New UN report on Darfur triggers US-Europe division
By Evelyn Leopold
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 31, 2005 (Reuters) – A key report on war crimes in Sudan’s Darfur region is triggering an intense diplomatic battle between the United States and Europe on how to prosecute perpetrators of pillage, slaughter and rape.
A U.N.-appointed commission of inquiry reported on Monday that the Sudanese government and its militia allies committed major crimes under international law, setting the stage for Sudan officials and rebels to be prosecuted as war criminals.
The 176-page report concluded that Khartoum had not pursued a policy of genocide against non-Arabs in Darfur, where at least 70,000 people have died from killings or disease and 1.8 million people were forced out of their homes.
But it said some individuals may have acted with “genocidal intent,” which only a court could decide.
That court, the commission’s five legal experts said, should be the Hague-based International Criminal Court, or ICC, set up to try individuals for genocide, war crimes and massive human rights abuses.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and Europeans want the U.N. Security Council to refer Sudan to the ICC. The panel has produced a sealed list of suspects.
“This is a case that is tailor-made for the ICC,” Britain’s U.N. ambassador, Emyr Jones Parry told reporters.
But the Bush administration vigorously opposes the court, citing fears of prosecutions against U.S. soldiers abroad.
Instead it wants to set up a new U.N.-African Union tribunal in Tanzania. Diplomats said Washington was willing to pay a considerable sum to establish the court but feared no other rich country would help.
“Our interest here is accountability for the perpetrators of the atrocities,” said acting U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson. “We’re going to look at this issue very very closely in the next few days.”
The United States is drafting a resolution that would establish a peacekeeping force in southern Sudan. Annan has asked for 10,130 troops plus 755 international police officers to implement a recent agreement ending a separate two-decade conflict in the south.
The same resolution would also stop government military flights into Darfur and ask that those responsible for the Darfur violence be barred from travel and have their assets frozen. But divisions in the council may exclude mention of a court in the draft, U.S. envoy Stuart Holliday told reporters.
Russia and China oppose penalties on Khartoum, and Beijing has doubts about the ICC.
“I can see the difficulties that my government will have,” said Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya.
China is the only nation on the 15-member council, aside from the Bush administration, that has not ratified or signed the treaty establishing the ICC.
The Darfur conflict erupted after rebel groups took up arms in February 2003, accusing Khartoum of neglect. The government retaliated by deploying Arab militias, the most brutal of which are called Janjaweed, meaning “outlaws.”
Khartoum has denied it aided the Janjaweed but the commission said some were armed and paid by the government and others fought alongside the regular army.
“Despite government statements regretting the actions of the Janjaweed, the various militia attacks on villages have continued throughout 2004, with continued government support,” it said.
In deciding against using the term genocide for Darfur — as the United States did last year — the commission said “the crucial element of genocidal intent appears to be missing.”
Under the 1948 Genocide Convention, drawn up after the Holocaust, governments are obliged to “prevent and punish genocide, defined as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”
But the report said that “intent” was not clear and those who organized attacks did so “primarily for purposes of counterinsurgency warfare.”