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Susan Rice and Africa’s Unholy Trinity

Matriarch of the Unholy Trinity

Susan Rice, the current U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., has been waltzing (or should I say do-se-do-ing) with Africa’s slyest, slickest and meanest dictators for nearly two decades. More cynical commentators have said she has been in bed with them, as it were. No doubt, international politics does make for strange bedfellows.

Rice’s favorite dictators in Africa are the “Unholy Trinity” — Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and the late Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia — all former rebel leaders who seized power through the barrel of the gun and were later baptized to become the “new breed of  African leaders” (a phrase of endearment coined by Bill Clinton to celebrate the “Three African Amigos” and memorialize their professed commitment to democracy and  economic development). She has been best friend for life and the acknowledged Guardian Angel, champion, apologist, promoter, advocate, grand dame and matriarch of the trio. She has shielded the “Fearsome, Threesome” from legal and political accountability, deflected from them much deserved criticism and thwarted national and international scrutiny and sanctions against the.

Rice, Rwanda and the Genocide That Was Not

In April 1994, when the Clinton Administration pretended to be ignorant of the unspeakable terror and massacres in Rwanda, Susan Rice — who by her own description “was a young Director on the National Security Council staff at the White House, accompanying the then-National Security Advisor, Anthony Lake” — and currently the putative heir apparent to Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, was unconcerned about taking immediate action to stop the killings. Rather, she was fretting about the political consequences of calling the Rwandan tragedy a “genocide”. In a monument to utter moral depravity and conscience-bending callous indifference, Rice casually inquired of her colleagues, “If we use the word ‘genocide’ and are seen as doing nothing, what will be the effect on the November [congressional] election?” Rice later shed crocodile tears for having made her senseless statement while simultaneously claiming she does not quite remember making it,  but regretted “if I said it.” Lt. Colonel Tony Marley, the U.S. military liaison to the Arusha peace process (the Arusha Peace Accords which resulted in the 1993 agreement for power sharing between Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda) was so baffled by Rice’s statement, he observed, “We could believe that people would wonder that, but not that they would actually voice it.”

In less than 100 days, 800 thousand Rwandans by U.N. estimate had been killed in the genocidal madness. For weeks, Rice, her boss Lake and other top U.S. officials labored and agonized not to call the monstrous Rwandan genocide, a genocide. They continued to play their sinister semantic bureaucratic games to make sure there were no official references to “genocide”, “ethnic cleansing”, “extermination” and the like in connection with the Rwandan tragedy. But far from regretting her role in underrating the Rwandan genocide and the massive and gross violations of human rights, over the past decade and half Rice has turned a blind eye, deaf ears and muted lips to extrajudicial killings, suppression of the press, decimation of opposition parties and imprisonment of large numbers of dissidents in Africa and aided and abetted Africa’s dictatorial trio. She has coddled, pampered, nurtured, protected and sang praises for these ruthless dictators.

U.S. policy in the 1994 Rwandan genocide will remain a testament to shame, diplomatic duplicity, bureaucratic sophistry and plain old fashioned callous deceitfulness. On April 6, 1994, the plane transporting Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, Burindian President Cyprien Ntaryamira and other officials was shot down as it returned from Tanzania. The prime suspects in the assassination are believed to be elements of the Rwandan Armed Forces (RAF) who had rejected a power sharing agreement Habyarimana had reached with the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) a year earlier. Immediately following Habyarimana’s assassination, RAF members aided by extremist militia elements known as the Interahamwe (which in Kinyarwanda means “those who stand/work/fight/attack together”) went on a rampage indiscriminately killing government officials, ordinary Tutsis and other moderate Hutus.

Rice and other top U.S. officials knew or should have known a genocide was underway or in the making once RAF and interahamwe militia began killing people in the streets and neighborhoods on April 6. They were receiving reports from the U.N. mission in Rwanda; and their own intelligence pointed to unspeakable massacres taking place in Kigali and elsewhere in the country. In a Memorandum dated April 6, 1994, the day of the Habyiarimana assassination, Deputy Assistant Secretary Prudence Bushnell, the State Department’s number two official for Africa matters, predicted:

If, as it appears, both Presidents have been killed, there is a strong likelihood that widespread violence could breakout in either or both countries, particularly if it is confirmed that the plane was shot down. Our strategy is to appeal for calm in both countries, both through public statements and in other ways…

On April 11, 1994, in a Talking Points Memorandum prepared for the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Middle East Africa concluded:

Unless both sides can be convinced to return to the peace process, a massive (hundreds of thousands of deaths) bloodbath will ensue that would likely spill over into Burundi. In addition, millions of refugees will flee into neighboring Uganda, Tanzania and Zaire…Since neither the French nor the Belgians have the trust of both sides…, there will be a role to play for the U.S. as the “honest broker.”

But Rice and company intentionally chose to minimize the extreme nature of the violence and kept on issuing empty declarations, pleas for a cease fire and calls to the parties to come to the negotiating table.

Two weeks into the genocide on April 22, presidential National Security Advisor Anthony Lake, Rice’s boss, issued a statement “expressing deep concern over the violence that continues to rage in Rwanda following the tragic deaths of Rwandan President Habyarimana and Burindian President Ntaryamira two weeks ago.” Lake called on “all responsible officials and military officers” to bring the “offending troops under control” and implement a “cease fire and return to negotiations.” By late April, the U.S. was still playing a “see no genocide, hear no genocide and speak no genocide” public relations game. On April 28, Bushnell “telephoned Rwandan Ministry of Defense Cabinet  Director Col. Bagasora to urge an end to the killings.” Bushnell told Bagasora that in the “eyes of the world, the Rwanda military engaged in criminal acts, aiding and abetting civilians massacres” and demanded that the Rwandan “Government make every effort to implement the peace accords.” Three weeks into the genocide, Bushnell was still talking about “massacres” as others “expressed deep concern over the violence.

On May 1, the central issue facing the Defense Department intra-agency group established to generate proposals on what to do in Rwanda was how to characterize the mindboggling genocidal carnage (excuse me, “massacre”). According to the “Discussion Paper” of this group, participants were warned not to use the “G” word because using that label could result in U.S. taking preventing action, exactly the same kind of concern explicitly raised by Rice:

1.      Genocide Investigation: Language that calls for an international investigation of human rights abuses and possible violations of the genocide convention. Be careful. Legal at State was worried about this yesterday– Genocide finding could commit USG to actually “do something”.

By May 5, the U.S. had considered jamming Rwandan radio stations such as Radio Mille Collines which was coordinating attacks and broadcasting highly inflammatory ethnic propaganda against Tutsis, moderate Hutus, Belgians, and the United Nations mission in Rwanda resulting in thousands of deaths. That idea was discarded as “ineffective” and  “expensive costing approximately $8,500 per flight hour”.

A little over one month into the genocide, a Defense Intelligence Report dated May 9, 1994, concluded:

… In addition to the random massacre of Tutsis by Hutu militias and individuals, there is an organized, parallel effort of genocide being implemented by the army to destroy the leadership of the Tutsi community. The original intent was to kill only the political elite  supporting reconciliation; however, the government lost control of the militias, and the massacre spread like wildfire. It continues to rage out of control.

By May 21, six weeks into the genocide, incredibly, U.S. officials were still debating whether they should call the carnage a “genocide” despite the open and notorious fact that tens of thousands of Rwandans were being slaughtered. In a May 21 “Action Memorandum” sent to Secretary of State Warren Christopher the question presented was “Has Genocide Occurred in Rwanda?” under the heading “Issue for Decision”, the Memorandum formulated the policy question as follows:

Whether (1) to authorize Department officials to state publicly that “acts of genocide have occurred” in Rwanda and (2) to authorize U.S. delegations to international meetings to agree to resolutions and other instruments that refer to “acts of genocide” in Rwanda, state that “genocide had occurred.

Of course, there was no question genocide was taking place in Rwanda. The Legal Analysis drafted on May 16, five days preceding the “Action Memorandum”, left no doubt about the occurrence of genocide. After citing the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, to which the U.S. is a party, the Legal Analysis concluded:

The Existence of Genocide in Rwanda

There can be little question that the specific listed acts have taken place in Rwanda. There have been numerous acts of killing and causing serious bodily or mental harm to persons. As INR [Bureau of Intelligence and Research] notes, international humanitarian organizations estimate the killings since April 6 have claimed from 200,000 to 500,000 lives. (INR also notes that this upper figure maybe exaggerated, but that is not critical to the analysis.).

[The UN estimated the number killed in Rwanda in less than 100 beginning on April 6, 1994 as 800,000; the Rwandan Government estimated 1,071,000 were killed in the genocide.]

Despite public protestations of ignorance of the Rwandan genocide, rivers of crocodile tears of not having done  something to prevent it and moral expiations about Clinton’s “worst mistake of my presidency”, Rice, Lake, Christopher and others high in the Clinton Administration knew beyond a shadow of doubt that genocide was in the planning or underway from the day Habarymana was assassinated.

Rice, Kagame,  Museveni, M23 and “Looking the Other Way”

In 1996, two years after the end of the genocide, on the pretext of pursuing Hutu insurgents and militia who were responsible for the Rwandan genocide and to prevent their incursions into Rwanda from bases in the Congo (at the time Zaire), Kagame began arming ethnic Tutsis  in the eastern part of that country. He also sent Rwandan troops to support them. The so-called Congo Wars were underway and continue to rage to the present day resulting in millions of lost lives.

The First Congo War lasted from November 1996 to May 1997. Congolese rebel leader Laurent-Désiré Kabila overthrew long ruling dictator Mobutu Sésé Seko. The Rwandan-created destabilization in eastern Congo was the decisive factor in the fall of Mobutu’s regime. Kabila seized power in May 1997 and was assassinated by one of his bodyguards in January 2001. In March 2012, former Kagame right hand man and secretary general of the RPF, Theogene Rudasingwa made the shocking revelation that “it’s Paul Kagame who assassinated the Congolese President, Laurent Desire Kabila;  Kagame is the murderer of the Congolese President Kabila.” The Second Congo War began shortly after Kabila took power and continued until 2003. Eight African countries and dozens of armed groups were involved in the conflict.

The government of the Democratic Republic of the CongoIn March 2009, the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) signed a peace accord with National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) (an armed militia established by Laurent Nkunda in the eastern  Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in December 2006) making the CNDP a political party. In April 2012, several hundred ethnic Tutsi members of the CNDP  turned against the DRC government over alleged lack of implementation of the March 2009 Accords and formed the M23 Movement [a/k/a Mouvement du 23-Mars] under the leadership of the notorious war criminal General Bosco Ntaganda, (a/k/a “The Terminator”). Ntaganda was initially indicted by the International Criminal Court on August 22, 2006 for recruiting child soldiers and committing atrocities. He was indicted by the ICC for the second time on July 13, 2012 on three counts of crimes against humanity and four counts of war crimes including murder, rape, attacks on civilians and slavery. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, Ntaganda’s boss and co-defendant, was  the first person ever convicted by the International Criminal Court in July 2012. Last month, Ntaganda’s M23 rebels took control of Goma, a provincial capital with a population of one million people causing some 140,000 people to flee their homes. They were “persuaded” to leave mineral-rich Goma in early December under international pressure although they presumably rejected similar calls by Kagame and Museveni.

Kagame and Museveni of Uganda have been the prime supporters of M23. Various U.N. and other international human rights organization have documented Rwanda’s and Uganda’s ongoing support for M23. According to a recent U.N. Report of the Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo (October 2012),

Rwanda officials coordinated the creation of the [M23] rebel movement as well as its major military operations… Senior Government of Uganda officials (GoU) have also provided support to M23 in the form of direct troop reinforcements in DRC territory, weapons deliveries, technical assistance, joint planning, political advice and facilitation of external relations. Units of the Ugandan People’s Defense Forces (UPDF) and the Rwandan Defesse Forces (RDF) jointly supported M23 in a series of attacks in July 2012 to take over the major towns of Rutshuru territory, and the forces armees de la RDC (FARDC) base of Rumangabo. Both governments have also cooperated to support the creation and expansion of M23’s political branch and have consistently advocated on behalf of the rebels. The M23 and its allies includes six sanctioned individuals, some of whom reside in or regularly travel to Uganda and Rwanda.

Museveni secretly met with NtagandaThis past August, Museveni secretly  met with Ntaganda and M23 rebels. Prof. Howard French of Columbia University, in his NY Times article “Kagame’s Secret War in the Congo”   described the conflict in the Great Lakes Region (the seven great lakes in the Rift Valley region) since 1996 in which six million people have died in the from armed conflict, starvation and disease as an epochal event of the Twentieth Century. He argued:

Few realize that a main force driving this conflict has been the largely Tutsi army of neighboring Rwanda, along with several Congolese groups supported by Rwanda…. Until now, the US and other Western powers have generally supported Kagame diplomatically. Observers note that Rwandan-backed forces have themselves been responsible for much of the violence in eastern Congo over the years… The Rwandan Patriotic Front was directly operating mining businesses in Congo, according to UN investigators; more recently, Rwanda has attempted to maintain control of regions of eastern Congo through various proxy armies.

Rice has been shielding Kagame and Museveni from scrutiny and sanctions in their role in the DRC. She has made every effort to suppress U.N. investigative reports showing Kagame’s role in supplying and financing  M23. According to the National Journal, Rice “has even wrangled with Johnnie Carson, the assistant secretary of State for the Bureau of African Affairs, and others in the department, who all have been more critical of the Rwandans.” The Journal reported that Rice was dismissive of the French ambassador to the U.N. who advised her of the need for the U.N. to do more to intervene in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She reportedly told the French Ambassador, “It’s the eastern DRC. If it’s not M23, it’s going to be some other group.” The Journal quoting Prof. Gerard Prunier of the University of Paris reported:

When Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Susan Rice came back from her first trip to the Great Lakes region [of East Africa], a member of her staff said, “Museveni [of Uganda] and Kagame agree that the basic problem in the Great Lakes is the danger of a resurgence of genocide and they know how to deal with that. The only thing we [i.e., the US] have to do is look the other way.”

Such is the true nature of Rice’s crocodile contrition for the Rwanda genocide. Simply stated, Rice’s attitude towards Africa’s Unholy Trinity can be summed up as “see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil” of genocidal dictators.

Susan Rice and the Adoration of Meles Zenawi

Susan Rice and the Adoration of Meles ZenawiOn September 2, 2012, Rice sent three tweets to her followers in Twitter-dom as she prepared to deliver her funeral (ad)oration for Meles Zenawi:

“Palpable sorrow felt here in Addis Ababa. We extend our condolences & best wishes to the Ethiopian people.” “Meles leaves an indelible legacy for the people of #Ethiopia, from opposition to extremism to support for the poor.” “I am honored to represent the United States at the funeral of late PM Meles Zenawi of #Ethiopia.”

Rice may have believed she “represented the United States” in her appearance, but her funeral oration for Meles Zenawi was personal and bordered on beatification. She described Meles as “an uncommon leader, a rare visionary, and a true friend to me and many.” She said he “was disarmingly regular, unpretentious, and direct. He was selfless, tireless and totally dedicated to his work and family.” Rice reminisced about her close familial ties and deep friendship with Meles:

Whenever we met, no matter how beset he was, he would always begin by asking me about my children. His inquiries were never superficial. He wanted detailed reports on their development. Then satisfied, he would eagerly update me on his own children. Meles was a proud father and a devoted husband. As he laughed about his children’s exploits and bragged about their achievements, a face sometimes creased by worry, would glow with simple joy. In his children and all children, Meles saw the promise of renewal and the power of hope.

She said Meles “retained that twinkle in his eye, his ready smile, his roiling laugh and his wicked sense of humor.” In an incredibly insensitive and callous manner, she related how Meles “was tough, unsentimental and sometimes unyielding.” She announced that Meles “of course had little patience for fools, or idiots, as he liked to call them.” (These “fools” and “idiots” are, of course, Ethiopian opposition leaders, dissidents, independent journalists, human rights advocates and regime critics.)

But Rice’s adoration of Meles would put the Three Magi who followed the star to Bethlehem to shame:

For, among Prime Minister Meles’ many admirable qualities, above all was his world-class mind. A life-long student, he taught himself and many others so much. But he wasn’t just brilliant. He wasn’t just a relentless negotiator and a formidable debater. He wasn’t just a thirsty consumer of knowledge. He was uncommonly wise – able to see the big picture and the long game, even when others would allow immediate pressures to overwhelm sound judgment. Those rare traits were the foundation of his greatest contributions.

Still, there was no shortage of occasions when, as governments and friends, we simply, sometimes profoundly, disagreed. But even as we argued – whether about economics, democracy, human rights, regional security or our respective foreign policies – I was always struck by two things: Meles was consistently reasoned in his judgments and thoughtful in his decisions; and, he was driven not by ideology but by his vision of a better future for this land he loved. I will deeply miss the challenge and the insights I gained from our discussions and debates.

In her “Adoration”, Rice was completely blinded to Meles’ atrocious human rights record. She was willfully ignorant of the findings of her own State Department U.S. Country Reports on Human Rights Practices in Ethiopia issued in May 2012, which stated:

The most significant human rights problems [in Ethiopia] included the government’s arrest of more than 100 opposition political figures, activists, journalists, and bloggers… The government restricted freedom of the press, and fear of harassment and arrest led journalists to practice self-censorship. The Charities and Societies Proclamation (CSO law) continued to impose severe restrictions on civil society and nongovernmental organization (NGO) activities… Other human rights problems included torture, beating, abuse, and mistreatment of detainees by security forces; harsh and at times life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention; detention without charge and lengthy pretrial detention; infringement on citizens’ privacy rights, including illegal searches; allegations of abuses in connection with the continued low-level conflict in parts of the Somali region; restrictions on freedom of assembly, association, and movement; police, administrative, and judicial corruption; violence and societal discrimination against women and abuse of children; female genital mutilation (FGM); exploitation of children for economic and sexual purposes; trafficking in persons; societal discrimination against persons with disabilities; clashes between ethnic minorities; discrimination against persons based on their sexual orientation and against persons with HIV/AIDS; limits on worker rights; forced labor; and child labor, including forced child labor.

On October 27, 2012, Rice attended a “Memorial Service for Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi” at Abyssinian Baptist Church and gave a second eulogy:

I come again both as a representative of the U.S. government and as a friend of a man I truly miss… The Meles I knew was profoundly human and down to earth. He probably often figured he was the smartest person in the room, and most of the time Meles was right – at least about that. His legacy is one of Africa’s fastest-growing economies. He laid the foundations for Ethiopia’s sustainable development. He gave new momentum to Africa’s struggle to address climate change. He spurred his nation to double its food production and redouble its commitment to forestall another famine that could snuff out so many innocent lives. He played mid-wife to the birth of South Sudan and worked energetically to help South Sudan and Sudan resolve their differences peacefully. Last month’s accords, though fragile, are a monument to his unyielding efforts. Meles helped build the African Union. He sent peacekeepers to the world’s hottest spots and countered terrorists such as al-Shabab who target the innocent….

May the spirit of Meles Zenawi spur us all to work ever harder, together, for a better Ethiopia, a better Africa, and a better world.

Rice completely ignored the fact that 200 unarmed protesters were massacred in the streets and nearly 800 seriously wounded by police and security forces under the personal command and control of Meles following the 2005 elections. She turned a blind eye to crimes against humanity committed in Gambella in 2004 and war crimes committed in the Ogaden in 2008 . She had forgotten the stolen election of 2010 and fact that Meles’ party won 99.6 percent of the seats in parliament. She was completely oblivious of the thousands of political prisoners, including opposition leaders, dissidents and journalists,  rotting in Ethiopian prisons as she was waxing eloquent in her emotional eulogy. She could see Meles’ “brilliance” but not his arrogance. She could see his “world-class mind” but not his black heart. She said he was “uncommonly wise”, but could not see his common folly. She “profoundly disagreed with him on democracy and human rights”, but she would ignore all his crimes against humanity because he was “a true friend” of hers.

The words of contrition Rice gave when she visited Kigali on November 23, 2011 could have been incorporated in her eulogy in Addis Ababa on September 2:

Today, I am here as an American ambassador. But I also will speak for myself, from my heart. I visited Rwanda for the very first time in December 1994, six months after the genocide ended. I was a young Director on the National Security Council staff at the White House, accompanying the then-National Security Advisor, Anthony Lake. I was responsible then for issues relating to the United Nations and peacekeeping. And needless to say, we saw first-hand the spectacular consequences of the poor decisions taken by those countries, including my own and yours, that were then serving on the United Nations Security Council.

I will never forget the horror of walking through a church and an adjacent schoolyard where one of the massacres had occurred. Six months later, the decomposing bodies of those who had been so cruelly murdered still lay strewn around what should have been a place of peace. For me, the memory of stepping around and over those corpses will remain the most searing reminder imaginable of what humans can do to one another. Those images stay with me in the work I do today, ensuring that I can never forget how important it is for all of us to prevent genocide from recurring. 

How important is it for all of us, particularly Susan Rice, to prevent extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary arrests and detention, detention without charge and lengthy pretrial detention, infringement on citizens’ privacy rights, illegal searches, restrictions on freedom of assembly, association, and movement… on the African continent?

Susan Rice and the Ghosts of Ethiopia

On September 2 and October 27, 2012, Rice had no idea, no recollection, no remembrance of the hundreds of unarmed protesting Ethiopians who were massacred in the streets, the thousands of political prisoners and  hundreds of dissidents and journalists languishing in jail in Ethiopia today. In 1994, Rice was willfully blind to the genocide in Rwanda. In 2012, she was willfully blind to the long train of human rights abuses and atrocities in Ethiopia. America does not need a friend and a buddy to African dictators as its Secretary of State. America does not need a Secretary of State with a heart of stone and tears of a crocodile. America does not need a “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” Secretary of State.  America needs a Secretary of State who can tell the difference between human rights and  government wrongs!

Is it not true that one can judge a (wo)man by his/her friends?

Professor Alemayehu G. Mariam teaches political science at California State University, San Bernardino and is a practicing defense lawyer.

Previous commentaries by the author are available at:

Amharic translations of recent commentaries by the author may be found at:

African Dictators: Can’t Run, Can’t Hide!

Alemayehu G Mariam

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is on the chase; and over the past few months, things have taken a slow turn for the worse for African dictators and human rights violators. They are finding out that they can’t run and they can’t hide.

Laurent “Cling-to-power-at-any-cost” Gbagbo of Cote d’Ivoire was snatched from his palatial hiding place in April 2011 after he defiantly refused to give up power to Alassane Ouattara in a presidential election certified by international observers in December 2010. In late November 2011, Gbagbo was  quietly whisked away to the Hague from house arrest in Korhogo in the north of the country to face justice before the  ICC on charges of crimes against humanity (murder, rape and other forms of sexual violence, persecution and other inhuman acts) that were allegedly committed during the post-election period. The U.N. estimates well over three thousand people died between December 2010 and April 2011 as a result of extrajudicial killings by supporters of Gbagbo and Ouattara. Gbagbo is the second former head of state to be tried by the ICC since it was set up in 2002.

Last week, a High Court judge in Kenya ordered Kenyan officials to arrest and deliver Sudan’s president Omar Al-Bashir to the ICC to face charges of crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide if he ever set foot again in Kenya. The U.N. estimates well over 300,000 people have perished under Bashir’s regime. Bashir unsuccessfully claimed immunity from prosecution as a sitting head of state. Nearly all of the other unindicted African dictators have chimed in to severely criticize the ICC and demand suspension of Bashir’s arrest warrant. Five other suspects are also sought on ICC warrants in the Sudan including Ahmed Haroun, a lawyer and minister of humanitarian affairs, Ali Kushayb, a former senior Janjaweed (local militiamen allied with the Sudanese regime against Darfur rebels), Bahr Idriss Abu Garda, a rebel leader and two others.

In another development in Kenya last week, Uhuru Kenyatta, finance minister and son of Kenya’s famed independence leader Jomo Kenyatta, resigned following an ICC ruling  that he will face trial for crimes against humanity in connection with the communal post-election violence between supporters of presidential candidates Raila Odinga and Mwai Kibaki in 2008. The U.N. estimates some 1,200 people died in weeks of unrest between December 2007 and February 2008 and 600,000 people were forcibly displaced. Cabinet secretary Francis Muthaura, a close ally of president Mwai Kibaki, former Education Minister William Ruto and radio announcer Joshua arap Sang face similar charges.

The ICC had also issued arrest warrants for Moammar Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam and Libyan intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi on charges of crimes against humanity. Last week, Libya’s Justice Minster announced that Libya, and not the ICC, will be trying Saif al-Islam. Al-Senoussi remains a fugitive from justice.

Last but not forgotten is former Liberian president Charles Taylor who went on trial on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes in The Hague before the Special Court for Sierra Leone. He is awaiting a verdict after a nearly three and half year trial.

The ICC presently has open investigations against individuals in various countries including Uganda, DR Congo, Central African Republic, Darfur and Cote d’Ivoire. The rogue’s gallery of suspects sought in ICC issued arrest warrants for crimes against humanity and war crimes include five senior leaders of the “Lord’s Resistance Army” in Uganda including the notorious Joseph Kony and his deputy Vincent Otti and three other top commanders. In the DR Congo various rebel and militia leaders and Congolese military officers and politicians including  Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo, Bosco Ntaganda, Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui and two others are targets of ICC investigation.

No ICC, No Justice?

The ICC, established in 2002, is an institution with a lot of  legal and political limitations in its investigative and prosecutorial duties.  For instance, it has authority over “crimes against humanity” only if the acts were “committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack.” The crimes must have been “extensively or rationally orchestrated” by the perpetrators. The ICC can investigate cases only where the accused is a national of a state party that has accepted ICC jurisdiction and the alleged crime took place on the territory of a state party, or if a “situation” is referred by the Security council. Most importantly, it can exercise its jurisdiction only when national courts are unwilling or unable to investigate or prosecute such crimes.

The ICC has a very difficult job to do in investigating and chasing the world’s worst human rights violations across the planet. Despite its recent establishment, obstacles and limitations, it has a respectable record. As of September 2010, the Office of the ICC Prosecutor had received 8,874 “communications” about alleged human rights violations. After an initial review, it declined to proceed with  4,002 of them concluding that they are “manifestly outside the jurisdiction of the Court”. To date, the Court has opened investigations in seven African countries.  Three investigations began following referral by state parties, the UN Security Council referred two more (Darfur and Libya) and two were begun proprio motu (“ICC prosecutor began on his own initiative”). To date, the ICC has charged 27 people and issued arrest warrants for 18 more.  Five individuals are in various stages of trial and eight remain at large as fugitives. Two individuals died before their trials concluded and charges were dismissed against four.

The one unsettled question is what happens to those individuals who commit crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide in official or unofficial capacity but cannot be prosecuted because they are not part of the regime of the Rome Statute which established the ICC. For instance, Ethiopia has not ratified or accepted the Rome Statute and technically does not come under ICC jurisdiction. Does that mean the individuals who perpetrated crimes against humanity and war crimes in that country will never be held accountable under any international system of criminal justice?

The evidence of crimes against humanity and war crimes in Ethiopia is fully documented, substantial and overwhelming. An official Inquiry Commission report in 2006 documented the extrajudicial killing of at least 193 persons, wounding of 763 others and arbitrary imprisonment of nearly 30,000 persons in the post-2005 election period in that country. There are at least 237 individuals identified and implicated in these crimes. In December 2003, in Gambella, Ethiopia, 424 individuals died in extrajudicial killings by security forces.  In the Ogaden, reprisal “executions of 150 individuals” and 37 others were documented by Human Rights Watch in 2008 which charged:

Ethiopian military personnel who ordered or participated in attacks on civilians should be held responsible for war crimes. Senior military and civilian officials who knew or should have known of such crimes but took no action may be criminally liable as a matter of command responsibility. The widespread and apparently systematic nature of the attacks on villages throughout Somali Region is strong evidence that the killings, torture, rape, and forced displacement are also crimes against humanity for which the Ethiopian government bears ultimate responsibility.

In 2010, Human Rights Watch made a  submission to the U.N. Committee Against Torture “regarding serious patterns of torture and other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment in Ethiopia.”

Torture and ill-treatment have been used by Ethiopia’s police, military, and other members of the security forces to punish a spectrum of perceived dissenters, including university students, members of the political opposition, and alleged supporters of insurgent groups, as well as alleged terrorist suspects. Human Rights Watch has documented incidents of torture and ill-treatment by Ethiopian security forces in a range of settings. The frequency, ubiquity, and patterns of abuse by agents of the central and state governments demonstrate systematic mistreatment involving commanding officers, not random activity by rogue soldiers and police officers. In several cases documented by Human Rights Watch, military commanders participated personally in torture.

Universal Jurisdiction

The are obvious limits to the globalization of criminal justice under the ICC regime. But does that mean human rights violators who are not subject to ICC jurisdiction get away with murder, torture, war crimes and genocide? Maybe not.

There is an encouraging trend globally that more and more national courts are willing to operate under the doctrine of universal jurisdiction to prosecute gross human rights violators for atrocities committed outside their countries. Simply stated, if someone who committed crimes against humanity, war crimes or genocide is found in another country where the crimes were not committed, that country makes it its obligation to bring the perpetrator to justice using its own courts. For instance, Article 5 of the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment and Punishment provides that each State shall “take such measures as may be necessary to establish its jurisdiction over such offences in cases where the alleged offender is present in any territory under its jurisdiction and it does not extradite him.”

Universal jurisdiction has been exercised in a number of high profile cases. A Spanish judge charged former Chilean president Augusto Pinochet in 1998 for crimes against humanity committed in Chile. After years of appeal and delays, Pinochet died in 2006 without facing justice.  A Belgian court in 2001 convicted the killers of two Rwandan nuns for war crimes during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. A Belgian court in 2005 indicted the former president of Chad, Hissène Habré, for crimes against humanity, torture, war crimes and other human rights  violations committed during his presidency in Chad. Two weeks ago, a Senegalese court blocked the extradition of the Chadian dictator because Belgium failed to file the “original arrest warrant and other papers”. A German court has convicted a former leader of a paramilitary Serb group for acts of genocide committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1997.  Over the past several decades, more than 15 countries have exercised universal jurisdiction in investigations or prosecutions of persons suspected of crimes under international law including Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, the UK and the United States of America.

There are other non-criminal legal remedies as well. For instance, the Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Unit (HRVWCU) in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) National Security Investigations Division conducts investigations to prevent foreign war crimes suspects, persecutors and human rights abusers from entering the United States. It also identifies, prosecutes and deports such offenders who have entered the U.S. Over the past 8 years, ICE has arrested more than 200 individuals for human rights-related violations under various criminal and/or immigration statutes and deported more than 400 known or suspected human rights violators from the United States. Currently, ICE is pursuing more than 1,900 leads and removal cases involving suspected human rights violators from nearly 95 different countries. HRVWCU receives anonymous tips and information from those who report suspected war criminals and human rights violators residing in the U.S.  Individuals seeking to report suspected human rights violators may contact the HRV unit at [email protected]   

Justice Delayed is Not Justice Denied, Just Delayed

Justice delayed is just delayed. The victims of former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet might have thought justice delayed is justice denied. So may have thought the victims of Argentina’s Dirty War. The facts are very encouraging. Since December 2006, Chilean prosecutors and judges have convicted hundreds of former military personnel in the Pinochet regime accused of committing grave human rights violations. As of July 2008, 482 former military personnel and civilian collaborators were facing charges for a variety of offenses classified under crimes against humanity. Among these, 256 had been convicted, of whom 83 had had their convictions confirmed on appeal. In the Argentine Dirty War (the generals’ war against thousands of activists, militants, trade unionists, students, journalists and others), the mighty generals have been held to account. Many of the top military officers involved including Leopoldo Galtieri, general and President of Argentina, Jorge Rafael Videla, former senior Army commander and de facto President and other lesser known top officers were tried and sentenced to life imprisonment or long prison terms. Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s dictator for over three decades, his sons, interior minsiter and others are today facing justice in an Egyptian court. Syria’s Bashar al-Assad of Syria and Ali Saleh of Yemen will no doubt face justice in Syria, Yemen or elsewhere. Justice will also arrive like a slow, chugging and delayed train for those who have committed crimes against humanity and war crimes in Ethiopia.

Previous commentaries by the author are available at: www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/ and http://open.salon.com/blog/almariam/