19 May Angelina Jolie Goes to Lubanga Trial at ICC
Before heading to the glitz and glamour of the Cannes Film Festival in France, Angelina Jolie spent Tuesday in a courtside booth at The Hague in the Netherlands watching the prosecution of warlord Thomas Lubanga, calling it “a landmark trial for children.”
At one point, Jolie found herself under the watchful eye of Lubanga, the founder and former leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots, who allegedly recruited and used child soldiers, according to the Associated Press. “After watching the proceedings from the viewing booth, I stood up and found Thomas Lubanga Dyilo looking at me,” said the actress.
“I imagined how difficult it must be for all the brave young children who have come to testify against him,” said Jolie in a statement given to the International Criminal Court.
After meeting with the ICC’s chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Jolie headed to Cannes…
Angelina Jolie, as readers may know, is a UNHCR goodwill ambassador. Besides this most recent visit to the Hague, the Jolie-Pitt Foundation had previously underwritten a Council on Foreign Relations symposium entitled International Law and Justice: Evolving Norms and U.S. Responses. Videos and transcripts from that conference are available here.
This piece makes it sound so malicious (“watchful eye of Lubanga”) – Lubanga looking at Jolie. Of course he looked at her!; I bet Ocampo and the rest of the courtroom did as well…I mean, come on…
And, on a similar note, no newspaper ever said that those first appearances in the ICC courtooms, where they let photographers in and they are allowed for 2 minutes to take a picture of the suspect is an awful sight…I for one felt bad for Lubanga and Katanga seeing that…alleged war criminal or not, there was no dignity in that at all…’a criminal on display’ so to say, come on, take a picture…
What an unusual comment!
Well, I for one didn’t feel bad for them at all, I’m sorry. We submit our regular defendants to much the same treatment, what kind of perverse reasoning leads you to think that by virtue of being accused of a greater crime these guys deserve better?
And why is Jolie/the reporter so strange in making it sound malicious? I think I would feel creepy knowing that the person looking at me was accused, in short, of unimaginable (to my sensitive little constitution at least) barbarism and savagery. Wouldn’t you?
The fact that the defendants in our own country get the same treatment does not make it right…I am not saying the accused before the ICC deserve better; I am saying they all deserve more…all accused are still entitled to some dignity in their proceedings…
And about making it sound malicious…what I read from the piece is that just the fact that Lubanga looked at her is something so very bad…I guess I just sensed that underlying tone that he is not even supposed to look at her, because he is an alleged war criminal…thus the ‘unusual’ comment!
Maybe fair enough then, God knows we could all wish for better media…happily we have one on sites such as this. Substantively I have to disagree, I think we should have more transparency in all courts – my greatest hope for Souter’s replacement is that s/he will endorse video in the court.
On that note I am glad that Jolie went and I am glad that it got reported. I think it is about as valuable a thing as she can do to help get events like this in the news. Yes I mean that the end justifies the means, or at least these means.
I’m not so sure the end justifies the means. I spoke to two people who think that her visit was positive because it “raised awareness” and “made people care”. Except that they couldn’t remember what the court was, who the defendant was, what the issues were, or what countries were involved. So yes, it was in the news, but I remain cynical about the “awareness” it raised.