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US Urges War Crimes Court for Sierra Leone - Global Policy Forum: International Justice US Urges War Crimes Court for Sierra Leone
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post
July 28, 2000
The United States asked the Security Council today to establish a special court to try Sierra Leonean rebel leader Foday Sankoh and others accused of atrocities in the nine-year-old war that has decimated the West African country.
In a draft resolution offered by Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke, the Clinton administration recommended creating a court that would combine elements of Sierra Leonean and international law. It would try "senior Sierra Leonean nationals who bear the greatest responsibility for the most systematic and egregious criminal violations" committed during the war, which has been fought mainly for control of the West African country's lucrative diamond mines.
The war has produced some of the most publicized human rights violations in Africa in decades, and most Western and West African governments have blamed Sankoh and his rebel group, the Revolutionary United Front, for the great majority. Tens of thousands of people--overwhelmingly impoverished civilians--have been killed. International relief organizations say the rebels have amputated hands, ears or other body parts from thousands of civilians whom the guerrillas suspect of sympathizing with the government.
"This resolution is long overdue," Holbrooke said. "It is very important that the people--Foday Sankoh and his henchmen--who have committed these war crimes be brought to justice." Sankoh is in the custody of the Sierra Leonean government.
The U.S. draft resolution asks U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to send legal experts to Sierra Leone to help the government set up the proposed court. If the resolution is approved by the Security Council, Annan would be instructed to report back to the council within 30 days. The court likely would be located in Sierra Leone or elsewhere in West Africa. It would share an appeals chamber with the war crimes tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia and would be financed through voluntary contributions by U.N. members.
The United States had delayed introducing the resolution for weeks because of a dispute with Britain over the extent of U.N. control over the tribunal and because of concerns that more than 200 Indian peacekeepers, who until recently had been held by the rebels, might be attacked in retaliation.
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