Ethiopian Review

By MIKE CORDER

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The world's first permanent war crimes court needs more support as it monitors atrocities in Congo and struggles to have important suspects arrested, an international human rights group said Wednesday.

Human Rights Watch also said the International Criminal Court's independence must be supported in the face of intense diplomatic pressure on it to freeze its genocide case against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

Sudan, supported by the African Union and the Arab League, has been pressing the United Nations to order the International Criminal Court to suspend the case.

Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo has asked judges at the court to issue an arrest warrant for al-Bashir on charges of orchestrating genocide in Sudan's Darfur region, where 300,000 people have died and more than 2.5 million have been forced from their homes in five years of fighting.

"With the court's independence and integrity at risk, ICC member states should speak out forcefully to promote (its) mission," Elizabeth Evenson, counsel in the International Justice Program of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. "They should strongly defend the ICC's independence from political interference."

Representatives from the 108 nations that have ratified the court's founding treaty will hold their annual meeting in The Hague starting Friday. The United States is not a member of the International Criminal Court, although it did agree to having the court hear cases related to Darfur.

Human Rights Watch also urged the nations to do more to arrest suspects already indicted by the court, including Bosco Ntaganda, a rebel commander linked to violence currently raging between rebels and government forces in Congo.

Ntaganda is chief of staff for Laurent Nkunda, whose rebel forces have been accused by rights groups of atrocities in eastern Congo in recent weeks. The U.N. says Congolese army troops also have committed war crimes, including rape and plunder.

Ntaganda is charged with recruiting child soldiers during an earlier conflict in eastern Uganda.

Also still at large despite international arrest warrants are the leaders of a Ugandan rebel group, the Lord's Resistance Army.

Both Uganda and Congo have ratified the court's founding treaty and will attend the Assembly of States Party. Sudan does not recognize the court and refuses to hand over suspects.

"LRA (Lord's Resistance Army) leaders and Ntaganda continue crimes against innocent civilians, and their arrests should top the agenda at this year's assembly," Evenson said.