WE ARE ALL THE KEEPERS OF JUSTICE

Without our diligence to work toward justice, justice will not happen.

We are all the keepers of justice.

Niemat Ahmadi Addresses the International Criminal Court

Niemat Ahmadi, Darfuri Liaison Officer at the Save Darfur Coalition today addressed an open meeting of the States Parties to the International Criminal Court at UN Headquarters in New York. The meeting comes just three days after the Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, announced that he is seeking an arrest warrant for Sudanese president Omar Al-Bashir.

The prosecutor has charged Bashir with criminal responsibility for 10 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Ahmadi represented the Darfuri community, many of whom overwhelmingly support the prosecutor’s decision, and made a strong claim that both peace and justice are necessary and achievable. The event also included remarks by Moreno-Ocampo and the Secretary General of the U.N., Ban Ki-Moon. The full-text of her remarks is below.

The Danger of Enabling Al-bashir

As the slaughter in Darfur is in its sixth year, conditions continue to deteriorate for civilians. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, even by the most conservative estimates. The United Nations officially puts the death toll at roughly 300,000, while Jan Pronk recently puts the number at no less than 400,000. Up to 2.5 million Darfuris have fled their homes and continue to live in camps throughout Darfur, or in refugee camps in Chad and the Central African Republic. Based on Sudan’s behavior over the past five years—indeed since al-Bashir assumed power in 1989, it is clear that unless the international community imposes massive political costs for al-Bashir’s intentional and calculated obstructionism, not to mention criminal behavior, his government will continue to buy time by accepting initiatives only to backtrack later or impose new conditions that render them useless.

Darfuris have been suffering, not only from an orchestrated campaign to eliminate them, but also from year after year of inaction by the international community. This week, Darfuris finally got a welcome bit of news: the prosecutor at the ICC charged al-Bashir with 10 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Let me be categorical about this: the people of Darfur wholeheartedly welcome and support this effort by Mr. Luis Moreno Ocampo!

Unfortunately, this good news is being drowned out by the many voices that insist —falsely, I might add—that justice and peace for Darfuris are incompatible and that they can only have one at the cost of the other. Unfortunately, whether they realize it or not, the intellectuals, academics, and practitioners who are advancing this claim that peace and justice are mutually exclusive are helping al-Bashir and his inner circle avoid the consequences of their crimes, and therefore are unnecessarily prolonging the suffering of innocent civilians. Let me be clear about this as well: the people of Darfur categorically reject this approach in principle! We reject it because it is inaccurate, we reject it because it is unjust, and we reject it because it flaunts centuries of traditional Darfuri conflict resolution mechanisms that have been intentionally sabotaged by Khartoum.

Let me ask you this: what does peace mean to me as a Darfuri woman who was forced to flea her home in the dark of night? What does peace mean to the many thousands of girls and women who were repeatedly raped in a calculated effort to destroy a community? What does peace mean to those that are dying a slow agonizing death in the camps while strangers have taken over their land? What does it mean to hundreds of thousands of orphaned children? What does it mean to the millions of elderly, women and children who rely on the WFP and others to not starve? Let me tell you that to those people there is NO peace WITHOUT justice. It is important to listen to the voices of the victims, and those who have argued that justice will derail a non-existent peace have not done so.

I, and millions of Darfuris and other advocates of peace AND justice, commend Mr. Ocampo for his courage and diligence. I appeal to all states and all UN organs to not undo his great work through their inaction. On behalf of those millions who have died, suffered and continue to suffer as I speak to you today, I call on the ICC, the Security Council and all other relevant actors to not engage al-Bashir in the perverse calculus of justice OR peace. We want and deserve both justice AND peace. He has not taken meaningful steps toward either of those goals for nearly six years. It would be shortsighted to give him the benefit of the doubt now. Over the past few days, as many of you have surely seen and heard, al-Bashir has made some of the most conciliatory statement with regard to Darfur in the past six years. He is also calling on his allies in the African Union and the Arab League and China, not to help resolve the crisis, but rather to provide him with the political cover that he so desperately needs now. Al-Bashir has not had a change of heart, he is reacting to increased international pressure; now is the time to demand verifiable changes in Khartoum’s behavior, changes that will further both goals of peace AND justice…actions that will have a concrete and measurable positive effect for the people of Darfur who have suffered for far too long already.

Nobody can ask the people of Darfur to relinquish their right to hold the perpetrators of mass atrocities accountable in exchange for vague promises of peace and security in Darfur. Our people have witnessed too many peace initiatives fail and too many delays in the deployment of peacekeepers who can protect the vulnerable. We understand the difficulty at hand in dealing with an authoritarian and genocidal government such as the one led by al-Bashir. However, there are no moral or legal grounds to strip the victims of their rights for political expediency.

Thank you.

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• Darfur Investigator Finds Refugees' Voices In Tune with Sudan Indictment

  7/18/2008

  With the International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo's application for an arrest warrant this week against Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the volley of threats between the international community and the Sudan government is intensifying.
• Prosecutor looks at 3rd war crimes case in Darfur

  7/18/2008

  UNITED NATIONS -- With an arrest warrant pending against Sudan's president, the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor said Thursday he was focusing on another war crime case in Darfur involving two suspected rebel commanders allegedly directing attacks against peacekeepers.
• Prosecutor to Pursue Rebels in Next Case on Darfur Crisis

  7/17/2008

  UNITED NATIONS Days after seeking an arrest warrant for the Sudanese president, the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court said on Thursday that his next case on the conflict in Darfur would focus on the rebels thought to be responsible for a deadly attack on international peacekeepers in September.
• Sudan rules out deal with ICC over Bashir warrant

  7/17/2008

  KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan on Thursday rejected a deal with the International Criminal Court to hand over two indicted officials in exchange for dropping the court's arrest warrant for President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.
• Bush Warned He Might Send Troops to Darfur: Wade

  7/17/2008

  Filed at 5:34 p.m. ET DAKAR (Reuters) - Senegal's president said on Thursday George W. Bush told African leaders at one stage the United States might send troops to Sudan's Darfur if they did not act to halt what he saw as genocide there.
• Trying Sudanese President Poses Unique Challenges

  7/17/2008

• China boosts peacekeepers in Darfur

  7/17/2008

  KHARTOUM (AFP) - Extra Chinese engineers were en route for Sudan's war-torn western region of Darfur on Thursday, set to boost the number of UN-led peacekeeping troops to more than 8,000, a spokeswoman said.
• Prosecuting Genocide

  7/17/2008

  Many aid workers and diplomats suffered a panic attack when the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court sought an arrest warrant this week for the president of Sudan, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, for committing genocide.
• Warrant for Sudanese Is Talk of Security Council

  7/16/2008

  UNITED NATIONS Russia and China voiced concerns on Wednesday about the pursuit of Sudans president by international prosecutors, raising the possibility that the United Nations Security Council could intervene to forestall the prosecution, diplomats said.
• Another peacekeeper shot and killed in Darfur as UN debates extending the peace mission

  7/16/2008

  UNITED NATIONS (AP) _ Gunmen in Darfur shot and killed another United Nations-African Union peacekeeper Wednesday, just as the U.N. Security Council voted to condemn the killing of seven Darfur peacekeepers a week ago as a possible war crime.

Source: blogfordarfur.org/2008/07/18/ahmadi-addresses-icc-meeting

BBC Uncovers Chinese Role in Darfur

Earlier this week, the BBC found the first pieces of evidence suggesting that China has been providing Sudan weapons that are used to carry out the genocide - in violation of a U.N. arms embargo.

Read more on the Save Darfur Blog for Darfur - July 15, 2008 - Save Darfur blasts Chinas on- going military links with genocidal regime

Matthew 25:31-46