France sees vote on Sudan war crimes court at UN Thursday

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 31, 2005 (AP) — France said it expects the U.N. Security Council to vote Thursday on a resolution that would authorize the prosecution of Sudanese war crimes suspects by the International Criminal Court -with approval virtually certain after U.S. officials said Washington had dropped its objections.

Jean-Marc de La Sablière, the Permanent Representative of France to the UN.

France delayed Wednesday’s vote in hopes of averting a U.S. veto -and the additional time appears to have won over the Americans.

Administration officials in Washington said Wednesday night that the United States was dropping its objections to using the court after concluding that opposition to the U.S. stand was too strong, particularly among Europeans.

France’s U.N. Mission said Wednesday night it expects the council to vote on the resolution on Thursday, probably in the afternoon.

President George W. Bush’s administration had preferred that an African court try alleged perpetrators of war crimes, but the U.S. proposal garnered little support among the 14 other Security Council nations.

The United States faced a dilemma because it wants the perpetrators of atrocities in Sudan ‘s western Darfur region brought to justice but it vehemently opposes the International Criminal Court on grounds that Americans could face politically motivated or frivolous prosecutions. An ethnic cleansing campaign in Darfur has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted more than 2 million.

In return for its concession, the United States received assurances that Americans deployed in Sudan , in whatever capacity, would not be subject to ICC prosecutions, the officials told The Associated Press. They asked not to be identified because the decision has not been officially announced.

The U.S. decision to allow the court to prosecute war crimes perpetrators could raise hackles among conservatives for whom the court is an unaccountable body that cannot be trusted to do the right thing. The 97 countries that have ratified the 1998 Rome Treaty establishing the court based in The Hague, Netherlands -including all European Union nations -maintain that there are sufficient safeguards built into the process to prevent unwarranted prosecutions.

France agreed to postpone a vote until Thursday after the United States said it wanted to amend the draft resolution to ensure that no Americans could be handed over to the court, the world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal, U.N. diplomats said.

The United States came up with amendments late Thursday but the diplomats said they weren’t acceptable to the nine council members that are parties to the court, including France and close U.S. ally Britain.

In response, France drafted new amendments which were to be shared with the court’s supporters overnight and discussed with the Americans on Thursday, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The 15 Security Council nations have been deadlocked for weeks on the issue of holding people accountable in Sudan , and the court’s supporters have demanded a vote on the French resolution.

The French draft introduced last week would refer Darfur cases since July 1, 2002 to the International Criminal Court. That was the recommendation of a U.N. panel that had found crimes against humanity -but not genocide -occurred in the vast western region.

In a clear concession to the United States, the resolution said citizens of countries that have not ratified the treaty establishing the court will not be subject to prosecution by the court if they take part in activities in Sudan .

Diplomats said Washington was concerned that the language wasn’t airtight and therefore proposed the amendments.

Details of the final text were not disclosed in Washington or New York.

Negotiations on the draft have been going on in key capitals, with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier, and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw trying to agree on wording that would allow the United States to abstain rather than veto the resolution, the diplomats said.

A veto could be politically damaging because it would give the appearance that the United States opposed the punishment of those responsible for atrocities in Darfur, the scene of perhaps the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The widespread death and destruction has been the result of a brutal counterinsurgency campaign led by government-supported Arab militias against black African rebels. The conflict began in February 2003, and the number of dead is now estimated at 180,000.

Last September, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said the perpetrators had engaged in genocide. Tens of thousands of displaced Darfurians are confined to refugee camps, refusing to return to their villages for fear they would only be forced to flee once again.

On Tuesday, the Security Council passed a resolution strengthening the arms embargo in Darfur to include the Sudanese government and imposing an asset freeze and travel ban on those who defy peace efforts.

Last week, the council voted to deploy 10,000 U.N. peacekeepers to monitor a peace deal between the government and southern rebels that ended a 21-year civil war. The council hopes the resolution will also help Darfur move toward peace as well.