No peace in Darfur without justice – French official

April 11, 2009 (ADDIS ABABA) — The French Secretary of State for Human Rights, Rama Yade, said Saturday during a visit to Ethiopia, that there “is no peace without justice”. Yade was referring to the arrest warrant issued by the Court International Criminal against Sudanese President Omer Al-Bashir.

The ICC issued on March 4, an arrest warrant against President Omer Al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur, where the government conducts since 2003 a counter-insurgency campaign leading to the death of some 300.000 people , according to the UN.

“There will be no peace in Darfur, no peace without justice in Sudan,” said the minister at the end of a two-day visit to Ethiopia.

The ICC arrest warrant “will help the victims to support justice. We consider this arrest warrant as an important step forward in the fight against impunity,” the French official underscored.

Ms Yade had met during her visit with Jean Ping the Chairperson of the African Union Commission to discuss this issue.

The African Union requests the UN Security Council to suspend the arrest warrant against Bashir considering it as threat to achieve peace in Darfur and to implement the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended two decades of war in southern Sudan.

France had launched the initiative at the level of the Security Council to refer Darfur war crimes to the ICC in March 2005. Also Paris with London and Washington strongly rejected last July the deferral of the ICC jurisdiction when the AU and the Arab League had made their request.

(ST)