Nairobi Notebook

Courting Trouble

In a few hours the International Criminal Court is expected to seek the arrest of top Sudanese officials at its chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo opens a new file on Darfur. Diplomatic sources say Moreno-Ocampo is widely expected to include Sudan's President Omar Al Bashir, the first time the international court has even laid charges of war-crimes against an incumbent head of state.

Reports coming out of Sudan suggest Khartoum is a city poised to spit venom at western conspirators. Top of the list are the US and EU but the United Nations and even the aid agencies trying to alleviate the misery of millions of Darfuris won't escape the wrath of Khartoum. UN agencies are going into lock down, fearing retaliatory attacks for the ICC's move. On Sunday protesters at a government organised rally chanted "Down, down USA" while a Sudanese government spokesmen told The Times “If an international organisation or the organisations working in the humanitarian field are behind such an indictment of the head of state, our symbol of national sovereignty, then no one should expect us to turn our left cheek,” he said. Expect more blood to be spilled in Darfur.

Don't expect Sudan to heed Moreno-Ocampo's call to arrest Al Bashir. Khartoum does not recognise the ICC and Sudanese President has said Sudan will cooperate "over his dead body". The Darfur peace process is already in tatters but the ICC's move will do nothing to help get the process back on track.

Which begs the question: in whose interest does the ICC serve? No doubt it would be inaccurate to say there is no support for the ICC's move. I imagine there are countless Darfuris (especially those who have managed to flee the region) who are in full-support, as well as the human rights campaigners, the Mia Farrow's of the world. Certainly, the African continent has for decades allowed too many of its leaders to commit war crimes with total impunity and scant regard for the lives of their citizens.  I write this knowing full well that comments will fly back with allegations of hypocrisy - what about Bush and Blair in Iraq?! However the ICC's mandate to hold war criminals to account is necessary - but that does not mean it has to scupper peace efforts?

Just take a look at the case of the Lord's Resistance Army. There is little doubt that the ICC arrest warrants against Joseph Kony are the single biggest hurdle to sealing a peace accord. Given the untold horrors Kony has committed against the people of northern Uganda and southern Sudan, and now in DRC, he should fear eventual arrest and prosecution. So it is no surprise he refuses to emerge from his bush hideout. Would Kony have finally signed on the dotted line in Juba if all he had to do was return to Gulu, northern Uganda, step on an egg, drink the juice of bitter leaves and apologise to his people? It is the classic debate over "traditional custom of forgiveness and reconciliation versus western-styled punitive justice".

For more of this debate in the context of Darfur go to Making Sense of Darfur.
So what happens once Moreno-Ocampo announces his scalps? Firstly ICC judges will take up to three months to rule on the likely application for the arrest warrants. In the meantime the UN security council can pass a resolution suspending the ICC warrant if they fear the potential repercussions are too dangerous for Darfur. This would be another humiliating blow to the ICC which is having a torrid time of it at the moment.

Rape: A Weapon of War

Yesterday the UN declared that it deemed rape to be a war tactic, a deliberate weapon to humiliate and break the will of communities. Russia, China, Indonesia and Vietnam all expressed reservations over whether rape was a matter for the UN Security Council. In the end the vote was unanimous.

Two years ago I traveled to the town of Bukavu in the Democratic Republic of Congo's war-scarred east. Once this town was the summer playground of the Congolese elite and their Belgian colonisers. It sits on the southern edge of Lake Kivu, nestled under steep, rugged and now deforested hills. Dilipadated boat-houses and diving platforms line the lake shore. In this volatile region Bukavu is now relatively peaceful but it hasn't always been. It is not difficult to find women with tales of untold horrors.

Honorata Zakumwilo was 54 years old when I met her. She looked at me through squinted eyes. All her front teeth were missing or broken and blackened - the result of endless beatings. Her story is horrendous. What is worse, she is just one of tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of women in the DRC alone to have suffered such an ordeal. Here are excerpts of her interview.

"In October 2001 the Interehamwe came to our village at 4am. They were dressed in military fatigues and heavily armed and they encircled the huts we were sleeping in. They killed many men and took about a dozen women with them. I was one of them.

"We walked for many hours until finally we arrived at a camp in the forest. The rape began immediately. Four men would hold a woman down be her hands and feet while a fifth would enter her. One by one they all had their turn. Sometimes they would chose a woman and hang her upside down from a wooden cross so that her head almost touched the ground. Up to twenty would rape her at a time. Everyone joined in.

"In the forest we were worth less than wild animals, less than objects. They would cry out 'A manger' [dinner time] but they weren't calling for food, they were calling for us".

It was fourteen months before Honorata summoned up the courage to escape her captors.

I am not sure the UN classifying rape as a weapon of war will changing anything. Automatic rifles, RPGs, land-mines all kill, mutilate and destroy the social fabric of communities....that is why they are used. An updated UN handbook will not end the rape of women caught up in wars. But at least it affords some recognition to the atrocities they endure.