Impunity Watch: Special Features

Prosecuting Children in Times of Conflict: The West African Experience

Professor David M. Crane is a distinguished professor of practice at Syracuse University College of Law and the Faculty Advisor for Impunity Watch. From 2002 to 2005, he served as the first Chief Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone. This article chronicling his experience in Sierra Leone is re-published with permission from the author and American University Washington College of Law.

The article can be found here.

Hearing for Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo to be Available Via Internet

On 31 October Trial-Chamber III of the International Criminal Court ordered that the Confirmation of Charges hearing for the case of The Prosecutor v. Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo will be held from 8 December to 12 December of this year.  This public hearing will determine if there is sufficient evidence against Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo to believe that he committed the crimes for which he is charged.

Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo is alleged to be criminally responsible for five counts of war crimes and three counts of crimes against humanity in the territory of the Central African Republic from 25 October 2002 to 15 March 2003.

The full press release for the International Criminal Court can be found here.
This, and other hearings, will be available for webcast here. 

Impunity Watch Interviews Christine Williams of ChildSoldierRelief.com

Christine Williams is a human rights blogger, whose website reports on the abuses that child soldiers face all over the world.  The Impunity Watch got a chance to interview Williams about how she views the work that she is doing, the current state of child soldiers in the world and how her site will function moving into the future. 

IW: Could you please describe your blog?
WILLIAMS: Childsoldierrelief.com is a clearinghouse for anything relating to child soldier issues worldwide.  The blog disseminates information several times a week on developing news items, publications, recent legislation, new treaties, events, and relevant media, including feature films, books, documentaries, television shows.

In addition, it provides a forum for discussion relating to the topic of child soldiers. We receive comments, requests for information and regular visits from government agencies, non-governmental organizations, journalists, writers, educators, students, and former child soldiers, to name a few of our readers and contributors.

IW: Please articulate a brief history concerning child soldiers and their use in armed conflict?
WILLIAMS: Children have been used in warfare throughout history, not only as soldiers on the front line, but as spies, porters and sexual slaves.  Cultural acceptance of children fighting alongside their families is still widespread in many nations, despite increased public awareness of child soldier issues and knowledge of the long-term ramifications of children engaging in warfare.  Poverty and lack of opportunity directly contribute to children joining military organizations.  Others are kidnapped and forced to fight - their being children reduces the likelihood that they will resist or escape. Furthermore, in recent history the ready availability of small arms has increased the number of child soldiers due to their lightweight nature and ease of operation.

According to the 1997 Capetown Principles, a child soldier is anyone under the age of 18, "who is part of any kind of regular or irregular armed force or armed group in any capacity, including but not limited to cooks, porters, messengers and anyone accompanying such groups, other than family members. The definition includes girls recruited for sexual purposes and for forced marriage."

For the last three decades, human rights organizations have pressured nations and armed groups to eliminate the use of child soldiers in their ranks, with only limited success.  According to Human Rights Watch, there are still hundreds of thousands of children serving in military organizations throughout the world.

IW: Where are the major geographic areas that child soldiers are employed?
WILLIAMS: Child soldiers are used in practically every region of the world.  Currently, there are child soldiers fighting in 17 countries: Afghanistan, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Colombia, Côte d?Ivoire, the DRC, India, Iraq, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Myanmar, Philippines, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Thailand and Uganda.

IW: What is the motivation to use child soldiers on the part of armed forces?
WILLIAMS: Due to the proliferation of small arms - and their ready availability from nations such as the United States - children can easily carry a weapon and be taught to operate it.  Children respond to orders well, are very unlikely to escape and are easy to brainwash.  Vast numbers of children in war-torn countries lack parental figures - many of them have been killed - and are seeking an authority figure.  Other children are on the run, often hungry, without proper shelter or any economic opportunity, and the possibility of an adult providing food, direction, shelter is appealing.  Sexual and physical abuse is rampant in many military and rebel organizations and easy to inflict on a child.

IW: What is the impact on the life of the child who is introduced into armed conflict?
WILLIAMS: More and more studies are being done on the impact of direct participation in armed conflict on children.  This blog regularly posts new reports and research on psychological treatments, therapies, and programs for helping child soldiers recover.   Mental health problems range from depression, to post-traumatic stress disorder, to anxiety, to insomnia, to name a few.  Thankfully, children of war, both victims and direct participants, have been shown to be remarkably resilient.  Many of them - with the proper treatment - have been successfully reintegrated into society and are able to continue on to a productive, peaceful adulthood.

IW: Why, in your opinion, is the recruitment and introduction of child soldiers into modern conflict such a pressing human rights issue?
WILLIAMS: Children are the innocent victims of war.  At all costs, they should be protected from the effects of warfare.  At the very least, they should be able to live a life free from any direct involvement in fighting.  Public awareness of this issue, from the hard work of advocates at human rights organizations, governments, journalists, writers, filmmakers, and former child soldiers who have shown courage by telling their story, has finally increased to a point that people are outraged.  The more people learn about the use of child soldiers, the more they want it stopped.

IW: What impact do you hope your blog will have on the international community?
WILLIAMS: There is no other blog like this on the Internet - one that combines news, ideas, a forum, and resources - all relating to the topic of child soldiers.  So far, it has been used extensively by people involved in media, from journalists to filmmakers to writers, by educators and students, by people working in the field, and by former child soldiers.

Ultimately, the blog is designed to help child soldiers by providing awareness, resources, and open dialogue.  First, the blog seeks to raise awareness by providing information for educators, students, human rights groups and the media.  Second, the blog provides resources for those seeking treatment; we are in the process of listing treatment centers for child soldiers country-by-country throughout the world.   Third, the blog encourages open dialogue, through an open forum, and an online database of stories that we are developing; we are currently working with several former child soldiers to have their stories posted on the blog.

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Christine's Williams' blog can be found at childsoldierrelief.com

Seeking Justice in Burma

The following is an excerpt from Seeking Justice for Burma, a report authored by PILPG's strategic partner at Vanderbilt University.  The full report can be found here.

    On 2 May 2008, Cyclone Nargis made landfall in Burma, destroying everything in its path and killing thousands. The State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) knew it was coming and failed to issue an adequate warning to the people in harm's way. Civilized people were shocked in subsequent days by the countless accounts of official interference and outright obstruction of the international efforts to aid survivors. Stories of documented instances of aid being contingent on bribes, forced labor, misappropriated supplies, starving refugees, and diseases from contaminated water filtered through the misanthropic government's blockades. The world stood ready and waiting to help, but its aid was left rotting on docks and airstrips.

    These actions constitute crimes against humanity. The failure to warn and the withholding and abuse of humanitarian aid, both of which substantially increased the death toll, amount to the crime against humanity of murder. The widespread withholding of supplies and obstruction of aid workers, which created a man-made catastrophe in the wake of a natural disaster, undoubtedly fall under the crime against humanity of extermination. The SPDC's removal of refugees from aid shelters and its compulsory return of these people to dangerous areas constitute the crime against humanity of forced transfer. Finally, all of these actions, as well as the distribution of tainted supplies and the conditioning of aid allocation on votes, pledging military service, and forced labor rise to the crime against humanity of inhumane acts. This deplorable conduct by the SPDC when its people were in need must not be tolerated.

    Hugo Grotius once concluded that a state cannot conduct “atrocities against its subjects which no just man can approve.” No just man, looking at the conduct of the military government in Burma could approve or allow such behavior. The international community must act when a purported government abuses its power and condemns its own people.

    A crucial first step in righting the numerous wrongs in Burma is the rejection of the credentials of the military junta's representatives to the U.N. General Assembly. The legitimate and democratically-elected government, comprised of the Members of Parliament Union (MPU) and the National Council of the Union of Burma (NCUB), should represent the people of Burma before the nations of the world.

 

The Low Countries Take the High Road

By:  Eric A. Witte and Kurt Bassuener

This article was originally published by The Wall Street Journal and is republished her with the permission of its author Eric A. Witte.  Mr. Witte and Mr. Bassuener are the senior associates of the Democratization Policy Council - "a global initiative for accountability in democracy promotion."

Whether Ratko Mladic, who had operational command of the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre of some 8,000 Bosniak men and boys, ever faces justice depends on the Dutch government maintaining a lonely moral leadership within the European Union. The pace of Serbia's democratic reform also hangs in the balance.

It was the Netherlands, backed only by Belgium, that insisted earlier this month that Serbia's further progress toward EU membership be conditioned on full cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). The dispute is sure to resume when EU foreign ministers convene again today.

Many EU officials and governments deem the July arrest of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic as a sign of Serbia's full cooperation with the ICTY. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn argue that ratification of Serbia's Stabilization and Association Agreement should proceed, and that an interim agreement bringing many of its benefits to Serbia should be implemented immediately. This position has the backing of 25 member states, which today will try to force the Dutch in particular to assent to the unanimous approval needed for the interim agreement. They hope that rewards now for the Karadzic arrest will bring reform later. If the Dutch hold firm to their stated conditions, Serbia will be disappointed.

For the Netherlands and Belgium, Serb atrocities such as Srebrenica, the largest single mass killing in Europe since World War II, demand complete justice. The two countries have blocked these agreements until the last fugitives are arrested.

This is not the first time that Messrs. Solana and Rehn have sought to abandon conditions on Serbia's EU accession. Even before the Karadzic arrest, they sought pretexts to accelerate Serbia's integration despite its failure to arrest fugitives or provide ICTY investigators with full access to documents and witnesses. Most EU member states supported this approach as a means of encouraging Serbian reforms. Without Dutch and Belgian insistence, the arrest of Karadzic -- hailed by ICTY Prosecutor Serge Brammertz as a "milestone" -- would not have been achieved.

When applied, conditionality requires Serbia to prove its willingness to enter Europe's community of common values. It also has afforded Serbia's democrats an opportunity to outflank nationalist opponents. Quietly, Serbian officials admit this. But politicians everywhere avoid heavy lifting when given the chance. The EU has repeatedly granted this chance, retarding Serbia's democratic development and demonstrating that their definition of conditionality is itself conditional.

Serbian reformers now in power continue to argue against EU conditionality. But President Boris Tadic and Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic reaped substantial political benefits from the Karadzic arrest. The aftermath of the arrest revealed the ultranationalist Radical Party's inability to create significant protests. The Socialist Party, drawn into coalition with Mr. Tadic's Democrats, is accused of "treason" by the Radical Party and its other erstwhile nationalist allies and wants to avoid new elections. This makes Serbia's current coalition its most stable in the post-Milosevic era.

Belgrade can finish the job by arresting Mladic and Croatian Serb separatist leader Goran Hadzic. Mladic's whereabouts have been less mysterious than Karadzic's were, but in some ways his is a harder case. He enjoys greater loyalty among nationalists and elements of the military and intelligence services, who help to protect him and could lash out following an arrest. But this, too, provides the Tadic government with an opportunity to root out elements that have long proved lethal to reform. Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic's assassination in 2003 demonstrated the cost of delaying a purge that should have begun after Milosevic's ouster in 2000.

The security-criminal nexus burdens Serbia with organized crime and corruption that make later fulfillment of EU-required technical reforms more difficult in any case. Now is the best -- and perhaps only -- time to confront it, while radical elements in Serbian society are in disarray and demoralized by the arrest of Karadzic, and soon after the electorate has demonstrated its preference for pro-European policies. Waiting to tackle the hardest reforms will only give the hard-liners time to regroup. Dutch resolve on EU conditionality has given Mr. Tadic another chance to clean house and to justify arrests to an electorate that expects him to take bold steps to meet European standards.

ICTY Prosecutor Brammertz, who visited Belgrade on Wednesday, will deliver a new assessment of Serbia's cooperation to the U.N. Security Council in December. He is standing firm, telling journalists, "The arrest of Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadzic is still the key condition for Serbia's full cooperation with The Hague Tribunal." Last week, Javier Solana publicly pressured the prosecutor to deem Serbia cooperative even without the fugitives' arrests: "I hope very much that he will bring good news...If that is the case, we will be able to begin implementation." Dutch moral leadership can continue to buffer the ICTY prosecutor from such overt and short-sighted political interference.

Belgrade can be confident of a positive evaluation if Mladic and Hadzic are arrested and if it provides full access to documents and witnesses. Only then will Serbia have demonstrated that it refuses to harbor war criminals, has established full civilian control over its security services, and is firmly set on the path of reform. The next step on that path still leads through The Hague.

Human Rights Watch Releases Afghan Report

Human Rights Watch has released a report entitled "Troops in Contact" Airstrikes and Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan. 

The report can be found here.

Ishmael Beah Speaking at Syracuse University Hendricks Chapel on September 23, 2008

Ishmael Beah's childhood effectively ended at age 12, when he fled attacking rebels in his war-torn homeland of Sierra Leone.  Within a year, he was forced into service as a child soldier for the government army, where he found himself capable of performing truly horrific acts.  After being relocated to a UNICEF rehabilitation center at age 16, Beah was finally able to begin to heal and gain his life--and his humanity--back.  His gripping memoir is "A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007). 

Beah will be speaking at Syracuse University's Hendrick's Chapel on September 23, 2008 at 7:30.  The title of his talk is "The Making, and Unmaking, of a Boy Soldier". 

Nuremberg Declaration of Peace and Justice Released

From from June 25 until June 27, an international conference was held in Nuremberg, Germany aimed at addressing possible tensions that arise between the goals of international peace and international justice.  Organized by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Finland and the Federal Republic of Germany, the conference has now released a declaration which embodies these recommendations to the United Nations. 

The Nuremberg Declaration of Peace and Justice can be read  here.

Karadžić Charges Outlined

From SKY NEWS
The former Bosnian Serb leader, who faces charges of genocide for his actions in the 1992-95 Bosnia war, is due in court tomorrow afternoon, where he will appear before judge Alphons Orie.

Usually the indictment is read at a suspect's initial court appearance, but Karadžić can ask that only the charges, effectively a shorter summary of the indictment, are read, or that the indictment is not read at all.

He will be asked to enter a plea. If he refuses, proceedings will be adjourned and he will have 30 days to consider before he is again asked to enter a plea.

If he still refuses, a plea of "not guilty" will be entered for him.

Chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz said the arrest of Karadžić was a "major achievement".

Conclusion of 2008 International Humanitarian Dialogs

Prosecutors from international law tribunals met at the Chautauqua Institute from August 25-26.  The second annual dialogs are intended to draw the world's attention on the need for vigilance in the face of war crimes and violations of human rights.