Geneva-based team will investigate ‘abuses that amount to international crimes’ and prepare files for future prosecutions

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

A new unit is being set up by the United Nations in Geneva to prepare prosecutions of war crimes committed in Syria, UN officials have said.

The first major policy announcement under the newly inaugurated UN secretary-general, António Guterres, the unit will “analyse information, organise and prepare files on the worst abuses that amount to international crimes”, a UN human rights official said.

The team will investigate “primarily war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, and identify those responsible”, the official added. Although it will not be able to prosecute, the unit will prepare files that could be used in future prosecutions by states or by the international criminal court in The Hague.

The Guardian view on Syrian war crimes: searching for a road to justice | Editorial Read more

The focus on prosecutions also means evidence collected since 2011 by a UN commission of inquiry may be sharpened into legal action.

Legal experts and activists welcomed the initiative. “The focus is on collecting evidence and building criminal cases before the trail goes cold,” said Andrew Clapham, professor of international law at Geneva’s Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies.

Jeremie Smith, of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, said the UN must lay the groundwork for prosecutions ahead of any “exodus” of perpetrators when the war ends. “This is the only way to make sure criminals don’t get away by fleeing the scene of the crime,” he added.

The commission of inquiry has issued 20 reports accusing Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s government, rebel forces and Islamic State of mass killings, rapes, disappearances and recruiting child soldiers. It too lacks a prosecutorial mandate, but has denounced a state policy amounting to “extermination” and compiled a confidential list of suspects on all sides, which is kept in a safe.

Human rights organisation Amnesty International last week claimed the Syrian government executed up to 13,000 prisoners in mass hangings and carried out systematic torture at a military jail. Syria denied the report, calling it “devoid of truth”.

Assad’s slaughterhouse defies description, but it’s horrifyingly real | Kate Allen Read more

A UN report in January put the start-up budget for the new team at between $4m and $6m. Funding is voluntary and so far $1.8m has been donated, the UN official said.

According to diplomats, the UN is aiming to recruit between 40 and 60 experts in investigations, prosecutions, the military and forensics. “It’s a very important step. It will not only allow court cases but also help us preserve evidence if there are cases in the future,” a senior western diplomat said.

Many national courts could pursue suspects using the unit’s dossiers, Clapham said. States that have joined the international criminal court could bring cases without referral by the UN security council.</s>GENEVA, Feb 16 (Reuters) - A new body is being set up at the United Nations in Geneva to prepare prosecutions of war crimes committed in Syria, U.N. officials and diplomats said on Thursday.

The General Assembly voted to establish the mechanism in December and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is due to name a judge or prosecutor as its head this month.

"We expect to start very, very shortly with just a handful of people," a U.N. human rights official told Reuters.

The team will "analyse information, organise and prepare files on the worst abuses that amount to international crimes - primarily war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide - and identify those responsible", she said.

While it would not be able to prosecute itself, the idea is to prepare prepare files for future prosecution that states or the International Criminal Court in The Hague could use.

The focus on prosecutions means evidence collected since 2011 by a U.N. Commission of Inquiry may be sharpened into legal action.

The COI has issued 20 reports accusing the Assad government, rebel forces and Islamic State of mass killings, rapes, disappearances and recruiting child soldiers.

It too lacks a prosecutorial mandate, but has denounced a state policy amounting to "extermination", and has compiled a confidential list of suspects on all sides, kept in a safe.

Rights watchdog Amnesty International said last week the Syrian government executed up to 13,000 prisoners in mass hangings and carried out systematic torture at a military jail. Syria denied the report, calling "devoid of truth".

A Swedish court on Thursday sentenced a former Syrian opposition fighter who now lives in Sweden to life in prison for war crimes.

A U.N. report in January put the start-up budget for the new team at $4-6 million. So far $1.8 million has been donated, the U.N. official said. Funding is voluntary, posing a major challenge.

The United Nations aims to recruit 40-60 experts in investigations, prosecutions, the military, and forensics, diplomats said.

"It's a very important step. It will not only allow court cases but also help us preserve evidence if there are cases in the future," a senior Western diplomat said.

"The focus is on collecting evidence and building criminal cases before the trail goes cold," said Andrew Clapham, professor of international law at Geneva's Graduate Institute.

Jeremie Smith of the Cairo Institute of Human Rights Studies said the United Nations must lay the groundwork for prosecutions ahead of any "exodus" of perpetrators when the war ends.

"This is the only way to make sure criminals don't get away by fleeing the scene of the crime."

The new team will seek to establish command responsibility.

"This is mass collection of information on all sides with a view to prosecution in the future by the ICC (International Criminal Court), national courts or in some completely new international tribunal that would be created," Clapham said.

Many national courts could pursue suspects using its dossiers, he said. States that have joined the ICC could bring cases to the Hague court, without referral by the Security Council. (Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Alison Williams)</s>As world powers press for an end to the violence that has racked Syria and claimed thousands of lives, pressure is building over accusations that Assad's security apparatus has committed crimes in suppressing the year-long revolt.

Syrian government forces have been accused in a U.N. report of committing widespread, systematic and gross human rights violations amounting to crimes against humanity. There was also evidence of abuse by some rebel groups, it said last month.

A U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria has handed over a confidential list of senior Syrian officials suspected of ordering crimes against humanity including murder, abductions and torture to the United Nations for possible prosecution - whether by an international court, or national bodies using universal jurisdiction, or even a Syrian court in future.

But in the case of Syria, the International Criminal Court - the world's first permanent war crimes court - is powerless for the time being. The ICC has no reach there because Syria is not a state party to the Rome Statute, and because the United Nations Security Council is deadlocked over the issue.

"If the Security Council provides a decision (that) we should investigate Syria, we will do it," ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said earlier this month. "We are always able."

But Moscow and Beijing have stone-walled in the Council.

"The Security Council can bring a case, but China and Russia are unlikely to agree so that the chances are slim at the moment," said Louise Doswald-Beck, professor of law at Geneva's Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies.

"But there is a possibility (of arrest and prosecution) if these people were rash enough to travel to states that can try people for war crimes and crimes against humanity."

The office of the ICC prosecutor has an information and evidence unit which can receive evidence submitted by members of the public or official bodies: so, for example, evidence from Syria could be submitted to the unit and held there in case an official investigation does go ahead.

But the office's representatives refuse to say whether they have received any evidence about war crimes in Syria.

"I endorse the call by (U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay) to have the International Criminal Court investigate whether these amount to crimes against humanity," Juan Mendez, U.N. special rapporteur, or investigator, on torture worldwide, said in an interview.

The United Nations estimates Syrian forces killed at least 9,000 people over the past year as Assad's forces pounded rebel strongholds into submission. The government says opposition fighters killed 3,000 soldiers and security forces personnel.

The Hague-based ICC, which has investigated several cases involving alleged war crimes over the past decade, earlier this month handed down its first-ever ruling when it found Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga Dyilo guilty of using child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

But so far it has missed the chance to try some of the biggest names suspected of genocide or crimes against humanity. Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, wanted on charges of orchestrating genocide, remains at large.

Last year, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Libya's former ruler Muammar Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam, and his spy chief, Abdullah al-Senussi, following a referral by the U.N. Security Council. Gaddafi was killed by rebel forces, Saif is in prison in Libya, while Senussi was recently detained in Mauritania: it remains unclear whether either of them will appear in The Hague.

With Syria, Moscow and Beijing have shielded Assad from U.N. Security Council condemnation by vetoing two Western-backed resolutions over the bloodshed, but they approved a Security Council statement on March 21 endorsing U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan's bid to end the violence in Syria.

Legal experts such as Doswald-Beck say one possible chink in the case of Syria is if any of those involved in war crimes were to leave the country and travel to another jurisdiction which could try them - provided it can be shown that these individuals ordered a direct attack on civilians or torture.

"As they are probably all Syrian nationals, it would be only on the basis of universal jurisdiction that you could try them," she said.

"If these people choose to travel and they arrive in a state party to the Convention against Torture, they need to be brought to justice. As long as they are sitting in Syria and don't move, that's where the problem lies."

The U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria's list of suspects is believed to include Assad's inner circle and senior officials of the Baath party, army and security forces.

"The Commission of Inquiry handed me a list of names of people in high positions, including in the military and security forces, who have been implicated in the most serious international crimes that fall under the jurisdiction laid down in the Rome Statute," U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Pillay told Reuters in Geneva, referring to the treaty setting up the ICC.

"I will hand over this list of alleged perpetrators to any future credible investigations," said Pillay, a former ICC judge.

In its February report, a three-member panel, headed by Brazilian expert Paulo Pinheiro, said that Syrian forces bent on crushing the uprising had shot dead unarmed women and children, shelled residential areas and tortured wounded protesters in hospital under orders from the "highest level" of army and government officials.

"The commission also identified particular army units, security agencies and their branch offices for which there are reasonable grounds to believe that they carried out gross human rights violations," the report said.

There was also evidence of abuses committed by some rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) groups.

The U.N. report said it had reliable accounts that the National Security Bureau of the Baath Party National Command was used to translate policy directives into strategic operations.

Military and security forces, civilian authorities and Baath Party officials coordinated operations through local security committees, it said.

"On several occasions, senior security officials were deployed from the capital to coordinate operations involving crimes against humanity and other gross violations," it said.

"Most crimes against humanity and gross human rights violations were carried out in complex operations that involved the entire security apparatus and therefore would have required superior directives."

The four major intelligence and security agencies with direct reporting lines to the president's office - military intelligence, air force intelligence, the general intelligence directorate and the political security directorate - "were at the heart of almost all operations", it said.

As the conflict evolved, elite army units closest to the leadership - the Special Forces, the Republican Guard and the Fourth Division - played an increasingly prominent role, the latter two especially in Damascus and its suburbs, it said.

"You would expect from the institutions named in the report, that the key people in those institutions to be on the list, there are enough hints," said one international human rights expert who has not seen the list, but who saw the public report.

For the Commission of Inquiry to have included it, it is likely to be all corroborated evidence, but it still needs to be proved in a court of law, this expert said.

"The investigators would look at hisclose circle, the constitutional order, the ministers of defence, of interior, head of security services. You start with a matrix and corroborate evidence from witnesses, these are the criteria."

The existence of the list creates pressure on states to take action as it means that dozens of people can be brought to justice, once a credible jurisdiction is empowered to move on the case, said Mona Rishmawi, chief of the rule of law branch at the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Several countries, including Britain, Belgium, Canada, Spain and the United States, have established universal jurisdiction for some crimes such as torture, said Rishmawi, who led a similar U.N. investigation in Darfur which contributed evidence leading to the ICC's indictment of Sudan's President Bashir.

Aside from the U.N. report, there is other evidence that could be used to mount a case, legal experts said

U.N. special rapporteur Mendez said that a Channel 4 video purporting to show Syrian patients being tortured in hospital appeared to support increasingly grave allegations pointing to crimes against humanity.

"With respect of torture, as grave as the allegations were six to eight months ago, this latest seems a step or two above that," Mendez, himself a victim of torture while jailed by the military dictatorship in his native Argentina in the 1970s, said in an interview in Geneva.

"There's a limit to what I can do. I have to say that I am frustrated that I cannot do more. I wish I had more powers."</s>* No statute of limitations for such crimes under int'l law

* Duvalier alleged to have embezzled up to $800 million

GENEVA, Jan 31 Former Haitian dictator Jean Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier should be tried for torture, rape and killings committed during his rule, not merely on corruption charges as proposed by a Haitian judge, the United Nations human rights office said on Tuesday.

The judge handling the case, Carves Jean, told Reuters in Port-au-Prince on Monday that Duvalier will face trial for corruption during his 15 years in power, which ended in 1986, but not for human rights abuses.

But the office of U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay voiced deep disappointment and called on Haitian authorities to ensure he is prosecuted for international crimes.

"Very serious human rights violations including torture, rape and extrajudicial killings have been extensively documented by Haitian and international human rights organisations to have occurred in Haiti during the regime of Duvalier," U.N. human rights spokesman Rupert Colville told a news briefing in Geneva.

"Impunity for such serious crimes cannot be allowed to prevail and we urge the relevant authorities to ensure that justice is, albeit belatedly, delivered to the many victims of human rights abuses committed under the government of Mr. Duvalier," he said.

Pillay's office had repeatedly reminded judicial authorities in Haiti of their "an absolute obligation" to investigate the violations and prosecute those responsible, he said.

"It is clear under international law that there is no statute of limitations for such crimes," Colville added.

Judge Jean told Reuters that he did not find enough legal grounds to retain human rights charges and crimes against humanity against Duvalier and that a 20-page ruling had been delivered to the government prosecutor's office on Monday.

Duvalier is alleged to have embezzled between $300 milllion and $800 million of assets during his rule, stashing some of it in Swiss coffers before fleeing to exile in neighbouring France.

Colville, asked why Duvalier would face corruption charges but not for human rights crimes, replied: "We're puzzled too, because under international law it is the very serious crimes such as crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide, serious violations like torture which can also be a crime against humanity, these have no statute of limitations."

"In Haiti, our understanding is that under the constitution, international law is given supremacy so it does seem rather bizarre that financial charges appear to be possible but not international crimes," he added.

Pillay sent a senior expert to Haiti last March to provide legal and technical advice to Haitian authorities on the issue of prosecuting a former head of state for serious human rights violations, according to Colville.</s>* Welcomes calls for Security Council to refer Syria to ICC

* Both sides commit war crimes in Syria, Pinheiro says

GENEVA, Sept 17 U.N. investigators have added more names to a secret list of Syrians suspected of committing war crimes during the 18-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, and warned on Monday more foreign Islamist militants were fighting there.

The human rights investigators, led by Paulo Pinheiro, said they had gathered "a formidable and extraordinary body of evidence" as Syrian government forces conduct daily air strikes and shelling in indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas.

They welcomed calls for the U.N. Security Council to refer the situation to the International Criminal Court (ICC). But diplomats noted this would require acceptance by Russia and China, which have blocked all previous Western efforts to condemn Syria or start proceedings at the U.N. war crimes court.

"Gross human rights violations have grown in number, in pace and in scale," Pinheiro told the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva. "There is no statute of limitations on these crimes."

Referring to U.N. rights chief Navi Pillay, he told a news conference: "We are very glad that the High Commissioner for Human Rights has requested the referral (to the ICC), and she has all the power and all the mandate to do that. We don't have (it)."

He did not say if any Syrian rebels were among the names on the list, which updated a confidential one his independent team submitted to Pillay in February.

Pinheiro presented the team's latest report, issued a month ago, saying Syrian government forces and allied militia had committed war crimes including murder and torture of civilians in what appeared to be a state-directed policy.

More than 20,000 people have been killed in the conflict , 1.2 million are uprooted within Syria and more than 250,000 have fled abroad, the United Nations says.

Pinheiro reported an "increasing and alarming presence of foreign elements, including Jihadist militants," in Syria, some joining the rebels, others operating independently. They tended to radicalise the rebels, who have also committed war crimes, the Brazilian expert said.

"The signal of their presence is basically the explosions, the attacks, that have been registered," Pinheiro later told a news conference.

"We consider that one of the most alarming and scary elements of this protracted war is the presence of those elements," he said, adding some had their own agenda. "They are sort of loose cannons," he said, declining to say more about their origins until more investigation was done.

He cited allegations that rebels had "used prisoners to detonate vehicle-borne explosives", killing their captives in acts that also posed a danger to civilians.

Karen AbuZayd, his American co-commissioner on the team of 20 investigators, said of the Islamic militants: "These elements do seem to contribute to a radicalisation of some of the groups that they've begun to work with inside. The bigger bomb blasts, the pattern, the way they work it, is what we've seen elsewhere with these same kinds of groups."

Pinheiro said it would be improper to make public the list of suspects because they were entitled to the presumption of innocence and no mechanism to hold perpetrators responsible was yet in place where allegations could be contested.

His team interviewed more than 1,100 victims, refugees and defectors in the past year. "We have no interviews with wounded soldiers or families of dead agents of the government because the government of Syria does not allow us access to Syria."

Syrian ambassador Faysal Khabbaz Hamoui accused Western and Arab powers of arming and funding rebels conducting a "Jihad" or holy war against Damascus.

"The mercenaries are a time bomb that will explode later in the country and in countries supporting them after they finish their terrorist missions in Syria," he said.

"Terrorist groups" active in Syria came from 17 countries, including Afghanistan, Libya and Yemen, he said, adding the report should have named countries that "support the killers", which he said included the United States, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Libya.

Russia, Syria's ally which has vetoed all Western attempts at the U.N. Security Council to condemn Syria, said rebels were committing "terrorist acts" including executions, and Jihadists were increasingly active due to "support from the outside".

"There are Jihadist mercenaries fighting on the opposition side. Those who in the view of some states are bringing democracy to the region are in actual fact carrying out mass murder," Russian diplomat Maria Khodynskaya-Golenishcheva said.

Western nations want the session to condemn Assad's government and to extend the commission of inquiry's mandate, which expires this month.

European Union ambassador Mariangela Zappia said: "The international community must ensure impunity will not prevail."

Turkey's ambassador Oguz Demiralp described the conflict in Syria as a "serious threat to international security" and said those behind crimes there would be held accountable.</s>* War crimes by rebels, not of same gravity or scale

* Security Council urged to take action given evidence

GENEVA, Aug 15 Syrian government forces and allied militia have committed war crimes including murder and torture of civilians in what appears to be state-directed policy, U.N. investigators said on Wednesday.

Syrian rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad had also committed war crimes, including executions, but on a smaller scale than those by the army and security forces.

The report called for the U.N. Security Council to take "appropriate action" given the gravity of documented violations by all sides in a 17-month conflict that investigators said had become a civil war.

"We have identified both parties as guilty of war crimes and of course a greater number and of bigger variety from the government side," Karen AbuZayd, one of two commissioners aided by some 20 investigators, told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Paulo Pinheiro, the commissioner who led the probe, said Syria's army of 300,000 had targeted rebel-held areas of cities with heavy artillery and helicopters. It had "much more means to inflict war crimes, for example bombing civilian populations".

"Besides evidence, we have names connected to the evidence," Pinheiro told Reuters, speaking from his native Brazil.

"But we are not a judicial or prosecutorial body. This is a problem for the Security Council, not for us."

The Security Council can refer a case to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the U.N. war crimes tribunal, but Russia and China - which have veto power - have been loath to condemn Syria.

The independent investigators conducted more than 1,000 interviews, mainly with Syrian refugees or defectors who have fled to neighbouring countries, over the past year to produce their latest 102-page report to the U.N. Human Rights Council.

They found "reasonable grounds" to affirm that government forces and their allied shabbiha militia had committed crimes against humanity, war crimes and other gross violations.

These included "unlawful killing, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, sexual violence, indiscriminate attack, pillaging and destruction of property".

Government forces and shabbiha militia had raped men, women and children in acts that could be prosecuted as crimes against humanity, the investigators said. Government troops had targeted staff of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, a war crime, they said.

A Syrian air strike killed 30 people in a rebel-held town on Wednesday, a local doctor said, and a mass kidnapping linked to Syria in neighbouring Lebanon raised the prospect of sectarian violence spreading.

Evidence confirmed a previous finding that "violations had been committed pursuant to State policy", the U.N. report said.

Large-scale operations conducted in different provinces, their similar complexity and integrated military/security apparatus "indicate involvement at the highest levels of the armed and security forces and the government".

Rebels had killed captured government soldiers, shabbiha and suspected informers, sometimes after summary trials, the investigators said. "Executing a prisoner without affording fundamental judicial guarantees is a war crime," they added.

"We have many instances reported to us where the anti-government forces have executed prisoners. They say they don't have detention facilities and are not based in one territory and can't take care of them. This is a war crime," Pinheiro said.

Both government forces and armed insurgents had displayed "more brutal tactics and new military capabilities" as fighting escalated during recent months, the report said.

Each side had violated children's rights, it said. At least 125 youths under age 18, mainly boys, had been killed since February, while others were arbitrarily arrested without charge.

"Children described having been beaten, whipped with electrical cables, burned with cigarettes and subjected to electrical shocks to the genitals," the investigators said of those in the custody of state forces.

Armed insurgents continue to use children as couriers or to help with medical evacuations, they said.

Completing their probe into a massacre in the town of Houla in May - which the government blamed on Islamist "terrorists" - they said government forces and shabbiha fighters were responsible for the killings of more than 100 civilians.

Forty-one children were killed in Houla, including some by shelling, "but most appeared to have been shot at close range".

The investigators said they would update their confidential list of suspects or units responsible for crimes and give it to U.N. rights boss Navi Pillay when their mandate ends next month.

"We don't name any names in the report," AbuZayd said. "But the evidence is recorded all along."</s>London, 16 Feb - The Syrian Civil War, which has been raging for nearly seven years, has earned two new rounds of peace talks, which will hopefully end the war.

The first talk will be held on February 16 in Astana, Kazakhstan. The two-day talk is expected to build on the talks held there in January between Syrian Governmental allies Russia and Iran, and Syrian Opposition supporters Turkey.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said this meeting would be a chance to "monitor the commitment of different parties to refrain from using force and to promote, encourage, the political process."

A source close to the Syrian Government said these discussions would be "purely military."

The second talk, scheduled for February 23 in Geneva, is sponsored by the UN. It is expected to focus on the fate of Bashar al-Assad. It will be the fifth time that parties have gone to Switzerland.

Attendees for the talks include Syria's UN ambassador Bashar al-Jaafari, chief opposition negotiator and lawyer Mohammed Sabra, UN envoy Staffan de Mistura and US officials.

Several oppositions groups are still awaiting their invitations and it looks likely that they will not attend the negotiations.

There is speculation that, although the Astana talks are supposed to support the Geneva talks, Russia and Turkey have been developing an alternative track for the Astana meetings.

Sam Heller, a non-resident fellow at The Century Foundation think-tank, said: "In theory, it is a complement to a still-live ongoing Geneva process. But in practice it looks like it's a venue for Turkey, Russia, and to some extent Iran, to arrive at their own understandings and to try to engineer a mutually satisfactory political solution on their terms."

Thomas Pierret, a Syria expert at the University of Edinburgh, said: "I still don't believe the loyalist alliance is serious about... making some serious compromise, rather than asking for the rebels' surrender disguised as a political settlement. They will try to obtain such surrender, which is why the talks will take place."</s>Petition from Concerned Members of Chollo Community in the Diaspora

We the undersigned concerned members of the Shilluk (Chollo) community in the Diaspora strongly condemn the Government of South Sudan for its deliberate attacks on civilians, hospitals and clinics, and camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Wau Shilluk, Kodok and Kuek of Upper Nile State in South Sudan.

In these recent attacks, the government of South Sudan and its foreign mercenary fighters occupied these towns, and deliberately targeted Chollo civilians and executed many simply because of their ethnicity.

We strongly condemn these wanton killings of innocent civilians whether they are taking place in the Chollo Kingdom or anywhere in South Sudan.

These ethnically-motivated killings by the Government of South Sudan has forced thousands of Chollo civilians to flee their homes in Wau Shilluk, Lelo, Detang, Bukieny, Pamath Owachi, Tonga, Panyikang, Kodok and Kuek.

The South Sudan tribal army (SPLA) along with its hired mercenaries has engaged in activities which have, at the very least, been bordering on genocide of a magnitude comparable to Rwanda and Srebrenica.

They have committed widespread ethnic cleansing of Chollo civilians and burned down their villages by perpetrating a deliberate and indiscriminate aerial bombardment of civilians, hospitals, clinics and camps inhabited by IDPs.

These actions are barbarous violations of International Humanitarian Law and are being carried out against the backdrop of stark warnings by numerous organizations, including the UN, of a looming genocide.

We therefore strongly urge the International Community to intervene immediately by launching an investigation and holding the government of South Sudan and its foreign military allies in this war accountable for their continuous mass atrocities committed in Shilluk land against innocent civilians.

We would like to appeal to humanitarian relief agencies to provide urgent medical aid to those innocent Chollo civilians all across the Shilluk Kingdom of Upper Nile states, who are in desperate need of humanitarian aid especially in and around the town of Kodhok.

Our sources have confirmed that Kodhok, which shelters thousands of IDPs was the latest target of Juba’s continuous indiscriminate shelling and aerial bombardment.

Humanitarian organizations are being prevented from reaching helpless and defenceless civilian populations so that they can provide much needed food and medicine.

Thousands of men, women and children are being murdered daily. And when they’re not being murdered, they are starving to death. The conditions of Chollo civilians who were forced out of different areas as a result of Juba’s scorched-earth campaign are horrible.

We are calling upon the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to condemn this criminal act by the Government of South Sudan and to stop the targeting of civilians and allow them to have access to humanitarian reliefs.

We urge the UN and the Human Rights Council to investigate this matter and to record all violations of International Human Rights Law, crimes against humanity, and war crimes committed by the South Sudan Government against Chollo civilians in Upper Nile State to ensure that perpetrators are held accountable.

The UNSC should impose targeted sanctions on South Sudanese officials who are involved in the war crimes and other gross crimes. South Sudan Government’s shelling and aerial bombardments of Chollo civilians using barrel bombs are crimes against humanity.

We, the Concerned members of the Chollo Community in the Diaspora appeal to IGAD, AU, US, UK, NORWAY, European Union and the international community at large to exert high-level political pressure on the South Sudanese government to force it to permanently stop the violence and bring peace to the region. We respectfully call upon the UN Security Council and the international community to do the following:

1. Condemn the crimes against humanity committed by the Government of South Sudan and its mercenaries who are bombing innocent Chollo civilians in Upper Nile State.

2. Provide protection and humanitarian aid for those civilians who are displaced and wounded.

3. Establish a no-fly zone in the Upper Nile State of South Sudan to prevent indiscriminate shelling and bombing of civilians in the Chollo Kingdom.

4. Bring to justice those perpetrators responsible for the deliberate killing and targeting of civilians.

5. Support efforts to bring about conflict resolution and peaceful settlement of the ongoing conflict and firmly enforce the outcome for an enduring peace in South Sudan.

Thank you for hearing us out.

Signed by Concerned Members of Chollo Community in the Diaspora</s>US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, trying to reassure allies that Washington was not tilting towards Moscow over the Syrian conflict, told them on Friday that the United States backed UN efforts to broker a political solution to the war, officials and diplomats said.

Tillerson also said military ties with Russia hinged on its stance towards rebels fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad, who Russia backs.

Countries opposed to Assad met on Friday for the first time since Donald Trump took office as US president in a bid to find common ground ahead of UN-backed peace negotiations in Geneva next week.

All eyes have been on Washington and its approach to ending the war in Syria, given promises by Trump to build closer ties to Russia, especially in the fight against Islamic State. His policy on Syria has been unclear.

Western diplomats said that in talks on the sidelines of a G20 foreign ministers’ meeting,Tillerson had stressed the importance of sticking to UN efforts to reach a political solution based on Security Council Resolution 2254 under the special envoy on Syria, Staffan de Mistura.

The envoy will convene a new round of peace talks among Syrian factions next Thursday.

The diplomats also said Tillerson had stressed that Moscow’s position to align itself with the Syrian government to label all rebels as terrorists would make military cooperation between Washington and Moscow complicated.

“In the discussion, he made it clear that there would not be military cooperation until the Russians accepted that not all the opposition are terrorists,” one diplomat said.

Assad is in his strongest position since the early days of the civil war, which began as a popular uprising in the spring of 2011before spiralling into a war that has killed up to 400,000 combatants and civilians.

The United States, along with Gulf Arab States and Turkey, backs rebel forces but the situation is complicated by the role of hardline Islamist factions, including Islamic State, in the anti-Assad movement who are opposed by both Washington and Moscow.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told reporters Friday’s exchange had been useful.

“We ask the Russian backer of the regime to put pressure on it so it stops considering that all the opposition are terrorists,” Ayrault said. “Otherwise, there will be no discussion in Geneva.”

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said after the meeting, which included the United States, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, France and Britain, that it was clear that all wanted a political solution.

“This political solution must be achieved in Geneva under the auspices of the United Nations and that there cannot be any parallel negotiations,” Gabriel told reporters.

Russia has sought to revive diplomacy since its air force helped to defeat rebels in Aleppo in December, the Syrian leader’s biggest victory to date. Nearly six years into the war, Assad seems militarily unassailable thanks to the decisive backing of Russia and Iran.

It has held a series of parallel intra-Syrian negotiations in coordination with Turkey and Iran in the Kazakh capital Astana to reinforce a shaky ceasefire and has tried to expand the scope to cover political aspects.

On Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the United States supported the Russian-sponsored talks, which ended with no joint communique and opposing Syrian groups exchanging angry tirades.

“The Russians are trying to pilot a separate process,” said one diplomat. “Geneva is an extremely fragile process and we want to avoid it being chaotic.”</s>Assad's future may be off the agenda at meeting of Syrian factions, with focus likely to be elections and governance.

The office of the UN special envoy to Syria has declined to confirm whether a political transition will be discussed at the forthcoming talks in Geneva.

The development means Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's future will be off the agenda and the main focus of the meeting in the Swiss city will be governance, a new constitution and elections.

Staffan de Mistura, the envoy, is due to convene the new round of talks among Syrian factions in Geneva on February 23, after negotiations collapsed almost nine months ago.

A spokesman for De Mistura said he was still finalising who would come to the meeting but there were already positive responses to invitations that had gone out.

Countries opposed to Assad, including the US, back efforts by the UN to broker a political solution to the conflict, Sigmar Gabriel, Germany's foreign minister, said on Friday.

"It is clear that all who met want a political solution ... and that this political solution must be achieved in Geneva under the auspices of the United Nations and that there cannot be any parallel negotiations," Gabriel said after a meeting in Bonn that included the US, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, France and Britain.

The countries were meeting for the first time since Donald Trump took office as US president in a bid to find common ground in advance of the Geneva meeting.

Gabriel said Rex Tillerson, the new US secretary of state, played an active role in the discussions about how to end the war in Syria, which took place on the sidelines of a meeting in Bonn, Germany, of G20 foreign ministers.

Tillerson, trying to reassure allies that the US was not tilting towards Russia over the Syrian conflict, told them that the US backed UN efforts to broker a political solution to the war, officials and diplomats said.

He also said military ties with Russia depended on its stance towards rebels fighting the Assad government, who Russia backs.

All eyes have been on the US and its approach to ending the violence in Syria, given promises by Trump to build closer ties to Russia.

Speaking alongside Gabriel, Jean-Marc Ayrault, France's foreign minister, said the Geneva talks would ultimately fail if Russia did not use its influence on the Syrian government and Iran to stop labelling all those opposed to Assad as "terrorists".

On Thursday, Sergey Lavrov, Russian foreign minister, said the US supported Russian-sponsored parallel peace talks on Syria in the capital of Kazakhstan, Astana.

Those talks ended with no joint communique, usually the minimum outcome of any diplomatic negotiation, and saw opposing Syrian groups exchanging heated accusations at each other and the brokers.

Russia proposed a series of parallel intra-Syrian negotiations in coordination with Turkey and Iran last year in Astana to reinforce a shaky ceasefire.

It has tried to expand the scope to cover political aspects, a move that has been criticised by Western and Arab states, who argue that UN efforts are the only credible track for a political solution.

With its show of military force, Russia changed the tide of the Syrian civil war. However, it is finding the next phase - brokering an end to the fighting - a tougher proposition.

Russia's peace drive started hopefully, with the first Astana meeting in January.

The Syrian rebels and government came together for the first time in nine months, and agreement was reached to consolidate a shaky ceasefire.

But for the second round this week, the Syrian rebels debated until the eleventh hour about whether to attend at all, finally sending a smaller delegation which arrived in Astana a day late.

Bashar Jaafari, the Syrian government negotiator, said on Thursday that peace talks in Astana had not produced a communique because of the "irresponsible" late arrival of rebel participants and their Turkish backers which delayed the joint session by a day.

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He also criticised the rebels and Turkey for downgrading their delegations from the previous meeting.

"Turkey cannot ignite the fire and at the same time act as a firefighter," he said after the talks.

The rebels, in turn, accused the Syrian government and Iran of routinely violating the ceasefire and Russia of failing to enforce it.

"We know that the Russians have a problem with those for whom they are guarantors," Yahya al-Aridi, a rebel negotiator, said, referring to Iran and Assad's forces.

Haid Haid, an associate fellow with the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the London-based Chatham House, says the prospects of the Astana talks' success were bleak due to virtually "no common ground between Turkey, Russia and Iran".

Speaking to Al Jazeera on Thursday, he said: "In order to implement the ceasefire, they have to punish those who violate ceasefires.

"[But] Russia and Iran do not want to put any pressure on the Syrian regime ... There are no enforcement mechanisms that could be a stepping stone to a political solution."

Five years since the civil war began, more than 450,000 Syrians have been killed in the fighting, more than a million injured and over 12 million Syrians - half the country's prewar population - have been displaced from their homes.
United Nations officials announce the creation of a new team in Geneva to investigate possible war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide during the Syrian Civil War in order to prepare for future prosecutions of those responsible.