Survivors of Sexual Violence and the African Union: A Model to Follow?

(Delighted to welcome back alumna Doris Buss, who contributes this guest post)

Women’s civil society groups from across Africa met recently with state ambassadors in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, as part of a now-annual meeting of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union with civil society.
The March 28 meeting included addresses by the various ‘office holders’ below: Margot Wallström (middle), the UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Litha Musyimi-Ogana (left), the Director of the Women, Gender and Development Directorate of the African Union, and Dr. Mary Chinery-Hesse (right), from the AU’s Panel of the Wise.
But the real force of the meetings came from the “Survivors of Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict”, who had traveled from Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Uganda and Zimbabwe. The meeting included time for “first-hand accounts” from the survivors, as well as discussion of different models of civil society initiatives for rehabilitation and community reintegration.
At the end of the event the survivors of sexual violence released a Statement, which is a moving testament to the urgent health needs of sexual violence sufferers in Africa. The Statement makes a number of recommendations relating to health care, including, a call for “comprehensive medical care, including emergency surgery services, and trained medical workers on trauma management” and a recommendation that AU member states “ increase their health budget for our sexual and reproductive health complications and trauma management”.
The frustration of civil society actors in ‘post’ conflict negotiations is also clearly evident in the Statement:

We are deeply saddened by the fact that our violators and their apologists are often seated on these tables deciding our fate. We are therefore not surprised that post conflict processes do not include the concerns and priorities of survivors of sexual violence. Instead, we are often urged to let bygones be bygones and look to the future. We cannot look to the future when we are hurting physically and psychologically, and are unable to pick up the pieces of our lives.

Among the recommendations made is a call for the AU to “adopt sexual violence as a disqualifying criterion for leadership” in line with UN Security Council Resolution 1960.
As an example of civil society and state interactions, this annual meeting between the AU and victims of sexual violence may be a model to consider in other contexts. I wonder, for example, what would happen if members of the Canadian Parliament (or US House of Representatives), agreed to meet each year with a representative group of poor single mothers to hear about their lives and experiences over the past year?

ICC referral: sweet, or bittersweet?

Some sweet irony in the referral of the Gadhafi regime to the International Criminal Court.
As watchers of the Hague-based court at left well know, longtime Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi long has been a thorn in the ICC's side.
It's not just that Libya's not a party to the Rome Statute of the ICC. As the map below shows, the same holds true of many of its Arab neighbors -- and of certain very large states to the west and east of Libya.
Rather, Libya's particularly prickly relation to the ICC stems from Gadhafi's efforts to exerts his brand of leadership on the African continent.
To cite an example: It's no accident that, as Pittsburgh Law Professor Charles Jalloh, among others, has noted, the 1st African Union resolution condemning the ICC's pursuit of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir occurred at a meeting in Libya.
Libya also is a member of the Human Rights Council, formed in 2006 as a means better to promote human rights within U.N. member states and throughout the world.
The Human Rights Council broke with Libya on Friday, as we posted here and here. Reports that the Gadhafi regime had ordered aerial attacks and street-thuggery against its own, unarmed civilians compelled the Council unanimously to urge the General Assembly to suspend Libya's U.N. membership.
Last night the Security Council went giant steps further, not only imposing sanctions and an arms embargo, but also referring the Libya matter to the ICC. The vote was unanimous among the T-10 and P-5 alike: ICC nonparty China put aside earlier-reported misgivings, and the United States, another ICC nonparty, openly supported an ICC referral for the 1st time ever.
Here're the pivotal paragraphs of Security Council Resolution 1970 (February 26, 2011):

The Security Council,
....
Acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, and taking measures under its Article 41,
....
ICC referral
4. Decides to refer the situation in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya since 15 February 2011 to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court;
5. Decides that the Libyan authorities shall cooperate fully with and provide any necessary assistance to the Court and the Prosecutor pursuant to this resolution and, while recognizing that States not party to the Rome Statute have no obligation under the Statute, urges all States and concerned regional and other international organizations to cooperate fully with the Court and the Prosecutor;
6. Decides that nationals, current or former officials or personnel from a State outside the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya which is not a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of that State for all alleged acts or omissions arising out of or related to operations in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya established or authorized by the Council, unless such exclusive jurisdiction has been expressly waived by the State;
7. Invites the Prosecutor to address the Security Council within two months of the adoption of this resolution and every six months thereafter on actions taken pursuant to this resolution;
8. Recognizes that none of the expenses incurred in connection with the referral, including expenses related to investigations or prosecutions in connection with that referral, shall be borne by the United Nations and that such costs shall be borne by the parties to the Rome Statute and those States that wish to contribute voluntarily; ...

The resolution zeroes in on Gadhafi -- and what little seems left of his regime in the wake of many ministerial defections to the antigovernment side.
Worth noting: The caveat concerning a national of a nonparty state present at the scene by authorization of the Council -- presumably, a person deployed as a U.N. peacekeeer. Evidence that such a person took part in criminal behavior must be referred to the state of nationality; by the terms of ¶6, absent a waiver the ICC would have no jurisdiction over such a malefactor. (Thanks to our colleague Kevin Jon Heller (his OJ post here) for pointing out my initial, erroneous interpretation.)
Some cause for concern: The foisting of the costs of ICC investigation onto the ICC and states that choose to contribute. That provision in ¶8 hints at certain lingering reluctances, and serves to remind of the deaf ear that the Security Council has turned to the ICC Prosecutor's pleas for aid in effecting the arrest of international fugitive and still-incumbent President Bashir.
It's to be hoped the Security Council's newfound spine will translate into helping the ICC as it endeavors to respond responsibly to yet another weighty referral. It's also to be hoped that the ICC will rise to the "test," to quote our colleague William Schabas; that is, it "must inspire confidence in its ability to provide a meaningful, significant and above all prompt response to the crisis."
If not, today's irony may prove more bitter than sweet.

(Credit for 2010 map indicating: in grey, states, like Libya and China, that have neither signed nor ratified the ICC Statute; in orange, states, like the United States, Sudan, and Russia, that at one time signed but never ratified; and in green, full states parties to the ICC Statute. Though slightly out of date -- it shows 111 rather than the current 114 states parties -- the map is accurate with regard to the states discussed in this post, a version of which is cross-posted at The Huffington Post.)

Darfur.Gitmo.dot.

There's a constant in the subtext of stories about Sudan.
For years, criticism of Sudan's treatment of its western and southern regions has come from many corners -- from college campuses, political candidates, human rights groups, aid workers, even states themselves. Not much progress, for all of that:
► The western region, Darfur, remains a humanitarian-aid disaster, as posted just days ago. Moreover, the current suspension of outright civil war in that region (in light green on the map at left) seems to have a rather short fuse.
► The warrant issued in March 2009 by the International Criminal Court, for the arrest of Sudan's President on charges of genocide and other atrocities in Darfur, remains unfulfilled. Indeed, it is flouted not only by its target, Omar al-Bashir, but also by the African Union, the regional organization through which some of Bashir's fellow leaders have promised him cover against the global court.
► Meanwhile, concerns mount that the government will put off a Southern Sudan independence referendum, which a 2005 peace agreement set for January 2011. Yesterday, according to the Associated Press, a local leader predicted "the collapse of a peace accord that ended a war that killed more than 2 million people if it stalls" the election, "which could turn the arid region," in red on the map at left, "into the world's newest nation and split Africa's largest country in two."
That's the text.
Why such disarray?
Why no change given the apparent consensus, at least in the West, that the Darfur conflict needs to come to an end?

Given further apparent consensus that the Southern Sudan peace agreement should be honored?

In short, what's the subtext?

In an article published this week, the Wall Street Journal's Jess Bravin connected dots that may answer some of these questions.

Reporting from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, on a military commission's recommendation that "former al Qaeda cook Ibrahim al-Qosi" be sentenced to 14 years in prison, Bravin wrote:

The U.S. has been working with the Sudanese government to repatriate detainees from Guantanamo Bay, according to evidence presented ....

Indications are that upon imposition of sentence, Qosi will be repatriated to Sudan, along with 9 other Sudanese men detained at Gitmo. Adduced, Bravin wrote, was a letter which said:

'Sudan is ready to cooperate with President Obama in his effort to close down the Guantanamo facility ...'

Bravin connected this readiness to cooperate to Bashir's continuing at-large status. Experts he contacted -- Juan E. Méndez and IntLawGrrls' own guest/alumna, Mary Ellen O'Connell, disagreed on whether including Gitmo in the Sudan/ICC mix was a good or bad idea.

Truth is, given the way that countries interact, conflation of the 2 is probably inevitable. So too the add-on of concerns about the on-the-ground situation in Darfur -- even apart from consideration of the ICC charges. So three the add-on of concerns about what's up with Southern Sudan.

There's yet a 4th add-on, implicit but not quite overt in these Guantánamo revelations: Sudan's been a linchpin in counterterrorism at least since the days that the government tolerated Osama bin Laden's presence there, so that the United States and its allies are loathe to dismiss out of hand any aid the Sudanese government gives to anti-Qaeda efforts.

Kudos to Bravin for bringing subtext to light.

Time now for people who care to push the United States -- and other countries with clout, in the Security Council or elsewhere -- squarely to confront the complex of issues related to policy on Sudan.

Dark Days in Darfur

(Another in IntLawGrrls' series of posts in connection with the Kampala Conference)

The crisis in Darfur remains on the international criminal justice agenda, not only at the ongoing International Criminal Court Review Conference ongoing in Uganda, but also, sadly, in that Sudanese region some thousand miles to the northwest of Kampala. (map credit)

In Kampala, Uganda

► At the Kampala Conference, a demand that Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir be held accountable for crimes committed in Darfur, particularly those against women and children, was made by the Nobel Women's Initiative, an Ottawa-based NGO founded in 2006 by 6 Peace Laureates: Jody Williams of the United States, Shirin Ebadi of Iran, Rigoberta Menchú of Guatemala, Irishwomen Betty Williams and Máiread Maguire, and Dr. Wangari Maathai of Kenya.

► Meanwhile, remarks this past weekend by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni (prior IntLawGrrls post) prompted reports that Bashir had not been invited to the African Union summit scheduled for next month in Kampala, Uganda's capital city. As a Voice of America dispatch explained:

Uganda is a member nation of the ICC, and theoretically would be required to arrest Mr. Bashir if he attended the AU meeting.

But yesterday the BBC reported that after expressions of "outrage" in Sudan's capital, Khartoum, "Uganda's foreign ministry issued a statement to 'clarify' that Mr Bashir had been invited to the summit of African leaders." It's now said that the 1st statement was "misconstrued" from a remark that Bashir is in any event unlikely to attend.

In Darfur, Sudan

► Those events to the southeast occurred against the backdrop of a sharp rise in violence in Darfur itself. Dispatches this week cited a African Union/United Nations hybrid peacekeeping operation in Darfur (UNAMID) report that 600 people died in Darfur during the month of May, "the highest monthly toll since peacekeepers were deployed in 2008."

Casualties spiked after a breakdown in peace talks.

After multiparty elections in April -- Sudan's first in 24 years -- the rebels of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) claimed that the government had launched new raids against it, and thus walked out of negotiations then under way in Qatar. JEM announced on Monday that it intended to continue to boycott the talks, and asserted that its forces are clashing "continuously" with the Sudanese army.

Peace, justice

It is unclear whether the increase of violence and this international pressure are connected. Any possibility of a link certainly plays into one of the deepest fears voiced about the International Criminal Court, and about international prosecutions generally: that prosecutions may upset the extraordinarily fragile peace of a post-conflict nation. This "peace vs. justice" argument often is advanced as a reason that countries are reluctant to prosecute war criminals -- sometimes even decades later, as has been discussed in IntLawGrrls' series on Khmer Rouge accountability in Cambodia.

Risks seem especially high in the case of Darfur.

► On the one hand, the situation in that region of Sudan marks the first time that the ICC has issued an arrest warrant for a sitting head of state. This occurred -- and continues to occur -- amid a crisis that can hardly be said to have reached the "post-conflict" stage. The warrant issued despite the absence of ICC power actually to arrest Bashir, and despite the absence of any U.N. Security Council action to effect that arrest. This standoff may be seen as an invitation to further violence and oppression.

► On the other hand, the prospect of regional policing holds some promise. While Sudan's indicted President (right) has reportedly travelled abroad "in defiance" of the warrant for his arrest, Bashir evidently has avoided ICC member states as destinations. This leaves one with the idealistic thought that perhaps he might dare Uganda and be arrested there next month -- not to mention the overly idealistic dream that his arrest would end the cycle of violence in Darfur.

But, like most issues, the question is not nearly so simple.

While international pressure to prosecute, particularly for crimes of gender-based violence, is a good thing, the international community must also pressure all warring parties in Sudan to come back to the negotiating table. It is only with peace that prosecutions will be meaningful symbols of justice in Darfur.

Nexus of Film & Activism in Kampala

(Delighted to welcome back IntLawGrrls alumna and filmmaker Pamela Yates, who contributes this guest post to IntLawGrrls' series on the ICC Kampala Conference)

At Skylight Pictures we (Peter Kinoy, Paco de Onís, and I) spend a lot of time thinking about ways to heighten the impact of our films in order to increase awareness of human rights and justice issues. For over 25 years we’ve been committed to the art of storytelling through the language of cinema – lush cinematography, music woven in to enhance the narrative, thoughtful editing that seamlessly transports the viewer through time and space – in the belief that it will bring audiences to a deeper level of engagement.
In recent years, as social media tools have proliferated, we have adapted many of them to our mission. An example is the international justice Twitter feed on the IJCentral map, about which I blogged in this IntLawGrrls post.
But because much of our outreach work is in developing countries, we also produce lo-tech projects designed to engage audiences on the ground, for whom traveling through cyberspace is not an option.
And that’s the reason that Skylight's at the International Criminal Court Review Conference in Kampala, with 1,000 Screening Kits of our film The Reckoning: The Battle for the International Criminal Court (prior IntLawGrrls posts here and here) -- to give out free of charge to civil society organizations, to country delegations, and to the press. (Thanks to generous support from Humanity United and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.) The Kits are in English and French, and include:
► The Reckoning (60-minute version)
► ICC and Africa (20-minute film)
► Peace & Justice (20-minute film)
► Screening/Discussion Guide
► Audience Survey Form
► FAQs about the ICC
The impetus to make the Screening Kits came from 180 African civil society organizations that banded together and signed a petition to protest the 2009 declaration (available here) by the African Union (logo at right) of non-cooperation with the ICC with regard to the arrest warrant it issued for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. While the international press focused on the AU declaration and its critique of the ICC, the pushback against impunity coming from the civil society organizations wasn’t getting any attention. The latter organisations were saying that the AU wasn’t offering the victims any justice alternative to the ICC -- that it was effectively declaring Africa an “impunity zone”. They wanted to raise public awareness of how the ICC works and how it operates as a court of last resort.
So we reached out to these organisations to see if we could produce a media tool they could use to increase awareness of the role that the ICC can play in the battle against impunity. In coordination with Pivot Pictures, a media initiative of the International Center for Transitional Justice, we coordinated with the ICTJ country offices in Kenya, Uganda, Morocco, and South Africa to work out what materials and themes to include in the Kit. After a period of exchanging ideas and getting feedback from the civil society organizations on 2 short films that we produced for the project, we arrived at the menu listed above. Now those organisations will receive their Screening Kits and go forth to use them – we’ve created an online Screening Report form for the them to use, so that we may track the use of the Kits and the impact they are having.
The Kampala ICC Review Conference is an extraordinary opportunity to have massive impact with The Reckoning and a range of short films and microdocs we produced about international justice themes. We will be screening all this material non-stop at the RC Media Centre, and we also have several screenings planned at the People’s Space, where civil society organizations from around the world are gathered this 2 weeks in order to discuss the ICC. The Kampala theatrical Premiere of The Reckoning was at Watoto Church yesterday, and there will be a national broadcast on UBC, Ugandan national television, today.
And watch for our video blogs at the RC Media Centre. They'll be posted daily at IJCentral.

Remittances to Africa

Yesterday, the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) released a report on remittances to Africa. The report notes that the 30 million members of the African diaspora abroad contribute annually approximately $40 billion in remittances -- a number that far exceeds official development assistance for the region as a whole and that is greater than foreign direct investment for many countries. As a result, "[p]articularly in these times of financial turmoil, workers’ remittances are being recognized for their contribution to the economic health of the region’s nations, as well as for their vital importance to recipient families." In the interest of increasing the development impact of these remittances, IFAD examines the competitiveness and regulation of as well as access to African remittance markets.
The picture is not pretty: two major money transfer companies control 65 percent of all remittance payout locations, and these companies require that agents sign exclusivity agreements, creating serious barriers to market entry. Moreover, 80 percent of African countries allow only banks and foreign exchange bureaus to offer remittance services. As a result, microfinance institutions, which may be better located and structured to serve rural and less wealthy customers, constitute less than 3 percent of remittance payers. IFAD cautions that a regulatory fix alone will be insufficient to jump-start microfinance; most of these institutions currently lack capacity and will need significant technical assistance in order to offer remittance services that will maximize development impact.
Of particular interest is the impact of remittances on gender disparities in income:

Average monthly income excluding remittances is significantly higher for men (US$195) than for women (US$175). Interestingly, when the receiving of remittances is included, women have a slightly higher monthly income (US$226) than male remittance recipients (US$218). Among non-recipients, men have significantly higher monthly incomes (US$195 versus US$164 for women).

Moreover, female remittance recipients have, on average, 2.5 times the savings of non-recipients.
Lowering the cost and increasing the development impact of remittances seems an uncontroversially desirable goal. To that end, IFAD recommends more regular study of remittances to Africa; reforming regulation to encourage competition in services, including by supporting microfinance institutions; and building capacity by providing technical assistance to microfinance institutions and financial literacy programs for remittance recipients. These approaches fall squarely within the African Union's mission of sustainable and self-reliant development, and may be promising candidates for regional regulation and coordination.

On May 26

On this day in ...
... 1969 (40 years ago today), in Colombia, diplomats from that country plus Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela signed the Cartagena Agreement (formally titled the Andean Subregional Integration Agreement) "in order to jointly improve their peoples’ standard of living through integration and economic and social cooperation." Today the subregional organization established by this and related agreements, la Comunidad Andina/the Andean Community (flag at right), has 4 members: Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Chile withdrew in 1976, and Venezuela, which had joined in 1973, withdrew in 2006.
... 2001, the Constitutive Act of the African Union entered into force. The agreement, by which the 53-state-party-member African Union (flag at left) replaced the 38-year-old Organization of African Unity as the primary regional organization for the continent, had been adopted at Lomé, Togo, on July 11, 2000.

(Prior May 26 posts are here and here.)

On October 4

On this day in ...
... 2008 (today), is celebrated World Animal Day. A conference of ecologists, meeting in Florence, Italy, in 1931, chose this date because it is the feast day of Francis of Assisi, who in Roman Catholic tradition is the patron saint of animals. On this day groups throughout the world work to draw attention to all aspects of animal welfare, from prevention of unwanted litters to protection of endangered species.
... 1993 (15 years ago today), a battle raged in the hours after 2 Blackhawk helicopters "carrying elite US Army Ranger units on a mission to capture a local warlord" were "shot down in a heavy firefight in the capital of Somalia," where U.S. troops had been deployed in a humanitarian mission. (photo credit) In the end 18 U.S. soldiers and 1 U.N. peacekeeper from Malaysia were killed; some bodies were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. About 90 peacekeepers were wounded, and 2 persons were held hostage for a week. In addition, according to the BBC, "[b]etween 350 and 1,000 Somali gunmen and civilians were believed killed." The incident touched off controversy in the United States that led to the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Somalia within months, and all U.N. troops by the following year. Later depicted in Mark Bowden's book and the Hollywood film Blackhawk Down, "[t]he episode," in the words of the BBC, "continues to influence US military and foreign policy."
Sadly, turmoil erupted again just days ago, when "Islamist militants launched a massive assault on African Union peacekeepers in the Somali capital," and so spark[ed] battles that killed at least 17 civilians," according to CNN.

Death in absentia at home; trial abroad awaits

Le Monde reports that former Chadian President Hissène Habré (dressed in white in the photo at left) was convicted of crimes against humanity and yesterday sentenced to death by a criminal court in N'Djamena, Chad's capital city. But the defendant was not present: he's been in exile in Senegal since 1991.
"Africa's Pinochet" is the nickname that Human Rights Watch gave Habré, whose government is said to have "carried out some 40,000 politically motivated murders and 200,000 cases of torture" from when he seized power in 1982 and when he was deposed in 1990. That NGO maintains a Case against Habré webpage replete with documents and other links.
The premier situs for that case has not been Chad, however. Senegal indicted him, but its courts initially rebuffed the prosecution. Then Belgium issued an international arrest warrant. Senegal thus sought to extradite Habré, but its courts against rebuffed the effort. Then, in 2006, the African Union "[m]andate[d] the Republic of Senegal to prosecute and ensure that Hissène Habré is tried, on behalf of Africa, by a competent Senegalese court with guarantees for fair trial." And now? According to Le Monde,

Senegal's Minister of Justice, Madické Niang, indicated in July, after the country's legislature modified its Constitution to permit such a proceeding, that Dakar was 'ready' for the trial of Habré.

(credit for 2000 photo)

Bulletin: Sudan'll let peacekeepers in Darfur

Sudan's just agreed to permit a combined African Union-United Nations peacekeeping force of 17,000-19,000 into Darfur in an effort to quell the violence there. Details here.

On May 25, ...

... 1993, the U.N. Security Council adopted the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, empowered to adjudicate charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide arising out of the decade's war in the Balkans. Conflict persisted well after establishment of the ICTY; indeed, on the same day in 1995, the Bosnian Serb Army shelled the "safe area" of Tuzla, killing 71 Bosnians and injuring 150 more.

... 1963, a summit conference of 32 African leaders in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, ended with the founding of the Organization of African Unity, whose Charter established a regional body pledged to work for betterment of African states and an end to white minority rule in any African state. Nearly 20 years later, in 2002, the OAU would be superseded by the African Union, a new regional organization.

... 1960, U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Dem./Farmer/Labor-Minn.) was born in Plymouth, Minnesota.