The Rwandan government has appointed a commission to investigate France's role in the country's 1994 genocide. The commission, which is slated to begin work on April 16th, includes Jean de Dieu Mucyo, Rwanda's Prosecutor General and a genocide survior, as well as Brigadier General Jerome Ngendahimana, a senior officer in the Rwanda Armed Forces (FAR) during the genocide. The...
Liberal Oasis has an enlightening post about the warm relationship between the Bush administration and Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, the president of Equatorial Guinea — a relationship that can only be explained by the U.S.'s interest in the country's plentiful oil reserves, given its equally plentiful political repression (emphasis in the original): Yesterday, Condi Rice stood next to Equatorial Guinea President...
Two environmental stories worth noting: The High Court of Nigeria has ordered Shell to stop gas flaring in Delta State by 2007. The order follows an earlier decision by the High Court -- ignored by Shell, which has said that it intends to continue the practice until 2009 -- that gas flaring violates Nigerians' constitutional rights to life and dignity....
The National Security Archive has uncovered a secret agreement between the National Archives and various military and intelligence agencies to conceal the reclassification of thousands of pages of declassified documents, some of which had been declassified for nearly 50 years: The National Archives and...
The African Union has established a commission to investigate accusations that its peacekeepers in western Darfur have been sexually abusing civilian women. Specific allegations include an 11-year-old girl's claim that she was paid for sex then raped by an AU soldier. The AU describes the allegations as "disturbing," but notes that similar allegations have been investigated and found...
German authorities have arrested Ignace Murwanashyaka, a Rwandan Hutu rebel leader whose group, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, is believed to have committed numerous war crimes in Congo and Rwanda. Although there is currently no international arrest warrant for him, the Rwandan government has said that it intends to ask Germany for his extradition. Rwanda's...
Luis Posada Carriles, the Cuban-born terrorist who is currently being held in federal detention in Texas, has filed a writ of habeas corpus in federal district court seeking his release. The writ claims that his detention violates Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678 (2001), in which the Supreme Court held that the INS — now ICE — cannot indefinitely...
The lower house of the German parliament has established a commission to investigate claims that the BND, Germany's federal intelligence service, quietly helped the US select bombing targets during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The BND has admitted that two of its agents worked with the US in Baghdad during the invasion, but insists that the agents only...
The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina has sentenced Nedjo Samardzic, a Bosnian Serb, to 13 years in prison, the first verdict and sentence imposed by the court, which was established in 2005 to reduce the ICTY's workload by taking responsibility for prosecuting less serious cases. Samardzic was found guilty of imprisoning, torturing, and raping civilians in Muslim villages near...
There is a fascinating, if too brief, interview with Mikhail Gorbachev in today's USA Today. During the interview, Gorbachev not only defends Putin's "reforms," but opines that the Soviet Union should have been preserved. Here's a snippet: Q:Many Russians criticize you because in their opinion, you gave away the Soviet empire and weakened Russian power. Is this characterization accurate?...
The AP has an interesting story discussing the fact that Suharto, the murderous dictator who ruled Indonesia from 1967 to 1998, has managed to avoid being brought to justice by the international community, even though he is responsible for far worse crimes than Milosevic, Saddam, and Charles Taylor. Suharto continues to live unmolested in a wealthy area of...
Discussions have begun between the UN and the Burundian government about establishing two transitional justice mechanisms for dealing with the atrocities committed during Burundi's 12-year civil war, which claimed the lives of more than 200,000 people and displaced more than 500,000: a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and a special criminal tribunal empowered to investigate and prosecute genocide, war crimes, and...
