On Tuesday, March 28, former First Lady Simone Gbagbo was acquitted of war crimes and crimes against humanity. 
The decision was unexpected: there is some pressure on Ivoirian courts, and President Alassane Ouattara’s government might have been expected to want the court to confirm its version of the end of the post-election conflict in 2011. 
Ultimately the court case was flawed, and the prosecution was unable to prove that Mrs Gbagbo had given instructions to the men fighting for her husband’s cause who killed civilians in Abidjan in the final days of President Laurent Gbagbo’s presidency. 
The main accusation was that she had personally ordered the firing of mortars into Abobo Market and had personally organised attacks led by her husband’s partisans.
Reactions to the court decision give some illustration of important political fault lines in Ivory Coast and abroad. 
Mrs Gbagbo’s advocate, of course, saluted the “courage” of the judges and juries for coming to their decision “in an environment where politics often weighs on the judiciary,” although he criticised the court’s unwillingness to call “the real actors, notably some political figures in the current government.” 
Mr Gbagbo’s Ivoirian Popular Front (FPI) was happy: its leader Pascal Affi N’Guessan called the decision “a willingness to move towards reconciliation” and called on the government to free another 150 prisoners he calls “political prisoners.”
The Ivoirian Human Rights League (Lidho) said the verdict “leaves a bitter taste for victims and is the reflection of an Ivoirian justice system at bay.” 
The International Federation of Human Rights Leagues (FIDH) called the trial a “fiasco” for its many weaknesses, and went even further in presuming Mrs Gbagbo’s guilt, saying that it was “unfortunately” not possible to establish her personal responsibility for the civilian deaths. 
Issiaka Diaby, representative of an association for justice for victims of the crisis, called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to try Mrs Gbagbo; Mr Gbagbo is on trial there, although the case against him, too, is very weak. 
The public prosecutor has 60 days to appeal the ruling; he says he will shortly communicate his decision. 
There are several ways to interpret the verdict. 
We think the court based its decision on the available evidence, which was insufficient to convict Mrs Gbagbo. 
Mr Ouattara’s government probably left the court to do this in order to avoid the sight of a 67-year-old woman being sentenced to hard labour, which would have been unpopular (she is anyway already serving a 20-year sentence for “endangering the State”). 
Mr Ouattara has promised not to send any more Ivoirians to The Hague, to reassure some of his partisans (who are guilty of more deaths than his adversary’s) that they are not so exposed. 
And it is a small gesture of reconciliation to the FPI, the way Mr Affi saw it, and so a slight positive as the social mood in the Ivory Coast remains morose.

Ivory Coast – Simone Gbagbo’s acquittal shows up some fault lines

A court in Ivory Coast acquitted former First Lady Simone Gbagbo of crimes against humanity and war crimes charges linked to her role in a 2011 civil war that killed about 3,000 people, state television announced on Tuesday.
The West African nation had refused to extradite her to face similar charges before the International Criminal Court where her husband Laurent Gbagbo is standing trial, choosing instead to try her at home.
(Reporting by Loucoumane Coulibaly; Writing by Joe Bavier; Editing by Louise Ireland)
&nbsp;

Ivory Coast’s former first lady cleared of war crimes charges

South Africa and Burundi&#8217;s decision to quit the International Criminal Court (ICC) and an attack by Gambia against its supposed &#8216;Caucasian&#8217; justice are likely to embolden other African states to leave the world&#8217;s only permanent war crimes tribunal.
Although criticising the Hague-based institution for perceived anti-African bias has long been a favourite pastime for many African leaders, in most cases it amounted to pandering to a domestic audience without much real intent.
That has now changed, with the precedent established of local politics justifying actual withdrawal.
With South Africa &#8211; a continental heavyweight and key backer of the ICC in the late 1990s &#8211; making clear it could no longer tolerate the court&#8217;s denial of immunity to sitting leaders, the departure gates have been flung open.
All eyes are now on Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, the ICC&#8217;s chief tormentor who made history in 2013 by becoming the first sitting head of state to appear before the court, on charges of crimes against humanity.
The case relating to Kenyatta&#8217;s alleged role in post-election violence in 2008 in which at least 1,200 people died collapsed in 2014 for lack of evidence.
But in January this year, with charges still hanging over his deputy, William Ruto, Kenyatta took to the floor at the African Union (AU) to call for a &#8220;roadmap for withdrawal&#8221; for Africa&#8217;s 34 ICC members.
Supporting South Africa&#8217;s subsequent stance, Kenyatta took aim in particular at Article 27 of the ICC&#8217;s 1998 Rome Statute which affirms the &#8220;irrelevance of official capacity&#8221; &#8211; in other words, nobody, no matter how powerful, is above the law.
Kenyatta, who faces another election next year, then played the global security card, saying this compromised Kenya&#8217;s ability to fight Islamist militancy, a genuine concern in the wake of a major attack in 2013 on Nairobi&#8217;s Westgate mall.
&#8220;We&#8217;ve had to contend with the ICC pursuing weak, politicised cases. This has become a huge distraction from our duty serve our people and this continent fully. That is not what Kenya signed up for when we joined the ICC,&#8221; he said.
 
&#8220;USELESS PEOPLE&#8221;
Kenya&#8217;s parliament has passed two resolutions since 2010 calling for withdrawal, but government spokesman Manoah Esipisu said the cabinet was still deciding &#8211; in the wake of South Africa&#8217;s move &#8211; whether to go ahead.
&#8220;It is accurate to say that a decision of the executive is pending,&#8221; he said.
Neighbouring Uganda, whose President Yoweri Museveni labelled the ICC &#8220;a bunch of useless people&#8221; at his inauguration in July, is already shaping up for a fresh push at the next AU summit in January for an African exodus.
&#8220;The ICC deserves what&#8217;s happening to it now,&#8221; junior foreign affairs minister Okello Oryem said.
&#8220;Our argument has always been that there&#8217;s a need for the whole of Africa to withdraw from the ICC. We hope that matter will come up at the next AU summit and then we&#8217;ll be able to pronounce ourselves.&#8221;
 
RUNNING FOR COVER?
Most worrying for the ICC, which has been fighting to counter the allegations of anti-African bias and &#8216;neo-colonialism&#8217;, is that local or regional politics stood behind the three recent decisions to pull out.
Although Gambia, which derided the ICC as the &#8216;Infamous Caucasian Court&#8217;, does not yet appear to have sent its formal divorce papers, President Yahya Jammeh, who has been accused of serial rights abuses since seizing power in a 1994 coup, is unlikely to back off ahead of an election in December.
While also citing ICC neo-colonialism, Burundi&#8217;s move followed the ICC&#8217;s opening of an initial probe into the rape, torture and murder of hundreds of people during an 18-month political crisis.
South Africa&#8217;s decision can be traced back to visit a year ago by Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir when Pretoria flouted its obligations to arrest him under an ICC warrant for alleged war crimes.
It even violated a domestic court order in allowing Bashir to leave, a clear demonstration of the shift in Pretoria&#8217;s foreign policy under President Jacob Zuma from the international idealism of Nelson Mandela to plain African realism.
The ICC admits it is rattled but is determined to keep going, and in particular to counter the allegations of anti-African bias.
&#8220;We must remain strong,&#8221; chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, a Gambian, told reporters in The Hague this week. &#8220;This is a challenge we see now. We will see it more. It is not going to go away.&#8221;
To date, all but one of the court&#8217;s 10 investigations have been in Africa and its five convicted suspects are from Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic and Mali.
However, it argues that many of these cases were brought by African governments themselves, not outsiders, and that it has 10 preliminary investigations into alleged atrocities elsewhere in the world, including in Afghanistan, Colombia, Iraq, the Palestinian Territories and Ukraine.
&#8220;Even if half the African countries leave, it would be very unfortunate and damaging to the concept of international justice but it won&#8217;t shut the court down,&#8221; one ICC official, who did not want to be named, told Reuters.
&#8220;This was bound to happen when dictators – for the most part that&#8217;s what they are – decide to run for cover.&#8221;
 
(Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols, Edmund Blair, Elias Biryabarema, Thomas Escritt and Anthony Deutsch; Editing by Giles Elgood)﻿

ICC's toughest trial: Africa vs. 'Infamous Caucasian Court'

The government of Gambia said on Tuesday it was withdrawing from the International Criminal Court, accusing the world body of ignoring the &#8220;war crimes&#8221; of Western nations and seeking only to prosecute Africans.
The decision by the tiny West African nation, whose president, Yahya Jammeh, has called on the court to investigate African migrant deaths on the Mediterranean, comes just days after South Africa said it was quitting The Hague-based tribunal.
&#8220;This action is warranted by the fact that the ICC, despite being called the International Criminal Court, is in fact an International Caucasian Court for the persecution and humiliation of people of colour, especially Africans,&#8221; Information Minister Sheriff Bojang said on state television.
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The ICC was not immediately available for comment. But coming so soon after South Africa&#8217;s announcement, Gambia&#8217;s move added to pressure on the world&#8217;s first permanent war crimes court.
The ICC has had to fight off allegations of pursuing a neo-colonial agenda in Africa, where all but one of its 10 investigations have been based.
Burundi has already said it plans to leave and Kenya&#8217;s parliament is considering following suit.
The statement from Gambia, whose citizens make up a disproportionately high proportion of the African migrant flow to Europe, said it had sought to bring the European Union before the ICC over the deaths of migrants but received no response.
&#8220;There are many Western countries, at least 30, that have committed heinous war crimes against independent sovereign states and their citizens since the creation of the ICC and not a single Western war criminal has been indicted,&#8221; it said.
The ICC&#8217;s current chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, is Gambian and was as an adviser to Jammeh in the early years of his rule after he seized power in a coup in 1994. She later served as justice minister.
It is not the first time Jammeh has pulled his country &#8211; a popular beach destination for European tourists &#8211; out of an international institution.
In 2013, he withdrew Gambia from the Commonwealth, the 54-member grouping including Britain and most of its former colonies, branding it a &#8220;neo-colonial institution&#8221;.
Rights groups accuse Jammeh of cracking down on political opponents as he eyes a December election, where he will seek his fifth term after he scrapped term limits.﻿

Gambia also to withdrawal from International Criminal Court

South Africa is withdrawing from the International Criminal Court, according to a document seen by Reuters on Thursday, a move that would take effect one year after notice is formally received by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
A U.N. spokesman declined to confirm receipt of the document, which is signed by South Africa&#8217;s Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Maite Nkoana-Mashabane and dated Oct. 19.
&#8220;The Republic of South Africa has found that its obligations with respect to the peaceful resolution of conflicts at times are incompatible with the interpretation given by the International Criminal Court,&#8221; according to the document.
South Africa&#8217;s foreign affairs department spokesman Clayson Monyela declined to comment, saying the justice minister would hold a news conference on the issue at 0800 GMT.
The International Criminal Court, which opened in July 2002 and has 124 member states, is the first legal body with permanent international jurisdiction to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Burundi appeared set to become the first state to withdraw from the Rome Statute, the 1998 treaty establishing the global court, after its parliament voted last week to leave. President Pierre Nkurunziza signed a decree on Tuesday, but the United Nations has not yet been officially notified.
South Africa said a year ago that it planned to leave the ICC after its government was criticised for ignoring a court order to arrest Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who is accused of genocide and war crimes, when he visited last year.
Several African countries have expressed concern that the focus of the Hague-based court has been on Africa rather than elsewhere in the world.
&#8220;The Republic of South Africa is committed to fight impunity and to bring those who commit atrocities and international crimes to justice and as a founding member of the African Union promotes international human rights and the peaceful resolution of conflicts on the African continent,&#8221; the document said.
&#8220;In complex and multi-faceted peace negotiations and sensitive post-conflict situations, peace and justice must be viewed as complementary and not mutually exclusive,&#8221; the South African document said.﻿

South Africa to withdraw from the International Criminal Court

Congolese former vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba and his defence team bribed witnesses to lie in his favour at a war crimes trial that ended in the highest ranking conviction by the International Criminal Court, judges ruled on Wednesday.
The court said 14 key witnesses had been coached about what to say, and found Bemba and four other defendants guilty of conspiring to present false evidence to the court.
Supporters of Bemba, who is appealing his conviction and 18-year sentence for overseeing a campaign of rape and murder in Central African Republic more than a decade ago, had no immediate comment.
When they found him guilty in March this year, judges ruled the politician, who served as vice president from 2003 to 2006, failed to discipline or restrain his Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC) soldiers as they rampaged through the neighbouring country in 2002 and 2003.
As part of a systematic effort to interfere with the trial, Bemba and his team used secret phones and code language to instruct witnesses in exchange for cash, promises of relocation, computers and other bribes, the court found.
&#8220;No legal system in the world can accept the bribing of witnesses, the inducement of witnesses to lie, or the illicit coaching of witnesses, nor can the International Criminal Court,&#8221; Presiding Judge Bertram Schmitt said.
&#8220;Today&#8217;s judgment sends the clear message that the court is not willing to allow its proceedings to be hampered or destroyed.&#8221;
Those convicted face sentences of up to five years, or a fine, or both.
Schmitt allowed suspects other than Bemba to remain free pending their sentencing hearings, for which he did not set a date, saying they had cooperated with the court and were not considered a flight risk.
The four others convicted include Jean-Jacques Mangenda Kabongo, a member of Bemba&#8217;s legal team; and Fidele Babala Wandu, a politician and close associate of Bemba.﻿

Ex-Congolese VP convicted of witness tampering

“The main thing that the victims complain about is the bombing with the poison… The poison comes from some bombs, not all bombs… It causes lung infections… it causes lots of coughing. Victims are always coughing… It also causes eye infections… And vomiting and diarrhoea… When shrapnel hits the body it causes blisters… but it is mostly the smoke that causes the problems… The smoke changes the colour of skin to white. And sometimes the skin becomes rotten and I am compelled to cut away the rotting part…” – Hassan, a caregiver in Western Jebel Marra, interviewed in June.
International rights group Amnesty International (AI) has levelled fresh allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity and contravention of treaties outlawing the use of chemical weapons against the Sudanese government.
The group investigated events in the Jebel Marra region in Central Darfur, and estimates that between 200 and 250 people, many or mostly children, died due to exposure to weaponised chemical agents between January and September this year.
AI published the report on Thursday, September 29, but had sent it to the Sudanese authorities for a response on September 15 and received a reply from Minister of Justice Awad Hassan Elnour.
Predictably, Mr Elnour denied the allegations of chemical weapons use: “Concerning the use of chemical weapons by SAF (Sudanese Armed Forces), we were very astonished to hear this accusation. It is the first time for us to get knowledge of such allegation which implicates a heinous humanitarian crime. It takes no effort to categorically repudiate such an assumption”.
He told the rights group that there was an investigation by an independent committee set up in February to investigate human rights abuses in Darfur. Among that committee’s findings were the following:
<ul>
<li>“All the persons examined stated that they left their villages in Jebel Marra voluntarily for fear caused by hearing sounds of explosives.” The minister, it appears, does not think that fleeing due to bombings is coercive. As of August 31 the United Nations (UN) Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated that there were 198,000 internally displaced persons (IDP) in Darfur – the vast majority of whom are from Central Darfur where Jebel Marra is located.</li>
<li>“Their general health appearances looked normal, and when the committee asked them about their health condition they replied that only their children had suffered ailment due to weather change, as they moved from a mild climate to hot places”. Pictures in the Amnesty International report appear to disprove this finding by the committee.</li>
<li>People said that they were content with the military intervention by the government forces against rebel groups like Sudan Liberation Movement &#8211; Abdel Wahid faction.</li>
</ul>
The number of IDPs in Darfur due to this year’s offensive is the highest it has been in the region in over a decade. Yet the government and President Omar Al-Bashir have consistently denied that the conflict is ongoing – going so far as to say that the UN Mission in Darfur (Unamid) should not have had its mandate renewed in June as the region is now peaceful.
However, the evidence of war crimes – the indiscriminate killing of non-combatants – and crimes against humanity documented by AI in the report appear damning.
The allegation of chemical weapons use in particular will warrant a response by the international community and an independent, transparent investigation into the accusations will be called for. AI was not able to visit the areas where the alleged chemical weapons attacks took place and instead had to rely on witness testimony, satellite pictures, photographs, and expert opinion. As such, the regime still has plausible deniability until investigators are allowed to do a proper investigation – but it is unlikely that the regime will comply. 
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/media/19228108/conflicts_and_fatalities_in_darfur_2016_graph.png" width="350" height="244" alt="Conflicts And Fatalities In Darfur 2016 Graph"/>﻿
These allegations come a week after the US Department of State issued a surprising statement thanking the Sudanese government for its help in countering terrorism. The statement was a signal that US relations with the regime were warming, but this new development will make such a rapprochement far more difficult.
Western powers have moved closer to Khartoum in order help stem the flow of immigrants passing through the country headed to Europe. That policy change, one of engagement, was heavily criticised. Now, if these allegations are found to be true, the West will have to explain why it is willing to deal with a regime that uses chemical weapons on its own civilians with many or most of the victims being children.
Engagement with Mr Bashir’s regime looked like the pragmatic strategy a week ago, seeing as sanctions had done little to change the regime’s nature after being in place for nearly two decades, but these findings would make such a strategy untenable and would motivate calls for tougher sanctions.
African leaders, such as Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni and South Africa’s Jacob Zuma, have welcomed Mr Bashir back into the fold and defended him against critics. It will be interesting to hear how they react to the new allegations.﻿
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/media/19228122/conflicts_and_fatalities_in_darfur_2016_600x424.jpg" width="600" height="424" alt="Conflicts And Fatalities In Darfur 2016"/>﻿

war crimes

Ivory Coast – Simone Gbagbo’s acquittal shows up some fault lines

Ivory Coast’s former first lady cleared of war crimes charges

ICC's toughest trial: Africa vs. 'Infamous Caucasian Court'

Gambia also to withdrawal from International Criminal Court

South Africa to withdraw from the International Criminal Court

Ex-Congolese VP convicted of witness tampering

Sudan – Fresh accusations of war crimes levelled against Bashir’s regime

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war crimes

Ivory Coast – Simone Gbagbo’s acquittal shows up some fault lines

Ivory Coast’s former first lady cleared of war crimes charges

ICC's toughest trial: Africa vs. 'Infamous Caucasian Court'

Gambia also to withdrawal from International Criminal Court

South Africa to withdraw from the International Criminal Court

Ex-Congolese VP convicted of witness tampering

Sudan – Fresh accusations of war crimes levelled against Bashir’s regime

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