THE HAGUE, Netherlands: International Criminal Court (ICC) judges decided Friday to ask the United Nations Secretary-General for information on who represents Afghanistan at international bodies following the Taliban’s sweep to power in August.
The request is intended to clarify the status of Afghanistan’s new leadership as judges prepare to rule on a request by the global court’s new prosecutor last month for permission to resume an investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity linked to Afghanistan’s conflict since 2002.
In a written ruling, judges said that “for several reasons including the fast pace of relevant developments, and the short time elapsed since they materialized, there is still a large margin of uncertainty as to the legal implications of those events, including for the purposes of international law and international relations.”
The judges also asked the court’s Assembly of States Parties for the same clarification. Afghanistan is a member, or state party, of the court.
In a statement, the court said that the judges also reminded Prosecutor Karim Khan that he can request authorization to “pursue necessary investigative steps for the purpose of preserving evidence where there is a unique opportunity to obtain important evidence or there is a significant risk that such evidence may not be subsequently available.”
Judges authorized an investigation in March last year covering offenses allegedly committed by Afghan government forces, the Taliban, American troops and US foreign intelligence operatives dating back to 2002. The probe was put on the back burner when Afghanistan’s government asked to take over the case. The ICC is a court of last resort, set up in 2002 to prosecute alleged atrocities in countries that cannot or will not bring perpetrators to justice — known as the principle of complementarity.
Khan said last month that he plans to focus on crimes committed by the Taliban and the Afghan affiliate of the Daesh group, adding that he will “deprioritize” other aspects of the investigation — including alleged crimes by Americans. That led to angry reactions from rights groups.
ICC judges seek UN clarification on Afghanistan rulers
https://arab.news/cpgrm
ICC judges seek UN clarification on Afghanistan rulers
- The request is intended to clarify the status of Afghanistan's new leadership
- Judges prepare to rule on a request by ICC’s new prosecutor for permission to resume an investigation into crimes against humanity linked to Afghanistan's conflict since 2002
After nearly 7 weeks and many rumors, Bolivia’s ex-leader reappears in his stronghold
- Morales was Bolivia’s first Indigenous president who served from 2006 until his fraught 2019 ouster and subsequent self-exile
- He dismissed rumors fueled by local politicians and fanned by social media that he would try to flee the country
LA PAZ: Bolivia’s long-serving socialist former leader, Evo Morales, reappeared Thursday in his political stronghold of the tropics after almost seven weeks of unexplained absence, endorsing candidates for upcoming regional elections and quieting rumors he had fled the country in the wake of the US seizure of his ally, Venezuela’s ex-President Nicolás Maduro.
The weeks of hand-wringing over Morales’ fate showed how little the Andean country knows about what’s happening in the remote Chapare region, where the former president has spent the past year evading an arrest warrant on human trafficking charges, and how vulnerable it is to fears about US President Donald Trump’s potential future foreign escapades.
The media outlet of Morales’ coca-growing union, Radio Kawsachun Coca, released footage of Morales smiling in dark sunglasses as he arrived via tractor at a stadium in the central Bolivian town of Chimoré to address his supporters.
Morales, Bolivia’s first Indigenous president who served from 2006 until his fraught 2019 ouster and subsequent self-exile, explained that he had come down with chikungunya, a mosquito-borne ailment with no treatment that causes fever and severe joint pain, and suffered complications that “caught me by surprise.”
“Take care of yourselves against chikungunya — it is serious,” the 66-year-old Morales said, appearing markedly more frail than in past appearances.
He dismissed rumors fueled by local politicians and fanned by social media that he would try to flee the country, vowing to remain in Bolivia despite the threat of arrest under conservative President Rodrigo Paz, whose election last October ended nearly two decades of rule by Morales’ Movement Toward Socialism party.
“Some media said, ‘Evo is going to leave, Evo is going to flee.’ I said clearly: I am not going to leave. I will stay with the people to defend the homeland,” he said.
Paz’s revival of diplomatic ties with the US and recent efforts to bring back the Drug Enforcement Administration — some 17 years after Morales expelled American anti-drug agents from the Andean country while cozying up to China, Russia, Cuba and Iran — have rattled the coca-growing region that serves as Morales’ bastion of support.
Paz on Thursday confirmed that he would meet Trump in Miami on March 7 for a summit convening politically aligned Latin American leaders as the Trump administration seeks to counter Chinese influence and assert US dominance in the region.
Before proclaiming the candidates he would endorse in Bolivia’s municipal and regional elections next month, Morales launched into a lengthy speech reminiscent of his once-frequent diatribes against US imperialism.
“This is geopolitical propaganda on an international scale,” he said of Trump’s bid to revive the Monroe Doctrine from 1823 in order to reassert American dominance in the Western Hemisphere. “They want to eliminate every left-wing party in Latin America.”
