Europe is willing to consider sanctions against Sudan over ICC

June 4, 2008 (KHARTOUM) — The European Union is willing to consider penalties against Sudan should Khartoum continue to harbor suspected Darfur war criminals charged by the world court, a top diplomat said Wednesday.

French ambassador to the United Nations, Jean-Maurice Ripert, whose country assumes the rotating E.U. presidency next month, criticized Sudan’s refusal to surrender two alleged war criminals to the International Criminal Court.

Ripert was speaking after a meeting with presidential advisor Nafie Ali Nafie. He was traveling in a U.N. Security Council mission, which held talks Wednesday with the Sudanese government during a 10-day tour of African troublespots.

“France and the European Union are ready to consider additional measures against the government of Sudan if it continues to refuse to cooperate,” Ripert told reporters in Khartoum.

“All the Europeans present supported me. It’s the first time that six European countries (those in the U.N. Security Council) state clearly that this U.N. resolution must be respected,” he added.

Three years ago, the Security Council referred Darfur justice to the ICC, and human rights watchdogs used the U.N. visit to Khartoum Wednesday to again urge the delegation to persuade Sudan to hand over suspects facing arrest warrants.

Sudan has consistently ignored ICC arrest warrants for secretary of state for humanitarian affairs Ahmed Haroun and Janjaweed militia leader Ali Kosheib, and says it has established its own court to try Darfur cases.

“It is time to respond to Khartoum’s flagrant obstruction with a clear resolution reminding Sudan of its obligations to the court and to the victims,” said Niemat Ahmadi from the faith-based Save Darfur Coalition.

Thursday, the U.N. Security Council mission is to travel to Darfur – the same day that ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo will unveil details of a second case against senior figures in the five-year Darfur war.

The ICC issued arrest warrants for Haroun and Kosheib April 27, 2007. They are charged with 51 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including acts of murder, persecution, torture, rape and forcible displacement.

The 15 U.N. ambassadors Wednesday met Foreign Minister Deng Alor and Vice President Ali Osman Taha as well as Nafie.

Alor, who belongs to the southern former rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement that has shared power with the National Congress of President Omar al-Beshir since the end of a 21-year civil war, said his party favored cooperation.

“I am not talking as a minister of foreign affairs. In this particular issue I’m speaking as SPLM and SPLM calls for cooperation. That’s what I said in my briefing with the ambassadors,” Alor said.

But Sudan’s ambassador to the U.N., Abdalmahmood Mohamad, said Khartoum would never extradite any Sudanese to The Hague and launched a stinging attack on ICC prosecutor Ocampo.

“We are not a member of the ICC. They have no jurisdiction over us. We will never submit any Sudanese citizen to The Hague,” he said.

In July 2007, Sudan told the U.N. Human Rights Committee that it was handling cases against soldiers and police officers accused of crimes in Darfur.

“He (Ocampo) is one of the major destroyers of the peace process in Sudan. It reveals his professional bankruptcy because he is dealing with an activist not a jurist,” the U.N. ambassador told reporters.

“He is serving certain agendas to keep this country in an intensive care unit,” he added.

Last year, Sudan highlighted more than a dozen cases against soldiers or “senior officers” in Darfur which resulted in the death penalty, jail sentences and damages paid to victims’ families for murder, torture and rape.

The U.S. has called on the European Union to match U.S. financial sanctions against Sudan in order to force Khartoum to accept the deployment of a U.N.-led peacekeeping force in Darfur.

The U.N. says that up to 300,000 people have died and more than 2.2 million fled their homes since the Darfur conflict broke out in February 2003. Sudan says 10,000 have been killed.

The conflict began when ethnic minority rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated regime and state-backed Arab militias, fighting for resources and power in one of the most remote and deprived places on earth.

(AFP)