PARIS (AFP) – France on Friday raised the possibility of suspending international war crimes proceedings against Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir in exchange for a “gesture” of good will from Khartoum on Darfur.
“What we want is to relaunch the search for a peace settlement through dialogue,” an official at the French presidency said, asked whether Paris could back a suspension of the probe by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
“If this dialogue resumes, gets under way in good conditions, makes good progress, if the Sudanese government makes gestures towards the ICC, then it would make sense to think about how the Security Council could take account of the new situation,” he said.
ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo asked the court in July for an arrest warrant for Beshir on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in its western province of Darfur.
The court is expected to reach a decision in the coming weeks on whether to issue the warrant.
But the UN Security Council has the option of deferring the prosecution for one year, renewable, if backed by nine of its 15 members and all five permanent members, which include France.
Sudan has been working hard to ward off potential charges, drumming up support from the African Union (AU) and Arab League.
Both bodies have urged the Security Council to defer the probe, warning it risks stoking further unrest in Sudan, and the AU plans to raise the issue at the UN General Assembly that opened in New York this week.
Rebels in Darfur have reported an upsurge in fighting over the past week, with heavy attacks on their positions by government and militia forces, and thousands of civilians are reported to have fled the fighting.
The official at the French presidency stressed it was “very premature” to talk of a UN resolution on the question.
But he suggested Khartoum could make a “gesture” concerning two other figures targeted by ICC arrest warrants, whom it it has so far refused to hand over to the court.
The French foreign ministry called Friday for Sudan to respect the decisions of the ICC concerning the pair, Sudanese humanitarian affairs minister Ahmed Haroun and militia chief Ali Kosheib.
But five non-governmental organisations including Amnesty International wrote to French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Thursday saying they feared Paris was planning a compromise that would allow Khartoum to try them in Sudan.
The NGOs warned the French president, who made tackling the Darfur conflict an election pledge, that any compromise on the war crimes probe would “deal a major blow to the credibility and dissuasive power of the international criminal justice system.”
“Khartoum certainly has the means of applying pressure, with thousands of UN soldiers deployed on its soil, but we must not give to the Sudanese government’s blackmail,” warned Clement Boursin of Acat-France, a group that campaigns against torture.
Boursin said Paris is seeking assurances on the end of fighting in Darfur, the resumption of political negotiations, the normalisation of relations between Sudan and Chad, and the deployment of the UN force in Darfur.
“It is the eternal, difficult debate that faces governments. What is our priority? Is it to stop a war, to end the killings, to save human lives. Or is it to carry out justice via the ICC?” said the Elysee official.
According to the United Nations, up to 300,000 people have died in Darfur and more than 2.2 million have fled their homes since rebels rose up against Khartoum in February 2003. Sudan says 10,000 people have been killed.
In a related development…
A press conference was held at the UN Headquarters on developments relating to International Criminal Court investigation in Darfur, role of Security Council
There would be “no peace without justice in Darfur”, and any delay by the International Criminal Court in prosecuting the President of the Sudan would be devastating to the peace process in the region, Sudanese opposition Member of Parliament Salih Mahmoud Osman said at a Headquarters press conference today.
The press conference, sponsored by the Permanent Mission of Liechtenstein to the United Nations, was held jointly by Mr. Osman; Richard Dicker, Director of the International Justice Programme at Human Rights Watch; Osman Hummaida, a Sudanese human rights researcher and campaigner; and William Pace, Convenor of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court. It was held prior to the general debate of the sixty-third General Assembly session to provide more information on the implications of an Article 16 deferral of the President’s possible prosecution by the International Criminal Court.
In July 2008, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, requested an arrest warrant for President Omer Hassan Ahmad Al-Bashir. The request charged the President with 10 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. At the time of today’s press conference, the Court’s judges had yet to issue a decision on the Prosecutor’s application.
Mr. Pace said the African Union Peace and Security Council was expected to hold a special meeting on Monday, 22 September, to discuss a resolution calling for the United Nations Security Council to “instruct the ICC to back off its consideration of the allegations by the Prosecutor”.
Mr. Dicker added that efforts by countries or regional groups to press the Security Council to suspend the accusations against the President and give him a “get out of jail free card” would thus permeate the General Assembly’s general debate, as well as behind-the-scenes ministerial consultations. “What this is all about is setting the stage and positioning for what will be round two at the Security Council to barter responsibility for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes for impunity on behalf of Omer Al-Bashir.”
The President and Government of the Sudan were responsible for numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity, as well as the forced displacement of more than 3 million people, said Mr. Osman. “If we consider the nature of crimes that are still occurring, it is extrajudicial killings, torture and rape, which has been used as a weapon of war.” There was now a culture of impunity in the Sudan since none of the perpetrators of those crimes had been brought to justice. “Our judicial system is incompetent and unwilling to bring perpetrators to justice,” he said, adding that only the arrest and prosecution of the President could end the culture of impunity and bring lasting peace to Darfur.
However, there were many who disagreed with that opinion, Mr. Hummaida pointed out, explaining fears that an International Criminal Court case against the President might undermine the peace process in Darfur and jeopardize the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between North and South Sudan. It might also be the cause for retaliatory attacks by the Government against civilians, humanitarian workers or United Nations Peacekeepers. Backing down now would be a mistake. “The [Prosecutor’s] announcement has shifted the balance of power inside Sudan for those who are calling for reform, changes, accountability and political transformation, and it has demoralized the hardliners and the Government of Sudan.” A deferral of the prosecution would send a message to the President and his Government that they had won and those calling for change and justice in the Sudan would be at risk once again.
Asked about the possibility of a deal between the International Criminal Court and the Government of the Sudan, wherein the Security Council would vote to defer the case regarding President Bashir in return for the handing over of two Sudanese officials for whom the Court had already issued arrest warrants, Mr. Hummaidi said such a deal would be difficult, if not impossible, since it would have serious implications for other members of the Sudanese Government who might themselves have been involved in war crimes.
In response to a question regarding the possibility of the Sudanese leading their own investigation into the war crimes allegations, Mr. Dicker said he would “welcome a serious effort by Sudan to prosecute its own”, but to date, the Government had done nothing to investigate or prosecute the most grave crimes. It would be up to the International Criminal Court judges to decide whether or not national efforts to investigate or prosecute were satisfactory and if it should step in.
Asked how big an impact an indictment would have on the President’s behaviour, Mr. Osman in turn asked what it would mean if there were no indictment at all. “We have a situation where a perpetrator of genocide is threatening to commit even more crimes. What’s the role of the international community if you allow that? Isn’t there any moral responsibility?”
Regarding rumours that the Prosecutor’s request for an arrest warrant was based partly on information provided by the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID), Mr. Dicker explained that the United Nations had long had a relationship agreement with the International Criminal Court that allowed for such types of cooperation between the two bodies.
When asked whether such information-sharing might put peacekeeping operations and staff at risk, Mr. Dicker said: “If the UN were to decide that it would allow a Government to bully it into silence in confining its own human rights reporting and what it did with that information, I think that would be a huge step back for the UN, its commitment to human rights, and its credibility.”
Source: United Nations Department of Public Information (DPI)
WASHINGTON – The Judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) have officially started consideration of the application by prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo requesting an arrest warrant for Sudanese president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir.
In mid-July Ocampo announced that he is seeking an arrest warrant for Al-Bashir.
The ICC’s prosecutor filed 10 charges: three counts of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and two of murder.
There has been much speculation about when the ICC judges will make a decision on the prosecutor’s application with a widely expected date of October 15, three months following Ocampo’s announcement.
However Ocampo downplayed these speculations saying that a decision will likely not be made until the judges ask to meet with him.
Today the Judges of the Pre-Trial Chamber I issued a decision convening a closed meeting with the prosecutor “to receive additional information”.
The judges of the Pre-Trial Chamber I consist of Akua Kuenyehia from Ghana, Sylvia Steiner from Brazil and Anita Usacka from Latvia.
The closed session will take place on October 1st but the items that will be discussed was not disclosed in today’s decision.
ICC Judges routinely meet with the prosecutor following a request submitted by him for an arrest warrant or summons to appear to question aspects of the case before making a decision.
Last year the Pre-Trial Chamber I convened a similar meeting with the prosecutor to discuss the application regarding Ahmed Haroun, state minister for humanitarian affairs, and Kushayb charged in connection with Darfur war crimes.
The meeting is believed to have discussed whether or not the two suspects will surrender themselves voluntarily to the court justifying a summons to appear rather than an arrest warrant.
The Judges eventually decided to issue an arrest warrant for the two suspects which remains pending.
It is expected that Pre-Trial Chamber I will take between a few weeks to 3 months to decide on Al-Bashir’s arrest warrant but it could take longer dragging into the next year.
Many observers await whether the Judges will endorse genocide counts brought against the Sudanese president which are likely to have political consequences particularly for Khartoum’s allies in The Arab world and Africa.
European Union (EU) rules prohibit its officials from communicating with individuals indicted of war crimes.
If the judges affirm Ocampo’s application Al-Bashir will be the first sitting head of state indicted while in office of war crimes.
The ICC prosecutor has maintained a 100% success rate in all the requests for arrest warrants he previously made to the judges in the other cases handled by the court.
Sudan has not ratified the Rome Statute, but the 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.
The situation on the Djibouti-Eritrean border remains volatile after a flaring of tensions on the border in June left over 35 dead and dozens wounded, a United Nations fact-finding mission reported today.
The mission concluded that Djibouti is being drawn into a crippling and expensive military mobilization to deal with a situation that may threaten national, regional and international peace.
In early June serious clashes were reported between the Djibouti Armed Forces (DAF) and the Eritrean Defence Forces (EDF) along the undemarcated border between the two Horn of Africa countries in an area known as Doumeira. The armed combat followed several weeks of military build-up and growing tension between the two sides since April.
The team also noted that Eritrea refused to receive the UN fact-finding mission, and consequently only Djibouti’s version of events was made available to them.
“If not addressed in a timely and comprehensive manner, the Djibouti-Eritrea issue could have a major negative impact on the entire region and the wider international community,” the report stated.
“The possible destabilization of Djibouti and the militarization of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait [connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and a strategic link to the Mediterranean] do not augur well for peace in the region or for international shipping and investment. Solutions must therefore be found as a matter of the utmost priority.”
The report placed the onus on Eritrea, which has alleged aggression by Djibouti, to cooperate with the UN and establish the facts to support its allegations.
The UN should persuade Eritrea and Djibouti to demilitarize the border and return to the “status quo ante as at February,” according to the report.
“The Djibouti army has since pulled back. It is only logical that the Eritrean forces do the same, as was demanded by the Security Council. No country should be allowed to disregard the decisions of the Security Council with impunity.”
The fact-finding mission also drew attention to the need for both parties to agree on which of the colonial treaties and protocols should be accepted as the basis for defining their common border – the 1897 Abyssinia-France treaty, the 1900-1901 France-Italy protocols, or the 1935 France-Italy treaty.
“It is tragic that the two countries have been on the verge of war over treaties and protocols negotiated when they did not exist as independent States.”
(UN News Service) ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA – The Tripartite Commission on the voluntary repatriation of Sudanese refugees in Ethiopia projected a repatriation figure of 12,000 for the year 2009- a number close to half of the 26,492 refugees currently in Ethiopia. Most of them will go from Fugnido camp in Gambella which is accommodating 21,690 refugees.
A further 2,000 are expected to return to Upper Nile and other States during late 2008 if conditions allow.
Composed of officials of the governments of Ethiopia and Sudan and representatives of UNHCR, the Commission was established by the Tripartite Agreement the three sides had signed in February 2006 which paved the way for tens of thousands of refugees to repatriate in a safe and dignified manner. The Agreement also set out the roles and obligations of each side in facilitating the repatriation. The Commission is charged with coordinating and planning the repatriation activities and giving guidance on the matter.
Concluding its third meeting here late yesterday, the Commission said in a joint communiqué that the projections can be translated into actual achievements if all parties to the repatriation- the governments of Ethiopia and Sudan, UNHCR and other UN agencies, NGO partners and the donor community- discharge their responsibilities well.
It underlined the need for more investment in the areas of return in order for the return exercise to be a truly lasting solution. “More investment and social infrastructure is needed in Upper Nile and Jonglei States to ensure the sustainability of returns. In this, the Government of Sudan and UNHCR undertook to redouble their efforts to attract adequate funding and partnerships and investment to ensure sustainable reintegration,” a paragraph from the joint communiqué reads.
The Commission expressed concern on the accessibility problems that afflict the repatriation operation, particularly the collapse of the Pagak bridge in Gambella Regional State and inaccessibility of a 17km road Kuorgen-Pagak road. It called for exerting more efforts on the parts of all concerned to ensure that lack of accessibility shall not hamper the pace of the repatriation. It also recommended the option of airlift for those going to otherwise inaccessible destinations in Southern Sudan such as Akobo and Pochalla.
“Lucian makes the Ethiopians to have excelled all other nations in wisdom and literature.” And, continues Cummings Antiquities: Heliodorus says, that the Ethiopians had two sorts of letters, the one called regal, the other vulgar; and that the regal resembled the sacerdotal characters of the Egyptians.”
We have already treated upon that first branch of their literature, hieroglyphics, under the head of Builders of the Pyramids, and we add here, that according to Lucian, “they invented astronomy and astrology, and communicated those sciences, as well as other branches of learning, to the Egyptians. As their country was very fit for making celestial observations, such a notion seems not entirely groundless, though scarce any particulars of their knowledge had reached us.”
We present here, copied from Cummings taken from the great History of Ethiopia by that learned Israelite in Ethiopian literature, Job Ludolphus, the regal letters or Royal Ethiopians Alphabet, which none but the kings, priests, royal family and nobility were expected to learn.
The hieroglyphics were the vulgar or common letters, because representing objects or things to the eye, known and understood at sight by the common people, the compositions or combination of which into sentences, could easily be learned by them. Hence, a hawk, for swiftness, meant dispatch or hasty news; a crocodile, for its meanness, meant malice; a serpent, danger; the open right hand, plenty; the closed left hand, safety or security: a jackal, watchfulness or vigilance; an oxen, patience; a sheep, innocence or harmlessness; a dove, love and innocence; a pigeon, news sent abroad; a swallow, news received; a rat or rabbit, caution, to be aware from their ruining habits; a water jug, thirst; the eye, Divine watchfulness, all seeing; water, to run as a stream; land or territory, a country,
representing hills and dales, an owl, always ominous and portentious; a dog, friendship, fidelity, faithfulness and trustworthiness; and a cat, companionship, meekness and constancy; a cock, boast or banter; a horse and chariot, preparation for war; all of which readily address themselves to the senses and comprehension of the common people.
The hieroglyphics are letters forming a literature founded upon the philosophy of nature without alphabet; but that which we shall now present is of much higher order, being artificial characters based on metaphysical philosophy of language.
With our limited knowledge in archaeology, we have always believed that the philosophy and root of alphabetical literature had its origin in Africa, or with the Hamite family. We have gone a step aside from this, and claimed that the first sixteen letters of the Greek alphabet, from alpha A to pi II, originated in Africa, as a part of the sacerdotal alphabet, the Greeks adding eight more from ro to omega.
We call attention to the Ethiopian alphabet presented above, the oldest, we believe, on record, if we discard the extraordinary assertion of Confucius, the Chinese historian, who claims for his race, a civilization and literature fifteen thousands years older than the theological period of creation. But happily for our claim, we believe they have no alphabetical arrangement.
The Old Original Ethiopian Alphabet
The second Ethiopian Bet gives the twentieth Greek upsilon small, a little modified, inverted;
the fifth Haut gives the twenty first Greek psi modified;
seventh Zai gives eta the seventh Greek;
the eighth Ethiopian Hbam gives the fourteenth Greek xi modified;
the tenth Lawi gives lambda, the eleventh Greek, modified;
the fifteenth Saat gives pi, the sixteenth Greek modified;
the sixteenth Ain gives delta the fourth Greek, inverted;
the nineteenth Kof gives phi the twenty first Greek;
the twentieth Rees, gives zeta, the sixth Greek;
the twenty first Saut gives small omega the fifteenth Greek;
the twenty fourth Tawi gives tau the nineteenth Greek, modified.
There is a slight modification in several of the letters, but the essential structure of the character is the same in both.
We regard the comparison of much importance in such a work as this, upon a most interesting subject to the whole human family.
And we must here beg to be borne with when we record our conviction tht the literature of the Israelites, both in the science of letters, and government, also religion, was derived from the Africans, as they must have carried with them the civilization of those peoples and that country, in their memorable exodus, as the highest encomium upon Moses in the Scripture is, that he “was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.” Or that their religion and laws, we shall treat to another place.
They “invented Astronomy and Astrology,” says Lucian.
And this important fact, however much it may be doubted by those who have given little or no thought to the subject, is borne out by the arrangement of this department of science, as the constellations beautifully illustrate. We shall designate the principal constellations having a direct bearing upon the subject, according to the legend of astronomical history: Cepheus and Cassiopea, Andromeda and Perseus, Pegassus and Cetus: the horse which carried them (the son in law and daughter) to heaven, and the monster of the sea which approached the shore of Ethiopia to destroy the Princess while taking a surf bath, when she was saved by Perseus, who was watching her, and slew the monster, and escaped to heaven on the winged horse. Orion and Auriga, beautiful constellations, are none other than Nimrod and Rameses II and Sirius is none other than Osiris.
And all these important facts seem to have been lost sight of, or passed unnoticed, by those who dispute so high a civilization as this given to the Ethiopians at so early a day, as being the authors of astronomical science. And do not these facts of those people comport with the living reality of their knowledge of the science of geometry, by the existence of those monuments of mathematical accuracy, the “everlasting Pyramids”?
What power brought to the plains of Egypt, through sand and bog, from no one knows where, shaped, lifted and placed those great cubic rocks of many thousand tons weight, one above the other in regular and symmaterical layers to a given height, decreasing from the first surface layer, finishing by a capstone, large enough for from twenty to forty persons to stand upon, but a knowledge of mathematics? None other whatever.
And doubtless, it was dwelling among and studying, in after ages, the structure of these great monuments, that induced Euclid to pursue his mathematical studies to the discovery of the forty seventh problem, which seems to be the ne plus ultraof termination of problems in that science, as none beyond it has since been discovered.
COLUMBUS, OHIO – Meaza Awoke, a native of Ethiopia who lives in Westerville, registered to vote yesterday and plans to cast a ballot for the first time in her life in November.
Awoke, 44, co-owner of the Blue Nile restaurant with her husband, Mequanent Berihun, said that in the 16 years she has lived in the United States she has seen the economy and employment decline and affect her business.
“Small businesses are dying because the economy is bad,” said Awoke, who hopes the next president will create jobs. “People aren’t eating out. Our customers have been laid off.”
Spanish teacher Carmen Ladman gleefully accepts a naturalization certificate from federal court deputy Fran Green to the cheers of her students from Columbus School for Girls. Ladman was the last of 300 new citizens to receive a certificate at yesterday’s ceremony at Veterans Memorial.
Doral Chenoweth III | dispatch
Spanish teacher Carmen Ladman gleefully accepts a naturalization certificate from federal court deputy Fran Green to the cheers of her students from Columbus School for Girls. Ladman was the last of 300 new citizens to receive a certificate at yesterday’s ceremony at Veterans Memorial.
Carmen Ladman used to plan her trips home to El Salvador around her country’s presidential elections so she could vote. After becoming a U.S. citizen yesterday, she won’t have to travel so far to cast her ballot this year. She will vote in America for the first time.
“How important this election is for this country made me apply (for citizenship) to vote,” said Ladman, 52, who has lived in the United States 12 years. “I’m a believer that we all have to do something.
“If I don’t participate in the process, I don’t have the right to say this is right or this is wrong.”
Ladman, of Worthington, was among 300 people who became citizens yesterday at a ceremony at Veterans Memorial. Many of the new Americans, ranging in age from 18 to 79 and hailing from 73 countries, completed voter-registration forms afterward.
Completing the long citizenship process and living in a politically important state will drive most of these new citizens to the polls, said Paul Beck, professor of political science at Ohio State University.
“New citizens really take their rights as citizens seriously,” Beck said. “You can expect these people to show up at the polls in November.”
More than 2,900 people have been naturalized in Columbus since January. U.S. District Judge Michael H. Watson, one of three judges at the ceremony, told the new citizens: “Exercise your right to vote and engage others. Many lives have been lost fighting to preserve this precious right of citizenship.”
Ladman, a Spanish-language instructor at the Columbus School for Girls for 11 years, discusses immigration issues in her classes. Yesterday, 46 of her students witnessed a civics lesson in action when they watched her take the citizenship oath.
Brothers Manuel and Rafael Rizo, who were born in Mexico and moved to this country in 1997, sat next to each other and took the citizenship oath together.
Rafael Rizo, 21, said he’s glad he is now officially an American so he can vote to improve conditions for immigrants. “I’m looking at the candidates and who is for freedom, jobs and who is doing more stuff for immigrants,” said Rizo of Delaware.
Becoming a citizen is important to Yelena Chaykovskaya, 61, a native of Uzbekistan, because she feels at home here. In her native country, poverty and violence made life difficult.
But now she is concerned about the challenges facing her new nation, especially war. Chaykovskaya, who lives in Alexandria in Licking County, plans to vote to address the country’s needs.
“Right now America has very big problems,” she said.
to omega 
.
small, a little modified, inverted;
modified;
the seventh Greek;
modified;
the eleventh Greek, modified;
, the sixteenth Greek modified;
the fourth Greek, inverted;
the twenty first Greek;
, the sixth Greek;
the fifteenth Greek;
the nineteenth Greek, modified.