By Howard Lesser
Washington, DC
23 July 2008
Voice of America News
Listen to ICC Coalition Supporter Matthew Heaphy - (MP3)
Demonstrators continued to rally in the streets of Sudan’s capital Khartoum Tuesday against plans by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to arrest President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The pro-Bashir rallies contrast dramatically with crowds of Muslims in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, celebrating the arrest of ousted Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic after an 11-year manhunt.
Karadzic, who was indicted by the ICC for the 1995 killings of eight thousand men and boys, in what has become known as the Srebrenica Massacre, will be taken to the Hague tribunal to face charges of genocide and crimes against humanity committed during the three-year Balkan conflict (1992-95). Matthew Heaphy is deputy convener of the American NGO (non-governmental) Coalition for the ICC, an independent group dedicated to backing the court’s operations and its pursuit of fairness and justice. He says that President Bashir may be able to draw some important lessons from the international resolve that finally brought Radovan Karadzic to justice.
“The case against President al-Bashir is certainly controversial. But if they are successful in obtaining an arrest warrant for him, the arrest of Karadzic makes it apparent that it will be possible to arrest President al-Bashir as well,” he notes.
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