The Darfur Survival Campaign
Judgment on Genocide
PHR Participates in Citizens Tribunal of Sudanese President al-Bashir for Crimes Against Humanity, Genocide
Scholars, human rights lawyers and activists gathered on November 17, 2006 in New York City for the "Judgment on Genocide: the International Citizens Tribunal for Sudan" (JOG). Using all of the regular components of a trial—a prosecuting attorney, a defense attorney, a panel of distinguished judges and eyewitness and expert testimony—President Bashir and other high-level government officials were 'tried', in absentia, for crimes committed in Darfur, as well as for the genocides in southern Sudan and the Nuba Mountains. Bashir and his regime also faced charges stemming from his government’s torture and disappearance of opposition figures and intellectuals.
Physicians for Human Rights’ (PHR) Deputy Director, Susannah Sirkin, served as an expert witness at the tribunal. Using evidence gathered by PHR during investigations in Darfur, she testified about the Sudanese Government’s involvement in attacks on Darfurian villages. She showed pictures of devastated villages, including a photo of an enormous bomb crater, which was likely caused by munitions consistent with those delivered by Sudanese military aircraft.
The International Criminal Court is currently investigating the litany of crimes perpetrated in Darfur. Alluding to the progress of the ICC in her powerful closing argument, Chief Prosecutor for JOG, Beth Van Schaack, stated: "Unlike President Al-Bashir’s brethren who sat in the dock at Nuremberg, the defendant cannot here claim that the standards to which he will be judged violate principles of legality or the prohibition against ex post facto law. Indeed, the content of international criminal law has been firmly established by a consensus of a majority of the world’s nations [and]…these crimes are now codified in the statute of the International Criminal Court."
The ICC is moving closer to issuing indictments against the main perpetrators of the genocide in Darfur. On December 14th, the ICC’s Chief Prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, addressed the United Nations Security Council, informing that body that the Court had nearly completed its investigations into crimes against humanity in Darfur--including persecution, torture, murder, and rape. Moreno plans to submit his evidence to the Courts’ judges by February 2007.
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