Government welcomes war crimes court

Sierra Leone’s government has welcomed a decision by the UN Security Council to set up a special court to try violators of international humanitarian law and Sierra Leonean criminal law, a statement from President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah’s office said on Monday. It said the UN and the international community “have sent a clear message to perpetrators of hideous crimes that collective action is now being taken to end impunity in this country”. The government assured UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan of its cooperation and said that it hoped the necessary consultations and negotiations would be expedited to allow the formal establishment of the court as soon as possible. “It is, by all accounts, a major step forward towards the establishment of justice and peace in Sierra Leone,” the statement said. The Security Council on Monday unanimously adopted the resolution, which starts the process of setting up a special court to try those responsible for war crimes during the country’s conflict. It asked Annan to negotiate with the government of Sierra Leone, within 30 days, an agreement consistent with the provisions of the resolution. The Council recommended that the court’s jurisdiction should include crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes under Sierra Leonean law committed within the country. It also recommended that the court should have personal jurisdiction over those who bear the greatest responsibility for the crimes, including leaders who, in committing them, threatened the implementation of the peace process. US Ambassador Richard Holbrooke described the resolution’s adoption as an important step towards truth and justice in Sierra Leone. “What’s most important in this is that it does not acknowledge any distinction between actions prior to and following the Lome Agreements (the peace accords signed in July 1999) .... people are going to be held liable under this approach for actions that they committed prior to the Lome Agreements, if those actions constituted crimes against humanity,” he told reporters. The resolution recalled that the Special Representative of the Secretary-General appended to his signature of the Lome Agreements a statement that the UN understood that their amnesty provisions, which granted “absolute and free pardon and reprieve to all combatants and collaborators” up to the signing of the accord, would not apply to war crimes. The New York-based Human Rights Watch welcomed the UN resolution but warned that the court must examine the criminal responsibility of all parties in order to be effective. “This court must not stop at prosecuting one man or faction. Diplomats keep talking about the ‘Sankoh resolution’ as if rebel leader Foday Sankoh were the only one responsible for the widespread war crimes in Sierra Leone,” Peter Takirambudde, executive director of the Africa Division of HRW, said. The effectiveness of the court, he continued, would be determined by the agreement still to be reached between the UN and the Sierra Leonean government. HRW expressed concern that a possible dominant role in the court by the authorities in Sierra Leone could lead to “political manipulation of the process, leading to biased prosecutions and inadequate protections for persons standing trial before the tribunal”. HRW urged the Security Council to set up a “credible, even-handed, and well-funded court with a strong international component” to help bring the main perpetrators of abuse to account. “The job of bringing the perpetrators of international crimes to justice must reside with the international community, not simply war-torn Sierra Leone,” Takirambudde said.