“Hey, I heard on the radio that there’s a peace agreement for Darfur!” was the excited message a non-Darfur-obsessed friend (I do have a few) greeted me with yesterday. “Hmm” I replied, un-enthused – clearly not the response my friend was expecting. At the time I hadn’t read the actual agreement just signed by the […]
No criminal
February 8, 2010 by 2 Comments
You showed us the crime but not the criminal – is the basic message from the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber I to the Prosecutor. At 103 pages their actual decision is significantly more detailed than that, but in essence the judges decided not to confirm the charges against Abu Garda not because they do not think […]
ICC judges do not confirm charges against Darfur rebel Abu Garda
February 8, 2010 by Leave a Comment
The decision on the confirmation of charges (this is the “substantial grounds to believe” stage) in the ICC Prosecutor’s case against Darfuri rebel leader Abu Garda has just been released. The Prosecution was charging Abu Garda with three counts of war crimes related to the 2007 attack on the AMIS peacekeeping base at Haskanita. The […]
AU reaction to ICC Appeal decision in Bashir case
February 5, 2010 by 1 Comment
Hi all Book drafting taking priority over commentary here, but just to keep you updated re. reactions to the Appeals Chamber decision on the Bashir arrest warrant, I’m posting below the communique released by the African Union. In short they are continuing an anti-ICC position. One thing that did strike me when I was speaking […]
Postscript: Abdalhaleem’s other function
November 24, 2009 by 1 Comment
After reading my previous post a Darfur advocate came back to me with a sound point that deserves incorporation. Namely that in addition to distorting the field in terms of U.S.-based advocacy asks, Abdalhaleem’s comments (and those of the same genre) serve another function – trial ballooning for, in particular, a regional audience. In other […]
Let’s not get played by the “Abdalhaleem tactic”
November 24, 2009 by Leave a Comment
After the Secretary General’s Nov. 16 report hit the news headlines this week, Sudan Ambassador to the UN, Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem, told Reuters: “One big fact should be the focus of the report — that the war is over . . .With peace in sight, the U.N. should, in coordination with the African Union and Sudanese […]
So you think you’re busy?
July 18, 2009 by Leave a Comment
Mr. Wane has quite a job, as the Acting Head of the African Union Conflict Management Centre. Immaculately dressed in a slate-grey suit, he was finishing a meeting with a staffer as I was coming in. I have met a lot of busy people in my time, but he may just take the cake. Over […]
AU Commission reacts to civil society support for ICC Bashir case
July 17, 2009 by 1 Comment
Following a flurry of media reports indicating that some South African civil society organizations want President Zuma to distance himself from last week’s AU decision to oppose the arrest warrant for President al-Bashir, as well as a poll released yesterday indicating that the general public in some countries is not as opposed to the Bashir […]
The Red Terror: On memory & “progress”
July 14, 2009 by Leave a Comment
On Saturday, the US Mission to the AU hosted a screening of Obama’s Ghana speech for AU staff, and a friend who works there invited me along. With rain delaying the speech, there was time for an unofficial tour. We walked up three flights of stairs to look out over a construction site. “China has […]
Parallel processes
Enough has posted an interesting play-by-play of the Doha process that is worth the read. It states that “The African Union-United Nations mediators, the Qataris, and the U.S. special envoy all seem to support the parallel negotiation track.” What Enough is referring to when they talk about a “parallel negotiating track” is that the Doha […]