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R/£ Mbeki, Sudan caution on war crimes indictment
September 17, 2008 Edition 3
Hans Pienaar and Agencies
In a move reminiscent of the scuppering of UN sanctions against Zimbabwe's ruling elite, South Africa has come out in defence of Sudan's government.
This happened as a United Nations special envoy warned that civilians were coming under increasing attack and 130 Holocaust scholars implored the International Criminal Court to withstand pressure to drop a proposed indictment against President Omar al-Bashir.
Bashir and President Thabo Mbeki issued a joint statement in Khartoum yesterday, warning that the indictment on war-crimes and genocide charges would undermine the peace process in Darfur, western Sudan. The judges at the world's first permanent war-crimes tribunal, based in The Hague, have not yet responded to prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo's request in July.
Mbeki and Bashir called on the international community to support the UN-African Union peace force (Unamid) with promised logistical and helicopter support. Last week, Unamid said it had been barred from observing government military action against rebels in northern Darfur.
Fighting has escalated in the past week, and by yesterday, thousands of villagers had fled to surrounding mountains and open land, cut off from food aid and clinics, according to humanitarian officers. Dozens of people, mainly civilians, have died.
In Geneva, special rapporteur Sima Samar, of Afghanistan, said: "In Darfur there are many more aerial bombardments and ground attacks against civilians."
She highlighted "indiscriminate" and "disproportionate" bombing of civilians by Sudanese forces in the east of Darfur, as well as ongoing sexual violence and a wave of arbitrary arrests and disappearances.
She slammed African and Arab governments for ignoring abuses because of "political alliances". She claimed they were trying to get her relieved of her mandate from the UN's Human Rights Council, which is to be reviewed next week.
Mbeki said after his two-day trip to Khartoum that the decision to prosecute Bashir "could not make any positive contribution" to the Darfur crisis, "therefore we are against it".
SA and Libya have been pushing for a UN Security Council resolution to put on hold for a year any efforts to prosecute Bashir.
Last year, Sudan persuaded the UN council to ignore a high-level report from a commission chaired by American Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jody Williams. The report was particularly critical of atrocities allegedly committed by government forces and allied militias.
On Monday, South African government sources revealed that SA was behind the veto of efforts to impose targeted sanctions on 130-odd members of Zimbabwe's ruling elite. Russia and China are expected to follow SA's lead on Sudan when the UN General Assembly meets later this month.
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