Darfur 4

'The Merits of Justice
Report Date: 07/14/2008
by John Norris, David Sullivan, and John Prendergast


Would more people, or less people, rob banks if there was no penalty for robbing banks?

This week the International Criminal Court, or ICC, took important steps toward promoting peace and accountability in Sudan by urging an arrest warrant for crimes against humanity against the Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. Sadly, but somewhat unsurprisingly, the step has set off a chorus of hand-wringing among certain diplomats, academics, and pundits who are now arguing that holding perpetrators of crimes against humanity accountable for their actions is unhelpful. In the Financial Times a columnist positively quelled at the notion of bad people being held responsible for their actions, bemoaning that "the threat of international justice may in fact be working against peace." A veteran academic expressed his worry that almost all African senior officials could be made vulnerable to similar charges by this precedent.

Let's be clear: Holding people accountable for war crimes is not only the right thing to do from a moral perspective-it directly promotes peace and makes future such abuses less likely. Part of the reason Darfur has remained locked in crisis for years is that the international community has been slow to acknowledge what has always been painfully obvious: The janjaweed militias that have terrorized and decimated Darfur have been directed by the Sudanese government. The militias were financed by the government, and received direct battlefield support from the Sudanese military. The International Criminal Court is doing no more than acknowledging the plain, painful truth of Sudan's tragedy. The prosecutor should be congratulated for recognizing that turning a blind eye to war crimes is not helpful.

Case One: Slobodan Milosevic

If the hand-wringing all feels a bit familiar, it is because we have been through this more than once before. In 1999, during the Kosovo conflict, Slobodan Milosevic was indicted in the middle of not only a NATO bombing campaign to reverse the ethnic cleaning in Kosovo, but of high-level peace talks between the United States, Russia, and Finland to end the war.

Very few commentators took exception with the notion that Milosevic had been intimately involved in directing ethnic cleansing, genocide, and sundry other war crimes in Bosnia and Kosovo. But Russian envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin said the indictment "pulled out the rug from under the negotiating process,"
as both Russia and China decried what they called a "political" indictment that was designed to scuttle peace talks.[1] Others suggested the indictment would push Milosevic to stay in power permanently or lead his forces to adopt an even more brutal approach on the ground in Kosovo.[2] Some insisted that Milosevic would never face justice because the question of how he would be handed over to authorities was not immediately apparent. Instead of appreciating that Milosevic employed ethnic cleansing in Kosovo in large part because he had used such tactics with impunity in the earlier Bosnia conflict, commentators appeared deathly afraid that the international community might somehow offend Mr. Milosevic's delicate sensibilities.

Yet, in retrospect, the work of the Yugoslav tribunal and the indictment of Milosevic led to none of the doomsday scenarios envisioned by the skeptics.
Yes, the Russians postponed a single diplomatic trip to Belgrade for one week to express their dissatisfaction with the indictment, but the peace talks resumed quickly and Milosevic accepted the demands that were placed upon him: Kosovar refugees were allowed to return home; Serb forces withdrew from the province and a NATO-led force entered to provide security.

Milosevic's hold on power did not last long after the 1999 war and his indictment. When he tried to steal a September 2000 presidential election, Milosevic was ousted by massive street protests, and turned over to the international tribunal a number of months later. He died of a heart attack during his war crimes trial proceedings.

So, what did we learn from the Milosevic example?

Indictments don't necessarily derail peace talks and, indeed, they seem to be most helpful in clarifying the minds of dictators that their very existence is at stake.
Indictments send a powerful message to the cronies, business partners, and sycophants that orbit around such dictators that they may well be lashed to a sinking ship and should get out while they can. This allows more responsible political voices space to challenge the authority and destructive policies of the ruling government. The Kosovo conflict marked an important point when Milosevic's corrupt business partners began to see him as much as a liability as an asset.
War crimes indictments have a chilling effect on commanders on the ground.
Few military commanders want to be vulnerable to such prosecutions, and they are more likely to alter their behavior if they know the international community is serious about justice.
The fact that members of different ethnic communities were indicted for their particular crimes furthered the sense that the tribunal approached its work with an even hand.
More broadly, the war crimes prosecutions in the Balkans have been a remarkable cornerstone in allowing remarkably rapid progress in reconstruction, stability, and democratization across the region because they removed the most noxious nationalists who had inflicted such terrible suffering on the civilian population.
Case Two: Charles Taylor and His Conditional Exile...'

Lees verder: http://www.enoughproject.org/node/974