OPEN LETTER FROM SOUTH SUDANESE CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS TO PRESIDENT SALVA KIIR MAYARDIT
Dear all – Please find below and attached an open letter from South
Sudanese civil society organizations to President Salva Kiir regarding
the government of South Sudan’s invitation to President Omar al-Bashir
to attend the April 2012 presidential summit in Juba.
Best,
South Sudanese civil society
___________________________________
OPEN LETTER FROM SOUTH SUDANESE CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS TO
PRESIDENT SALVA KIIR MAYARDIT
Regarding the government of South Sudan’s invitation to President Omar
al-Bashir to attend the April 2012 presidential summit in Juba
29 March 2012
Dear President Salva Kiir Mayardit,
We, the undersigned South Sudanese civil society organizations, with
the support of human rights organizations across the African
continent, are writing to express our deep concern about the
invitation that the government of South Sudan has extended to
President Omar al-Bashir to attend the April 2012 presidential summit
in Juba. With open fighting now reported along the border between
Sudan and South Sudan, it appears increasingly unlikely that Bashir
will accept the invitation. Nonetheless, we urge the government of
South Sudan to adopt a policy of holding any meetings with Bashir and
other Sudanese officials wanted by the International Criminal Court
(ICC) outside of South Sudan.
No nation knows President Bashir’s cruelty more than South Sudan.
Since Bashir came to power in a military coup in 1989, countless
numbers of our people have been killed and displaced by the actions of
his regime. Over the course of the war, Khartoum extended its criminal
warfare methods to other marginalized regions in Sudan. In Darfur,
Bashir’s regime instituted a particularly brutal campaign of mass
killings and ethnic cleansing that left more than 300,000 people dead
and several million displaced.
In response to these grave violations of international human rights
and humanitarian law, the United Nations Security Council issued
Resolution 1593 (2005), referring the situation in Darfur to the ICC.
The Resolution called on all United Nations member states—whether or
not they were party to the Rome Statute—to cooperate fully with the
Court and its prosecutor.
Four years later, the ICC issued two warrants for Bashir’s arrest on
charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
Overnight, Bashir’s ability to travel became severely restricted. In
accordance with Resolution 1593, responsible nations across the globe
have refused to receive him. With each refusal, the survivors of
Bashir’s atrocities come closer to seeing justice done in their
lifetime and to knowing that Bashir will never again subject others to
a similar pain and torment.
As a nation that has suffered so much at the hands of Omar al-Bashir,
South Sudan has a moral obligation to the survivors of his atrocities
take a principled stance on the warrants for his arrest. The millions
of South Sudanese who have lost loved ones to Bashir’s criminal acts
have the same interest in seeing him held accountable as the women and
children that continue to be raped in killed in Darfur and the
hundreds of thousands of people that are now at risk of
conflict-induced famine in Southern Kordofan and Southern Blue Nile.
We congratulate you and your negotiating team for maintaining open
channels of communication with representatives of the government of
Sudan and for making progress on the ‘four freedoms’ agreement. The
presidential summit and its implications for peace between Sudan and
South Sudan should not be understated.
But to host the international fugitive, Omar al-Bashir, in Juba, to
turn a blind eye to the warrants for his arrest, to grant him leave to
set foot on South Sudanese soil for the first time since independence,
does a disservice to the survivors of his atrocities. For little more
than a public relations exercise, South Sudan could join the short
list of countries that have tacitly condoned Bashir’s crimes by
failing to respect the ICC’s warrants for his arrest.
Your Excellency, we strongly urge you to adopt a policy of holding any
meetings with Omar al-Bashir and other Sudanese officials wanted by
the ICC outside of South Sudan. We also call on the government of
South Sudan to demonstrate that it is committed to rule of law and
accountability by moving quickly to ratify the Rome Statute and
international human rights treaties.
Yours sincerely,
Signatories:
Agency for Independent Media (AIM)
Assistance Mission for Africa (AMA)
Care for Children and Old Age in South Sudan (CCOSS)
Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO)
Generation Agency for Development Transformation-Pentagon (GADET-Pentagon)
Kush, Inc.
Legal Research and Human Rights Initiative (LERHI)
Nuer Peace Council (NPC)
South Sudan Human Rights Society for Advocacy (SSHURSA)
South Sudan Law Society (SSLS)
Unist Development Organization
Voices for Change
With support from:
Action of Christian Activists for Human Rights in Shabunda
(ACADHOSHA), Democratic Republic of the Congo
Africa Legal Aid (AFLA)
African Assembly for the Defense of Human Rights (RADDHO), Senegal
African Center for Justice and Peace Studies (ACJPS)
Association of Human and Prisoner Rights (ADHUC), Republic of Congo
Benin Coalition for the International Criminal Court, Benin
Cameroon Coalition for the International Criminal Court, Cameroon
Central African Republic Coalition for the International Criminal
Court, Central African Republic
Centre for Accountability and Rule of Law, Sierra Leone
Children Education Society-Tanzania (CHESO), Tanzania
Citizens for Justice and Accountability (COJA)
Civil Resource Development and Documentation Centre (CIRDDOC), Nigeria
Darfur Relief and Documentation Center (DRDC)
Human Rights Watch, with offices in South Africa, Kenya, the
Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda
The Kenyan Section of the International Commission of Jurists, Kenya
League for Peace, Human Rights and Justice (LIPADHOJ), Democratic
Republic of Congo
Nigerian Coalition on the ICC (NCICC), Nigeria
Synergy of Congolese NGOs for Victims (SYCOVI), Democratic Republic of Congo
West African Bar Association
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