Pronk says ICC has created a new political reality in Sudan
By Wasil Ali
March 4, 2007 (AMSTERDAM) — The former UN envoy to Sudan Jan Pronk welcomed the announcement by the chief Prosecutor of the ICC Luis Moreno-Ocampo of filing charges against two suspects of Darfur war crimes. He further said it has created a new political reality in Sudan.
On Tuesday February 27 the International Criminal Court chief prosecutor named a Sudanese minister and a militia commander as the first suspects.
Pronk told Sudan Tribune that he has met one of the suspects Ahmed Haroun, state interior minister during the height of the Darfur conflict. The former UN envoy said he believed the charges made by the ICC against Harun of crimes against humanity.
However Pronk added that he doesn’t think Haroun acted alone and that he expects the ICC prosecutor to file charges against other senior Sudanese officials. Pronk voiced his concern that the ICC indictments will create more insecurity for the aid operations in Darfur, yet he thinks it was a necessary step and that it could be “the end of the present catastrophe, by ending the state of impunity in Darfur”.
Pronk said he hoped that “President Al Bashir will show himself as a real statesman and that he will tell his people in Sudan that the statement made by the Prosecutor of the ICC is not a political act, but a step in accordance with international law, above politics”. He added that “It would also be in the interest of Sudan as a whole and give the state a renewed international credibility”.
Jan Pronk was the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative for Sudan since 2004 but was declared persona non grata by the Sudanese government in October of 2006 for publishing information in his weblog about the army’s military defeats.
(ST)
Below the text of Pronk’s Statement
“The ICC has now created a new political fact, where the Security Council had failed. It is a great opportunity for the people of Sudan. It offers the Government of Sudan an opportunity to show that it respects the institutions of the international community to which it belongs. This could be the beginning of the end of the present catastrophe, by ending the state of impunity in Darfur. I hope that President Al Bashir will show himself as a real statesman and that he will tell his people in Sudan that the statement made by the Prosecutor of the ICC is not a political act, but a step in accordance with international law, above politics. I hope that the Government of Sudan will urge the two persons concerned to go to The Hague, if and when required. That would be in the interest of justice and as well as in the interests of the victims of the atrocities. It would also be in the interest of Sudan as a whole and give the state a renewed international credibility. We can rest assured that a trial, if and when it will take place, will be fair in all directions.”