US will veto attempts to defer ICC move against Sudan president: Official

By Daniel Van Oudenaren

September 24, 2008 (WASHINGTON) — The United States will veto any UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution that defers the International Criminal Court (ICC) indictment of Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir and other officials, a senior U.S. official said today.

“If asked—if forced to vote today—the United States, even if it was 191 countries against one, would veto an Article 16 [resolution],” Ambassador Richard Williamson, the U.S. special envoy to Sudan said at a hearing of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.

This is the first time a US official makes a formal position on issue of the suspension despite the heavy debate within the UN and regional organizations.

But the diplomat stopped short of saying that the U.S. will never support the suspension of the ICC’s Darfur cases, instead laying out a list of conditions that should be met before such a move would be tolerable, including “progress on the ground to provide alleviation of humanitarian suffering” and “sustainable security on the ground in Darfur and South Sudan.”

“We have not seen a response by the officials in Sudan to approach the sort of meaningful steps in those areas that are noteworthy,” said Williamson.

Under the Rome Statue, the treaty governing the ICC, the UNSC can invoke Article 16 of the treaty to suspend jurisdiction of the world court in a case for up to one year that can be renewed indefinitely.

However such a resolution requires the affirmative votes of 9 UNSC members without a veto from a permanent member of the council.

In mid-July the ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo announced that he is seeking an arrest warrant for Al-Bashir.

The ICC’s prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo filed 10 charges: three counts of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and two of murder. It was only last week that judges have started reviewing the case in a process that could possibly drag on to next year.

Sudan and a number of regional organizations including the African Union (AU), Arab League, Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) condemned Ocampo’s request and called on the UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution deferring Al-Bashir’s indictment.

But Western countries have been hesitant to endorse such a move saying that there needs to be progress on the ground before such a resolution is adopted.

The US was widely expected to block a deferral owing to domestic pressure and being in an election year.

Last July the US made a last minute decision to abstain from voting on a UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution extending the mandate of the UN-African Union (AU) hybrid force in Darfur (UNAMID).

In explaining the abstention US Representative to the UN Alejandro Wolff said his government strongly supports UNAMID but that the “language added to the resolution would send the wrong signal to the Sudanese president Omar Hassan Al-Bashir and undermine efforts to bring him and others to justice”.

The US deputy envoy at the UN speaking to reporters after the UNAMID vote said that the paragraph which they objected to comes at a “very important time when we are trying to eliminate the climate of impunity to deal with justice and address crimes in Darfur by suggesting there is a way out”.

“The issue before us to make clear to those who are guilty of criminal activity and complicit in the horrors that befallen on the people of Darfur that there can be no escape…anything that signals a way out or any easy way to circumvent that we believe need to be opposed” the US diplomat said.

The US is not a party to the ICC and has remained hostile to it. Washington had threatened to veto resolution 1593 referring Darfur case to the ICC adopted in March 2005 but eventually bent down to domestic and international pressure and abstained from voting.

The US has recently showed signs of warming up to the court despite its long standing fears that it may be used to bring frivolous cases against its troops.

(ST)