S/PV.5905
5905th meeting
Thursday, 5 June 2008, 10 a.m.
New York
Reports of the Secretary-General on the Sudan
Mr. Gouider (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya) (spoke in Arabic): I would like to welcome the presence among us today of the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Costa Rica and the new Permanent Representative of Belgium. I should also like to join speakers who have preceded me in welcoming Mr. Moreno-Ocampo, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), as well as to thank him for his briefing.
There is no need to emphasize my country’s commitment to combating impunity and its rejection of compromising with perpetrators when it comes to enforcing the law. However, we know how difficult it is to achieve those goals, as we are aware of the delicate and confidential responsibilities entrusted to a prosecutor’s office required by a legal mandate and professional obligations to carry out a sober prosecution that avoids condemning prior to trials, presents findings immediately following thorough investigations and closely scrutinizes diverse pieces of evidence, whether corroborating or exculpatory in nature.
The report that has been presented to us refers to ongoing investigations. Many paragraphs of the report contain diverse legal and political accusations against the highest organs of a State and its military and security machinery. In many cases, those accusations are based on press and political reports. To date, there have been no findings or conclusions with regard to investigations into the practices of the rebel movements. In short, the issue has been presented as if it had to do with the pattern of behaviour of a State obsessed solely with the destruction of the basis for its existence, namely, its people and their tribal and social fabric.
My country’s experience has taught us that the intensity of the language used in the statement invoking resolution 1593 (2005) will undermine the environment of cooperation and assistance called for both by the resolution itself and the report that has been presented to us. It also risks undermining opportunities to strengthen cooperation in our work in the context of the Council’s current mission to the Sudan. We know that, by its very nature, cooperation is a dynamic process that can take place only through calm dialogue and mutual confidence, regardless of differences with the Sudan and its positions or the Sudan’s commitment to the Rome Statute and its application. There is no hope that mutual confidence will prevail while national legal proceedings are being marginalized. In conformity with the Rome Statute, the competency of the ICC complements the national legal system.
Along with the Sudan’s cooperation, we had expected that the Court and the Office of the Prosecutor would have made additional efforts to promote the rule of law, protect human rights and combat impunity in Darfur. The resolution encouraged it, highlighting the universality of the ICC and its proceedings and furthering its goals.
The Council’s referral of the Darfur case to the Court, in our view, was not prompted by political motivations or with the intention of interfering in the Sudan’s affairs through a technical legal process, the politicization of which is in no one’s interest. That is particularly true since the referral was not made at the expense of a comprehensive consideration of the situation by the Council that would take into account the balancing of its numerous political, security and humanitarian priorities.
We agree that peace and justice are indivisible. Yet how can justice be achieved? How will the Sudanese people view such justice, meted to all its factions, without exception, including the victims of the rebel movements? It is a political process led by the United Nations, which respects the sovereignty of Member States, that will achieve harmony, stability and security by addressing in all earnest the underlying causes before the symptoms.
The strong message expected of the Council today must, in our view, focus on that process and its progress by all means and inclusive of all parties. That is what my country has tried to achieve in the course of recent years; it is what we are trying to achieve in Geneva in the framework of noble regional and international efforts, which we hope will succeed and bear fruit.
