Is the International Criminal Court Finished?

November 7, 2016

Malik Ibrahim

 

On October 21, the world was rattled when the government of South Africa announced it would be withdrawing from the International Criminal Court over accusations that the institution was exclusively prosecuting Africans and ignoring Western injustices done to the people of Africa. The move comes just days after Burundi’s embattled leader signed a similar law to that effect and was quickly echoed by Gambia, which referred to the ICC as the “International Caucasian Court.” Human rights organizations, victim groups and pundits were quick to lambast the hypocrisy of the three countries. Indeed, while it’s true that the court has thus far only brought concrete charges against black Africans since its inception in 2002 under the Rome Statute, the allegation of an “African bias” is grossly unfounded and crumbles under closer scrutiny, as it ignores the way the ICC works and the actual political realities on the ground.

First of all, 34 of 122 member states are African, making them the largest regional group represented in The Hague, while Fatou Bensouda, a native of Gambia, holds the powerful position of the court’s chief prosecutor. Moreover, in order for the court to start its investigations into a case, a state party of the Rome Statute must “request the prosecutor to carry out an investigation,” after which additional information may be sent to the court regarding alleged crimes. This means that the ICC cannot commence investigations unless a state or group refers an alleged case to the court’s authorities.

Accusations of the court as a vehicle for Western neo-colonial ambitions turn a blind eye to the fact that the investigations were undertaken with the strong support of African states. For instance, in cases involving the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, the Central African Republic, and Mali, those very states referred themselves to ICC prosecutors. It’s an unfortunate reality that many major conflicts with horrendous crimes are taking place on African soil. In 2014, Africa had 16 percent of the world’s population while being host to 52 percent of the world’s armed conflicts – an increase of 12 percent compared to 2013. Add to this African states’ pivotal involvement in the founding of the ICC, and it’s no surprise that Africa accounts for a disproportionate amount of cases on the court’s docket.

Nevertheless, it’s important to note that the ICC has been shifting its attention to other continents as well. In January, the Court said it had “a reasonable basis to believe” that crimes against humanity and war crimes were committed during the 2008 Russo-Georgian war. While the request for the authorization of a full investigation is pending, there are numerous other non-African countries under the court’s scrutiny, including Afghanistan, Ukraine, Colombia, the UK’s actions in Iraq and Israel’s involvement in Palestine.

From these points it becomes clear that racism is not an underlying current in the ICC’s operational history. Rather, the leaders of the countries announcing their withdrawal do so for self-serving personal reasons. In light of their abysmal human rights records, the dictatorial leaders of Gambia and Burundi both have good reasons to bail on the court in order to shield themselves from international prosecution. And South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma is using the accusations of racism as a means distract from his many corruption scandals and to stabilize his increasingly ailing leadership by pretending to stand shoulder to shoulder with his African counterparts, and thus ensuring their backing of his own rule.

Now that the levee has broke, it’s highly likely that other countries will try to leave the ICC. Djibouti’s president for example is under ICC investigation over the deadly suppression of the opposition in the run up to the presidential election for his fourth term. Ismail Omar Guelleh, who is running the country like a personal fiefdom, has also recently stepped up political repression, including fiercely cracking down on press freedom and freedom of assembly, among other infractions. Furthermore, in July the ICC referred Djibouti and Uganda to the United Nations for their failure to arrest Sudan’s strongman Omar al-Bashir on ICC orders when he visited the two countries in May this year. Al-Bashir is wanted for crimes against humanity in Sudan’s breakaway region of Darfur.

Sadly however, the requested withdrawals are setting a serious precedent that may well spell the end for the ICC as an institution. Burundi is the first member state that has turned a threat into concrete action when its lower house voted in favor of leaving the court. Since South Africa and Gambia have followed suit, fears are running high that a mass exodus will follow that will eventually undermine the Court’s legitimacy as fewer and fewer countries are willing to rely on its investigations. If that were to happen, one of the only tools for serving justice to the African people will be removed from the international system, for the ICC continues to be the only avenue for justice for the crimes they have suffered.

In the words of Human Rights Watch head Ken Roth, “The alternative to ICC prosecution in the cases it has taken would be no prosecution at all,” so that ultimately there would be “No justice for the countless Africans who have been murdered, tortured, raped, or forced to become child soldiers.” Although the ICC’s track record has not been overwhelming, it has some scored important successes to show for. But calling its raison d’être into question for the personal gain of corrupt African leaders is telling of the fact that justice is now needed more than ever.

October 27, 2016, 11:49 AM

Kenyan man shot dead after stabbing guard at American embassy in Nairobi

NAIROBI, Kenya -- A man was shot dead after stabbing a policeman guarding the perimeter wall of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi and trying to take his gun, a Kenyan police official said Thursday.

The policeman who had been stabbed opened fire in self-defense and killed the attacker, said Vitalis Otieno, the officer in charge of the Gigiri area that hosts several embassies and the U.N’s African headquarters.

“He fired first and shot the person and the person died on the spot,” Otieno said.

The identity of the attacker, a Kenyan from the volatile region of Wajir near Somalia, is known to police, Otieno said.

Federal Bureau of Investigation personnel were seen collecting evidence at the scene of the shooting.

The U.S. Embassy confirmed there was a shooting and said no embassy personnel were involved.

Wajir county has been cited by Kenyan authorities as a hot spot for recruitment by the Islamic extremist group al-Shabab from neighboring Somalia.

Al-Shabab has vowed retribution on Kenya for sending troops to Somalia to fight the militants. The group has carried out a wave of attacks in Kenya that have left hundreds dead.

The extremist group claimed responsibility for an attack Tuesday in Mandera county that killed 12 people, saying its fighters were targeting Christians.

Al-Shabab is al Qaeda’s affiliate in the region, and it hosted Fazul Abdallah Mohammed, who was accused of masterminding the U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 that killed over 200 people. Mohammed was shot dead by Somali troops in 2011.

Recently, Kenya has been battling the recruitment of youth by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, which is al Qaeda’s rival. Kenyan police have linked three women who were killed after they allegedly attacked a police station in Mombasa to ISIS.

Perfect Storm in Ethiopia: Big Government Controlled by a Small Group

September 7, 2016

Mehari Fisseha

 

In an Al Jazeera article published on August 20, 2016, security forces were reported to have used excessive force in quelling recent anti-government demonstrations in Ethiopia. Video footage showing the protest was embedded in the article with Aljazeera’s reporter Charles Stratford interviewing victims of the violence. According to Stratford, the wave of violence was fueled by tribal conflict that began with the Oromo, the biggest ethnic community in Ethiopia. Most notable here is the fact that the Ethiopian government is controlled by the country’s smallest ethnic group. The protests were organized to demonstrate against violations of the human rights by the ruling party.

 

Political and Social Drivers

In his report, Stratford stated that Human Rights Watch had estimated the number of people killed in the protests at 500 people. The demonstrations first arose in November 2015 and since then thousands of Ethiopian nationals have been arrested and detained. Human Rights Watch reiterates that the Amhara (Ethiopia’s second largest tribe) joined the Oromo in protesting against the violation of both political and economic rights. The article features one picture of a protesters with a poster stating, “Stop killing the Oromo people.” This poster clearly shows that the Oromo people are under fire from the government security forces, raising the possibility that the protests are due to systemic violence.

Ethiopian government spokesman Getachew Reda was also interviewed in the article and he denied the violence being “systemic.” In his explanation, Mr. Reda stated that the Ethiopian government took seriously the allegations of “off-grid police officers” who used excessive force on peaceful protesters. Nevertheless, the government was stated to blame the predicament on the opposition working from within and outside Ethiopia. The government stated that the opposition had used “anti-peace forces” to organize “unauthorized protests.” The article raised the need for accountability.

Speaking for the Office of the UN High Commission for Human Rights (OHCHR), Ravina Shamdasani stated that commission was ready to start investigations into the Ethiopian situation. Ethiopia had previously dismissed pressure from the UN to permit investigations into the killings of international observers. Ms. Shamdasani clarified that the UN welcomed investigations by the Ethiopian government on violations of human rights since the inception of the unrests in Oromia. She reiterated that the probe was supposed to be “independent, transparent, thorough and effective.”  Thus, the success of this investigation would be dependent on the cooperation of the Ethiopian government.

Stratford also reported that the Ethiopian government had pledged to punish all members of the security forces found guilty of killing innocent protesters. However, there has since been no information in the public domain of any culprit being brought to book. It is thus important to consider the constitution of human rights violations according to the Ethiopian government that would warrant possible arrests and detention of guilty officers. Furthermore, the conflict and ensuing investigations impact directly to the future progress of Ethiopia and the entire East African region.

 

Future Impact of the Situation in Ethiopia

Owing to the fact that up to 500 people have been killed in the Ethiopian protests from November 2015 to August 2016, the number is likely to rise exponentially if these protests and violent responses are not quelled. According to Asafa Jalata  “terrorism” has been fostered within the Ethiopian government against the Oromo people beginning with the “last decades of the 19th Century. Although they are the largest ethnic community, the Oromo people have faced tragedy and destruction especially by the Abyssinia people that dominate the government since the colonial period. The Oromo population has been shrinking drastically in the wake of anti-government protests, leading to a decrease in economic development.

In a CNN article by Awol Allo, the United States was cited as the greatest contributor to the deadlock in Ethiopia. With its funding capabilities and the recent visit of the US President to Ethiopia, the US was seen to escalate tensions in the country. Pressure from civil society organizations and human rights groups in the international arena have mounted such that the US withdrew funding aid to Ethiopia until investigations into the violence are conducted. The withdrawal of the US will also push other international donors from supporting Ethiopian projects.

According to Dana Sanchez, Western government are accused of funding of Ethiopian projects despite the country’s crisis. The protests began when a development plan was drawn to enlarge the “territorial limits of Addis Ababa” into the ancestral lands of the Oromo in April 2014. The Oromo people feared that this development agenda of the government would evict them as it had been shown since the colonial era. With over 33 million people representing the Oromo people in Ethiopia, continued violence would in turn lead to a huge spill-over of refugees into neighboring East African countries.

Awol K. Allo’s article stated that the US aided Ethiopia saw the Mulatu Teshome-led government as a partner against global terrorism attacks. However, the escalation of violence against the Oromo, who are widely affiliated to the Muslim religion, will attract the attention of terrorists not only into Ethiopia but the entire East African region. Additional marginalization of the Oromo will work to suppress economic progress in the region and downplay investment decisions by foreigners in the future.

As Saudis bombed Yemen, U.S. worried about legal blowback

By Warren Strobel and Jonathan Landay | WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON The Obama administration went ahead with a $1.3 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia last year despite warnings from some officials that the United States could be implicated in war crimes for supporting a Saudi-led air campaign in Yemen that has killed thousands of civilians, according to government documents and the accounts of current and former officials.

State Department officials also were privately skeptical of the Saudi military's ability to target Houthi militants without killing civilians and destroying "critical infrastructure" needed for Yemen to recover, according to the emails and other records obtained by Reuters and interviews with nearly a dozen officials with knowledge of those discussions.

U.S. government lawyers ultimately did not reach a conclusion on whether U.S. support for the campaign would make the United States a "co-belligerent" in the war under international law, four current and former officials said. That finding would have obligated Washington to investigate allegations of war crimes in Yemen and would have raised a legal risk that U.S. military personnel could be subject to prosecution, at least in theory.

For instance, one of the emails made a specific reference to a 2013 ruling from the war crimes trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor that significantly widened the international legal definition of aiding and abetting such crimes.

The ruling found that "practical assistance, encouragement or moral support" is sufficient to determine liability for war crimes. Prosecutors do not have to prove a defendant participated in a specific crime, the U.N.-backed court found.

Ironically, the U.S. government already had submitted the Taylor ruling to a military commission at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to bolster its case that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other al Qaeda detainees were complicit in the Sept 11, 2001 attacks.

The previously undisclosed material sheds light on the closed-door debate that shaped U.S. President Barack Obama’s response to what officials described as an agonizing foreign policy dilemma: how to allay Saudi concerns over a nuclear deal with Iran - Riyadh's arch-rival - without exacerbating a conflict in Yemen that has killed thousands.

The documents, obtained by Reuters under the Freedom of Information Act, date from mid-May 2015 to February 2016, a period during which State Department officials reviewed and approved the sale of precision munitions to Saudi Arabia to replenish bombs dropped in Yemen. The documents were heavily redacted to withhold classified information and some details of meetings and discussion.

(A selection of the documents can be viewed here: tmsnrt.rs/2dL4h6L; tmsnrt.rs/2dLbl2S; tmsnrt.rs/2dLb7Ji; tmsnrt.rs/2dLbbIX)

An air strike on a wake in Yemen on Saturday that killed more than 140 people renewed focus on the heavy civilian toll of the conflict. The Saudi-led coalition denied responsibility, but the attack drew the strongest rebuke yet from Washington, which said it would review its support for the campaign to "better align with U.S. principles, values and interests."

The State Department documents reveal new details of how the United States pressed the Saudis to limit civilian damage and provided detailed lists of sites to avoid bombing, even as officials worried about whether the Saudi military had the capacity to do so.

State Department lawyers "had their hair on fire" as reports of civilian casualties in Yemen multiplied in 2015, and prominent human rights groups charged that Washington could be complicit in war crimes, one U.S. official said. That official and the others requested anonymity.

During an October 2015 meeting with private human rights groups, a State Department specialist on protecting civilians in conflict acknowledged Saudi strikes were going awry.

"The strikes are not intentionally indiscriminate but rather result from a lack of Saudi experience with dropping munitions and firing missiles," the specialist said, according to a Department account of the meeting.

"The lack of Saudi experience is compounded by the asymmetric situation on the ground where enemy militants are not wearing uniforms and are mixed with civilian populations," he said. "Weak intelligence likely further compounds the problem."

The Saudis intervened in Yemen in March 2015 to restore President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after he was ousted by the Houthi rebels, whom Riyadh charges are backed by Iran. The Saudis gave Washington little advance notice, U.S. military leaders have said.

The Saudi government has called allegations of civilian casualties fabricated or exaggerated and has resisted calls for an independent investigation. The Saudi-led coalition has said it takes its responsibilities under international humanitarian law seriously, and is committed to the protection of civilians in Yemen. The Saudi embassy in Washington declined further comment.

In a statement issued to Reuters before Saturday's attack, National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said, "U.S. security cooperation with Saudi Arabia is not a blank check. ... We have repeatedly expressed our deep concern about airstrikes that allegedly killed and injured civilians and also the heavy humanitarian toll paid by the Yemeni people."

The United States continues to urge the Kingdom to take additional steps to avoid "future civilian harm," he added.

 

NO-STRIKE LISTS

Since March 2015, Washington has authorized more than $22.2 billion in weapons sales to Riyadh, much of it yet to be delivered. That includes a $1.29 billion sale of precision munitions announced in November 2015 and specifically meant to replenish stocks used in Yemen.

In internal policy discussions, officials said, the Pentagon and the State Department's Near East Affairs bureau leaned toward preserving good relations with Riyadh at a time when friction was increasing because of the nuclear deal with Iran.

On the other side, the State Department's Office of the Legal Advisor, backed by government human rights specialists, expressed concern over U.S. complicity in possible Saudi violations of the laws of war, a former official said. Reuters could not determine the timing and form of that warning.

U.S. refueling and logistical support of Riyadh's air force - even more than the arms sales - risked making the United States a party to the Yemen conflict under international law, three officials said.

About 3,800 civilians have died in Yemen, with Saudi-led airstrikes on markets, hospitals and schools accounting for 60 percent of the death toll, the United Nations human rights office said in August.

It stopped short of accusing either side of war crimes, saying that was for a national or international court to decide.

The White House convened a meeting in August 2015 on how best to engage the Saudis over rising civilian casualties, the emails show, in a sign of mounting concern over the issue. That same month, State Department officials gathered to discuss how to track those casualties.

In late January 2016, Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken chaired a meeting with officials across the department in part to discuss "Options to limit U.S. exposure to LOAC (Law of Armed Conflict) concerns," according to a Blinken aide's email.

The Law of Armed Conflict, a group of international laws and treaties, prohibits attacks on civilians and requires combatants to minimize civilian death and damage.

While preserving military ties with Riyadh, the Obama administration has tried to reduce civilian casualties by providing the Saudis with "no-strike lists" of targets to avoid, dispatching to Saudi Arabia a U.S. expert on mitigating civilian casualties and pressing for peace talks, the officials said.

Breaking Down US Relations with Ethiopia

October 6, 2016

Geopolitical Monitor

 

Summary

Ethiopia has long been a key US ally in East Africa, and the two states share deep political, economic, and military links. Lately though, this relationship is being tested due to developments within Ethiopia, where sectarian tensions are boiling over amid a growing government crackdown.

Geopoliticalmonitor.com has reported lately on these mounting tensions in Ethiopia, and since then a stampede at a protest over land rights around Addis Ababa has claimed the lives of 55 people. Just today, an American academic from UC Davis was killed when her car was hit by rocks thrown by protestors.

For US policymakers, the geopolitical calculus isn’t anything new: Ethiopia is a key ally in the war on terror, an economic success story in the Horn of Africa, and a bastion of political stability in an otherwise anarchic region. Yet its government has presided over an ongoing crackdown on opposition parties, journalists, and civil society, and recent events suggest a human rights situation which deteriorating even further.

Thus the question that has dogged the post-9/11, markedly schizophrenic foreign policy establishment of the United States: Look the other way, or fall on the sword of ‘American values’?

Kiir rejects deployment of 4,000 regional troops to South Sudan

Ethiopia, Kenya and Rwanda are expected to contribute the bulk of the troops who will be authorised to use “all necessary means — including undertaking robust action — to fulfill their mandate”.

The force would ensure security in Juba and at the airport and “promptly and effectively engage any actor that is credibly found to be preparing or engaging in attacks”.

The council would consider imposing an arms embargo on South Sudan if UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reports that there are impediments to the deployment.

Ban will deliver a report to the council in 30 days and a vote on the embargo could take place in five days if he finds that the government is uncooperative.

South Sudan’s war has raged for two and half years, fuelled by growing stockpiles of weapons.

Britain voiced disappointment that the embargo was not imposed immediately with deputy ambassador Peter Wilson telling the council: “We must and we will return to this issue.”

TOUGH NEGOTIATIONS

The vote followed a week of tough negotiations, with China, Russia and Egypt voicing concerns over deploying UN peacekeepers without the government’s full consent.

South Sudan’s ambassador said his government rejected the resolution, telling the council that details of the deployment — including timing and the weapons the troops would be allowed to carry — must be negotiated with Juba.

“Consent of South Sudan would have been important as it would have given the force the necessary freedom to carry out the outlined mandate tasks,” said Akuei Bona Malwal.

Uganda, an ally of President Kiir, said it would not contribute troops to the force, even as the UNHCR reported that 82,000 South Sudanese had crossed into Uganda in the last five weeks.

“No one thinks this regional force will be a cure-all to the instability and the violence that exists there,” US deputy ambassador David Pressman told reporters.