Seeking Justice as War Crimes Rage On

The request by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court for an arrest warrant against the president of Sudan focuses attention on one of the greatest challenges of international relations: whether and how to seek justice during an ongoing conflict, when the worst of the accused perpetrators still hold great power.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the ICC's chief prosecutor, gave advance warning of his intentions, telling the United Nations Security Council last month that he intended to pursue the highest officials for serious crimes in Darfur. Sudan's government responded by making threats intended to intimidate the court. The international community, including humanitarian organizations feeding and protecting tens of thousands of civilians in Darfur, feared damage to the sputtering peace talks on Darfur; damage to an already weakened North-South Sudan peace agreement; even a forced exodus of peacekeepers and humanitarian workers.

For many who follow Africa, there are familiar threads to this story. A powerful head of state, or a senior rebel leader who can single-handedly decide when and whether a war will end, is indicted for war crimes even while peace talks are under way. Everyone shakes, fearing the worst.

What happens then, however, is surprising, and perhaps this story is too little known. Peace talks for Liberia, for example, were directly strengthened and invigorated by an indictment of Liberia's president, Charles Taylor. The UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone made the indictment public on the opening morning of the talks, which were taking place in Ghana, in 2003. Diplomats hosting the peace conference were furious and immediately provided a plane for Taylor's rapid return to Liberia.

But virtually everyone present at those talks now agrees that the indictment of Taylor single-handedly changed the peace conference into a serious affair of peacemaking, with real prospects for success. Taylor, then the most powerful man in Liberia, had often manipulated previous efforts to secure a peace settlement. This time, though, he was effectively delegitimized, marginalized and removed from any role in a future political settlement. After 2½ months, the Ghana peace talks produced a comprehensive agreement. Taylor left Liberia for exile in Nigeria.

Despite initial worries, the indictment did not lead to greater violence in Monrovia, the Liberian capital. Two years later, after repeatedly violating the terms of his exile, Taylor was arrested and sent to the court in Sierra Leone.

If the court had not issued that indictment, many participants believe, there never would have been a serious peace agreement, and the war would not have come to a peaceful end.

Worries about efforts to combine justice and peacemaking also surfaced in Uganda, where government forces were battling the rebel Lord's Resistance Army.