KHARTOUM, SUDAN (ST) – The Sudanese government revealed today that a militia leader wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) has been detained and will stand trial for his alleged role in Darfur war crimes.
The Sudanese justice minister Abdel-Basit Sabdarat told the Associated Press from Cairo that militia commander Ali Mohamed Ali Abdel-Rahman, also know as Ali Kushayb “is in government custody”.
“Kushayb will be tried in Sudan’s domestic courts. He is under investigation. He will be held accountable” Sabdarat said.
The move come almost three months after the ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo announced in mid-July that he requested an arrest warrant against Sudanese president Omar Hassan Al-Bashir.
Following that Sudan has been looking into ways that would allow it to avoid confrontation with the international community over the ICC through conducting trials for lesser suspects.
The judges of the ICC issued arrest warrants last year for Kushayb and Ahmed Haroun, state minister for humanitarian affairs on 51 counts of alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes. But Khartoum has so far refused to hand them over.
Khartoum had long claimed that Kushayb was in custody since November 2006 for investigations into allegations of violations he committed during the peak of the Darfur conflict in 2004.
Sudan’s former Justice Minister Mohamed Ali al-Mardi told a news conference in Khartoum in February 2007 that “Ali Kushayb, along with two other individuals, was sent for trial. He was detained as a suspect, questioned, his statements were evaluated and witness statements recorded, and then the decision was taken to refer him to court”.
But in March 2007 Kushayb’s trial was delayed when the defendants filed an appeal with the Justice ministry after which Abu-Zeid told reporters that Kushayb’s appeal was denied that there is “sufficient evidence to proceed with the case”.
Shortly afterwards the Sudanese justice ministry ordered a ban on publishing reports or details relating to criminal cases on Darfur conflict and many observers at the time voiced skepticism over Khartoum’s seriousness to try perpetrators of crimes in the war ravaged region.
In October 2007 Sudan’s former foreign minister Lam Akol told the pro-government daily Al-Rayaam from New York that Kushayb was freed “due to lack of incriminating evidence against him”.
However Al-Mardi issued a quick denial to the Al-Rayaam report describing it as “false” without directly commenting on Akol’s statements.
The former Justice Minister was asked again by Al-Rayaam last November on the whereabouts of Kushayb and he reiterated that the militia leader was “never released” before saying that he refrained from commenting on the issue “because it is under investigation”.
In April the spokesman for the Sudanese embassy in London, Khalid Al-Mubarak was quoted by Voice of America (VOA) as saying that Haroun and Kushayb were not prosecuted “because there is no evidence against them”.
Again in June Amin Hassan Omar, a leading figure in the National Congress Party (NCP) and a state minister also confirmed Kushayb’s release.
Sabdarat did not say on what charges will Kushayb be prosecuted despite earlier assertions that he has been cleared from any wrongdoings.
The ICC Statute prevents investigation into crimes that were looked into by local judiciary under the concept of “complementarity”.
Sudan must prosecute Haroun and Kushayb for the same accusations brought against them by the ICC in order for the latter to lose jurisdiction over their cases.
Sudan has not ratified the Rome Statute, but the UN Security Council (UNSC) triggered the provisions under the Statute that enables it to refer situations in non-State parties to the world court if it deems that it is a threat to international peace and security.
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Ethiopia’s regime said on Monday it had signed a 210 million euro deal with France’s Vergnet Group to build a 120 megawatt wind turbine project.
Ethiopia suffers from frequent power shortages due to interruptions to its hydropower generation. Work on the wind farm at Ashegoda, near Mekele town in northern Tigray Region, is expected to be complete within three years.
The Ethiopian Electric Power Authority said in a statement that the project, the first of its kind in the country, will add 120 MW to the national grid, boosting total capacity to 934 MW.
(New York) – Ethiopia’s parliament should reject a draft law that would criminalize human rights activity and seriously undermine civil society groups, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch called on donor governments to speak out publicly against the bill, which is expected to be introduced in parliament this month.
The Charities and Societies Proclamation (CSO law) would provide the government a potent tool to intimidate and weaken Ethiopia’s long beleaguered civil society. Although the bill has been revised twice since May 2008, the current version retains many of the most alarming provisions.
“The only reason to have such a repressive law is if it would be used to strangle Ethiopia’s few remaining independent voices,” said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Donor governments should make clear to Ethiopia that enacting this law will threaten future funding.”
The CSO law would bar both foreign and Ethiopian organizations that receive more than 10 percent of their funding from abroad from undertaking any activities in human rights, gender equality, children’s rights, disabled persons’ rights, conflict resolution, and strengthening judicial practices and law enforcement, among related activities. The law would also exclude groups that are largely funded by Ethiopians living in the diaspora from working on these issues. The law would carry severe criminal penalties for violations, including three to five years of imprisonment for minor administrative violations.
The draft law would establish a Charities and Societies Agency that would have enormous discretion to “regulate” civil society organizations, with few procedural safeguards and virtually no right of appeal of most of its decisions. Agency officials could arbitrarily refuse to register an organization, order organization staff or leadership suspended, and make onerous demands for documents and other information.
The proposed law violates Ethiopia’s obligations under its own constitution, regional African treaties, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Ethiopian officials claim that the law is intended to create “improved mechanisms to monitor nongovernmental organizations,” but the bill presents a far more intrusive regulatory framework than legislation adopted by many other countries, including Malawi, Tanzania, and South Africa.
“Ethiopia claims the civil society law would promote accountability, but other countries achieve this without banning human rights activity,” said Gagnon. “As the seat of the African Union, Ethiopia should be at the forefront of efforts to promote good governance instead of a leader in civil society oppression.”
Independent or critical voices, including those of political opposition, already face increasing pressure in Ethiopia. The country’s human rights situation has markedly deteriorated since the disputed 2005 elections, when security forces killed scores of demonstrators during street protests and arbitrarily arrested tens of thousands of others.
The government detained dozens of human rights defenders, opposition leaders, and journalists in November 2005 and tried them on treason charges. More than 100 of these people, including 25 journalists and publishers, were finally acquitted in April 2007, and 38 people, mostly opposition leaders, were pardoned in July 2007 after pleading guilty. Two civil society activists who were arrested in the same round-up and refused to plead guilty were finally released in March 2008 after spending more than two years in prison and being convicted on baseless charges of incitement.
Ethiopia’s bilateral donors provide more than US$1 billion in aid each year to what is one of the world’s poorest countries and an important ally in regional counterterrorism efforts. Key governments, including the United States, France, and the United Kingdom, have quietly pressed the Ethiopian government to amend the most repressive provisions of the proposed law, to little apparent effect.
Donor governments have refused to condemn serious human rights abuses in Ethiopia publicly, claiming that quiet pressure achieves more impact. Over the past two years, though, Ethiopian security forces have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, both within Ethiopia and in neighboring Somalia, without being called to account for their actions.
“Quiet diplomacy has failed to convince the Ethiopian government to address serious abuses,” said Gagnon. “Donors need to say loud and clear that continued repression will have financial consequences.”
ADDIS ABABA (AFP) — Human Rights Watch urged Ethiopian lawmakers Woyanne officials on Monday to reject legislation it says would slap major government restrictions on foreign aid groups and ban them from some activities.
Ethiopia’s [fake] parliament will debate the Charities and Societies Proclamation bill later this month.
The legislation would give the government greater control over foreign NGOs and ban them from work related to ethnicity, gender and children’s rights, Human Rights Watch said.
In a statement, the New York-based watchdog urged Ethiopian lawmakers to reject the law “that would criminalise human rights activity and seriously undermine civil society groups.”
It also called on donor governments to “speak out publicly against the bill.”
Although the bill has been revised twice since May 2008, the current version retains many of the most controversial provisions.
“The only reason to have such a repressive law is if it would be used to strangle Ethiopia’s few remaining independent voices,” said Human Rights Watch’s Africa director Georgette Gagnon.
“Donor governments should make clear to Ethiopia the Woyanne regime that enacting this law will threaten future funding,” she added.
The law would carry severe criminal penalties for violations, including three to five years of imprisonment for minor administrative violations, HRW said.
The chairperson of Union for Democracy and Justice (UDJ), Wzr. Birtukan Mideksa, held a press conference on Sunday, Oct. 12. In the press conference, Birtukan explained her party’s current and future programs. She talked about participating in the 2010 elections and a budget proposal of 7.3 million birr that will be used to carry out party activities. Birtukan said the money for the proposed budget will be raised from membership fees and other means.
Asked to explain the difference between UDJ and Dr Beyene Petros’ fake opposition party, United Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF), Birtukan said the difference is that Dr. Beyene’s party is organized along ethnic lines.
To the question that UDJ never speaks about the fate of millions of Ethiopians who are facing starvation, Birtukan said that starvation to Ethiopia is not new and that it has become one of those things that Ethiopia is identified with. However, she said, that her party will do a study and present solutions.
Regarding the implementation of the Kinjit 8-Point proposal for participating in future elections, Birtukan answered that as a party that chose to wage peaceful methods of struggle, participating in elections is one of UDJ’s main activities.
Sunday’s press conference has affirmed that UDJ will take part in the 2010 fake elections that will be used only to fool the international community into legitimizing Woyanne as an elected Ethiopian government. Woyanne will then turn around and beg for hundreds of millions of dollars from the international community on behalf of Ethiopia. The donated money will be used by Woyanne to continue pillaging and plundering Ethiopia.
With help from the likes of UDJ the Woyanne tribal junta will get more foreign aid to buy more weapons and continue to commit atrocities against our brothers and sisters in Gambela, Gojam, Gonder, Ogaden, Oromia, Shewa, Sidama, Somalia and other parts of Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. Woyanne will increase the salary of its mercenary army to keep the killers loyal and brutal. A large portion of the money will be siphoned off by the corrupt Woyanne officials.
Thousands have lost their lives, so many have made enormous sacrifices for the principles Kinjit had advocated. By dropping Kinijit’s 8-point Proposal, thus joining the ranks of Dr Beyene Petros and Lidetu Ayalew, UDJ has betrayed the people of Ethiopia.
Kinjit’s 8-Point Proposal states the following:
1. The Restructuring of the Election Board into an Independent body.
2. Freedom of and access to All Media
3. Independent legal system (free from Woyanne party control)
4. An Independent Commission to investigate the killings of innocent Ethiopians following the May 2005 elections
5. Non-involvement of armed forces in political affairs
6. Reinstatement of parliamentary procedures and governance of Addis Ababa in accordance with the verdict of the people
7. Release of all political prisoners
8. Independent commission or body to adjudicate the above.
It is not possible to form a new political party and take part in an election without the implementation of these preconditions. Most of these preconditions are not only true for Ethiopia, but also for countries that are continuously working to build their democracy. They are the foundations for fair and free elections, as well as representative governments.
UDJ’s activities are also nothing but fraudulent. After dropping the 8-Points, UDJ has called itself the former Kinjit and taken funds that were raised for Kinjit in the U.S. and EU. Ethiopians in the Diaspora had made contributions believing that the Kinijit leaders will continue to struggle for the principles they advocated, not to create a new party that surrenders the people’s vote to the Woyanne dictatorship.
Senior UDJ leader Prof. Mesfin WoldeMariam had traveled to the U.S. last July and asked Ethiopians to follow the teachings and practices of the Tibetan Dalai Lama, instead of the teachings of our own Atse Tewodros, Atse Menelik, Dejazmach Balcha and other Ethiopian leaders who kept our country united and respected for thousands of years. It seems like the professor doesn’t know that his hero, the Dalai Lama, currently lives in exile. Does the professor know that there is no such country called Tibet today and if we follow the Dalai Lama teachings, we may lose our country, too?
To add insults to injury, UDJ leaders such as Wz. Birtukan and Prof. Mesfin, have called freedom fighters that are sacrificing their lives for freedom and democracy “primitive” and “neftenoch” — the same word Woyanne uses to demonize the Amhara ethnic group.
As Woyanne currently starves millions of Ethiopians, the UDJ leadership remains mute. When international human right groups raise alarms about the war crimes in Ogaden and Somalia, the UDJ leadership is mute. When U.S. senators work on a bill to stop aid to Woyanne, the UDJ leadership is mute. When Meles admitted to giving Ethiopian territory to Sudan, the UDJ leadership is mute. When the brave EPPF army chased away the occupying Sudanese army, the UDJ leadership called the method used by the brave fighters “backward.”
Enough Is Enough! Ethiopia has seen so many of her own children betray her. Today’s generation of Ethiopians must take the responsibility to confront and expose UDJ and all the other fake ‘opposition’ groups that are helping the Woyanne vampire regime prolong its destructive rule over our country.
LISTEN THE PRESS CONFERENCE HERE
PART 1 [podcast]http://www.kinijitla.org/Audio/Birtukan_Oct_12_08_Part_1.mp3[/podcast]
PART 2 [podcast]http://www.kinijitla.org/Audio/Birtukan_Oct_12_08_Part_2.mp3[/podcast]
