Uganda and Côte d'Ivoire : the ICC prosecutor puts his cards on the table, but debate continues in the UN Security Council over Darfur.
«The prosecutor believes that the first arrest warrant that will be sent out should concern Uganda,» his spokesperson told Agence France Presse on 3 February. A dozen leaders could be the subjects of investigations, already started in July 2004, into crimes committed during the civil war that has pitted Kampala against rebels from the Lord\'s Resistance Army (LRA) since 1988. In his 28 January press conference in Johannesburg, Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo announced a deadline: «The International Court hopes to start its first war crimes trial on atrocities committed in northern Uganda within six months,» he said, adding that «the Congo could take a little longer,» according to the independent Ugandan newspaper The Monitor. The prosecutor\'s announcement may come as something of a surprise. Since the Ugandan president is ambiguous about his support of the Court\'s intervention, the case could be seen as a political trap for the ICC. In Yoweri Museveni\'s New Year speech, published in the government newspaper New Vision, he outlined the four areas of substance put to the rebels, «including convincing the International Criminal Court to drop their indictment if the LRA rebels surrendered».

Côte d\'Ivoire: «We are going to go there»

At the same time, Radio France Internationale (RFI) revealed that a sealed list of 95 people has been included in a recent UN report on human rights abuses committed in Côte d\'Ivoire over the last two-and-a-half years of civil war. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan quickly responded by saying: «Yes, there is a list, but it has not been published yet for very simple reasons: if the accused have to go to court, then we do not want to jeopardize the case. So we are not going to publish the list but give it to a prosecutor.»
In Johannesburg, Ocampo said that he did not have the list, but that the Abidjan authorities had given the green light to an ICC team to visit with an eye to opening an investigation. He told Reuters that Côte d\'Ivoire, which has not ratified the Rome Treaty, «simply accepted our jurisdiction to investigate in the country. In December we sent out letters to the government seeking more information. So we are going to go there.» But Abidjan is furious over the «leaked» blacklist, which includes names of those close to President Gbagbo. «The names were published the day before the adoption of a draft resolution aimed at reinforcing the [UN arms] embargo, and also the day before the African union summit. All this just appears like a well-prepared orchestration,» the Côte d\'Ivoire UN ambassador told RFI.

Darfur: «Tailor-made for the ICC»

Uganda, Congo, Côte d\'Ivoire, Central African Republic and Burundi: the African cases officially cited by the prosecutor are piling up, without mentioning Darfur. In this case, a referral can only be made by the Security Council because Sudan is not a member of the ICC. «Sudan is not under my jurisdiction.
I cannot comment or make an opinion on it,» said Moreno Ocampo tersely. The ball is now in the Security Council court, after a UN commission charged with investigating atrocities committed in Darfur since February 2003 «strongly recommended referring the Darfur situation to the International Criminal Court». France and Great Britain have openly backed the recommendation. «The case is tailor-made for the ICC» affirmed British UN Ambassador, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, quoted in the Washington Post. The move has prompted the US administration, which is extremely hostile to the ICC, to look for an alternative. According to the Washington Post, US War Crimes Ambassador Pierre-Richard Prosper has been searching for allies to back his idea of setting up a new court in Arusha, Tanzania, which would be run by the African Union with UN support.