SILVANA Arbia, the new registrar of the International Criminal Court (ICC), was in the country last week. Henry Mukasa asked her about her trip and prospects of arresting and trying Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).
Comment on your visit to the country?
I am very happy to be here in Kampala. It is my first visit to our field offices, which is my concern, because I feel functional field offices are important for the ICC. This is my first visit here because I am the new registrar of the ICC. I hope I will have occasion to pay more visits, not only to my staff, but also Ugandan authorities because Uganda is a state party to the ICC Rome Statute.
The Government and the LRA rebels, that are much sought by the ICC, are negotiating a peace agreement which will render your indictments redundant. Is this the shared position with at the ICC? The ICC has no political position. The ICC is just exercising its institutional functions. That is to deliver justice through judicial proceedings in different phases. One of these phases is the deliverance of warrants of arrest.
These warrants of arrest are a concern of member states for their enforcement. This is ICC position. We expect the execution of these warrants of arrest is respected. This is the simple and unique position taken by the ICC.
But since the LRA commanders were indicted several years ago, you have not been able to arrest them. Do you still have hope? The delay in the execution of the arrest is not new at international level; the ICC has no means to execute the warrants itself. So it is necessary that states do that using their national police of national institutions.
The states are obliged by this cooperation, which states this practice, and Uganda is a state party to the Rome Statute. So it is a very specific and precise obligation to execute all the requests of cooperation that comes from the ICC.
The LRA indictees and negotiators have always complained that the warrants, hanging over their heads, are a stumbling block to the peace talks. Can the ICC consider staying the warrants to facilitate the signing of the final peace agreement? The ICC is a judicial institution and the warrants issued by the ICC cannot be used as a condition to negotiate a peace agreement. That is not consistent with the goals of the ICC which is to ensure that the accused will be brought before the judges of the ICC and receive a fair trial.
The LRA delegation visited the ICC at The Hague in March. What did you discuss? We did not give them advice. Our stand is execution of warrants of arrest for the indicted LRA leaders. It is an order of the chamber at the ICC. And this order must be enforced. That is all.
What successes has the ICC achieved? First of all, we have 160 states which have ratified the Rome Statute.
Secondly, we have four situations under investigation. We have five cases and 10 arrest warrants. We have a number of significant decisions delivered by the judges of the ICC and on different issues concerning the measures to ensure trial of the accused, protection of witnesses and participation of victims in trial proceedings.
There are various issues before the trial chamber of the ICC and the first trial will start soon. This is the measure of our work. We consider the qualifications and competence of counsels. We had training for lawyers to ensure the best quality of the defence if the accused are to be assisted in the best professional way.
We have an office of the lawyer defending the position of victims, and also an office of the accused. When they cannot get a lawyer at this stage, then we have the possibility of this office.
We have also the outreach office. We can consider what has been achieved in this area depending on what is familiar to you in Uganda; northern Uganda. Field officers of the ICC have achieved this by involving several people understand the ICC as a court and not cause confusion that there is restitution.
The registrar has a huge mission to protect witnesses. There is also cooperation of states. It’s true for some states, we have problems. It is difficult to achieve cooperation. But we have agreements in other areas; protection and relocation of witnesses.
The LRA fighters are said to be moving between DR Congo, South Sudan and the Central Africa Republic. Are there penalties for countries which are state parties to the ICC and are seen as harbouring them? We will adopt our action depending on the developments. If we have information that the accused are moving, we will request competent states, not only one, they can be three or four; it would depend, where the accused are moving, to request specifically cooperation in apprehending the suspects.
Maybe, we will have more work to do but we shall always proceed with the institutional action; request states to cooperate, request states to arrest and request states to freeze assets of the accused.
It may be additional work, but I do not see any difficulty or obstacle for the operation of the activities of the ICC if there is any movement of the suspects.
How do you protect witnesses? As soon as an individual is identified as a potential witness, he or she is protected from the beginning. The relatives who are at risk, family and persons living with the witnesses are also protected. This is a very large work and we continue it for a while not just little time.
If the witness has to be transferred to the city of trial, we have to ensure that the transfer is safe. When witnesses return to their country, we have to make arrangements with the state to ensure that they continue to be protected.
