4 March 2009
Nairobi — Presenting evidence against President Omar el-Bashir on 14 July 2008, ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said Bashir had committed the crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur.
Bashir denies all the charges, describing them as "not worth the ink they are written in".
Ocampo argued that he bore criminal responsibility in relation to 10 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Bashir, he argued, masterminded and implemented a plan to destroy in substantial part the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawah groups, on account of their ethnicity. "His motives were largely political, his alibi was a 'counter-insurgency', his intent was genocide," Moreno-Ocampo said.
For more than five years, the prosecutor argued, armed forces and the militia/Janjaweed attacked and destroyed villages on Bashir's orders. Then they pursued survivors into the desert.
Millions of civilians were uprooted from land they had occupied for centuries, all their means of survival destroyed, their land inhabited by new settlers.
"In the camps, Bashir's forces kill the men and rape the women. He wants to end the history of the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawah people," Moreno-Ocampo argued.
"Bashir organised the destitution, insecurity and harassment of the survivors," according to Moreno-Ocampo. "He did not need bullets. He used other weapons: rapes, hunger, and fear. As efficient, but silent."
Sudanese foreign ministry spokesman Ali Al Sadiq said Sudan was not a signatory to the Rome Charter and would not heed the ICC.
Some analysts said the ICC had the authority to indict and have Bashir arrested and tried on the basis of UN Security Council Resolution 15 93 of 31 March 2005, which referred issues relating to the Darfur situation to the ICC.
The ICC, they argue, has jurisdiction over Darfur crimes by virtue of the Rome Statute, which includes genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes of aggression, as crimes that can be tried by the ICC.
Announcing their decision on 4 March, the pre-trial chamber excluded the charge of genocide, but announced seven counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Five of these are for crimes against humanity and include murder, extermination, forcible transfer, torture, and rape, while the other two are for war crimes, ICC spokeswoman Laurence Blairon, said.
"In order to speak about genocide, you need to have a clear intent that a person wishes to destroy, in part or as a whole, a targeted group, a specific group," Blairon said.
"In this specific case, the Pre-Trial Chamber 1 has not been able to find that there were reasonable grounds to establish the genocidal intent."
The court held Bashir criminally responsible for "intentionally directing attacks against an important part of the civilian population of Darfur, Sudan, murdering, exterminating, raping, torturing and forcibly transferring large numbers of civilians and pillaging their property".
The official capacity of head of state did not exclude criminal responsibility or get Bashir immunity, Blairon told a news conference at The Hague.
[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations ]
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" .. This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations .." Yes it does: Your UN's IRIN never carries anything that reflects badly on the white man 0- but plenty that bash the African natives. Don't whites do any crazy wrongs in Africa, IRIN?
For instance, there are those who see imperial, racist, christianist hypocrisy in all this persistent ICC crusade against the Africans. Would you care to carry their articles? I won't hold my breath on that.
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" ... Moreno-Ocampo said Bashir had committed the crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur. ... "
Indeed, silly chap. Have you found out the whites who committed the crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Iraq? Afghanistan? Palestine? NO. Not the whites and not the Jews and not their friends, you say.
How about finding out and indicting the whites and their accomplices who committed the crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes now and over the past many centuries in Africa? NO. You don't have a mandate from your white handlers to arrest whites.
Phew!
Persuasive ideality.
Under the sun of a cold winter the greatest emotion becomes a noble seaside, with the care of my life near a delicate mirth.
Francesco Sinibaldi
Bashir (like bush, blair and brown) is a blood sucking MASS MURDERER OF THE INNOCENT. Yet the racist European-dominated court issue not arrest warrant for bush, blair and brown? Why?
The European-dominated UN and European-dominated ICC are created for the promotion of European domination. It is neo-colonialism, and their leaders MUST be also defeated by the virtuous lovers of liberty.
This tragedy playing itself off in the Sudan is a very good example of what happens in a particular country when higher and often obscure powers are dictating events. And this manipulation is done by the powers to protect their own interests. Unfortunately a lot of people suffer in this bizarre and cruel "game" and they are the innocent populations who seem to be merely regarded as expendable commodities. There is very little integrity and altruism in international events. Some of those who are guilty of crimes against humanity might be brought to face justice but many more escape the punishment they deserve. I think there are most of the time "dark forces" lurking in the background when you think of what happened for instance in Uganda, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, Kenya, etc. The full truth will probably never be known. What is happening in the Sudan involves much more than what we read in the news media. In the meantime millions(!) of innocent people starve and die.
Is this not proof enough that Bashir is a criminal? More people to die because of Bashir and the AU pleads on behalf of this cruel and inhuman dictator.
It is enough to qoute here the speech of the UN General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann regretted that a warrant had been issued to arrest President Bashir stating, “I am sorry about this decision of the ICC and I think it’s more a decision motivated by political considerations than really for the sake of advancing the cause of justice in the world.” My issue with the ICC is this: If 300,000 people who died in the conflict in Darfur since 2003 prompted them to sit up and take notice and issue an arrest warrant, where had they been since 2003 when over one million innocent civilians have lost their lives as a result of US President George Bush’s illegal incursion into Iraq? There was no justification for the war on the Iraqi people. There were no threats directed at the United States of America or its people. There was no Al-Qaeda operating out of Iraq. Iraqis did not take part in the bombings of the twin towers of the World Trade Center; nor were they involved in any conspiracy against the US government. Where are the arrest warrants for Bush and his partner Tony Blair, who today pathetically claims he was duped into going along with the former US president when supplied with misleading information on weapons of mass destruction. How come Donald Rumsfeld of the “shock and awe” fame whose forces indiscriminately bombed Iraqi civilians into bits and pieces gets away scot-free? And the rest of Bush’s band of neocons and accomplices including Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Douglas Feith and John Ashcroft? Why is it that the ICC has not investigated their crimes and issued arrest warrants against all those with the blood of over one million innocent civilians on their hands? Their methods were all based on deception, and their tools, apart from allowing weapons of mass destruction to be used against the Iraqi people, included manipulating the media and their political office. They used “lies, lies and more lies, religion, patriotism, manufactured enemies, and the glory of democracy to motivate, mislead, oppress, and rob the masses of rational thinking in order to pursue their murderous adventures.” Their strategy of using American soldiers as proxies for Israel to wage wars on Iraqis or any other people who might rise up against Israel had eventually led to mistrust and rejection of American policies in the region and around the world, as well as growing rejection at home. And let’s not forget the atrocities of Ariel Sharon of Israel who today lies in a comatose state. He aligned himself with Bush soon after taking office and rained down atrocities on defenseless Palestinians. Do not his actions of massacre followed by the holocaust perpetrated against the civilians of Gaza recently by the current Israeli government warrant an investigation by the ICC? The atrocities that Bush had committed against the Iraqi populace and the fatality numbers are well ********ed and yet the ICC did not dare raise an issue about his unlawful actions. History would undoubtedly depict Bush’s presidency as the biggest weapon of mass destruction in our times, but it is Bashir of Sudan who faces war crimes charges. Prosecuting a sitting head of state and letting the crooks off the hook smacks of gross hypocrisy on the part of the ICC. Is it because the Sudanese president is a black man and an African
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