Muslim Sportswomen Gain Standing in Beijing.
Thursday 07 August 2008

by: Aline Bannayan, Women’s eNews
 http://www.truthout.org/article/muslim-s…

The Beijing Olympics starting Friday will showcase the varying degrees to which Muslim countries are warming up to women’s sports. The United Arab Emirates and Oman are sending women for the first time.

Amman, Jordan - Even before the Beijing Summer Olympics begin on Friday, Habiba Hinai is tasting victory.

For the first time, her country is sending a female Olympian to the games. Buthaina Yaqoubi, 16, will compete in the 100-meter dash and either the long jump or the triple jump.

Hinai, one of three women to represent Oman by bearing the Olympic torch during the relay earlier this year, is vice-chair of Oman’s Volleyball Association, the highest position for any woman in the country’s sports scene.

For 18 years she has advocated for the advancement of women’s athletics in her country, seeing it expand from an activity only available in schools in 1993 to the formation of national women’s volleyball, tennis and table tennis teams in 2004.

Now that her country is sending female competitors to the games, Hinai says she can start looking forward to the day when more Muslim women join the International Olympic Committee and Olympic Asian Committee. “That’s the only way to develop sports in the Muslim world.”

The 135-member International Olympic Committee, based in Lausanne, Switzerland, has 15 female members. Two are former Olympians from Arab Muslim countries: Morocco’s 1984 track-and-field 400-meter star Nawal El Moutawakel, the first Arab woman to earn a gold medal, and Egyptian swimmer Rania Elwani, who competed from 1992 through 2000.

Nine men from Arab and Muslim countries also serve on the committee, which organizes the games and represents its 205 national members.

Warming Rates Vary

Muslim countries are warming up to women’s Olympics by varying degrees.

North African nations dominate in Muslim women’s representation. Among them, Tunisia is a particular standout, with women competing in track and field, canoeing, fencing, judo, table tennis, tennis, tae kwon do and wrestling.

The 11 women in Morocco’s 38-member delegation include 30-year-old Olympic 800-meter track champion Hasna Ben Hassi. The country’s many promising young competitors include 24-year-old Meriem Alaoui Selsouli, a potential gold medalist in the women’s 5,000-meter event, who faces fierce Ethiopian competition. The country is also sending Khadija Abbouda, the Olympics’ first Moroccan female archer.

Algeria’s female volleyball players, All Africa Games champions, will compete in that sport for the first time. “It’s extraordinary. We can meet the world’s best teams. And we’re setting an example for women’s sport in Algeria,” said team captain Marimal Madani. Algerian women will also compete in judo and athletics, where Nahida Touhami will compete in the 1500-meter event.

Jordan’s seven-member delegation includes four women. Among them Nadine Dawani, a tae kwon do competitor, and Zeina Sha’ban, a table tennis champion, have the honor of carrying their nation’s flag in the Aug. 8 opening ceremony.

First Women From Oman and UAE

Among the socially conservative Gulf countries, the United Arab Emirates joins Oman in sending its first women to the games. Sheikha Maitha Mohammad Rashed Al-Maktoum, the daughter of Sheikh Mohammad, will compete in tae kwon do. Her cousin and another member of the ruling family, Sheikha Latifa Bint Ahmad Al-Maktoum, will take part in equestrian show jumping.

Muslim Women in Olympic History

1964: Iran sent its first female athlete to Olympics.

1984: Morocco’s Nawal El Moutawakel became the first Arab woman to win a gold medal when she came in first in the women’s 400 meters at the Los Angeles Games. She is now minister of sports.

1992: Hassiba Boulmerka of Algeria won a gold medal in 1,500-meter race. She often trained in Europe after being castigated in her own country for competing in a vest and shorts. That same year Susi Susanti became the first Olympic athlete to win a gold medal in badminton for Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation.

2000: Jordan’s Princess Haya, the sister of King Abdullah, became the first female Arab flag-bearer at an Olympic Games, the first and only Arab woman to compete in equestrian events and the first member of an Arab royal family to compete in the Olympics. In 2006, she became the first Arab woman to lead an international sports federation when she was elected president of the International Equestrian Federation.

2004: Women from Iran won medals in pistol shooting. That year Afghanistan-which had ended Taliban rule only three years earlier-sent two female athletes to compete; one in track and field and one in judo. Bahrain sent Ruqaya Al-Ghasra as their first-ever female competitor.

Iran, Pakistan and Bahrain, which usually have predominantly male delegations, are sending a limited number of women.

Iran’s 53 athletes include three women, who will compete in rowing, archery and tae kwon do.

Two women are among Pakistan’s 21 athletes. They are 22-year-old Sadaf Siddiqui running the 100-meter dash and 18-year-old swimmer Kiran Khan. Pakistan first sent female athletes to the games in 1996.

Bahrain is also sending two women, including Ruqaya Al-Ghasra, 24, who won the 200-meter event at the 2006 Doha Asian Games and the 100-meter dash at the 11th Pan-Arab Games in 2007. She has qualified for both the women’s 100-meter and 200-meter races in Beijing. Her countrywoman, Maryam Yusuf Jamal, will compete in the 800-meter.

Iraq has one female sprinter, Dana Hussein, 21, among its four qualifiers.

Somalia’s Samiyo Yusuf will run in the 400-meter and 800-meter events as the only female athlete representing the war-torn nation.

Brunei and Saudi Arabia will not be sending any women. Both countries bar women’s sports for “cultural and religious reasons” and do not allow women to participate in the Olympics.

Qatar and Kuwait will also not be sending any women to Beijing. Both countries allow women’s sports, but are opting to send male athletes with what they consider better competitive chances.

Post-Barcelona Push

Women’s participation in the Olympics has been a particularly sensitive subject since 1992.

That year, 35 countries - half of them Muslim - sent no female athletes to the Barcelona Games.

To lower those numbers two French advocates, Annie Sugier and Linda Weil-Curiel, founded a group called Atlanta Plus to work on requiring countries to include women in their Olympic delegations.

Weil-Curiel, a lawyer, says all-male delegations contravene the Olympic charter’s prohibition against all forms of discrimination. She has been lobbying the International Olympic Committee for years to impose sanctions on nations that bar women from competing.

Based in Paris, her organization now calls itself Atlanta-Sydney-Athens Plus and can happily point to the shrinking supply of all-male delegations.

Thirty-five all-male Olympic teams competed in Barcelona in 1992 compared to 26 in Atlanta in 1996, 10 in Sydney in 2000 and five in Athens 2004. There are at least four all-male delegations sent to Beijing, but a tally is not yet available.

Women came closer to parity during 2004 when they competed in 135 events and represented 44 percent of all participants.

Sports officials in Arab countries contend that women’s limited participation is not restricted to their countries and point to the limited number of women in the International Olympic Committee’s decision-making bodies.

In March 2008, during the fourth International Olympic Committee conference on women and sports, held in Jordan, 600 participants endorsed the Dead Sea Plan of Action. It calls for gender equality in national teams, their leadership and technicians, and also encourages female sports reporters to actively cover the events. Attendees included the world’s top sporting officials, including International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge, many Olympic medalists and King Abdullah and Queen Rania of Jordan.

Women were barred from competing in the first modern games in 1896 but four years later they were permitted to participate in the “ladylike” sports of tennis, golf and croquet.

In Beijing, female athletes will compete in nearly every Olympic sport, including wrestling, which was opened to women for the first time at the Athens Games. The Japanese are expected to be the dominant force with the Americans, Bulgarians and Chinese expected to pose a threat in their quest for Olympic gold.

——–

Aline Bannayan is a reporter and editor based in Amman, Jordan. A former national basketball team player, she has covered sports for the Jordan Times as well as the AP in Amman since 1991.

UN’s Ban Distances Himself from Sudan’s Bashir, After Off the Record Lunch with Journalists.

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, August 1 — With Sudan’s President Omar Al Bashir threatened with an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court, it has been reported that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has been advised by his lawyers to “distance himself politically” from Al Bashir. The London-based newspaper Al Hayat, with a long-time correspondent at UN Headquarters, sourced this to “Ban aides.”

  At the August 1 UN noon briefing, Inner City Press asked Ban’s spokesperson Michele Montas if the report is true. “I don’t have a response,” Ms. Montas said. But was Ban advised to distance himself from Al Bashir? “I’m sure that issue was discussed with the Secretary-General,” Montas said, adding that is Ban’s decision what to do with such advice. Video here, from Minute 23:16.

   Further inquiry by Inner City Press leads to the inference that the sourcing of the story was Ban Ki-moon himself. It is an open secret that Ban has been holding a series of off-the-record lunches with select reporters, including on July 30 the Al Hayat correspondent. Whether a shifting of the sourcing from Ban to his aides — or perhaps in fairness a subsequent confirmation by aides — complies with Ban’s understanding remains to be seen.

  The question arises, as the trigger for this piece, why would Ban be distancing himself from the advice or decision that he be distant from Bashir? What is gained by telling select journalists, on the condition that they not report it, that he is taking seriously the ICC Prosecutor’s charges of war crimes including rape, and of genocide, by Al Bashir? Perhaps it was understood that they would report it?

Messrs. Ban and Bashir, distance for distancing not shown

  Some say that the decision to step back from Al Bashir is as much personal as legal. Just before ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo formally announced that he is seeking an arrest warrant against Al Bashir, Ban telephoned Bashir. Afterwards, Sudanese state media characterized the call as one in which Ban was critical of the prosecutor. Ban’s office ultimately responded to the characterization, and criticized statements by Sudan’s Ambassador to the UN. When Inner City Press asked, on the record, which statement were being criticized, there was no answer. But was there an off the record answer?

  The series of lunches continued on August 1, when Ms. Montas was seen escorting a half dozen journalists to the elevator. Would the lunches become on the record? Would they cease?—————

UN DAILY NEWS from the
UNITED NATIONS NEWS SERVICE
1 August, 2008
=========================================================================䅁

SECRETARY-GENERAL SOUNDS ALARM ON FRAGILITY OF SUDAN’S NORTH-SOUTH PEACE ACCORD

The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) ending Sudan’s long-running
north-south civil war has faced some of its most “volatile and challenging”
months since it was signed in 2005, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon writes in
a report made public today.

Recent incidents – including the May attack by the rebel Justice and
Equality Movement (JEM) on Omdurman, near the capital Khartoum, and
fighting between the Sudanese armed forces (SAF) and the Sudan People’s
Liberation Army (SPLA) in Abyei – serve as “stark reminders of the
fragility of peace in the Sudan,” Mr. Ban says in his latest report on the
accord.

Additionally, he notes that such instability highlights how the people of
Sudan would suffer if the CPA – which he characterizes as “the bedrock for
sustainable peace in the Sudan” – were to fail.

Steps taken to consolidate the peace agreement have been thwarted by the
crisis in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, where as many as 300,000
people are estimated to have been killed as a result of direct combat,
disease or malnutrition since 2003. Another 2.7 million people have been
displaced because of fighting between rebels, Government forces and allied
militiamen known as the Janjaweed.

“Ultimately, peace in the Sudan is indivisible,” the report states, given
that Darfur is part of the north and the CPA is the basis of the peace
process between north and south.

One of the biggest obstacles to implementing the accord, the
Secretary-General says, has been the disputed town of Abyei, which lies in
an oil-rich area close to the boundary between north and south Sudan.

“The root cause of the problem has been the failure of the two parties to
agree on an approach to implement the Abyei Protocol,” he notes, referring
to the agreement to end the deadly fighting in the town.

In June, the National Congress Party and the Sudan People’s Liberation
Movement (SPLM) agreed on a road map to resolve the Abyei dispute,
including through arbitration.

Mr. Ban says that implementing this road map in good faith would spur
progress in other areas, and urges both sides to complete their
redeployment out of the area as soon as possible.

But the Abyei issue should not overshadow the other areas where
improvements towards achieving the CPA need to be made, he warns.

The Secretary-General congratulates the parties for having implemented a
key benchmark of the peace accord, conducting a national census, but calls
for the prompt demarcation of the 1 January 1956 border.

“The delay in this process has caused the two sides to deploy forces along
border areas to attain better bargaining positions, creating a de factor
border line as a consequence.”

* * *

DARFUR: TOP UN RELIEF OFFICIAL ‘DEEPLY TROUBLED’ BY ATTACKS ON AID WORKERS.

The top United Nations relief official today called for full respect for
humanitarian principles in the face of continuing attacks on aid workers in
Darfur, a troubled region in western Sudan.

“I am deeply troubled about the continuing threats and attacks against
humanitarian agencies working in Darfur,” John Holmes,
Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, said in a statement.

“Following two attacks against their teams and premises in just one week,
Médecins Sans Frontières has announced it has no choice but to evacuate its
team from two locations in North Darfur. The departure of MSF team leaves
some 65,000 people without essential medical assistance,” he said.

Mr. Holmes, who also serves as the Emergency Relief Coordinator, said that
the armed opposition groups in Darfur had a clear obligation to guarantee
the personal and physical safety of relief workers and access to vulnerable
populations. He added that the Government also had a responsibility to
ensure security throughout its territory.

Calling for aid organizations to be allowed to work in peace, he said that
so far this year, 180 humanitarian vehicles had been hijacked, 145 aid
workers kidnapped and nine killed.

“Impunity for such attacks must end. Hundreds of thousands of people rely
on the assistance these aid organizations deliver and we cannot afford to
have them absent from Darfur,” he stressed.

The region remains beset by violence and instability five years after
rebels began fighting Government forces and allied militiamen known as the
Janjaweed. More than 300,000 are estimated to have died, either through
direct combat, malnutrition or disease, and another 2.7 million others have
been displaced from their homes since 2003..

Yesterday, the Security Council adopted a resolution extending by 12 months
the mandate of the hybrid United Nations-African Union peacekeeping
mission, known as UNAMID.,

From:  unnews at un.org
Subject: UN DAILY NEWS DIGEST - 23 July
Date: July 23, 2008

UN DAILY NEWS from the UNITED NATIONS NEWS SERVICE.
23 July, 2008
=========================================================================

SOMALIA: UN ENVOY CALLS ON SECURITY COUNCIL TO TAKE ‘BOLD, DECISIVE AND
FAST ACTION’

The United Nations envoy to Somalia told the Security Council today that
there were limited choices for bringing peace to the violence-wracked Horn
of Africa country, but that the time had come to make a final decision on
the best possible option.

Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah said that the options included converting the current
African Union peacekeeping mission to Somalia, known as AMISOM, to a UN
operation by “rehatting” the troops, creating an international
stabilization force or establishing a new UN peacekeeping force.

Mr. Ould-Abdallah also called on the Council to make a strong public
expression of support for the peace agreement signed in Djibouti in June
between the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia and the Alliance for
the Re-Liberation of Somalia.

“Given that Somalis have suffered for so long, and the current favourable
political context following the Djibouti Agreement, it is time for the
Security Council to take bold, decisive and fast action,” he said in a
statement to the council.

“An effective implementation of the Agreement should be an incentive to
bring more Somalis on board and give them a chance to contribute to the
birth of their country,” he said, noting that “in all peace processes some
individuals or groups always set out by rejecting agreements.”

Acknowledging that violence had been pervasive in Somalia for a long time,
the envoy said the Djibouti Agreement provided an opportunity to
marginalize and eventually stop such violence. He also called for a review
of the names on the Security Council sanctions list to recognize the role
of individuals who had decided to change their behaviour and support peace.

Mr. Ould-Abdallah added that the peace agreement should provide security
for humanitarian programmes in the country, in particular for naval escorts
for the UN World Food Programme (WFP), which brings 80 per cent of its food
aid to Somalia by sea. He said that it was unfortunate that these escorts
had now ceased.

On the humanitarian front, the envoy said he sympathized with Somali
nations who constitute more than 95 per cent of aid workers in south and
central Somalia.

“They risk their lives daily and all too often have been the innocent
victims of targeted killings. With international determination, as shown in
Kosovo and elsewhere, the individuals carrying out these terrible deeds
should not be given a chance to prevail,” he said.

——————
* * *

UN-AFRICAN UNION MISSION CHIEF MEETS WITH SUDANESE PRESIDENT IN DARFUR

The head of the United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur
(UNAMID) met today with President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan at the mission’s
headquarters in El Fasher.

Mr. al-Bashir reiterated his country’s resolve to provide security for
UNAMID staff and convoys. “You are our guests and our partners,” he said,
“and we are ready to provide any assistance that will help you do your
work.”

The Joint Special Representative told the President that UNAMID’s
deployment was besieged by numerous challenges, but said that the mission
was strengthening its resolve to reach its full capacity as soon as
possible.

The Sudanese leader expressed his condolences to UNAMID and the families of
those peacekeepers that have lost their lives in Darfur while serving the
mission. Seven blue helmets were killed in an ambush earlier this month in
North Darfur and, just over a week later, another was shot dead in West
Darfur.

Mr. Adada pointed out that UNAMID had thousands of containers awaiting
“movement along the difficult and sometimes dangerous routes into Darfur,”
and called on the Sudanese Government to ensure that the convoys reach
their destinations safely.

The Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Sudan, Ashraf Qazi,
also travelled to Darfur and attended the meetings with the President.

UNAMID reported that the deployment of an Egyptian engineering unit had to
be postponed after the airport was closed for the President’s visit. New
dates for the deployment are yet to be confirmed.

Meanwhile, the mission announced that it is continuing to suspend the
temporary relocation of its non-essential UN personnel. Some 300 people
were moved out of Darfur before the relocation was halted last Friday.

Earlier this week, Mr. Adada met Amr Moussa, the Secretary-General of the
Arab League, to discuss cooperation and peace in Darfur in the wake of the
recent war crimes charges sought by the International Criminal Court (ICC)
Prosecutor against Mr. al-Bashir.

Some 300,000 people are estimated to have been killed as a result of direct
combat, disease or malnutrition since 2003. Another 2.7 million people have
been displaced because of fighting between rebels, Government forces and
allied militiamen known as the Janjaweed.
* * *

SUDAN AND UN SIGN FOUR-YEAR DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE PLAN

The Sudanese Government today signed an agreement with United Nations
agencies operating in the country on a four-year aid plan covering
peacebuilding, governance and the rule of law, employment, education and
health care as well as other services.

The agreement, known as the UN Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF),
was signed by representatives of the Government of National Unity and the
Government of Southern Sudan and 18 UN agencies headed by Humanitarian and
Resident Coordinator Ameerah Haq.

Ms. Haq said the new agreement, which covers the years 2009 to 2012, “will
enable us to move beyond annual planning, and set more ambitious
development goals with the help of all our national and international
partners. With the endorsement of this planning tool, the UN will spare no
effort in helping the country achieve tangible progress toward the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).”

“The consolidation of peace and stability in the country remains the
ultimate goal of the UNDAF process,” she added.

Welcoming the new agreement, Sudan’s State Minister of International
Cooperation El Elias Nyamlell Wakoson said that it “represents an important
step in terms of moving forward jointly with a common vision of our
strategic direction in support of the peace process.”

The UN has pushed on the African Union to get involved in Darfur, but the Arab dominated AU leadership will stand till the bitter end by the Sudanese leaders. If there is any relenting in fighting it is because of the simple mathematics of a genocide in progress and Sudan is refusing the UN rule of “Responsibility to Protect” its citizens. They actually set up the militias that do the extermination and are responsible for driving the people off their land. China had part in this because it coveted the oil of Sudan.

So what use for an understuffed AU army in Sudan? This simply to have a new target for the fighting militias? Does the UN not realize that it is here on very thin ice? Actually it is being used by South Africa, Egypy, China, as an excuse for not having a real intervention.

We write the above because of the self congratulatory nonsence that is promoted by the press releases from the UN. The UN Secretary-General has really nothing to be proud of here - he better tell the world the truth that is known to him. 

The folllowing is from UN DAILY NEWS - the UNITED NATIONS NEWS SERVICE
22 July, 2008. Not very different from other daily UN condemnations of things the UN does not touch:

DARFUR: AU-UN MISSION CONDEMNS ATTACK ON SECURITY OFFICER BY SUDANESE
MILITARY

A security officer working with the joint African Union-United Nations
peacekeeping mission in Darfur (UNAMID) today condemned an assault on one
of its security officers in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state.

“Although this could be said to be an isolated incident, UNAMID condemns in
the strongest terms such attacks on its staff members, who are here to help
bring peace to the people of Darfur,” the mission said in a statement.

The security officer went to the market area in El Fasher yesterday to
investigate a road accident involving a UN staff member, a military vehicle
and a taxi, according to UNAMID. He had just started taking pictures of the
scene when a small group of military personnel assaulted him, despite the
intervention of UNAMID civilian staff.

After his release he was taken to a UNAMID hospital in El Fasher to be
treated for his injuries.

Meanwhile, the mission reports that its police advisers conducted their
first helicopter patrols over five camps housing internally displaced
persons (IDPs) in Darfur. The three-hour test flight on Sunday was part of
an initiative to use helicopters to reach selected camps as an alternative
to long-distance road patrols which have proven to be dangerous for the
unarmed police advisers.

In a related development, the Joint AU-UN Special Representative Rodolphe
Adada met today with the Governor of North Darfur, Mohammed Osman Yousif
Kibir. The Governor reiterated the commitment of the Sudanese Government to
provide security and protection to UNAMID and its full support for the full
deployment of the mission.

UNAMID also reported that a contingent of 250 Egyptian engineers is
expected to arrive in El Fasher tomorrow.

Progress in making criminal leaders pay.

By ARYEH NEIER, on Jaoan Times online, July 22, 2008.
PRAGUE — It has been only a little more than 15 years since the first of the contemporary international courts was created to prosecute those who commit war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Yet there is already a persistent theme in criticism of such tribunals: In their effort to do justice, they obstruct a more important goal — peace.

Such complaints have been expressed most vociferously when sitting heads of state are accused of crimes. The charges filed by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court against Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for crimes against humanity and genocide in Darfur are the latest example. Indeed, the denunciations of the justice process this time are more intense and more vehement than in the past.

The complaints were also loud in 1995 when the prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia indicted the president of the Bosnian Serb Republic, Radovan Karadzic, and his military chief, Gen. Ratko Mladic, and even louder when they were indicted again later in the same year for the massacre at Srebrenica.

The timing of that second indictment especially aroused critics, because it came just before the start of the Dayton peace conference. Because they faced arrest, Karadzic and Mladic did not go to Dayton.

As matters turned out, their absence did not hinder the parties from reaching an agreement. Indeed, it may have helped as the leaders of Bosnia, Croatia and Yugoslavia negotiated an end to the war in Bosnia.

In 1999, the ICTY indicted Slobodan Milosevic, President of Yugoslavia, for crimes committed in Kosovo. Again, there were denunciations that focused on timing. NATO’s intervention in Kosovo was under way, and critics claimed that prosecuting Milosevic made the tribunal an arm of NATO and would prevent a settlement. That prediction was wrong. Milosevic capitulated two weeks after he was indicted, and the war ended.

The next sitting head of state to be indicted was Liberian President Charles Taylor. Although the prosecutor for the Special Court for Sierra Leone indicted Taylor in March 2003 for his crimes in the war that had devastated that country, the indictment was not disclosed publicly until three months later.

Again, timing was a principal factor in sparking outrage. The indictment was made public in June 2003, while Taylor was attending a peace conference in Ghana that was intended to settle the civil war in his own country.

As hosts of the conference, the Ghanaians were particularly incensed at being asked to make an arrest under such circumstances, and refused to do so. Though it is possible to sympathize with the Ghanaians, who were placed in a very awkward position, the indictment intensified demands for Taylor’s removal. He fled into exile in August, effectively ending the war. Taylor is now being tried in The Hague, and, after two decades of horrendous conflict, Liberia is at peace and rebuilding under a democratic government.

We cannot rule out the possibility that doing justice in Darfur will make it more difficult to achieve peace there. Justice and peace are independent values. Each is immensely important in its own right. In the long run, doing justice seems a way to contribute to peace, but one cannot be sure that things will work out that way every time.

On the basis of the record so far, though, some skepticism seems in order over the claim that justice will obstruct peace. After all, the conflict in Darfur has been under way for 5 1/2 years. An estimated 300,000 people have been killed by forces ultimately controlled by al-Bashir, and an estimated 2.7 million have been forcibly displaced.

Just a week before the indictment, seven African Union and U.N. peacekeepers were killed and 22 injured during an ambush by well-armed militiamen. No peace settlement is under serious consideration. So what basis is there for suggesting that the indictment of al-Bashir is obstructing a settlement? What settlement is there to obstruct?

It should be noted that the Darfur case was referred to the ICC by the U.N. Security Council. The treaty establishing the ICC empowers the Security Council to delay a prosecution if this is needed to bring about a peace settlement.

So, critics of the indictment should at least be made to bear the burden of demonstrating to the Security Council that a peace settlement is likely if they wish the Council to act.

The world embarked on the creation of international criminal tribunals to end the impunity with which heads of state and leaders of guerrilla groups commit atrocious crimes. That effort is gradually succeeding, and the indictment of al-Bashir, who is as entitled to the presumption of innocence as any other defendant, is an important milestone on the long road that must be traveled to reach the goal that the world set for itself.

Aryeh Neier, the president of the Open Society Institute and a founder of Human Rights Watch, is the author most recently of “Taking Liberties: Four Decades in the Struggle for Rights.”  www.project-syndicate.org)

——————–

UN may want to suspend ICC action on Bashir - Russia’s U.N. ambassador told reporters on Monday.
Tue 22 Jul 2008, by Louis Charbonneau, Reuters, from the UN.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council may want to consider suspending any war crimes indictment of Sudan’s president by the International Criminal Court, Russia’s U.N. ambassador told reporters on Monday.

The African Union has urged the Security Council to put on hold any ICC decision to accept the court’s chief prosecutor’s call for an indictment of and arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir over war crimes in Darfur.

The AU appeal, issued on Monday after a meeting of the African Union Peace and Security Council in Ethiopia, followed a similar appeal by the Arab League and boosted Khartoum’s diplomatic efforts to block any indictment.

“We should be very attentive to their appeals,” Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin told reporters ahead of a meeting of the Security Council on other issues.

Under Article 16 of the ICC statute, the 15-nation Security Council can pass a resolution suspending ICC investigations or prosecutions for a renewable period of one year.

“If something of this sort (on an Article 16 suspension) is initiated, it’s at least worth considering,” Churkin said.

Churkin said Russia should not be the one to initiate the suspension process, though he made it clear that there were strong arguments for suspending any ICC action on Bashir.

“This is a special case and we are dealing with a situation where a lot is at stake in terms of peacekeeping in eastern Africa, and in terms of the future of Sudan,” Churkin said.

ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo accuses Bashir of orchestrating a genocide that has killed 35,000 people outright, at least another 100,000 through “slow death” and forced 2.5 million from their homes.

The crisis over a possible indictment of Bashir has raised fears for the stalled peace process in Africa’s biggest state.

SECURITY COUNCIL RESPONSIBILITY:

Last week U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that the ICC’s independence must be respected though he urged it to consider the consequences of its actions. Churkin said this was a job for the Security Council.

“I think the Security Council has this responsibility,” he said. “We respect the independence of the prosecutor and the ICC. However, there is a responsibility for the Security Council, and it cannot walk away from this responsibility.”

Russia, like the United States and China, is not a party to the ICC. It has been reluctant to support council intervention on issues like Sudan and Zimbabwe, arguing in favor of a hands-off approach that critics say is tantamount to supporting impunity.

Amnesty International accused Russia last year of supplying arms to Sudan for use in Darfur. Moscow denied the charge.

Sudan’s U.N. envoy has made it clear that it wants the council to move fast to block the ICC.

French Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert, however, said he believed the council should wait until after the ICC judges make a decision on Moreno-Ocampo’s recommendations, which could take months, before considering taking up the issue.

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad added: “I think council action on this issue in the foreseeable future is unlikely.”

It is unclear whether France, Britain and the United States would use their powers as permanent veto-wielding council members to block a suspension of an ICC indictment of Bashir.

In addition to Russia and China, other council members that would likely support an Article 16 suspension are Vietnam, South Africa, Libya and Indonesia, diplomats say.

The mandate of the joint U.N.-AU peacekeeping force in Darfur (UNAMID) expires at the end of the month. Some diplomats and U.N. officials have expressed concern that Sudan might withdraw its consent for the deployment of the force in Darfur if the council refuses to do anything about the ICC moves.

There are only some 9,500 UNAMID troops and police in Darfur out of a planned deployment of 26,000.

So, what we have here is that the UNSG, on the eve of his departure to East Asia, with a full schedule of events that day, that also took him that evening to the Japan Society - an event we reported, had also made sure that the UN Outreach Division of DPI organize an event intended to save future generations from the horrors that supposedly belong to times predating the UN. The problem is that it took 60 years to reach the point that the institution has finally decided to remember the 1939-1945 Holocaust against Jewish people, the Roma and Sinti, and the murders of others that bared for all to see the extent of the capability of the human species of being subhuman.

But this was not the end to the  sub-humanity - it is being demonstrated in continuing fashion. We know of Rwanda, Bosnia, and we try not to see now Darfur. Different people have different views on ongoing killings. Are these genocide? Let’s sit down and talk - this while the killings go on daily. Neigh, there is no UN decision to go in and stop the killings but we preach that every individual has the responsibility to do what the Governments sitting at the UN refuse to do.

Mr. Akasaka, a UN UnderSecretary-General, opened the meeting and said that fundamental human rights are the basis for the UN charter codified three years later in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He also told us that the Paris September 3-5, 2008 gathering of DPI and NGOs will deal this year with Human Rights as this is the 60th celebration of the signing of the Declaration.

Mr. Akasaka said here something very important.  The UN Charter governs relations between States - large and small; the Universal DHR guards the relations between human beings and the States - The INALIENABLE RIGHTS OF HUMAN BEINGS. And furthermore - on December 9, 1948, the day before the signing of the UDHR, The UN General Assembly adopted the Genocide Convention. Thus he continued this logic by saying that the UNSG has said that preventing genocide is a collective and Individual Responsibility and called for the entire UN system to be empowered to prevent massacres.

He Continued by saying that the panel will present stories on how individuals have helped, also how modern technology like satellite imaginary can help and that we will hear how NGOs and media have brought to the front the horror stories.

Prior to that he also said that the UN was established because of the horrors of the Holocaust and the two- the Holocaust and the UN are interrelated like cause and effect that was intended to avoid any repeat of such horrors.

Mr. Akasaka finished his introductory. left the place and Mr. Eric Felt took over.

Mr. Felt introduced  Mr. Jean-Marc Coicaud as moderator. He is the Head of the New York Office of the Tokyo based UN University. He wrote: an article  “Meaning and Value of Political Apology” that he presented on May 23, 2008, at an earlier part of this two part series of the UN DPI Outreach Programme on Genocide related issues.

DOWNLOAD: age-of-apology-jm-coicaud.pdf

That presentation was based on a chapter from “The Age of Apology: Facing Up To The Past” that was published by the University of Pennsylvania Press. That book was a product of the Tokyo office of the UNU  Peace and Governance Program. So we see the UN relates Holocaust and Genocide to the future of humanity and the future of the UN - by first taking the step to recognize the wrongs of the past.

On June 26 Dr. Coicaud made reference to that first round of these meetings, and said that the first session dealt with “Can Genocide be Prevented?” and he said that the answer was not clear. WHAT WAS MISSING WAS THE OPERATIONAL ANSWER - how to achieve results in operational terms. He expressed the hope that in this second session we might come up with an answer - and that would be an achievement.

We clearly blessed on his hope, but we, honestly, do not expect such a thing from the UN - though clearly, an institution like the UN University should be allowed to point fingers and say just that - the UN does nice talk sometimes, but is short of actions most of the time. The world cannot do just with talk and demands actions - so one must think of reforming the UN so it would act when action is warranted.

Mr. Felt added to Mr. Coicaud that there is an individual as well as a collective responsibility to prevent genocide.

Now, the first presentations by the  Holocaust  Remembrance institutions. First to make the presentation was Mr. Robert Rozett, Director of Libraries at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, Israel. He presented cases of rescue in the hope we can learn from actual happenings.

He said that we are trained to look at rescue in the form of a cavalier on a white horse, but in the Holocaust we look mostly at neighbors, at the Pope, at people as individuals.

(a) the rescue of Aron Wolff and his family by a neighbor in Carpathia at Scoll. In this case it was a man who was once helped by a loan. Swisten remembered that deed and came to help now without doing this for money. In the end of the war Swisten was killed by another neighbor because he helped a Jew.

(b) the case of Rabbi Weissmandel who tried to get the Vatican to help with the Slovak government. His argument was to create labor camps right there in Slovakia rather then send the Jews to Poland for working camps there (this as in the euphemism for the extermination camps in Poland). His idea would benefit the slovaks he said. Eventually 60,000 Jews were deported - 30,000 stayed.

August 1944, Weissmandel himself and his family were in a car to go to Auschwitz, but was allowed to stay and had to leave his family in the railroad car. He was smuggled to Switzerland to continue his rescue efforts but never forgave himself for leaving his family to go to their death.

(c) the case of a little boy saved by a dog while the farmer who knew the boy was in the dog-house never took a stand - not for the boy nor against him. The dog stood guard for the boy and not just shared his food with him, but actually let him eat first. The lesson here is about the ethics of the dog vs. the ethics of humanity {just go and tell this today to those committing genocide in Africa, Bosnia, or to the likes of Ahmedi-Nejad}.

Here, Mr. Joseph Rubagumya, now with the School of International Public Affairs of Columbia University, originally from Rwanda, told about his own experience from Africa’s wars of extermination. His family left first from Rwanda in 1960  to Congo, then to Uganda,Sierra where they worked on a coffee plantation.  He returned in June 1994 to Rwanda and everything they had was from cans sent in from donors. Eventually people from an NGo helped him get a scholarship to the US.

Further material about Rwanda was distributed at the entrance to the room. It spoke about “Never Again” and the “Responsibility to Protect: Who is responsible for protecting vulnerable peoples?” It also had a couple of pages about “Sexual Violence: A Too of War.” It extolled “Supporting Survivors” and paragraphs about the various  International Criminal Tribunals.

The third speaker was a lady with experience at many of these International Criminal Tribunals - Sierra Leone, Cambodia ….Ms. Daphna Shraga is Principal Legal Officer in the UN Office of Legal Affairs. She seems to be a top lawyer and the crispness of her presentation was in itself a demonstration how tough it is to do justice in a warped UN system.

The UN recognizes as punishable crimes of genocide if bodily and mental harm are committed and killings if it is an act by one group against another by reasons of religion or ethnicity, but excepts if harm is done because of political or cultural differences. So, the genocide convention refers only to racial, ethnic, religious differences.

Prevention and Punishment are two different notions. If punishment prevents - this is only for next cycle of violence - and obviously the violence was not committed yet - so this is something that does not come under the convention.

These strange principles were established at Nuremberg - that the individuals are responsible because states are abstract entities that do not commit crimes. The responsibility thus falls on individuals.

The genocide is about the fact that one is born into the group - this is why political and cultural reasons are not included.

In the case of Bosnia-Herzegowina - the Serbs against the Muslims - there was killing of the young only - not the whole group - the argument was that this does not constitute by definition genocide! As no other crimes come under the statute except crimes a defined genocide by that statute - these crimes were not punishable.

In 2007 the International Court of Justice made the judgement that if the individual is made responsible it is still the responsibility of the State - also because the State did not prevent or punish the crime.

Srebeniza was a special case as here there was enough evidence that genocide was committed against a whole group - basically - here all men were killed - not just young ones.

Is there an obligation of all States to prevent genocide in any State? Even though it was decided already that the obligation extends from the State were it was started - the prevention is to be obligatory to those outside that State.

{we had here a belly full of doubts about much of what was said - legalistics aside. What is culture if not a combination of ethnicity and religion? How can one exclude crimes against people because of their culture? Albeit, it is obvious that the Soviets and China had no interest in safeguarding rights of politics and culture in those dingy days of post San Francisco negotiations, but should not the UN step in and straighten this mess out today?).

Presentations four and five take us back to the Holocaust. Both presenters part of the Washington DC US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Ms. Bridget Conley-Zilkic, the director of the Committee on Conscience, who stated that there is a commitment that the memory is tied to action today - Agitation, Memorialization and Conscience are the three committees in the Museum.
The Holocaust was based on total collapse - the individual, the social, the national, and the international.

Mr. Larry Swaider, Chief Information Officer at the Museum stepped in explaining the communication technology he use at www.ushmm.org a website with 17 million uniques/year coming from 100 countries.

He uses now GoogleEarth and can see villages being burned. Looking at what happens today in the world he can see people flee