HIGHLIGHTS OF PRESS CONFERENCE BY HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AFTER HORN OF AFRICA TRIP
Louise Arbour, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, speaking at a press conference today at the Palais des Nations, said she had just come back from a two-week mission to the Horn of Africa. She had gone to Ethiopia, then briefly to Kenya to look at the UN efforts in Somalia, as the UN operations for that country were mostly based in Nairobi. She had also had an extensive visit to Sudan, including both south and west Darfur and southern Sudan.
The High Commissioner said her mission to Ethiopia focused principally on the events surrounding the way the Government handled the events which followed the May 2005 elections. Thousands of people had been incarcerated, and this had now been reduced to just a little over one hundred political opponents, many of whom had been elected to parliament in the context of these elections, some journalists and others belonging to civil society. These persons were now facing, in a joint trial, very serious charges, including attempted genocide and an attempt to overthrow the Constitutional order, which was a form of treason. There had been lots of concerns expressed by the international community regarding these events. She had had extensive discussions with Government officials, including the Prime Minister.
“I have suggested that it might be helpful to examine the particularly critical question regarding bail. These defendants, in light of the nature of the charges, are not eligible for bail. And again, in light of the nature of the charges, the number of defendants, the proposal by the prosecution to call over 300 witnesses, I think we would be looking at a very long period of detention prior to the final disposition of this case,” Ms. Arbour said. “I have urged the Prosecutor to take another look at the evidence in an effort to see whether it would be feasible in some, if not in all cases, to reduce the charges so as to make them bailable.”
Ms. Arbour said this would ensure that the defendants would at least have an opportunity to appear in court to seek their release on bail pending trial. As it currently stood, because of the Ethiopian Code of Criminal Procedure, they could not because these offences were not bailable. This raised the question of whether the Code was in conformity with the Constitution of Ethiopia which provided for the right to bail, and provided that bail may be denied in exceptional circumstances by a court. But these defendants did not have any access to a court.
“We are talking about elected members of parliament who are likely obviously not to be able to take up their seats and also to remain in custody while they are the beneficiaries of their presumption of innocence for a very long period of time,” Ms. Arbour said. “The reality for this is that it has become a metaphor for the shrinking space for civil society and for debate in a country where there were hopes that democracy was going to be flourishing.”
Ms. Arbour said the Government was very accommodating in granting her access to the prison in Addis Ababa where she had met privately with several of these opposition leaders in detention.
With regards to Somalia, recent events continued to emphasize the seriousness of the situation on the ground in what was being called “Africa’s forgotten crisis”. Colleagues from the UN system were poised to deploy if at all possible in Somalia, but at this stage there was a real stage of frustration that the international community was insufficiently engaged in a country that needed a huge amount of assistance and where a large part of the country still needed governance to take root.
Ms. Arbour said she had been in Sudan from 30 April to 5 May. She met with First Vice President Sal Bakir, several members of the Government, including the Deputy Director of the National Intelligence and Security Services, and a lot of civil society actors. She visited three camps in south and west Darfur, for the second time since her visit in the fall of 2004. She also visited Juba in the south of Sudan, her first visit to that region. The international community was somewhat neglecting the need to continue to support the comprehensive peace agreement of 2005.
“Recent events, that is the Darfur peace agreement in particular, have focused once again attention on the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Darfur, but I think it is fair to say that underneath this humanitarian crisis, there is also a very serious human rights situation. There is considerable overlap between the two, but they are features of what is happening in Darfur that need to be called for what they are, which are very serious human rights violations,” Ms. Arbour said.
The High Commissioner said the themes that she pursued during her visit to Sudan were the threat to the physical security of the civilian population, particularly internally displaced persons; the tightening of national security control over civilian and civil society actors; and the lack of accountability and the continued impunity regarding the events in Darfur.
On the threat to the physical security of the civilian population, Ms. Arbour said there had been sufficient accounts in the press of the continued exposure of internally displaced persons in particular to attacks. The renewed violence since the beginning of the year between the Government and rebel groups, and factions of rebel groups, had led to an escalation of actual attacks on civilian populations, leading to killings and looting and further displacement to a level not seen for months.
Concerning the level of sexual violence around the camps, Ms. Arbour said that there was no sign that it had receded or been brought under control in any way. During her first visit to Darfur, she had met with groups of women in the camps who had been raped or who had suffered from sexual violence. This time, she again met with groups of women who had been raped and sexually assaulted in the same very well known pattern of circumstances where they stepped out of camps to collect hay, firewood, grass and other things, and they continued to be sexually assaulted. It was also quite a shock to meet women who had been raped in 2004 and who now had given birth to children who were the product of rape. The women had expressed the fear they had for the fate of these children who were not registered, who were called janjaweed, and the fear that they would be ostracized by the community.
“The Government asserted that it had taken many initiatives to address the question of sexual violence. The initiatives that I have been made aware of, as far as I am concerned, so far, continue to be paper initiatives. I saw no evidence on the ground that any of these committees that have been set up to look after these issues have made a dent in the problems,” the High Commissioner said.
Ms. Arbour said other new troubling features were allegations of increased presence of armed men inside the camps and allegations on both sides of infiltration of camps. The civilian police of the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS), when it could be deployed, was perceived by the internally displaced persons as their only hope for minimum protection.
With regards to her concerns on the tightening of national security control over civilians and civil society, there was a very striking imbalance in Darfur between the attention given by the Government to State security and the totally inadequate actual protection of human security. The leaders of the camps and the people in them feared the national security officials, and did not turn to them for help. In contrast, the interim national Constitution and the comprehensive peace agreement called for a total overhaul of Sudan’s national security structure, but this had not been started. Also, the new non-governmental organizations law imposed control on the activities of NGOs ranging from prior disclosure of expected foreign funding, prior approval of all projects and programmes, and prior approval for the selection of any national staff. The need for prior approval in a country where the bureaucracy was already very slow and cumbersome was likely to serve as a further impediment to the delivery of humanitarian aid and would inevitably cause further costs. Humanitarian aid was already impeded by the conflict itself, the lack of enthusiasm from donors, and now this irritant for a bureaucratic system.
Concerning impunity, Ms. Arbour said that despite the Government assuring that many mechanisms had been put in place, there was no evidence that anybody in any position of authority had been called to account for crimes committed in Darfur in particular.
Southern Sudan was in a state of total neglect, the High Commissioner said. There were enormous hopes arising from the comprehensive peace agreement. South Sudan had to be built as there was virtually no governance, physical or economic infrastructure after 20 years of conflict. In south Sudan, as in Darfur, there was no hope of peace holding if attention was not given to disarmament.
Asked if she had any ideas on how to break the impasse between the West and the elected Palestinian Government to save the Palestinians from hunger, Ms. Arbour said there had been a flurry of activities by various international actors to look at the terrible predicament that the Palestinians were in. She was in contact with her office on the ground and hoped to be able to say something imminently to call on the parties to respect their engagements and to respect international humanitarian law and human rights law. The severity of the situation had now attracted attention at the highest level.
Concerning the announcement that more than 1,000 Iraqis had died in attacks last month, the High Commissioner said politicians had to be urged to develop a consensus that would lead to a functioning government which presumably open up a space to political, rather than confrontational resolution of some of the disputes.
In response to a question about calls for the African Union peacekeeping force in Sudan to be joined by western troops, Ms. Arbour said this issue was not part of her discussions with Government officials. For her part, she continued to call publicly for an immediate increase in the capacity of the African Union force. The Security Council had called for a UN presence, but in the transition, there was still a need for an increase in the protection of civilians in Darfur.
A journalist asked who were the perpetrators of the rape incidents and how many women had been raped. He wondered if this was a systematic pattern to humiliate women in the region. The High Commissioner said the women always accused the janjaweed for the rapes. When pressed, they said that they were Arab tribesmen dressed in uniform. This was a kind of compendium. Her Office had resisted trying to put numbers in the public domain because there were many camps and her Office did not have access everywhere. From the cases documented by her Office, she could say, as she had told the Government, that these rapes were happening, they were serious and they were happening on a large and unattended scale. The scale of it and the systematic way that it was perpetrated showed it was designed to instil fear and to curtail whatever self- sufficiency people in the camps could have.
In response to a question on the peace agreements in the south and in Darfur, the High Commissioner said in the south, there was no visible improvement either in the physical security of the population or of its economic well being. There was no apparent immediate infrastructure. The south needed an influx of attention, and disarmament and demobilization remained the priority.
Asked about her upcoming visit to Guatemala, Ms. Arbour said she would be in Guatemala at the end of May for about four days. Her Office had opened an office in Guatemala after the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding with the Government. The Government had been immensely cooperative in ensuring that she had all necessary access.
A journalist asked if the Office of the High Commissioner would be putting out a working paper or something about how the Human Rights Council was going to work. In response, Ms. Arbour said contrary to a lot of pessimistic expectations, so far, this entire process had been a good news story. There had been a lot of scepticism as whether there would be a Council to replace the Commission, a lot of scepticism on whether that Council would be good enough, a lot of scepticism on whether these elections would be very unruly. So far, every one of these hurdles had been crossed in a very satisfactory manner. Now, the 47 elected members had a very clear set of instructions from the General Assembly. They had to open on 19 June. This would now sharpen and focus attention on the numerous issues that had to be addressed such as the designation of a Chair, of a Bureau, of a working method, this first session had to be organized. There was a lot of activity in Geneva around all these issues to ensure that the Council continued to be a success story.
“The question of universal review is addressed in the General Assembly resolution. The Council is mandated to put in place the framework of this periodic universal review within one year. There are many, many options, and I suspect that at the June meeting, the Council will probably want to address at least what is the framework within which it will do what it is tasked to do. It has one year to look at that, to look at complaint procedures, to look at maintaining a normative framework, to look at special procedure mechanisms,” Ms. Arbour said. “It basically has to take over from the Commission, review everything, and organize itself. But universal periodic review is the only thing that is brand new, for which there is no precedent”.
The High Commissioner said there were lots of options and there were already a lot of informal discussions taking place. Ultimately, this system would be put in place by the Council. The Office knew from the discussions before the General Assembly’s resolution that by universal periodic review, the assumption was that countries should not come up every 10 years, ideally, they should come up every three years, in which case about a third of the membership of the United Nations would have to be taken up every year. They would have to find a balance between reviewing countries sufficiently frequently and yet sufficiently thoroughly to make it a credible exercise. If it was very thorough, but you only came up every 10 years, it was not going to be very universal. But if you came up often but in a very perfunctory fashion, it was not going to be very useful either. Lots of discussions would be taking place in the next few months on this issue.