France fully supports UN call to put Sudanese on trial for Darfur crime

Paris, Feb 1, 2005 (KUNA) – The French government said on Tuesday that it was fully behind a United Nations call for those guilty of war crimes in Sudans Darfur region to be brought before the newly-empowered International Criminal Court (ICC).

The United Nations Security Council had ordered a special panel to examine the case for a trial at the ICC in view of mounting evidence Sudanese government forces and their militia allies had killed, tortured and raped countless civilians in Darfur, where two rebel groups are fighting rule by Khartoum.

A report by the panel that is about to be released speaks of grave abuses of civilians, although it does not go as far as to call the Sudanese governments action “genocide,” as claimed by the United States.

The call for trial at the ICC “is a reasoning that we totally share…and we have always expressed our attachment to this institution,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Herve Ladsous said.

No one has been named in the pursuit of those guilty of what are being described massive crimes against humanity, and the ICC cannot try Sudan as a state.

The United States, which does not recognize the ICC, has been pushing for a special tribunal for Sudan, on the lines of what was established for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

Ladsous said France would not be using the term genocide for the killing in Darfur as this was a “specific juridical term,” and it did not seem to apply to this case as there is no evidence of a calculated and planned attempt to wipe out the ethnic, African group in Western Sudan.

Ladsous pointed out that neither has Sudan adhered to the statues of the new ICC, which got its required ratification quota only a couple of months. Nor has Sudan and this would pose a problem if Khartoum declined to cooperate.

The French official also ruled out sanctions against Sudan, indicating that France was against this approach “out of principle”.