Sierra Leone war crimes court convicts 3

Source: CNN.

June 20, 2007.

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) -- A U.N.-backed court trying those accused of bearing greatest responsibility for the brutality of Sierra Leone's civil war issued its first verdicts Wednesday, convicting three former leaders of a junta that had terrorized the country during a brief reign.

The court found the three defendants guilty of 11 of 14 charges, including terrorism, using child soldiers, enslavement, rape and murder.

The three were acquitted of charges of sexual slavery, "other inhumane acts" related to physical and acts related to sexual violence, said Peter Andersen, spokesman for the Sierra Leone Special Court.

The tribunal was set up following the end of fighting in 2002 to prosecute the worst offenders in a conflict that ravaged the small West African nation and spilled over into neighboring Liberia. The court has indicted 12 people, including former Liberian President Charles Taylor, who is charged with backing Sierra Leonean rebels.

The three defendants convicted Wednesday in Freetown had pleaded not guilty to all the charges, which were linked to heading a junta that raped women, burned villages, conscripted thousands of child soldiers and forced others to work as laborers in diamond mines.

The men -- Alex Tamba Brima, Brima Bazzy Kamara and Santigie Borbor Kanu -- were indicted in 2003 as the alleged leaders of the group, called the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council. The group of former military officers toppled Sierra Leone's government in 1997 and then teamed up with rebels to control the country until 1998, according to the indictment.

The conviction marks a watershed, said Corinne Dufka, a senior researcher at New York-based Human Rights Watch. "It's the first time that an international court has issued a verdict on child recruitment," she said.

David Crane, the founding prosecutor of the Sierra Leone Special Court, agreed.

"It's a huge moment for children around the world who have been oppressed in these conflicts," said David Crane, now a law professor at Syracuse University. "This particular judgment sets the cornerstone forever -- those who recruit children into an armed force are criminally liable."

Dufka said the group led by the three men committed their worst atrocities after they were pushed into the bush by an international peacekeeping force in 1998. It was then that they started "punishing the civilian population as a whole," said Dufka, an expert on the conflict.

It is estimated that about half a million people were victims of killings, systematic mutilation and other atrocities during Sierra Leone's conflict, in which illicit diamond sales fueled years of devastation.

Five others are awaiting verdicts in Freetown.

Some have criticized the Special Court for not progressing through trials quickly enough. Three of those charged have died since the indictments -- two of natural causes and one in a killing that many believe was a move to silence him.

Taylor's trial opened earlier this month in The Hague, Netherlands. It was being held outside of Freetown because of fears the case could trigger fresh violence, but remained under the auspices of the Sierra Leone court. Taylor's case was being heard in a room rented from the International Criminal Court.

Taylor is also linked to brutality in his own country, but Liberians have opted for a truth and reconciliation commission rather than a court.

Impunity for war crimes against women

By Louise Arbour

FIRST PERSON Louise Arbour.

The plight of victims of sexual attacks during conflict has come to the fore once again when last week, the International Criminal Court's prosecutor requested summons for two Sudanese connected with atrocities in Darfur. According to the prosecutor, there is strong evidence pointing to the suspects' responsibility for mass rape and other war crimes. Previously, the ICC had issued an arrest warrant for the leader of the Lord Resistance Army, a rebel group in Uganda, on the ground of war crimes, including ordering sexual enslavement and rape.

Thus, ICC action is gearing up to bolster the cumulative experience of international justice mechanisms that have brought to light specific types and patterns of sexual crimes targeting mainly women and girls in war-torn zones, as well as identified individual responsibilities in their commission. The work of these courts has also highlighted the difficulties in prosecuting perpetrators and countering the culture of impunity that shields their criminal acts. Such impunity, of course, permeates all societies, be they peaceful or at war. Not by coincidence, this year International Women Day is dedicated to combating this pervasive lack of accountability. It is, however, in times of war that the effects and consequences of impunity are at their starkest. This is due both to the widespread, systematic and often sustained nature of sexual attacks and to the number and callousness of perpetrators.

Although at their most brutal in war, sexual abuses against women often stem from longstanding prejudices, a lack of equality and discrimination that had condoned such violence all along. When perpetrators go unpunished, they are emboldened to strike again, perpetuating and encouraging vicious cycles of attack and reprisal even when a country emerges from conflict. Rendering justice to the victims is, therefore, not only a moral imperative, but also a precondition for reconciliation and peace to take hold.

Yet, sexual violence has been traditionally underreported and under-prosecuted. As a result, such crimes have long been considered as regrettable but unavoidable byproducts of armed confrontation. Women as victims or pawns of belligerents could demand no recourse.

Only recently has this powerlessness been addressed, primarily by the groundbreaking work of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. The tribunals defined systematic violence against women as crimes for which those responsible could be held accountable, thereby empowering victims to have their day in court. The creation of the International Criminal Court gave an additional boost to such emerging jurisprudence and changing mind set. Its statute stipulates that rape, sexual slavery, enforced sterilization, or any other forms of sexual violence of comparable gravity are considered as war crimes. If these acts are committed as part of widespread or systematic attacks on a civilian population, they constitute crimes against humanity.

It now remains to be seen whether governments will accede to the Court's requests and surrender the suspects for trial. But if government non-compliance is potentially the main obstacle to the course of international justice, there are other factors that hamper prosecution. Victims of all forms of violence are often reluctant to come forward, in large part because they have little confidence that justice will be done. Although some of the perpetrators may have been apprehended, others, as well as their accomplices, may remain at large and therefore capable of inflicting further harm to victims, witnesses and their families.

The Special Court for Sierra Leone has made strides in addressing such hindrances in the face of a monumental task: as the result of ten years of conflict and the belligerents' methods of warfare in that country, the brutality of sexual violence was extraordinary, and its victims were to be counted in the thousands. The Court benefited from its proximity to the victims, the parallel work of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission and a framework that protected the victims and ensured that their dignity was preserved. The ICC, too, is building on previous experiences and strengthening legal assistance and protection for victims.

Although the mandate and machinery of international courts have become increasingly more sophisticated and far-reaching over the years, gender justice continues to remain the exception rather than the rule. Successfully prosecuted cases represent just the tip of the iceberg. The crux of the matter in combating impunity is the requisite political will to tackle it. Often slow to gear up into motion, such political will needs to be mobilized through domestic and international pressure as well as continuous scrutiny.

Louise Arbour is United Nations high commissioner for human rights.