Sudan’s ambassador to the United Nations has gone on the attack to deflect multiple charges against his government. Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad told CNN (programme will air 9 December) that his country will never hand over its president, Omar al-Bashir, to the International Criminal Court in The Hague where he is accused of war crimes. The ambassador lashes out in the TV interview at other criticisms of his country, which range from the opposition party saying it is corrupt to some US senators calling for an investigation into whether the country has an ongoing genocide. Sudan’s civil war nominally ended in 2005, but the number of deaths from violence in Darfur as well as other areas remains high. The ambassador 23 November called for UN peacekeepers to leave his country, following a UN report and criticism from Ban Ki-moon. The fighting in Darfur is over, according to the ambassador, but Aljazeera reports that concerns are growing over elections in April 2010.
Links to other sites: Aljazeera, CNN, Voice of America
The findings of the Goldstone report on the war in Gaza last December 2008 and January 2009 are being debated 4 and 5 November in the UN General Assembly in New York.The Goldstone investigation was commissioned by the UN to investigate allegations of war crimes during the brief war that killed more than 1,400 Palestinians and 31 Israelis.
A resolution could be voted on that includes calls for the General Assembly to endorse the Goldstone report, that both Israel and the Palestinians conduct independent investigations into the allegations that war crimes were committed, and for the Secretary General of the UN to refer the matter to the Security Council.
The Goldstone report calls on both sides to investigate the allegations or else be referred to the Security Council for consideration by the International Criminal Court. Israel, which did not cooperate with investigators, has said it is opposed to the findings because they are biased.
Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, on trial for genocide at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, Netherlands will appear today, 3 November for a procedural hearing. Karadzic has boycotted the proceedings since 26 October, saying he needs more time to review a million documents and the testimony of hundreds of witnesses. Karadzic stands accused of 11 counts of genocide and crimes against humanity during the war in Bosnia 1992-1995, when he led the Bosnian Serbs during that country’s civil war. Al-Jazeera, Epoch Times
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The UN Human Rights Council, meeting in a special session 15 and 16 October, has approved the report into possible war crimes during the December 2008-January 2009 incursion by Israel into the Gaza Strip. The council will forward the report to the UN General Assembly for consideration. At the end of the session countries voted, 25-6, to approve the report, and 11 countries abstained.
Israel argued that the report was one-sided and ignored the attacks by Hamas on Israeli civilians which precipitated the war. The US voted against approval, saying that it would hamper Mideast peace efforts.
The UK government is reviewing its policy for people entering or transiting the country, and some individuals suspected of being involved in violence in the wake of Kenya’s elections in December 2007 may be on the list of those banned. Some 20 people have been refused entry since 2006, UK High Commissioner to Kenya, Robert Macaire, told a press conference Tuesday 4 August. “We are looking at our policy to conform to the global policy not to allow people who incite to violence from entering our country,” His comments followed a meeting with Kenya’s immigration minister. Macaire says most of those banned are business people who are suspects in corruption cases.
According to AllAfrica/DailyNation, his remarks come “in the wake of heightened activity” at the ICC (International Criminals Court) in The Hague, as it reviews the report of Kenya’s Waki Commission, which investigated the violence.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, who now heads the Geneva-based Global Humanitarian Forum, has sent a sealed envelope with a list of names of people suspected of having fanned ethnic violence following the 2007 presidential election in Kenya, to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.
Annan played a key role in mediating a settlement between opposing political forces.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has issued an arrest warrant for Omar al-Bashir, the president of Sudan, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, although, reports the BBC, it “stopped short of accusing [him] of genocide” and AllAfrica, which carries several articles on the arrest, says two of the three judges who ruled on the warrant refused to consider genocide charges. The Sudanese leader reportedly called the decision worthless. He is the first sitting head of state to be charged by the ICC.
Months of wrangling behind it, the first International Criminal Court (ICC) case opens in The Hague, to try Thomas Lubanga Dyilo for recruiting and enlisting children under the age of 15 in his FPLC militia between September 2002 and August 2003 to perpetrate the war in the DR Congo. This is also the first time under international law that victims will participate fully in a trial. The ICC was established in 1998 by a treaty signed by 108 countries. It “is an independent, permanent court that tries persons accused of the most serious crimes of international concern, namely genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. . . It is a court of last resort.” Related: BBC
Omar Hassan al-Bashir, president of Sudan, has declared a ceasefire and says militia are being disarmed, but the BBC points out that since rebels have not participated in talks leading to the ceasefire, the president’s motivation is not clear, and similar declarations in the past “have come and gone.” The International Criminal Court in July indicted him for genocide and other crimes.
