Author: Morgane Greco

How the 2020 Guinean Elections Might Impact Justice for the 28 September 2009 Massacre. (Part 2)

/ Morgane Greco / Leave a comment

This blogpost is the continuation of “How the 2020 Guinean Elections Might Impact Justice for the 28 September 2009 Massacre. (Part 1)“, posted yesterday morning.

3. Civil society member Asmaou Diallo expressed skepticism about the eventuality of a trial in June 2020

Asmaou Diallo, a Guinean civil society member who lost her son in the 28 September 2009 Massacre, has been working tirelessly since 5 October 2009 with her local association “Association des Victimes, Parents et Amis du 28 Septembre” to achieve justice. She explained that victims need medical and psychological treatment: many raped women at the stadium have contracted HIV and other life-threatening diseases, and a lot of victims also cruelly lack the necessary support to heal from this traumatic experience. 

Considering the current national political agenda, Ms. Diallo expressed doubts that a trial in 2020 would effectively deliver justice to victims. In the past, Guinea has consistently been falling into cycles of violence and impunity, and since October 2019, violence in the streets has increased. Further, as President Alpha Condé wants to amend the Constitution to stay in power, Ms. Diallo fears that another 28 September massacre might occur.

In Ms. Diallo’s view, the trial will not take place in 2020. Since accused officials continue to hold positions of power and victims remain unprotected, she argued that the government most likely will hinder any possibility for justice to be delivered. 

4. Franco Matillana, from the ICC OTP, expressed trust towards the Guinean justice system

Last but not least, Franco Matillana outlined the ongoing ICC proceedings with respect to the situation in Guinea. As mentioned above, the OTP opened a preliminary examination more than 10 years ago, in October 2009. In its 2019 Report on Preliminary Examination Activities, the OTP concluded that there was a reasonable basis to believe that crimes against humanity pursuant to article 7 of the Rome Statute had been committed in the national stadium on 28 September 2009 and in the immediate aftermath. More precisely, it mentioned murder under article 7(1)(a), imprisonment or other severe deprivation of liberty under article 7(1)(e), torture under article 7(1)(f), rape and other forms of sexual violence under article 7(1)(g), persecution under article 7(1)(h), and enforced disappearance of persons under article 7(1)(i).

Currently, the preliminary examination is at phase 3, which means that the OTP is assessing the admissibility of this situation, notably in the light of the complementarity principle. This principle entails that national authorities are primarily responsible of delivering justice at the national level (article 1 of the Rome Statute). That said, even though the perspective of a trial in June 2020 means that many steps have yet to be completed within a short period of time, including the construction of the new courtroom in Conakry and the training of the magistrates, Franco Matillana expressed trust towards the Guinean authorities. According to him, a real and genuine cooperation exists between the ICC and Guinean national authorities. Mr. Matillana reminded that setting and announcing publicly a precise date for the trial is a good sign, as it showcases the commitment of the Guinean government to deliver justice. 

5. Concluding remarks 

            Justice and accountability for the 28 September Massacre are far from certain. The perspectives shared by all panelists at the side event suggest that the decisions and actions taken by Guinean authorities are likely to have a decisive impact on the foreseeable future. It must be emphasized that the Guinean presidential elections’ agenda is concerning: Guineans do not want the current President Alpha Condé to amend the Constitution to allow him to run for a 3rd term, and civil society groups are regularly demonstrating in the streets. In this context, Ms. Diallo’s fear of another 28 September Massacre seem well-founded. In any case, the fight for justice for the 28 September Massacre should not be side-tracked by the upcoming elections. It is a high time for the international community to wake up and take concrete action to pressure the Guinean government to ensure justice and accountability for victims of international crimes in Guinea.

*

*       *

This blogpost and the author’s attendance to the 18th Assembly of States Parties to the International Criminal Court are supported by the Canadian Partnership for International Justice and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

How the 2020 Guinean Elections Might Impact Justice for the 28 September 2009 Massacre. (Part 1)

/ Morgane Greco / Leave a comment

On the third day of the 18th Assembly of States Parties (ASP) to the International Criminal Court (ICC), held in The Hague from 2 to 7 December 2019, a side event named “Guinea: A decade after, victims of the 2019 massacre are still waiting for justice” took place. It was co-organized by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the Guinean civil society organizations Organisation guinéenne de défense des droits de l’homme et du citoyen, Mêmes droits pour tous and the Association des victimes, parents et amis du 11 septembre 2009. Moderated by Delphine Carlens, Head of the International Justice section at FIDH, the event featured panelists Drissa Traoré, FIDH Under-Secretary; Asmaou Diallo, President of the Association of Victims, Parents and Friends of the September 28 Massacre; and Franco Matillana, from the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor (OTP). As panelists shared their views on the prospects for justice for the September 2009 Massacre in Guinea, this blog post will elaborate on the key aspects of this enriching discussion. Specifically, it will summarize the context of the September 2009 Massacre, before turning to explore the ongoing judicial proceedings within the Guinean domestic legal system, victims’ perceptions of these proceedings, and the ongoing ICC preliminary examination.

Flyer of the event co-organized by the FIDH and Guinean civil society organizations, held in The Hague on 4 December 2019. 

1. What happened in Guinea on 28 September 2009?

On 14 October 2009, the ICC OTP announced the opening of a preliminary examination with respect to the situation in Guinea. It stated that this “preliminary examination focusses on alleged Rome Statute crimes committed in the context of the 28 September 2009 events at the Conakry stadium.” As Guinea is a State Party to the Rome Statute, having deposited its instrument of ratification on 14 July 2003, the OTP announced that it would investigate international crimes committed on the territory of Guinea or by Guinean nationals from 1 October 2003 onwards (Rome Statute, article 11). 

 The contextual background of the September 2009 Massacre is described in the subsequent OTP Reports on Preliminary Examination Activities (see e.g the 2019 report here). In December 2008, after the death of President Lansana Conté, who had ruled Guinea since 1984, Captain Moussa Dadis Camara seized power in a military coup. As the new head of State, he established a military junta, the Conseil national pour la démocratie et le développement (CNDD, orNational Council for Democracy and Development), and promised that this body would ensure that power is handed to a civilian president following presidential and parliamentary elections. However, as time went by, Captain Camara’s attitude and statements seemed to suggest that he might actually run for president, which led to protests by its political opponents and civil society groups. 

On 28 September 2009, the Independence Day of Guinea, an opposition group gathering at the national stadium in Conakry was violently repressed by national security forces. According to Human Rights Watch, they opened fire on civilians that were peacefully calling for transparent elections. Some civilians were shot, beaten, and even raped in daylight. According to the OTP’s 2019 Report on Preliminary Examination Activities, more than 150 people died or disappeared, at least 109 women were victims of rape and other forms of sexual violence, including sexual mutilations and sexual slavery, and more than 1000 persons were injured. Cases of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment during arrests, arbitrary detentions, and attacks against civilians based on their perceived ethnic or political affiliation are also mentioned in the 2019 OTP Report.

Ten years after the massacre, are Guinean victims any closer to see their tormentors be held accountable? One after the other, panelists at the ASP side event shared their points of view. 

Une des entrées du Stade du 28-Septembre, à Conakry, en Guinée.
Le Monde

2. Drissa Traoré, FIDH Under-Secretary, depicted the judicial landscape and pointed key issues

At the ASP side event, FIDH Under-Secretary Drissa Traoré critically depicted the ongoing judicial proceedings taking place within the Guinean domestic legal system with respect to the 28 September massacre. In February 2010, the case was referred by Guinean Prosecutors to a group of magistrates, before whom it progressed slowly amid political, financial, and logistical obstacles. Despite being charged, many senior officials remained in office. During the investigation, judges have heard the testimony of 450 victims and their their family members. The judicial process was still ongoing when, in 2018, the Minister of Justice Cheick Sako set up a steering committee tasked with the practical organization of the trial. Conakry’s Court of Appeal was identified as the final location for the trial. However, Minister Sako resigned from his position as Minister of Justice in May 2019, causing further delays in the organization of the trial.

In 2019, the newly appointed Minister of Justice, Mohamed Lamine Fofana, decided to reform the steering committee: even though this committee was supposed to meet once a week, in practice, it had met only intermittently. Mr. Fofana also announced that the trial would take place in June 2020, and the government decided to build a new courtroom for this trial to be held. Drissa Traoré stressed that the construction of this courtroom could be a pretext to delay the trial once again. At the time of the ASP, in December 2019, the construction had not begun, and the judges presiding over the trial had yet to be appointed and trained for a such a trial. 

To Drissa Traoré, it is imperative that the charged civil servants who remain in office be dismissed from their positions before the beginning of the trial. He also emphasized the necessity for victims and witnesses to be protected from and any undue pressure that could be exerted against them. 

Mr. Traoré also highlighted that the sociopolitical context in Guinea is currently strained. Guinean presidential elections will take place in 2020, and demonstrations are regularly taking place, accompanied by daily arrests and deaths. To Mr. Traoré, it is crucial that this trial takes place, as it would send a message that impunity for grave crimes is not tolerated in Guinea. 

*** 

You can read the second part of the blogpost here:  How the 2020 Guinean Elections Might Impact Justice for the 28 September 2009 Massacre. (Part 2)

***

This blogpost and the author’s attendance to the 18th Assembly of States Parties to the International Criminal Court are supported by the Canadian Partnership for International Justice and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Conflict-related sexual violence: consequences and needs of female victims (part 2).

/ Morgane Greco / Leave a comment

This blogpost is the continuation of “Conflict-related sexual violence: consequences and needs of female victims (part 1)“, posted yesterday morning.

III. … and questions the importance of justice within the healing process

As potential victims of crimes against humanity, war crimes and eventually genocide, survivors of CRSV deserve justice. Congolese gynecologist Dr. Denis Mukwege, 2018 Peace Nobel Prize Laureate, explained at a University of Montreal in June 2019 that justice is an integral part of the victims’ healing process. To him, justice is key both to the victims’ psychological well-being and to the restoration of their dignity. As Dr. Yael Danieli points out in her 2014 article, reparative justice can take place at every step throughout the justice process: from the first encounter of a court with a potential victim or witness to the aftermath of the completion of the case, every step represents an opportunity for redress and healing.

Despite the increased attention of the international community towards impunity for sexual violence crimes, according to the last Secretary-General Annual Report on conflict-related sexual violence, accountability remains elusive. The ability of victims to access a justice system is frequently hindered by reporting barriers both at the individual and structural levels. Across most countries, victims are often reluctant to report their experiences owing to stigma, fear of reprisal or rejection by their families or communities, and lack of confidence in judicial and non-judicial responses. As an example, in Guinea, the 2009 repression has traumatized a large number of civilians. Even if some courageous female victims did testify before Guinean courts, the absence of specialized investigation and prosecution units within justice system to provide support to vulnerable victims, combined to the lack of relevant training for magistrates, registrars and lawyers – professions in which males are largely overrepresented –, did not encourage victims to testify in a climate of trust.

The justice process can also cause secondary victimization or second injury. Sexual violence victims often have to tell their story many times to different persons, with a high level of details, and fight to be trusted. Moreover, depending on the various national and international judicial systems’ requirements, victims may have to bring evidence of their rape, while such an evidence is expensive to obtain. They can notably have to bring a medical certificate to the court. As an example, Guinean victims of the event of 28 September 2009 did face difficulties to prove the evidentiary value of a medical certificate confirming that sexual violence took place.

It is also important to mention that, for some victims, justice does not necessarily mean seeking a reparation order or a conviction from a court. According to Salah Aroussi’s article titled Perceptions of Justice and Hierarchies of Rape: Rethinking Approaches to Sexual Violence in Eastern Congo from the Ground Up (2018), “survivors of rape by armed groups or civilians in the DRC primarily conceive justice as economic assistance and have limited interest in the prosecution of perpetrators […]. [R]epairing the harm and restoring the victim is at the heart of communities’ understanding of what justice is.” The author warns that “at the same time, survivors’ reluctance to pursue formal justice must be understood in the light of the inaccessibility of the Congolese criminal justice system and its failure to play a positive role in society.” 

CONCLUSION

Victims of conflict-related sexual violence suffer from long term, if not lifelong consequences. During the Commemoration of the 10-Year Anniversary of the Mandate on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Tatiana Mukanire, survivor from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and leader of the survivors SEMA Network, explained that raping a person amounts to killing her or him while letting him or her breathe. At the same time, impunity, corruption, lack of services and difficult access to healing resources tend to silence CRSV victims. Lack of confidence towards nationals and international justice systems are also an issue, whereas the International Criminal Court has already failed to deliver justice in the case of Jean-Pierre Bemba, despite the struggle of victims to hold him accountable. 

As a conclusion, to answer CRSV victims’ needs, it is imperative to understand the consequences of the victimization on the survivors’ lives. Otherwise, there is a chance to see the survivors’ care not to be optimal. Nobody can speak in place of victims. They have their own voice and have to be heard. Our role is to listen to them.

***

This blogpost and the author’s attendance to the 18th Assembly of States Parties to the International Criminal Court are supported by the Canadian Partnership for International Justice and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Conflict-related sexual violence: consequences and needs of female victims (part 1).

/ Morgane Greco / 1 Comment

The first blogpost of this series entitled “Conflict-related sexual violence: what are we talking about (part 1) and (part 2) aimed at providing an introduction to the issue of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV). We saw that CRSV is a crime as old as war itself, targeting both women, girls, men and boys, and its use is today recognized, codified and prosecuted as one of the most serious violations of international law.

In this blogpost, we will first demonstrate that conflict-related sexual violence has long-term consequences on female victims’ lives and on their communities. Even if men and boys also suffer from conflict-related sexual violence, this post will not address their particular situation, and will specifically focus on women and girls. Then, we will address the needs of these female victims. Finally, we will discuss the importance of justice in the victims’ healing process.

I. Understanding the consequences of CRSV on victims…

Sexual violence results in multiple consequences for survivors and their communities. These consequences can be classified in four categories, namely social, psychological, medical and economic consequences. 

Social consequences of CRSV may include the rejection of the female victim by her own family, her husband and her community. The raped woman is considered as impure: for example, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a raped woman is often considered as unworthy of respect in her community. Rape is taboo – but while taboo is sometimes perceived as needed to preserve societal welfare, in the context of CRSV, it rather appears as a powerful tool of domination of men over women.

In many societies, raped unmarried women can forget the idea of getting married one day. Especially when a child is born from a rape committed by an enemy group, the mother tends to be considered as an “affiliate of the enemy,” and both the mother and the child are highly stigmatized. To avoid stigma, women and their children often have to flee from their homes. Women in this situation are then alone to take care of a child they did not necessarily want to have, and to meet the family’s financial needs. The economic consequences of rape tend to bury women in poverty. Also, ostracized young victims usually quit school. In addition to rejection, as explained in the work of a University of Montreal PhD student, raped women can notably face depression and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, which may drive them to suicide. Last but not least, CRSV threatens the victims’ physical integrity: in addition to the physical violence inherent to it, it can also infect women and children born of rape with HIV or other sexually transmissible diseases. Furthermore, in places where abortion is not accessible, women can resort to illegal and clandestine abortion threating their lives. Lots of women lack resources to receive proper medical treatment or surgery or suffer from the lack of medical structures in some remote areas. 

Conflict-related sexual violence can result in a highly traumatized population. This victimization tends to modify social relationships, pervert the community dynamics and even cause intergenerational trauma.

II. …allows to better respond to their specific needs…

Having a look to CRSV consequences is useful to provide a better response to victims’ needs. Professor Jo-Anne Wemmers, in her book entitled Victimology: A Canadian Perspective (2017), explains that some similarities exist between the fundamental needs of human beings and those of victims. The first are illustrated by Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, as illustrated below. This pyramid, created in 1940, exposes the hierarchy of human needs and should be read from the bottom up. The transition from one step to another requires the entire fulfillment of the need below.

Source: https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html

If Professor Jo-Anne Wemmers mostly supports Maslow’s hierarchy of needs when it comes to assessing victims’ needs, she prefers to summarize the range of their needs as falling into these five categories: medical needs, financial needs, need for protection, need for support in order to help them deal with the psychological effects of their victimization, and need for recognition and respect in the criminal justice system. A comparison between these two pyramids shows us that victims of crimes have specific needs and concerns compared to “un-injured” human beings.

The United Nations Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, in its last Annual Report also shares a similar approach. The report mentions that survivors often require immediate life-saving health care, including comprehensive clinical management of rape, and medication to prevent sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancies. Survivors may also require life-saving psychosocial support to recover from the psychological and social impacts of conflict-related sexual violence. 

Applying this framework to CRSV victims leads to think that the importance of fulfilling their needs of safety and security cannot be overstated. On the one hand, for victims of sexual violence, feelings of security, serenity and trust are key for them to be able to speak out about what they experienced. On the other hand, a context of armed conflict tends to lower the victims’ feeling of security, making them even more vulnerable and less likely to have access to relevant services. 

**

To read the second part of the piece, click here: Conflict-related sexual violence: consequences and needs of female victims (part 2).

**

This blogpost and the author’s attendance to the 18th Assembly of States Parties to the International Criminal Court are supported by the Canadian Partnership for International Justice and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Conflict-related sexual violence: what are we talking about? (Part 2)

/ Morgane Greco / 3 Comments

This post is a continuation of “Conflict-related sexual violence: what are we talking about? (Part 1),” posted yesterday morning.

III. …and took time to be prosecuted as a crime against humanity and a war crime.

For centuries, CRSV crimes did not preoccupy international tribunals. While sexual violence had been committed during World Wars I and II, impunity for such crimes was considered as normal before the Nuremberg or Tokyo tribunals. Rape was assimilated to bad treatments committed against civilians, and sexual violence in conflict was perceived as a collateral damage. If none of CRSV crimes were prosecuted at that time, it is because these crimes did not exist under international law. Pursuant to the principle of legality, developed by Cesare Beccaria in the 18th century and also known as nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege, no one can be convicted of a criminal offence in the absence of a clear and precise legal text.

The first major step in the criminalization and recognition of sexual violence in conflict was the four Geneva Conventions of 1949. Common article 3 does not expressly mention rape nor other forms of sexual violence, but bans “violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture,” and “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.” Article 27 of the Fourth Geneva Convention holds that “women shall be especially protected against any attack on their honor, in particular against rape, enforced prostitution or any form of indecent assault.” In addition, rape is expressly mentioned in article 4§2 of Additional Protocol II of 1977, which states that outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment, rape, enforced prostitution and any form of indecent assault are and shall remain prohibited at any time and any place.

The NGO We ARE Not Weapons of War notes that, in 1992, the issue of the mass rape of women in former Yugoslavia came to the fore at the United Nations Security Council, which declared that the mass, organized, and systematic detention and rape of women, in particular Muslim women, persecuted in Bosnia and Herzegovina constituted “an international crime that was not to be ignored.”

A few years later, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) were the first tribunals whose Statutes explicitly included CRSV crimes. Article 5 of ICTY Statute and Article 3 of ICTR Statute included rape as a crime against humanity, alongside other crimes such as torture and enslavement. In 1998, the ICTR became the first international tribunal to consider the acts of sexual violence as constituting genocide. In its judgment against a former Rwandan mayor, Jean-Paul Akayesu, it considered rape and sexual assault to be acts of genocide insofar as they were committed with intent to destroy a protected group, in whole or in part.

Continue reading →

Conflict-related sexual violence: what are we talking about? (Part 1)

/ Morgane Greco / 2 Comments

In the context of the author’s attendance to the 18th Assembly of State Parties to the International Criminal Court, this blogpost aims at sharing knowledge about conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) and providing a preliminary understanding of the issue. It first explores the use of CRSV through history. Then, it highlights how it targets both women, girls, men and boys. Last but not least, this blogpost depicts the slow development of international tribunals’ responses to this scourge.

I. Conflict-related sexual violence is an old phenomenon…

According to the United Nations, CRSV refers to rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced abortion, enforced sterilization, forced marriage and any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity perpetrated against women, men, girls or boys that is directly or indirectly linked to a conflict. The term also encompasses trafficking in persons for the purpose of sexual violence or exploitation, when committed in situations of conflict. 

The French NGO We are NOT Weapons of War stresses that sexual violence used as a weapon of war has always been present in conflict, even though its victims have long seemed invisible. This idea is also supported by Stand Speak Rise Up, a non-profit organization from Luxembourg. In its white book, we can read that sexual violence in conflict is not new and the historical roots of this phenomenon are deep: from the Viking era to the Thirty Years’ War and the Second World War, rape has been part of the “spoils of war” throughout history, a weapon of the victors and conquerors. War rape is rarely the result of uncontrolled sexual desire, but rather a way to exert power and install fear in victims and their community. 

In the 1990s, the conflicts in Bosnia, Rwanda and the Great Lakes Region marked a major turning point in the use of sexual violence as a weapon to weaken and subdue vulnerable populations or to advance a political agenda. The Stand Speak Rise Up white book explains that CRSV was methodically organized and implemented in cold blood on a very large scale. Sexual violence in particular was also a tool of submission and terror at the end of the Cold War. 

Still nowadays, sexual violence can play a vital role in the political economy of terrorism, with physical and online slave markets and human trafficking enabling terrorist groups to generate revenue from the continuous abduction of women and girls. As an example, the Yezidi community in Iraq suffered and still suffers from these crimes, as the so-called Islamic State continues to target women and girls, abducting them and reducing them to sexual slavery and forced marriages. 

Perpetrators of such acts are often affiliated with States or non-State armed groups, including terrorist entities.

II. …that targeted and still targets both men, boys, women and girls…

In September 2019, during the United Nations 74th General Assembly, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General on Sexual Violence in Conflict recalled that conflicts exacerbates existing gender inequalities, exposing women and girls to various forms of sexual and gendered-based violence. Women and girls, in particular, suffer sexual violence in the course of displacement, navigating their way through checkpoints and across borders without documentation, money or legal status. It is also important to note than men and boys also suffer from conflict-related sexual violence . 

Conflict-related sexual violence refers to incidents including rape, gang rape, forced nudity and other forms of inhumane and degrading treatment in a context of armed conflict. A disturbing trend is that sexual violence is increasingly perpetrated against very young children. The Secretary-General emphasized that during the Colombian civil war, that has lasted for 50 years, rebels systematically used sexual violence against the civilians, targeting women as well as their children. The Colombian Constitutional Court has recognized “a widespread, systematic and invisible practice.” It is also important to keep in mind that both men and women can be perpetrators. 

…

To read more, click here: Conflict-related sexual violence: what are we talking about? (Part 2)