaced in Darfur.”
DENIAL
Sudanese Ambassador to the UN Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem Mohamed rejected Moreno-Ocampo’s allegations yesterday, calling them “fictitious and vicious” and harmful to peace prospects.
The envoy accused Moreno-Ocampo of destroying the peace process with his charges and demanded he be held accountable.
Sudanese Ambassador to the US John Ukec Lueth Ukec had denied the accusations on Tuesday.
“Sudan is a government and it has to provide security, and it has used its forces for security,” Ukec said. “The government is exercising its right to protect the civilian people.”
Prosecutors have been investigating for some time from a field office in neighboring Chad, which borders on Darfur. Moreno-Ocampo has said in a past report that investigators collected evidence from more than 100 witnesses in 18 countries.
Human rights groups and others have long accused Sudan’s government of arming the janjaweed Arab militias that terrorize Darfur villages — a charge Sudanese leaders deny.
The use of janjaweed militia to commit crimes, and then characterizing them as “autonomous bandits or self-defense militia ... is part of the cover-up,” Moreno-Ocampo’s report says.
“These are evidence of a criminal plan based on the mobilization of the whole state apparatus, including the armed forces, the intelligence services, the diplomatic and public information bureaucracies, and the justice system,” it says.
WANTED MEN
The report repeats his call, first made in December, for the UN Security Council to demand that Sudan’s government hand over two Sudanese men who have been indicted by the ICC on charges of crimes against humanity.
They are Ahmed Harun, Sudan’s humanitarian affairs minister, who is accused of organizing a system to recruit, fund and arm janjaweed militia to support the Sudanese military, and Ali Kushayb, known as a “colonel of colonels” among the janjaweed.
The prosecutor says Harun’s “continuing role” as minister of state for humanitarian affairs “is indicative of the support he receives from superiors. But he is not alone.”
The treaty that created the ICC was intended to hold individuals, not entire states, responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
IMPLICATIONS
By accusing Sudan’s “whole state apparatus” of helping shield criminals, the prosecutor is implicating some of the highest officials of the government.
William Pace, with the Coalition for the International Criminal Court, an umbrella organization of international groups, said the prosecutor is pressing the point that the highest Sudanese officials have a responsibility to investigate and prosecute those accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
“When state officials protect those accused, they become complicit in the crimes under international law,” Pace said.
“They’ve promoted Harun to be a minister, so it’s implying that there’s direct leadership responsibilities — that the state apparatus is implicated in shielding Harun and the rebel leader from prosecution,” Pace said.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS