The arrest of Radovan Karadzic on Monday gave badly needed credibility to international war crimes tribunals that have struggled for years to bring fugitives to justice, according to former prosecutors, legal experts and human rights groups. And the arrest bolstered arguments from tribunal officials that patience, multilateral diplomacy and creativity can make the institutions more effective.
“It’s building up piece by piece,” said Martha Minow, a law professor at Harvard and an expert on war crimes trials. “This is building up the legitimacy of these institutions.”
Mr. Karadzic will be the third high-profile figure to be brought before a United Nations-backed tribunal on war crimes charges in the last six years, following in the footsteps of President Charles Taylor of Liberia and the Serbian president, Slobodan Milosevic. For years, supporters of the tribunals have argued that if leaders were brought to trial the courts could serve as a deterrent.
But Mr. Karadzic, who remained free for nearly 13 years, made a mockery of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, which in 1983 became the first such body established by the United Nations.
Although repeatedly seen in public when American and NATO forces entered Bosnia in 1996, he was not arrested, in part out of fear that seizing him could cause a violent backlash against NATO forces.
Instead, the United States and the European Union tried to use economic and diplomatic pressure on Serbia to force his arrest. Until Monday, the policy appeared to be a failure.
At the same time, other war crimes tribunals established by the United Nations came under fire. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was criticized by Rwandans as being hugely expensive, based outside Rwanda and largely detached from the country itself. And the establishment of the International Criminal Court — a permanent tribunal intended to prosecute war crimes globally — was delayed for years by tortuous negotiations and fierce opposition from the Bush administration.
Only last week, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court was criticized for requesting that genocide charges be filed against President Omar al- Bashir of Sudan. Critics warned that the move would complicate peace negotiations for the Darfur region of Sudan and never lead to Mr. Bashir’s arrest, given the international community’s poor track record on arresting fugitives.
After Mr. Karadzic’s s arrest, legal experts said his capture bring subtle new pressure to bear on the Sudanese leader.
“When Karadzic was indicted back in 1995, nobody really expected he’d ever actually get arrested,” said Gary Bass, a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University and the author of “Stay the Hand of Vengeance: The Politics of War Crimes Tribunals.” “It’s not clear how exactly Bashir could wind up in The Hague,” he added, “but the Karadzic example has got to make Bashir think hard.”
Privately, officials from the war crimes tribunals have argued that the United States and its allies have lacked the political will to make arrests and at the same time failed to use a complex array of diplomatic and economic measures to bring fugitives to justice. The international community has more options than either using military force to arrest a fugitive or doing nothing, they say. Economic sanctions, indictments and travel restrictions all place small but steady pressure on individuals accused of war crimes and on their patrons.
Undermining a leader’s or regime’s legitimacy can also serve as leverage.
“The third way is what the world needs,” said one war crimes investigator who spoke on condition of anonymity. “The problem is we are thinking two ways: we accept him or we go to war with him.”
Critics point out that the tribunals’ track records have, until now, been poor. Mr. Karadzic’s arrest now does not make up for more than a decade of successful defiance. The amount of time it took to pressure Serbia to arrest Mr. Karadzic shows how easy it is for states to defy and divide the international community.
For years, many of survivors of the 1995 massacres in Srebrenica — for which Mr. Karadzic was indicted on genocide charges — mocked the Yugoslavia tribunal as a toothless and expensive show put on by the international community. They said the court, which is based in the Netherlands and has an annual budget of $150 million, would remain a multimillion-dollar failure until Mr. Karadzic and his military commander and co-defendant, Gen. Ratko Mladic, were arrested.
Richard Goldstone, a South African jurist who served as the Yugoslavia tribunal’s first chief prosecutor and indicted Mr. Karadzic in 1995, said it was critical that Serbian officials also arrest General Mladic, who remains free and is believed to be hiding in Serbia as well. “I just hope that Mladic is not that far behind,” he said.
Human rights groups said the arrest of Mr. Karadzic had the potential to significantly bolster the clout of the long-maligned tribunals. Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch’s International Justice Program, said that Mr. Karadzic had come to “personify impunity.”
“For international justice, this is a very good thing,” he said. “ I think it validates that justice has a long memory and a long reach.”
“Multicolored Flowers,” a film by Fikre Tolossa will be featured in Los Angeles, July 27
Dr. Fikre Tolossa’s feature film, “Multicolored Flowers,” a coming of age drama with comical and satirical overtones and undertones, will be featured in Los Angeles, California on Sunday July 27, starting 3:00 PM at the Jewish Community Center.
If blacks “acted white” in the past to fit in, now whites “act black” to fit in, in this movie, which witnesses that times are changing.
In the spirit of artistic cooperation, in addition to Dr. Fikre Tolossa, the young film-maker Mekdelawit Tadesse, will present a one hour documentary on the lives of a few movers and shakers Ethiopians residing in the United States, entitled, “Immigrants.”
Moreover, a budding poet, Asfawossen Alemseged, will premier his latest book, “Tsehay Tiwotalech,” reciting a few verses out of it.
Ethiopians living in Los Angeles and its surroundings are welcome to feast on this unusual combination of artistic extravaganza.
Dozens of drivers of Ethiopian descent were pulled over by police and breathalyzed in Ashdod last week only because of the color of their skin, a number of witnesses told The Jerusalem Post Monday.
The incident took place after a bar mitzva celebration that lasted until about 2 a.m., and which attracted some 1,200 guests from across the country, mostly Ethiopian Israelis.
Asher Tziyun, a public-sector worker from Ashdod, described leaving the event and seeing a large number of police vehicles on the road leading to Highway 4.
“I thought there was a terrorist attack,” he said. “They stopped each Ethiopian driver and breathalyzed them. I felt humiliated – they did not check any white drivers. I support police checks for drunk drivers, but this was much more than that. Police conduct here was based on race. I’ve been in the country for 30 years, and I’ve never felt that I don’t belong before this.”
Tziyun described the conduct of officers as “hostile and humiliating. They had a lack of respect, but what was the crime?” he asked.
Tziyun’s description was supported by Yisrael Beyene, also of Ashdod, who said he was so outraged by what he had experienced that he sent a letter to Public Security Minister Avi Dichter over the incident.
“It’s simply humiliating,” he said. “Everyone who was there had the same feeling. About 100 meters from the event hall, at the entrance to Ashdod, we saw about 10 police cars. Every Thursday and Friday night, we see police employ this tactic outside parties. Many cars were pulled over, but what amazed us is that they only stopped Ethiopians. That really upset us.”
“Why only us?” Beyene asked. “I witnessed a car with a non-Ethiopian driver being waved on by police after the officer shone his flashlight into the car and saw the driver. I got out and asked the lead officer why this selection was taking place? Her response was demeaning; she ignored my question. I began filming the incident on my cellphone, and I was threatened with arrest for interfering with police work.”
“I have lived in Israel for 25 years,” he added. “This is the only experience that humiliated me. I saw racism.”
Uri Beru, of Netanya, was breathalyzed by police.
“I say, do the test, no problem,” he said. “But why, after I passed it the first time, was I asked to do it again? Police said the device wasn’t working, so they asked me to blow into a second device. I complied, but then they told me that, too, wasn’t working. They brought in a special device. Then I was asked to walk outside of the car with my eyes closed for 30 meters.
“I was seriously delayed, and this was a stressful experience. What really hurt us is that they stopped Ethiopians only. We are Israelis in every way, and we accept the law. But we cannot be given exceptional treatment,” Beru said.
In response, a spokesman for the Traffic Police said: “These claims are baseless. Since the start of the year, police have pulled over 250,000 drivers and have looked for drunk drivers irrespective of race or gender. Our one aim is to prevent drunk driving.”
The police targeted areas, not ethnic minorities, the spokesman said, adding: “I totally reject the notion that discrimination took place.”
(The Canadian Press) OTTAWA — After 18 months of fruitless effort, Canadian officials in Ethiopia have succeeded in visiting a former Toronto man held under mysterious circumstances in an Addis Ababa jail.
The Foreign Affairs Department said Monday that diplomats in the East African country saw imprisoned Canadian Bashir Makhtal last Friday. “Canadian officials were able to verify Mr. Makhtal’s well-being during our recent consular visit,” Foreign Affairs spokesman Shaun Tinkler said in an email response to questions from The Canadian Press.
“We will continue to press Ethiopian authorities to ensure that we are provided with regular consular access.”
Lorne Waldman, Makhtal’s lawyer, said Foreign Affairs told him of the visit but provided him no details. “We haven’t been given a report about what transpired during the meeting.”
Waldman has long been worried by unofficial reports from Ethiopia that Makhtal has already appeared before a military court where he will face trial.
“The military courts are notorious for their lack of due process,” Waldman said Monday.
Tinkler said the department “has not been advised of any criminal charges filed against Mr. Makhtal by Ethiopian authorities.”
Belay Kidane, first counsellor at the Ethiopian Embassy in Ottawa, had no comment on the case Monday, calling it an “issue of national security for us.”
Makhtal, a Canadian citizen born in Ethiopia, came to Canada as a refugee and later moved to Kenya, where he opened a used-clothing business.
He was on business in Somalia during an invasion by Ethiopian troops in late 2006. Makhtal fled back to Kenya, but was detained along with several others at the Kenya-Somalia border.
There have been suggestions he is of interest to the Ethiopian government due to his grandfather’s involvement in a separatist group in the country’s Ogaden region.
New York-based organization Human Rights Watch says Makhtal was among at least 34 people deported to Somalia from Kenya on Jan. 20, 2007, aboard an African Express Airways flight to Mogadishu.
Makhtal was later shipped to Ethiopia, and Canadian officials have tried repeatedly to see him – efforts that did not pay off until last Friday.
Human Rights Watch maintains that beginning in late December 2006, Kenyan security forces arrested at least 150 people of some 18 different nationalities at border crossing points with Somalia. These individuals were then detained in and around Nairobi for periods that violated Kenyan law, the group says.
While held in Nairobi, intelligence officials, including American authorities, interrogated several foreign nationals, Human Rights Watch said. Subsequent deportations on a series of special flights amounted to a joint removal of individuals of “interest to the Somali, Ethiopian or U.S. governments.”
But for more than a year there have been more questions than answers about Makhtal’s case.
“There’s never been any official acknowledgment that he’s been charged,” Waldman said.
“Bashir’s family has tried repeatedly to get a lawyer to see him, and every effort has been rebuffed.”
Calgary MP Deepak Obhrai, the parliamentary secretary for foreign affairs, expressed Canadian concern over the case during a March visit to Ethiopia.
But access to Makhtal continued to be denied.
Waldman is heartened by the fact Canadian officials have now visited Makhtal in prison, but he criticized Ottawa for being too timid.
“I’m very grateful that as a result of all the hard work of the consular officials, they’ve been able to achieve access for Bashir, but I think it would have happened sooner and we would be far further down the road if there had been a more aggressive intervention.”
Waldman has long argued that Canada should use its generous aid to Ethiopia as a means of ensuring co-operation in Makhtal’s case.
The slender stone columns which mark the tombs of ancient kings and nobles still stand in a green field at the edge of the modern town of Axum.
But these days the site is dominated by a huge tower of scaffolding, topped by a yellow mobile crane, which dwarfs King Ezana’s obelisk, the one royal monument still standing.
Inside the scaffolding lies part of the Axum Obelisk, looted by Italian troops in 1937 during their brief occupation of Abyssinia.
Italy returned the 1,700-year-old monument in 2005, after decades of negotiations between the two countries.
The obelisk, which weighs more than 150 tonnes, was taken back to Ethiopia in three pieces. Now it is being restored and resurrected back in its original home.
Unique
At the moment an ugly fence of corrugated iron screens off the working area.
But if you get inside, you can see the first chunk of the Rome obelisk already in place, in the centre of the scaffolding tower.
It has been firmly cemented into its new foundations, exactly where it stood in antiquity.
The remains of the old foundations lie nearby – huge blocks of stone cut to fit the base of the monument.
The Great Obelisk – the largest of all – still lies in the area
When the work is done they will be placed alongside so visitors can see the how things were done before the days of cranes and concrete.
The base of the column is a huge block of grey granite, carved – as if it was the ground floor of a tall building – with the unmistakable image of a door, complete with a ring-shaped door handle.
One of the most astonishing things about these monuments is that they appear to mimic the facades of multi-story buildings.
Fisseha Zibelo, from Ethiopia’s ministry of culture, says this carving shows the imagination of the monuments’ creators.
“We know they had two- and three-storey buildings, because in Axum there are big buildings with more than one storey, ” he said, “but here they were imagining the skyscrapers of the future.”
The two other sections of the obelisk are still lying nearby on concrete supports.
It is a unique opportunity to get close to them, to see the sharp clarity of the details, nearly 2,000 years after they were first carved.
You can see the window frames of the imaginary building, and the round beam-ends protruding from the walls in characteristic Axumite building style.
Protective collar
The middle section is due to be hoisted into place soon and is almost ready to go.
The work is being done by an Italian firm, Lattanzi. Site supervisor Mauro Cristini describes the whole project as experimental work.
“Nobody anywhere has ever done anything like this.”
But he says that although the middle section is massively heavy, it is in good condition, solid apart from a mended break at one corner.
That is not the case with the upper section, which is much more fragile.
The slender peak of the column, with its famous curved top, was already broken, and was struck by lightning in Rome, damaging it still further.
Mr Cristini’s workers are painting on a protective coating before fitting it with a strong collar – effectively a handle for the crane to hold onto while raising it into position.
The whole project to raise the obelisk has been quite controversial.
It was lying on the ground when the Italians found it, and had been on the ground for centuries. Some archaeologists think it should have been replaced in that position.
Not only is there the risk of damage to the obelisk itself during the work, but they worry that the new foundations could disturb the complex of underground tombs which lies beneath the monuments, and which has only recently begun to be explored.
The circle is closed now
Mauro Cristini
Site supervisor
And then there is the risk to King Ezana’s column, the one carved royal monument which has stood since antiquity, and which is very close to the construction works.
It already leans at a slight angle, and has been braced with steel hawsers to prevent it being damaged by the vibration caused by the heavy equipment.
It is regularly monitored, and Mr Cristini says that although some slight movement has been recorded, it has not been enough to cause concern.
The whole team – Ethiopian and Italian – are impatient to see the obelisk finally in place.
The last section should be placed in position in early August, ready for an official ceremony on the fourth of September, just before the end of Ethiopia’s millennium year.
Pride of place
“This monument was made by our ancestors” says Fisseha Zibelo. “It’s only in Axum that this kind of monument was made, so for us, it is a matter of pride and mark of our identity.”
As for Mr Cristini, he says for him this is a little bit of history.
“The circle is closed now,” he says.
“Before it was on the ground, but now the people of Ethiopia will be able to see it on its original site, so everything is going to be even better than before.”
(In the News) — Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai have agreed to a timetable for reconciliation talks.
The signing, at a hotel in Harare today, marked the first time they had met face to face for a decade.
Earlier, Haile Menkerios, the new United Nations envoy for the crisis, said Mr Mugabe and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader could sign a memorandum of understanding today.
Speaking at a news conference after the signing Mr Tsvangirai noted the significance and irrationality of the “leader of the ruling party meeting with the leader of the winning party”.
Mr Tsvangirai won the popular vote in the country’s presidential election in March but was denied an outright victory after failing to gain an overall majority.
He later pulled out of a run-off vote in June, allowing Mr Mugabe to stand uncontested and re-elected, amid increasing politically-motivated violence.
Yesterday the MDC leader said he could not enter into negotiations over a possible power-sharing agreement until Mr Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party met a series of key demands.
The MDC had called for all political prisoners to be released and for violence against its supporters to be renounced, as well as a permanent African Union (AU) envoy and the resumption of outside humanitarian aid work.
Mr Tsvangirai has also criticised the mediation of South African president Thabo Mbeki, with a greater role in talks for the UN, the AU and the South African Development Community (SADC) already agreed.
But Mr Mbeki was present as Mr Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai signed the breakthrough agreement.
Both men thanked the South African president for his role in the facilitation, which Mr Tsvangirai said would lead to the “first tentative steps towards a solution for a country which is in crisis”.
He said he hoped both sides to work towards a “common good” of a more prosperous and secure Zimbabwe.
“[Moving towards] these negotiations I hope that all of us will always bear in mind the mother and the child who goes to sleep without food, the people that have been brutalised, the divisions, the hate speech – I hope that will become part of the past,” the MDC leader continued.
“If we put our heads together I am sure we will find a solution.
“In fact, not finding a solution is not an option – I am sure we are all able to do our best. I can assure you from our party, we will do everything.”
Speaking moments later, Mr Mugabe praised Mr Mbeki for his mediation and the “positive insensitivity” with which he had greeted criticism of his facilitation.
“You must become insensitive, stubborn to it, because it’s wrong,” Mr Mugabe, in as much a message to himself as Mr Mbeki.
The circle is closed now 