World court seeks U.N. pressure on Sudan

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court told the Security Council on Thursday that Sudan had shown no signs that it would hand over a senior official and a militia leader charged with war crimes, and he asked the council to increase pressure on the regime.

His first report to the U.N. council since the court issued the arrest warrants last month underscored the court’s delicate position: It must rely on the same government that backs the ongoing attacks on civilians in the Darfur region to ensure that Sudanese suspects face international justice.

The court’s judges can only issue arrest warrants and must rely on the suspects’ governments to enforce them. “Sudan has to cooperate. It’s the law,” said Luis Moreno-Ocampo, an Argentine who has served as chief prosecutor since 2003. “It may take two months, it may take two years, but it is their fate that they will be sitting in the dock.”

Representatives of Security Council member states will travel to Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, on June 17 to meet with President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir, and Moreno-Ocampo called on them to press for the arrests.

“The council must clearly support the request for Sudan to arrest and to hand over the two people who have been charged to the court,” said France’s ambassador to the U.N., Jean-Marc de la Sabliere. “The council will have to tell the authorities in Khartoum that they must cooperate.”

The Security Council can choose to impose international sanctions on the government if it does not cooperate with the court, or it can mandate U.N. peacekeepers to carry out the arrests.

Both are tricky options: The Security Council has agreed to temporarily hold back on sanctions to give a new U.N. peace plan time to work. And the council may be reluctant to further complicate negotiations to get 23,000 African Union and U.N. peacekeepers into Darfur. The government has retreated from its agreement in November to allow in the full contingent, but next week the United Nations is hoping to finalize an agreement for an intermediate phase of deploying 5,000 troops, plus equipment, in the country.

“We believe that the visit of the Security Council to Sudan offers the opportunity to come to closure on the force. And if the Sudanese do not come to an agreement quickly, we intend to push for more multilateral sanctions,” said Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Last week, President Bush stiffened unilateral sanctions that the U.S. had imposed on Sudan.

The arrest warrants are the first to be issued by the international court over the conflict in Darfur, which has displaced more than 2 million people and caused more than 200,000 deaths in four years of fighting. Moreno-Ocampo said that the indictments were researched and crafted to show the collaboration between the Sudanese government and tribal militias in razing villages that were home to rebel groups challenging Khartoum.

One of the suspects, Ahmad Harun, was the minister of state for the interior and head of the Darfur Security Desk, allegedly in charge of orchestrating attacks on civilians in Darfur. He is now the minister of state for humanitarian affairs.

“Those people who were his victims are in his hands,” said Moreno-Ocampo. “It is unacceptable. We have to stop this.”

Moreno-Ocampo charges that Harun armed and financed militia leader Ali Mohammed Ali Abdalrahman, better known as Ali Kushayb, to carry out the attacks. Together, the two face 51 counts of crimes against humanity.

Kushayb is reportedly being detained by his tribe, under order of the government, and will be tried on separate charges related to the violence in Darfur. But Sudan will not send him to The Hague, arguing that like the U.S., it is not a party to the International Criminal Court, and therefore not bound by it. Sudan also denies any link to the militia attacks.

Moreno-Ocampo said that his team was following the continuing violence in Darfur and in neighboring countries, and is collecting evidence that could be used to charge others, including rebel leaders. In his report to the Security Council, he described allegations of “indiscriminate and disproportionate” airstrikes by the Sudanese government this year, as well as allegations of crimes committed by rebel forces against international peacekeepers and aid workers.

“It appears that the parties to the conflict continue to violate international humanitarian law,” he said. “Those bearing the greatest responsibility must be brought to justice.”

--

maggie.farley@latimes.com