The Week in International Justice

by Martha Heinemann Bixby

Published November 20, 2008 @ 06:00AM PST

63 Years ago, on November 20, 1945 the Nuremburg Trials opened to try Nazi war criminals.  These trials set important precedents for international justice - first, that such a thing should exist:

"Following Germany's defeat in World War II, Winston Churchill planned to shoot top German and Nazi military leaders without a trial, but Henry Stimson, the U.S. Secretary of War, pushed President Roosevelt to consider holding an international court trial...

In his thoughtful opening remarks, Robert Jackson eloquently summarized the significance of the trial. "That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury, stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of law," said Jackson, "is one of the significant tributes that power has ever paid to reason.""

In the past week there have been a number of important developments in the modern prosecution of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

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Daily Darfur: Playing Politics with International Justice

by Michelle

Published November 19, 2008 @ 10:53AM PST

Sealed indictment requests for an unspecified number of Darfuri rebel commanders will be submitted to the International Criminal Court tomorrow, according to ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo, stemming from an attack that resulted in the death of 10 peacekeepers last year:

"The attack by a large, organized group of heavily armed men who overran southern Darfur's Haskanita camp in 30 vehicles took place in September 2007, the worst assault on the under-manned force since it deployed in July 2004.

"The ICC chief prosecutor said last July that he had information about two rebel commanders responsible of the attack but he did not disclose the names and number of suspects."

I'm intrigued by the fact that Ocampo announced that he would file secret indictment applications (in contrast to the recent apprehension of former Congolese vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba under a sealed arrest warrant) ---and wonder if it speaks to a political calculation on the prosecutor's part. Is the prosecutor trying to scare the rebels into compliance with the peace process? Is he trying to pacify the Sudanese government and its supporters by showing an "even hand" in addressing abuses on all sides of the conflict? Whatever the strategy, Ocampo is playing a card, while holding others back. And game-playing is a distinctly political pastime.

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Bush's Legacy: Opportunities Lost on Darfur

by Michelle

Published November 18, 2008 @ 10:28PM PST

In response to David Kaye's recent post on Chasing the Flame, "Unilateralism in Darfur?", President Bush has, in fact, floated the (not entirely well-thought-out) idea of sending American troops to Darfur. In a column in August 2007, Nick Kristof recalled,

"He alluded to that when he told a woman in Tennessee who asked him about Darfur: 'The threshold question was: If there is a problem, why don't you just go take care of it?' Mr. Bush was talked out of the idea by Condi Rice, who told him that the U.S. just couldn't start another war in a Muslim country. So, as Mr. Bush told the questioner: 'I made the decision not to send U.S. troops unilaterally into Darfur.'"

But as Kristof continues, and Kaye echoes, President Bush failed to pursue---or at least, pursue vigorously enough---a variety of other options that might have ended the genocide. (Kristof lays out a few in the column.)

I have no doubt that the President and Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice have regrets about Darfur, but I hope that what they regret most is not using their incredible influence to the fullest possible extent to resolve the conflict. Rice's comments to the New York Times Magazine, as quoted by Kaye, that the U.S. worked "night and day" on the issue and she doesn't "know that there were other answers" are categorically false-either self-delusion, or an outright face-saving lie.

To borrow again from Kaye's post, because this quote from Kofi Annan is just brilliant:

"Responding to a claim by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, for example, who said Washington had worked 'day and night' to end human rights violations in Darfur, Annan smiled before remarking: 'I don't know about day and night. It depends how long your days and your nights are.'

"'The world could not give them 18 helicopters," he said. "We could have done more - and should.'"

Indeed.

Daily Darfur: Rebel Text Messages, and Burnings in Effigy

by Michelle

Published November 18, 2008 @ 12:05PM PST

After rejecting a nascent Qatar-led peace initiative last month, leaders of the Darfuri rebel Justice and Equality Movement announced it would send a delegation to Qatar for "consultations."

"This doesn't mean in any way that JEM has accepted the Qatari initiative," the group's London-based spokesman Ahmed Hussein Adam told Reuters by text message. "This is just to explain to them our vision on the peaceful solution and to hear more from them on the issue."

(How does one get on the text message list of rebel commanders? Not as easy as signing up for Obama's, I'm sure.)

The deputy force commander of UNAMID is working to persuade rebel groups to accept a ceasefire, while still investigating claims that the government violated its own ceasefire declaration by bombing North Darfur last week.

For his part in today's news cycle, President Omar al-Bashir once again claimed to support peace and stability and Darfur, all the while pointing the finger of blame at the West and proclaiming jihad:

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France and the Rwandan Genocide: From Complicity to Culpability

by Michelle

Published November 17, 2008 @ 10:00PM PST

Animosities between the French and Rwandan governments are once again making headlines--this time, following the arrest of a Rwandan government official in Germany, and her extradition to France. An article in Spiegel International sheds light on the controversy over French involvement in the genocide.

The genocide in Rwanda officially began--after years of planning, as was meticulously documented by Human Rights Watch--after a plane carrying Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana was shot down over Kigali on April 6, 1994. The Hutu Power coalition blamed the Tutsis for the incident, and used it as an excuse to commence with the slaughter. The true culprits, however, have never been conclusively identified, and many historians and analysts speculate that Hutu Power extremists are actually responsible for the president's death. (Interestingly, and perhaps suspiciously, when UN troops came to the sight to investigate, they were denied entry by government officials.)

Enter the French

A French judge launched an investigation into the crash on account of the two French pilots flying the plane, and concluded the Tutsi Rwanda Patriotic Front-the militia of Tutsi exiles that ended the genocide and now run the government-was, in fact, responsible for the crash.

Here's the problem: Not only has the judge's investigation been accused to being quite shoddy, but his conclusion is "convenient for France," as it diverts attention away from French culpability in the genocide. As Speigel writes,

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Daily Darfur: Suddenly, Khartoum Cares About Humanitarian Aid

by Michelle

Published November 17, 2008 @ 11:10AM PST

So now the Government of Sudan is admitting to a "clash" in North Darfur--but with bandits attacking a humanitarian aid convoy, not rebels, and thus not violating their proposed cease-fire.

"The Sudanese army clashed with the bandit group to protect this convoy," said spokesman Brigadier Uthman al-Agbash. He added that the bandits had escaped.

Predictably, the rebel Justice and Equality Movement quickly dismissed the government's claims:

"This was not a clash with bandits. There is a wide-ranging assault against us going on," the London-based chairman of JEM's legislative council Al-Tahir al-Feki told Reuters.

Neither Khartoum nor the rebels are terribly reliable sources, but given the government's concerted effort to impede humanitarian access to civilians in Darfur (as my blogger-in-arms Michael can attest), I find it slightly suspicious that they'd all of a sudden jump to a convoy's rescue.

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Raising Cain: On the Moral Obligation to End Genocide and Mass Atrocity

by Michelle

Published November 16, 2008 @ 08:05PM PST

I'd like to call your attention to a great post by Timothy Morgan on the Christianity Today blog: "Will Obama Pass the Genocide Test?" Morgan writes that, as the conflict in the DRC is rapidly evolving, the world is already looking to America's new administration for guidance. How will Obama respond to the latest test of the "world's resolve to prevent another genocide?"

Morgan spoke with a senior foreign policy official in the Bush administration, who passed on words of advice to the global evangelical community. His comments, however, apply to the movement as a whole:

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