International Criminal Court

ICC: Israel guilty of war crimes but will not be prosecuted

International Criminal Court (ICC) lawyers say Israel is guilty of war crimes for the raid on an aid ship bound for Gaza in 2010, but the court’s decision confirms that Israel has a ‘special status’ in regards to international law.

The raid killed nine Turkish activists. They have also decided that the case does not meet their criteria for prosecution, according to court papers seen by Reuters on Wednesday.

On May 31, 2010, the Israeli military forcefully boarded six civilian ships from the “Gaza Freedom Flotilla” that were traveling from Turkey to deliver humanitarian aid and construction materials to the besieged region. The army boarded the ships in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea.

The activists on board say they did not put up a fight, however the Israeli army insists that they were met with resistance – which led to several activists being killed, including eight Turkish nationals and an American of Turkish origin on the Mavi Marmara boat.

The ICC does not have jurisdiction over crimes committed in either Turkey, where most the boats were registered, or Israel, since neither are members of the ICC. However, the Mavi Marmara was registered to the Comoros Islands, which is a member, making the crimes on board eligible for ICC investigation.

“The information available provides a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes under the Court’s jurisdiction have been committed in the context of interception and takeover of the Mavi Marmara by IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) soldiers on 31 May 2010,” read the papers.

But the papers also added that prosecutors had decided the crimes “were not of sufficient gravity to fall under the court’s jurisdiction,” reported Reuters. Their evidence and criteria for making this decision however, remained vague.

“Not having collected evidence itself, the Office’s analysis in this report must therefore not be considered to be the result of an investigation,” the paper read.

However, according to the ICC website, considering individuals guilty of war crimes does make them eligible to be tried under the ICC.

“The mandate of the Court is to try individuals rather than States, and to hold such persons accountable for the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole, namely the crime of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression…”

The Indian Ocean State, another ICC member, referred the raid to court, which obligated the ICC to begin preliminary examinations into the matter, according to their mandate.

“The Prosecutor’s decision marks the first time a State referral by an ICC States Party has ever been rejected by … Prosecutor without even initiating an investigation,” said lawyers Rodney Dixon and Geoffrey Nice in a statement.

“It confirms the view expressed by politicians, civil society organizations, NGOs and commentators from many quarters that Israel has a ‘special status,'” they added.

The report comes the same day that Bulent Yildirim, president of the Turkish NGO Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) – one of the NGOs who organized the flotilla – praised the ICC, expecting that they would announce on Thursday that Israel is guilty of “war crimes.”

The ICC’s final decision is likely to anger other Turkish activists, but also Ankara who accused Israel of mass murder after the IDF attacked the flotilla.

Africa forces UN vote over ICC trial for Kenyan president

African nations will Friday launch one of the biggest challenges yet to the International Criminal Court by forcing a UN Security Council vote on suspending the trial of Kenya’s president.

A resolution seeking to defer crimes against humanity charges against President Uhuru Kenyatta and Vice President William Ruto for one year is almost certain to fail through lack of support.

But diplomats and justice experts say the action risks heightening tensions between the ICC and Africa.

The two leaders are accused of masterminding unrest after a 2007 presidential election in 2007 in which at least 1,100 people died. Kenyatta and Ruto took office after an election this year.

Ruto’s trial has started, while that of Kenyatta gets underway February 5 after being delayed three times.

Both have so far cooperated with the ICC. But Kenya has made two written requests to the council to suspend or halt the cases.

Scores of Kenyan victims of the violence have also withdrawn from the ICC case because of what diplomats and experts call “intimidation.”

The resolution to be voted Friday is the most serious bid yet to suspend proceedings.

The Security Council can ask for an ICC case to be deferred for a year under Article 16 of the court’s founding Rome Statute if a trial is considered a threat to international peace.

The resolution has been pressed by Rwanda, a temporary Security Council member, but not an ICC signatory, with strong backing by Ethiopia, another ICC opponent.

It would need at least nine votes on the 15 member council to pass. But with the council’s seven ICC signatories and the United States against them, the resolution has no chance, diplomats said.

The draft resolution says the court case is “distracting and preventing” Kenyatta and Ruto from their duties.

It takes up African Union complaints that the two should be left to handle Kenya’s role in battling Islamist militants in Somalia and the aftermath of September’s Westgate mall attack in Nairobi which left 67 dead.

But western diplomats and activists see a largely political campaign to halt the proceedings and more generally by countries opposed to the ICC to discredit the court.

African leaders frequently complain that the ICC discriminates against their continent.

All eight cases being investigated by the ICC concern Africa. But nearly all were called by the countries involved and Africa’s 34 members make up a key chunk of the court’s 122 signatories.

“The Africans have now reached a stage where they are talking about this is as a test of whether you are in favour of Africa or against Africa,” said one UN diplomat who has taken part in the often highly emotive talks on the resolution.

This was “deeply resented” by countries who oppose the resolution, added the diplomat, who highlighted how the Security Council voted this week to increase an African force in Somalia which is almost entirely paid for by the European Union.

“This is turning into the biggest challenge to the court since it was set up,” added a second council diplomat.

“Undoubtedly, the pressure exerted by Kenya, by Rwanda, by Ethiopia increases strain on the court as it tries to strengthen its impact,” commented Richard Dicker, justice specialist with the Human Rights Watch group.

He said part of the motivation for the vote was to “ratchet up pressure” ahead of an assembly of the Rome Statute member countries in The Hague starting next Wednesday.

The assembly is to discuss possible measures such as allowing defendants to take part by video-conference and to give courts’ extra leeway to allow absences, which could help Kenyatta and Ruto.

Some African leaders have agitated for an African withdrawal from the ICC.

“I don’t think this would lead to a mass walkout, but if this vote goes ahead the atmosphere will be so bad at the assembly it is going to make it so much more difficult to reach agreement on things that could make a difference,” said the UN diplomat.

“And it would increase the likelihood that Kenyatta will not cooperate with the court,” the official added. – AFP

Kenya pushing for AU-split from ICC

African leaders will debate the continent’s “relationship” with the International Criminal Court at a special summit on October 11, officials said Friday, amid growing opposition to the tribunal.

The 54-member African Union has accused The Hague-based ICC of singling out Africans for prosecution and has previously called for the court to drop crimes against humanity trials of Kenya’s leadership.

“They will discuss African relationship with ICC,” the deputy head of the AU’s executive branch, Erastus Mwencha, himself a Kenyan, told AFP.

Diplomats say member states of the court, which was founded primarily to try genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, are expected to discuss a possible united pullout from the ICC.

African countries account for 34 of the 122 parties to have ratified the Rome Statute, the court’s founding treaty, which took effect on July 1, 2002.

Mwencha said the cases of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto were not specifically earmarked for discussion, saying only that the “agenda is very broad.”

Kenyatta and Ruto, as well as former radio boss Joshua Arap Sang, face crimes against humanity charges for their alleged roles in orchestrating ethnic violence after disputed 2007 elections. The violence left at least 1 100 dead and more than 600 000 homeless.

Last month, Kenyan lawmakers voted on a motion to withdraw recognition of the court’s jurisdiction.

Any move by the AU to leave the ICC’s Rome Statute will have no effect on the current trials, and pulling out is a lengthy process that must be done by nations on an individual basis.

The pan-African bloc in May accused the ICC of “hunting” Africans, and has requested that the cases against Kenyatta and Ruto be transferred to Kenya.

The trial of Ruto and Sang is already under way, and Kenyatta’s trial is set to begin in November. The three have pledged their cooperation with the court and maintain their innocence.

The ICC maintains that it is not targeting Africa as a continent, pointing out that many of the cases under investigation in Africa were referred to the court by the countries themselves.

It could lead to a breakdown in relations between the court and African leaders. Tensions between the African Union (AU) and the court (ICC) are nothing new, but the meeting in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopean capital, has the potential to irretrievably damage relations between them.

“The Kenyans were criss-crossing Africa in search of support for their cause even before their parliament voted to withdraw from the ICC,” said one AU diplomat. “A complete walkout by signatories is certainly a possibility – but other requests are also possible.”

Ruto and Kenyatta have been seen as stalwarts in the fight against Islamic extremism and have argued that their absence for months on end, particularly in the case of Mr Kenyatta, is not just dangerous but also untenable.

It is not just Kenya that is promoting the anti-ICC agenda and pointing out that all eight cases it is investigating are in Africa.

Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, wanted for genocide and crimes against humanity in Darfur, visited Kenya last month but was not arrested, despite an ICC request. He says the charges are “exaggerated” and describes the ICC as part of a “western plot” against him.

Last week, Ivory Coast’s government decided not to transfer former first lady Simone Gbagbo to join her husband in The Hague on charges of crimes against humanity in connection with the 2010 presidential election, and said it would try her at home.

Rwanda’s ambassador to the African Union, Joseph Nsengimana, observed: “It is not only the case of Kenya. We have seen international justice become more and more a political matter.”

President Jacob Zuma said it was the impression that the ICC was being “unreasonable” – that led directly to the Addis Ababa summit on October 13th.

Countries that support the court and its work, notably Botswana, are likely to do so again. Those who oppose it are hoping it will be “a game-changer”, most immediately perhaps in the case against Mr Kenyatta. – Sapa/AFP/Irish Times

Ivory Coast won’t transfer ex-First Lady to International Criminal Court

Ivory Coast said Friday it would not transfer former first lady Simone Gbagbo to the International Criminal Court in the Hague, but would try her at home instead.

The decision came 18 months after the ICC issued a warrant for her arrest over suspected crimes against humanity, charges which her husband and former president Laurent Gbagbo is also facing.

Ivory Coast’s cabinet decided to file a “motion to dismiss” the warrant. Her husband also awaits trial in The Hague over months of deadly violence that followed 2010 polls.

“The decision of the cabinet aims to have Mrs Gbagbo brought to trial… by Ivorian courts whose good reputation has been restored and which can hold a fair trial that will guarantee the rights of the defence,” said a government statement.

The government will inform the ICC of its decision shortly, the statement added.

Ivory Coast turned over Laurent Gbagbo to the ICC in late 2011 but now seems inclined to try other suspects in the 2010-11 unrest under its own jurisdiction.

“If we had the slightest doubt about the fairness of the Ivorian legal system, we would have extradited her to the Netherlands,” government spokesman Bruno Kone told AFP.

The former president’s Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) party welcomed the decision, expressing hope that it was “made with the sole aim of delivering… justice that is to the benefit of all.”

But the former first lady’s lawyer, Habiba Toure, expressed concerns about her client’s “arbitrary and unjustified detention.”

The lawyer said Simone Gbagbo was suffering from “serious health problems” and could not be treated properly under detention.

Simone Gbagbo was detained at Odienne in the country’s northwest after the post-election crisis caused by her husband’s refusal to acknowledge his defeat in the November 2010 presidential elections.

The post-poll violence left around 3,000 people dead in the west African country, which is the world’s number one cocoa producer.

The former first lady, who was born in 1949, is also under investigation for suspected genocide, harming state security and white-collar crimes.

Last month, an Abidjan court released on bail 14 close aides to Gbagbo, including his son Michel.

Gbagbo’s supporters accuse President Alassane Ouattara, the winner of the 2010 election, of carrying out “victor’s justice” as no one from his own camp has had to face prosecution.

Ivory Coast has become the second African country to refuse to cooperate with the ICC in just two weeks.

Kenyan lawmakers backed a motion on September 6 to pull out of the ICC, just ahead of the trial of Vice President William Ruto at the world court.

Ruto is on trial on three counts of crimes against humanity. He is accused of having organised 2007-2008 post-election unrest that killed at least 1,100 people and forced more than 600,000 people to flee their homes. – AFP

Western powers poised to pressure Syria

Everything is ‘abundantly clear’ to William Hague

Western powers were poised Tuesday to press their efforts for a UN resolution to rid Syria of chemical weapons, one day after a report by the world body describing a “chilling” sarin gas attack there.

United Nations experts, without assigning blame, said they had gathered “clear and convincing evidence” that surface-to-surface rockets took sarin gas into the opposition-held Damascus suburb of Ghouta on August 21.

The United States had threatened a military strike on Syria over the attack, which it said killed more than 1,400 people.

Washington said responsibility for the attack rests squarely with the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

“The technical details of the UN report make clear that only the regime could have carried out this large-scale chemical weapons attack,” said Washington’s UN ambassador Samantha Power. “It defies logic to think that the opposition would have infiltrated the regime-controlled area to fire on opposition-controlled areas.”

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said there was “no doubt” that government forces were to blame, while British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the report made “abundantly clear” that the Syrian regime was behind the attack.

France and Britain will soon send a draft resolution to other Security Council members demanding a threat of sanctions if Assad does not keep to a disarmament plan and for the chemical attacks to be referred to the International Criminal Court, diplomats said.

The council, meanwhile, is expected to start negotiations this week.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon condemned the use of chemical weapons in Syria as “a war crime” as the country’s conflict again spilled into neighboring nations, with Turkey saying it had shot down a Syrian military helicopter.

Ban said the report prepared by the experts “makes for chilling reading.”

He added that the use of sarin had been proved “unequivocally and objectively” and that the Ghouta attack was “the most signficant” with chemical weapons since Saddam Hussein unleashed poison gas in Halabja, Iraq, in 1988, killing thousands.

“The environmental, chemical and medical samples we have collected provide clear and convincing evidence that surface-to-surface rockets containing the nerve agent sarin were used” in Ghouta, said the report by UN inspectors who were in Syria when the attack was staged.

The experts concluded that “chemical weapons have been used in the ongoing conflict between the parties in the Syrian Arab Republic, also against civilians including children on a relatively large scale.”

A separate UN-mandated independent human rights inquiry announced separately on Monday that it was investigating 14 alleged chemical weapons attacks in Syria.

Ban would not say on Monday who had carried out the attack.

“We may all have our own thoughts on this, but I would simply say that this was a grave crime and those responsible must be brought to justice as soon as possible,” Ban told reporters.

On Friday, he said Assad had “committed many crimes against humanity.”

While the United States, Britain and France all insist that the findings show Assad’s forces had used the weapons, Russia’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin said after a Security Council meeting on the report that there should be more investigation into who was responsible.

Moscow has sided with Assad in blaming opposition rebels for the chemical assault.

The UN experts’ report will now become a key weapon in a Security Council battle over how much of a threat must be made against Assad to make him disarm.

The French, US and British foreign ministers called for a “strong” resolution after a meeting in Paris.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said: “If Assad fails to comply with the terms of this framework, make no mistake we are all agreed, and that includes Russia, that there will be consequences.”

Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov agreed a plan on Saturday under which Syria’s chemical weapons would be eliminated by mid-2014.

Russia has agreed the plans must be backed by a Security Council resolution but rejects any move to include the threat of force into a UN text.

Lavrov said such threats could kill off hopes of a peace conference on the 30-month-old conflict in which more than 110,000 people, according to activists.

Kerry was due to meet Thursday to discuss the issue with his counterpart from China, which has welcomed the agreement but has sided with Russia in its resolve to veto any UN Security Council resolution against Syria.

Fighting has worsened in Syria as the diplomatic wrangling goes on and Turkey said it shot down a Syrian military helicopter on Monday after it entered Turkish airspace.

The Syrian MI-17 helicopter was detected two kilometers (1.2 miles) inside Turkish airspace and shot down by two F-16 jets five minutes later after failing to heed warnings, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc told reporters.

“It was continuously warned by our air defense,” Arinc said, adding there was no information about the fate of its crew because the helicopter fell on Syrian soil.

Arinc said Turkey has changed its military rules of engagement in response to repeated gunfire from the Syrian side. – Sapa/AFP

Ivory Coast reconciliation ‘at a dead end’

Ouattara's rebel army photographed in 2010 — Ouattara’s rebel army photographed in 2010

by Christophe Koffi

A bid to reconcile hardened enemies in Ivory Coast has all but broken down, according to participants and observers, and time is running out for a commission set up to heal the wounds of bitter strife.

More than two years after a political and military crisis that claimed at least 3,000 lives in the west African country in the wake of disputed elections, statements by rival sides reveal their deep differences.

Yet the word “reconciliation” is still on many lips in political circles. Supporters of President Alassane Ouattara make it an article of faith. So do members of the opposition Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) of former president Laurent Gbagbo, who triggered the crisis by refusing to accept defeat at the polls in November 2010.

In an early July tour of the cocoa-rich north, his electoral stronghold, Ouattara urged the FPI to “ask pardon of the victims” of the bloodshed, which lasted from December 2010 to April 2011 in a country already weakened by civil war and partition.

The FPI this week curtly rejected the call to “repent”. Many in the party still consider Gbagbo their champion, though he is detained by the International Criminal Court in The Hague facing charges of crimes against humanity. His supporters argue that Ouattara’s side was to blame for the post-electoral violence.

Created by Ouattara in September 2011, a national Dialogue, Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CDVR) with a two-year mandate has endeavoured to resolve differences and has joined in the debate.

“In what happened to Ivory Coast, the wrongs are shared,” said the commission chairman, former prime minister Charles Konan Banny, closing a forum last week on the “profound causes” of a decade of hostilities.

“It’s up to all those who committed violations of human rights to acknowledge them and make an act of repentance,” he added, but the commission has less than three months to complete an enormous task.

Banny has indicated that he might ask for an extension of the commission’s mandate. “A time limit (is) not the best” of solutions, he told AFP, suggesting that two years are not enough for the work to be done.

Asked whether he would take up his post again if the mandate is prolonged, Banny evades the question. In political circles, many are speculating that the ex-premier might want to take up another challenge: the presidential election of 2015.

According to these observers, Banny may try to take control of his political party, the once all-powerful Democratic Party of Ivory Coast (PDCI), which has now become the main ally of Ouattara’s Rally of Republicans (RDR). The PDCI’s leading bodies are due for renewal in October.

‘A great national catharsis’

Now that the reconciliation commission is nearing the end of its mandate, politicians, diplomats, observers and non-governmental organisations are taking stock of its record, often with great severity.

“The CDVR is at a dead end,” says Rene Legre Hokou, the chairman of the Ivorian League of Human Rights, (LIDHO), arguing that the panel has kept a low profile and shown few concrete results.

The commission has for months promised public hearings across the country in which the “executioners” would directly confront their “victims”, but they have yet to begin. Many Ivorians eagerly await what Banny has termed a “great national catharsis”.

Under fire from its critics, some members of the panel complain of a lack of sufficient financial resources and also argue that their task is being complicated by political and legal interference.

In the most recent episode they cite, 84 people who were part of Gbagbo’s regime or close to it, including former first lady Simone Gbagbo, have been summoned before an assize court to answer for their suspected roles in the crisis of 2010-2011. However, the date for the hearing has not yet been set.

While for Ouattara, there can be no reconciliation without justice, Gbagbo supporters see the latest move by the judiciary as a new illustration of “conqueror’s justice”. Ivorian prosecutors have so far taken no steps to deal with serious crimes blamed on pro-Ouattara forces during the crisis.

Scant grounds exist for a resumption of talks between the government and the opposition FPI, which have been stalled for months. Yet such dialogue is essential to pave the way for the presidential election in two years’ time, with Ouattara already a candidate.

CDVR member Simeon Ahouana, the bishop of the central town of Bouake -long the stronghold of rebels involved in a 2002 coup bid against Gbagbo – has annnounced that he has “concerns” about the forthcoming poll.

LIDHO’s chairman Hokou is more blunt. In his eyes, if there is no progress in reconciliation by 2015, “we must fear that we’ll fall back into even worse violence”. – AFP

Obama speaks to African youth from Soweto via video link

by Shabtai Gold

US President Barack Obama was met Saturday with songs, cheers and laughter from young South Africans at a university in the Soweto area of Johannesburg.

Before he entered the room, the crowd sang songs from the struggle against apartheid and burst into a lively round of Shosholoza, an old miners song from southern Africa with a call and response format that became more lively with each chorus.

As he appeared, Obama shouted out, “Yebo Mzanzi!” or “Yes, South Africa!” to jubilation from the crowd.

The president used the town-hall-style meeting, which was hooked up via video link to several other African nations, to encourage young people to innovate and act on their imaginations.

While Nelson Mandela, the ailing anti-apartheid leader who Obama said was a personal hero and “one of the greatest people in history,” was still in hospital in critical condition, his spirit was felt in the room.

“Building the future you see, realizing the vision you have not only for your own country but for the world – it will not be easy,” Obama told the hundreds of young people in attendance at the University of Johannesburg’s Soweto campus.

“But as you go forward, think of the man who is in our prayers today. Think of 27 years in prison. Think of the hardship and struggles and being away from family and friends,” Obama said, referring to Mandela’s time in jail for opposing white minority rule.

Obama was quick to stress the importance of education, as Mandela had always done, saying it was the “best investment” any country could make in its youth.

Or, indeed, for its politicians. “I don’t want to reinforce for the American press here that Africa is just one big piece of land on the map,” Obama, a Democrat, said in an apparent reference to widely reported claims that former US Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin believed Africa was a country, not a continent.

He was met by loud cheers from the crowd and laughter from his travelling press corps.

The questions he received were often tough, focussing on trade, the environment, women’s rights and even a promise he made to travel to Kenya, his father’s home, during his presidency.

“I’m going to be president for another three and a half years,” he said when asked via a video link from Nairobi why he had not visited the country. “You learn as president that people not only want you to fulfil your promises but want you to fulfil your promises yesterday.”

But Obama admitted that the International Criminal Court warrant out for that country’s new president and vice president had influenced his decision.

“I did not think it was an optimal time for me to visit,” he said but pledged he would still make a trip to Kenya before his time in office ends, which would be 2017.

For many in the crowd, however, the key concerns they had were jobs and economic opportunities. They wanted clear words from the president that he envisioned an economic partnership between the United States and Africa.

“Everywhere I go in Africa, people want to break out of the dependency trap,” Obama said.

“What we need is an Africa that is building, manufacturing, creating value, inventing and then sending those products around the world and receiving products in return under fair terms of trade,” the president said. “If we do that, there is no reason Africa cannot succeed.”

Obama insisted the US was not interested in global domination, a concern often felt strongest in countries once subjected to colonial rule, which milked resources while oppressing their people.

“I was elected to end the wars,” he said, adding that he regularly visits young US soldiers who have been gravely injured in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“This idea that we want to get more involved militarily around the world is not true,” he said.

Obama said the US would rather be “selling iPads and planes” rather than using its military abroad, drawing applause from the crowd, many of whom snapped photos of the president and his large entourage on their smartphones and tablets. – dpa