ICC: Sudan Faces Risk of Further Sanctions and Isolation
May 3, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan faces the risk of further sanctions and isolation after unequivocally ruling out any cooperation with the International Criminal Court over Darfur, analysts warned on Thursday.
The Hague-based court on Wednesday issued its first arrest warrants over the Darfur conflict in a bid to bring two Sudanese to trial on counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
But Khartoum swiftly rejected the ICC’s jurisdiction, and made it clear it would not hand over minister of state for humanitarian affairs Ahmed Haroun and Janjaweed militia leader Ali Kosheib.
"The government should have had the wisdom to bend to the will of the ICC. Now it will have to face grave consequences — the issue will move from being a simple demand for the suspects to be handed over to a possible confrontation with the (UN) Security Council," said Sudanese professor of international law Sheikh Eddin Shiddo.
He said that if the Security Council becomes involved — which is more than likely — it could go as far as imposing economic sanctions or even using force under Chapter Seven of the UN Charter.
This would increase the pressure on Khartoum, which is suspected by more than one Western government of dragging its feet on the deployment of a robust international peacekeeping force in Darfur, the western Sudanese region embroiled in civil conflict.
Some Sudanese press analysts have questioned the government position, which is to reject any collaboration with the ICC and not attempt to use legal mechanisms to contest the charges, which were made at the end of February.
They say the government should have consulted international lawyers with a view to contesting the ICC allegations.
Khartoum has instead stuck to a position of principle that as Sudan did not accept the establishment of the ICC, the court had no jurisdiction over its citizens.
The authorities have also stressed that Sudanese justice is both independent and competent enough to try those suspected of committing abuses in Darfur.
Such a position is wrong, according to analyst Saleh Mahmoud, a lawyer and communist member of parliament. He believes that the government "has failed to organise credible trials for those suspected of being behind crimes in Darfur."
Mahmoud said the ICC issued the arrest warrants because "Sudanese justice has not shown a willingness to judge" officials for abuses in Darfur, where the United Nations says civil war has killed some 200,000 people and two million have been forced to flee their homes since the conflict began in 2003.
Sudan says that only 9,000 have died.
Janjaweed leader Kosheib was detained last year but the opening of his trial was postponed indefinitely, while Haroun was exonerated by an official Sudanese commission of inquiry that investigated his time as deputy interior minister in charge of Darfur.
Haroun and Kosheib face a long list of 42 and 50 charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes respectively.
In ICC documents released on Wednesday the judges said there were "reasonable grounds" to conclude that the pair was "criminally responsible" for crimes including torture, mass rape and the forced displacement of entire villages during a series of attacks in western Darfur in 2003 and 2004.
As a foretaste of the pressures Sudan risks exposing itself to, both the United States and France have called on Khartoum to cooperate with the ICC, whose chief prosecutor has said the two accused will be brought to justice.
"These two will have to face justice, they will be in the dock, in two months or two years... they know that," ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo told AFP on Wednesday after the warrants were issued.
Sudanese Justice Minister Mohamed Ali al-Mardhi said the ICC move was political and further evidence that the court was being used by the West to "pressure Sudan" into accepting an international force in Darfur.
The international community has been urging Khartoum to accept a robust UN peacekeeping force to prop up the embattled African Union contingent which has been deployed in Darfur since 2004.
Rights organisations Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have underlined the necessity of Sudan cooperating with the ICC, which has been charged by the United Nations with investigating allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.
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