Digital Press Briefing: Ambassador Beth Van Schaack, Ambassador at Large for Global Criminal Justice, Office of Global Criminal Justice

https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Audio-Digital-Press-Briefing-with-Ambassador-Beth-Van-Schaack-on-U.S.-efforts-to-advance-transitional-justice-in-Africa.mp3

MODERATOR: Good afternoon to everyone from the U.S. Department of State's Africa Regional Media Hub. I welcome our participants logging in from across the continent and thank all of you for joining us. Today, we are very pleased to be joined by Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice in the Office of Global Criminal Justice, Ambassador Beth Van Schaack. Ambassador Van Schaack will discuss her recent travel to East Africa and provide an update on U.S. Government efforts to advance transitional justice.

We will begin with today's - today's briefing with opening remarks from Ambassador Van Schaack, then we will turn to your questions. We will try to get to as many of your questions as we can during this briefing.

And so with that, I will turn it over to Ambassador Beth Van Schaack for opening remarks.

AMBASSADOR VAN SCHAACK: Great. Wonderful, Johann. Thank you so much, and thank you to everyone for joining. I really appreciate your interest in the incredible innovations in justice that are happening across the African continent, and I'm really pleased to have the opportunity to talk about some of the newest developments, including my recent trip. So I just wrapped up a trip to Addis Ababa, in Ethiopia, where I met with a number of governmental actors, civil society groups, other individuals, members of the diplomatic community who are really interested in promoting and contributing to the transitional justice process that's underway within Ethiopia. We're also - I also engaged with principals at the African Union on transitional justice efforts that are happening across the continent.

So supporting these types of justice efforts has been a real priority for the Biden-Harris administration. Earlier in December you may have seen that President Biden became the first U.S. president to visit Angola and to deliver a speech at the Angolan National Museum of Slavery. And it was an incredibly poignant speech; I really commend it to you. I hope you'll pull it up. He discussed in it the United States' unfinished reckoning with racial injustice in our own country and how it is our duty to face our own history - the good, the bad, and the ugly - and basically to accept the whole truth of that history. This, I think, is a really powerful message for all justice advocates across the world who are fighting every day for truth and accountability.

The field of transitional justice emerged and developed to help societies affected by atrocities move forward towards lasting peace, stability, et cetera. And it's really essential that such processes be victim-centered and to ultimately hold those most responsible for atrocities to account. How exactly this looks like and the balance of different transitional justice mechanisms and responses is really specific to each circumstances - to each circumstance or society. And this was really brought into stark relief as I've traveled across the globe, meeting with transitional justice experts, practitioners, government entities that are implementing these measures all over the world and all over the continent of Africa.

Every survivor and every community has different needs, which is why it's really essential that their voices be a part of the process. We need to understand what survivors expect, what their preferences are, what their vision for holistic justice is. And the United States has always sought to support and provide technical and other forms of assistance to credible, transparent, and inclusive transitional justice processes that are responsive to these individual community needs.

In Addis Ababa I was really honored to speak at a conference at the African Union that convened youth leaders from across the continent who are vital voices in these processes. They were from West Africa, Southern Africa, really - north of the Sahara - the whole continent was represented by these incredible young people who are really going to be vital in their efforts within their own countries. I also participated in an Ethiopia-focused gathering of experts that was convened by the ministry of justice to discuss emerging transitional justice legislation in Ethiopia. Participants addressed a number of really compelling questions, both specific and profound: So what are the different ways in which a country can deliver justice post-conflict? How do we compensate victims equitably where resources are limited and so many have suffered? How do we hold wrongdoers to account while also facilitating some form of forgiveness if the victims are so inclined to forgive? And how do we memorialize atrocities so that they are not forgotten and so that a shared history can emerge?

We heard from participants working in The Gambia who provided really compelling insights from their own ongoing efforts to address the catastrophic harm caused by the Jammeh regime. They spoke about the importance of their Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission shining a light on atrocities while also issuing compelling recommendations for justice and for institutional reform. Now, while that effort is underway, the nation turned to radio broadcasts that carried the testimony of individuals who had committed horribly violent acts, and the broadcasts also amplified the voices of victims who expressed the deep and lasting pain that they continue to experience. And sometimes these hearings of the TRRC even shared intimate moments of forgiveness between victims and perpetrators.

The Gambians, however, have decided that this open conversation is not enough to address the harms of the past, and the United States is now working to support The Gambia's efforts to create a hybrid court - in other words, a court that has international and national elements - to prosecute human rights violations committed during the Jammeh regime. And I was thrilled to see this week that the ECOWAS heads of state and government have decided to help establish this special tribunal for The Gambia. This is a landmark achievement and will be an agreement between ECOWAS and The Gambia, one of the first regional or even subregional internationalized institutions, and this offers another example of African innovations in transitional justice that builds on the Habre tribunal, builds on the Special Criminal Court in the Central African Republic, and builds on the Rwanda tribunal.

So we really look forward to continuing to work with our Gambian partners to ensure accountability. We also hope that the process will bring additional evidence to light, including in terms of who is responsible, where bodies may be buried so that they can be returned to their loved ones, and ensure that wrongdoers do not enjoy impunity.

While The Gambia's process is still ongoing, Liberia's is more at a beginning stage. Liberian participants at this event in Addis Ababa reflected on justice delayed for more than 20 years after the country's concurrent civil wars, and also the current efforts to create a war and economic crimes court of their own. The office has been established; a director has been identified, drawn from the legal academy within Monrovia. This is also a remarkable, new, and innovative endeavor, and I was really pleased to meet with the new head of the office to create the war and economic crimes court while I was in Addis.

It was wonderful to see so many African justice actors coming together to learn from each other, to build on the knowledge that is developing across the continent, and to build on the experiences of those who came before. For example, there were a number of South African participants who shared the lessons learned from their groundbreaking Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was really one of the first of its kind. And they also noted that their process remains ongoing even now, years later. South Africa's efforts to heal the wounds caused by decades of brutal apartheid still carry lessons for others today.

So I'll just end here with my - a little more detail about my recent visit to Ethiopia. The international community is really eager to support Ethiopia's transitional justice process. The inclusion in this gathering of - and a series of previous gatherings - of external international experts from all over the world, including this recent workshop, will only strengthen the process. It will build trust among the populus, many of whom remain understandably skeptical of state institutions, and it will also validate the efforts of the ministry of justice and other ministries within Ethiopia.

It was really interesting to hear from a participant in Colombia who has an ongoing transitional justice - which has an ongoing transitional justice process that involves a truth-telling component, it involves accountability, it involves reconciliation, it involves reparation. It's an interesting model to the situation in Ethiopia just given the size of the country and the various dynamics of violence during the multiple conflicts across Ethiopia.

We're really encouraged by the process so far in Ethiopia, but we're also cognizant of closing civic space and ongoing reports of atrocities, particularly in Amhara and in Oromia. This, of course, will make comprehensive transitional justice now difficult if not, frankly, impossible. We know that people cannot participate in justice processes if they do not feel free to speak out, to tell their truth, and the ongoing conflicts in these other regions must be resolved through political dialogue. We are waiting to hear from the government about what actions are being taken to lay the work - to lay the groundwork for a more comprehensive transitional justice that can address a long history of atrocities and also the contemporary conflicts we're seeing today.

One meaningful measure that should be considered would be to remove those implicated in abuses from positions of power - namely, putting members of the military, for example, who are accused of crimes on administrative leave pending a fuller investigation. And another step would be a public acknowledgment from the federal government for the abuses that occurred. We stand ready to be a partner if these processes are transparent, inclusive, and victim-centered going forward. But we're really pleased to see the emergence of five pieces of legislation that are very solid starts, and we commend the government for being willing to open their draft bills to criticism, to suggestions, to input from experts within the international community.

And finally, on another subject, the United States is committed to fighting impunity for perpetrators. To that end, last week the Department of State designated four nationals from the Democratic Republic of Congo under the Global Criminal Justice Rewards Program that my office administers. These four individuals are wanted by the DRC High Military Court for the war crime of murder. They are - stand accused of being involved in the 2017 killings of a U.S. citizen and United Nations expert Michael Sharp, his UN colleague, and three Democratic Republic of Congo nationals who were assisting these UN experts in their work.

This program offers a reward for up to $5 million for information that leads to the arrest, transfer, or conviction of certain individuals who are wanted for war crimes, genocide, or crimes against humanity by either a national, hybrid, or international court. This program is one of our foremost tools in fighting impunity for atrocity crimes worldwide and for supporting justice efforts and institutions around the world. This program has contributed to more than 20 cases and has already paid out more than $8 million over its lifetime, and so we really encourage those in the region that might have information about the killings of these individuals to come forward with information. And if you go to our website, there's a WhatsApp number and also an intake form that you can take and additional information about the program.

So with that, I will end my opening remarks, and I really look forward to our conversation. Thank you so much for joining me this morning.

MODERATOR: Thank you, Ambassador, for those opening remarks. So we'll now proceed to the Q&A, the questions-and-answers portion of the briefing.

All right. So we do have a question from Mr. Abel Tsgabu from Tigrai Television in Ethiopia: "Ambassador, given your recent visit to East Africa, what specific measures is the U.S. Government taking to support transitional justice mechanisms in the region, particularly in conflict-affected areas like Ethiopia and Sudan? Additionally, how does the U.S. plan to balance accountability for atrocity crimes with ongoing peacebuilding efforts after the signing of the Pretoria Agreement?"

Ambassador.

AMBASSADOR VAN SCHAACK: Yeah, terrific. Abel, thank you so much. It's really a great question. I'll try and touch on all elements of it. As you will have seen from the beginning of the conflict in northern Ethiopia, the United States Government has advocated for comprehensive, victim-centered, transitional justice. The Secretary did an atrocity determination and determined that war crimes were being committed by all parties to the conflict, and we were also seeing crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing on the part of certain actors within that conflict. My team and I have taken several trips to Ethiopia over the last four years to provide technical advice and expertise on this process. Obviously, the United States Government was extremely active in the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement, which very importantly includes a specific provision whereby the parties agree to submit to a comprehensive transitional justice process.

We're also continuing to explore other ways that we can provide support, including in partnership with other members of the diplomatic and donor community. And all of this, of course, is contingent upon this process being credible, genuine, inclusive, participatory. Transitional justice was a central part of the Pretoria Agreement, and the government is taking these very concrete steps, as I mentioned, including the issuance of five pieces of new legislation. All of this will be essential to peacebuilding and to long-term stability, to ensuring that that Cessation of Hostilities Agreement holds. Over the history of Ethiopia, there's never been a fully comprehensive or credible transitional justice process, and the cycles of impunity continue to fuel ongoing insecurity.

With respect to other situations around the continent - you mentioned Sudan in particular - obviously the situation there is extremely worrisome. It's one of the worst, if not the worst, humanitarian crisis in the globe. We're continuing to really push the parties to contribute to and to commit to a genuine resolution of that conflict, knowing that there is no military solution to that conflict. In the meantime, we can work with justice advocates and with documenters to help gather information for future accountability efforts.

MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Ambassador. Abel had a follow-up question, which is: "How does the U.S. approach the atrocities committed in Tigray, particularly considering the Ethiopian Government and Eritrean forces being accused of international crimes during the war? Is it realistic to pursue justice and accountability with the Ethiopian Government, which is itself implicated in these allegations?"

AMBASSADOR VAN SCHAACK: Yeah, thanks. I think I partially answered that. But to put a finer point on it, as I mentioned, the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement committed all parties to transitional justice, and that includes, of course, the government, which is implicated in abuses. As I mentioned, the Secretary determined in March 2023 that all parties to the conflict had committed atrocity crimes, including Ethiopian forces, also, of course, Eritrean forces, and then the Tigrayan forces and related militia.

I'm really encouraged at this stage by the Ethiopian Government's commitment to transitional justice, and it is manifest in these five pieces of comprehensive legislation that think about accountability and the creation of a special prosecutor's office, that think about some kind of a truth-telling process, that think about deep institutional reforms, and also a process of vetting individuals who were associated with previous abuses. The legislation is generally well-drafted, but I do think it benefited from all of the expert input from Colombia, from other parts of Africa, South Africa, from experts from the United States and Europe, who really dug in line by line and examined that legislation and are putting together a comprehensive collection of feedback. There's really hope that this process, when it's implemented in the comprehensive fashion, will bring some peace, justice, reconciliation to victims.

However, of course it will be essential for the government to be honest about its past and to take real measures to hold those responsible in its own ranks accountable. And we, of course, as a member of the international community, will continue to push them to do so. There have been some trials and proceedings, disciplinary proceedings, before military courts, but they're very non-transparent. We don't have any visibility into who was prosecuted for what crimes, what the resulting sentences were, and so for it to be part of a comprehensive process, there needs to be some visibility into how that process has played out.

MODERATOR: Thank you, Ambassador. So you mentioned before collection of data. We do have a question from Martin Plaut of Fair Observer in the UK. His question is: "What can you do to encourage the collection of data from Africa's most repressive regimes, including Eritrea, Rwanda, and Equatorial Guinea?"

AMBASSADOR VAN SCHAACK: Yes, thanks so much, Martin. We don't - my particular office does not work directly on those particular countries, in part because there isn't a justice process underway. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has essentially shut its doors at this point. All of the individuals whom it indicted for genocide, complicity in genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, they've all been accounted for. They've either been brought to justice before the tribunal itself, they've been referred to national courts - including within Rwanda - or it has been conclusively determined that they are dead and so the cases against them have been closed.

But what I can say more broadly is the United States Government and other donor states have invested heavily in documentation, in ensuring that information about atrocities, as they're being committed, can be collected and safely stored to an international standard. And even when human rights organizations don't have access to the territory itself, they're able to use increasingly sophisticated open-source methodologies to collect information from open sources like Facebook posts, Instagram posts. The metadata of those posts can be mined in order to determine where the individual is located, who they may be connected with, when the image was taken, where the image was taken, and those can be saved for future accountability efforts.

And so documentation is really essential to a whole range of transitional justice measures that might be employed once a society reaches a point in which it's ready and able to carry out transitional justice. Of course, the situation in Eritrea is not at that point yet, but if and when there is a political transformation in repressive states around the world, inevitably a conversation begins about transitional justice. And having that documentation will be really critical to ensure that those processes are comprehensive, and they really reflect the experience of victims and survivors.

MODERATOR: Thank you, Ambassador. We have a couple of questions now which will take us a little but farther afield. The first one comes from Mr. Charbel Barakat of Aljaridanewspaper in Kuwait. His question is: "Drawing on your extensive experience in advancing transitional justice, what key lessons or recommendations would you offer to the Syrian people as they navigate the challenges of establishing a safe, inclusive, and effective transitional justice process in the aftermath of the Assad regime, considering the profound and widespread violations committed by all sides during the protracted civil war?"

AMBASSADOR VAN SCHAACK: Yes. Thank you so much, Charbel. Obviously, this does not involve Africa, but here's an opportunity to think about what comprehensive transitional justice looks like. And I personally kind of appreciate the question because I wrote my PhD thesis on that exact question, so I do have some ideas in this regard.

The Syrian people have experienced a vast array of atrocity at the hands of the Assad regime, but also other armed actors that have been active in that conflict, including, of course, the Islamic State, which at one point attempted to establish a truly repressive caliphate in parts of northern Syria. And so, over the course of this conflict - which, of course, now has ended so dramatically, as we hope - the Syrian people have been engaged in a whole range of documentation efforts. There have been conversations amongst the free Syrian lawyers and others about what justice might look like. There have been population-based surveys that have been undertaken. And the real takeaway from all of this preparatory work is that no true political transition can take place without some measure of accountability. Because individuals have experienced some of the most harrowing human rights abuses known to humankind over the past 13 years, they deserve a measure of justice, they deserve a truth-telling process that reveals the causes and consequences of these harms.

There are many different mechanisms that exist to be able to deliver this form of comprehensive justice to the people. And so now it turn - it comes to this interim government to establish an inclusive process that must include ethnic minorities, women, young people, the whole range of different segments of Syrian society that were impacted by these abuses, and to look for ways to deliver a measure of justice in this regard. And this would complement what's already been happening around the world in courts in Europe and now in the United States as well. You may have seen that our Department of Justice has issued indictments against individuals involved in abuses within Syria as well. And so we're seeing these national courts around the world respond to this endemic impunity, and now it really falls to the new government to create a victim-centered, inclusive, participatory process.

Sadly, there are still over a hundred thousand individuals who remain missing and unaccounted for. That has to be a primary responsibility now. But this needs to be done in a way that is organized, that is measured, that is participatory. I'm a little concerned by what we're seeing on the ground. It's a bit - it's very chaotic. Survivors are looking through documents themselves, trying to find some final news of where their loved ones may have been held in detention. Recently released detainees and prisoners need immediate assistance in terms of psychosocial rehabilitation, psychological first aid, and then long-term counselling to deal with what will be extreme trauma that they would have experienced within detention, knowing what we know about how endemic torture was within the Assad regime's detention centers. They'll have medical needs, they'll have economic needs. Of course, you have millions who remain displaced internal to the country, and also in neighboring countries who want to return. But they need to return home in a way that is dignified and not chaotic and they have access back to their property again, some of which was taken by the Assad regime.

We also see an immediate and acute need to preserve the millions of documents that were previously stored in prisons, detention and military facilities, and other government buildings. These documents will be really essential and instrumental for future accountability efforts, and for the search for the missing and disappeared.

We also need to secure mass and clandestine graves until such time as that forensic experts can properly document, excavate, identify the remains, and return them to their loved ones for a proper burial. And also importantly, we need to be tracking the movement of fugitives. Obviously, the understanding is that the Assad immediate family has been given safe haven in Russia, the former - their former protector before the UN Security Council and elsewhere in multilateral gatherings, but Russia is not going to take every perpetrator and those guys are going to need to find a place to be. And so we need to be tracking their movements, understanding whether they're traveling under their own names or a new identity that they may try and develop for themselves.

And fortunately, as I mentioned, the international community has really stepped up in terms of delivering accountability when perpetrators are found within their midst. So already we have vast files on the architecture of atrocity within the Assad regime, and so prosecutors and investigators around the world are ready and survivors will inevitably recognize their former tormentors when they show up at the local Arab market or when gossip emerges that somebody may have arrived within a particular community in Germany or elsewhere where there's a large Syrian diaspora. And so those prosecutors and investigators have developed fruitful relationships with diaspora communities, and the presence of those perpetrators will come to light.

So this is where we are in the immediate future. We need a much longer-term participatory process to really think about what justice looks like for 13 years of terrible atrocities which includes the use of chemical weapons against Assad's own - against Assad's own compatriots. So thank you so much for that question.

MODERATOR: Thank you, Ambassador. So, I know your time is limited; I hope that we have enough time for maybe one more quick question.

AMBASSADOR VAN SCHAACK: Sure.

MODERATOR: Okay. So, there's a lot of interest on the call about eastern DRC and Rwanda. And so let me just pose the question from Bill Muamba of B-One TV in the DRC. His question is: "The announcement of an award for information of perpetrators of abuses in the Kasai region DRC is a strong signal. Would you take similar action regarding perpetrators of other human rights violations in eastern Congo, namely M23 combatants and Rwandan military officers?"

AMBASSADOR VAN SCHAACK: Yeah, thank you for that question. Really appreciate it, Bill. So, our - the way our program works is the individual has to be accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide - so one of the three core international crimes. We cannot issue a reward for either unnamed or even identified bad actors unless there are charges pending against those individuals.

So, as I mentioned, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former - for Rwanda, pardon me - has closed its doors at this point. There are no outstanding arrest warrants. In fact, the last individual who was at large - Fulgence Kayishema - was recently identified in South Africa. We had a reward for his identification and capture, and was finally found and now is fighting extradition essentially back to Rwanda where he will ultimately stand trial after making a pit stop in Arusha to transfer the file to Rwanda itself. So obviously the situation in the DRC is really troubling to see the re-emergence of the M23 after we had thought that it was - it had concluded its work and had been routed in that region. That's obviously extremely troubling. And we're also extremely troubled by external efforts to foment violence within that particular region. But until there are charges leveled against individuals, I can't utilize this particular tool. That's just the way it's been designed.

We have, however, issued rewards for other bad actors. So for example, we have rewards issued for individuals who stand accused by the International Criminal Court of committing abuses within Darfur, and that is a matter that's before the ICC investigation - that's before the ICC now and subject to an active, open investigation. So it's another example of how I can use this tool.

But thanks for your question, and thanks everybody for being a part of this conversation.

MODERATOR: Thank you very much for your time, Ambassador. Just do you have any final words to wrap up? I know your time is very limited, but anything we didn't get to?

AMBASSADOR VAN SCHAACK: No, it's just to say that Africa is now the source of some of the most creative and innovative thinking around transitional justice. We are seeing a whole range of new models emerge, and I really encourage everyone assembled here to continue to follow those efforts. These will be the models that then will serve as the basis for new efforts in Syria and elsewhere that may experience a political transition, where there's a space open to think about justice and accountability.

So we should all be supporting and following and ensuring really accurate coverage of what's happening in Liberia with the war and economic crimes court, what's happening in The Gambia now with this new, exciting hybrid model with ECOWAS, what's happening in the Central African Republic with the Special Criminal Court that just had another case come to finality even in very insecure operating conditions, and then future efforts that are happening within Ethiopia with these new pieces of legislation and really encouraging the full implementation of those new statutes to ensure a comprehensive transitional justice process for the people of Ethiopia. So really exciting time to be doing this work in the continent, and I really appreciate your interest and willingness to cover these issues. So thank you.

MODERATOR: All right. Fantastic. Thank you so much, Ambassador. So that concludes today's briefing. I want to thank Ambassador Beth Van Schaack, Ambassador-at-Large for criminal - Global Criminal Justice, for joining us today, and thanks very much also to all the journalists who join us today. We will be producing a recording and a transcript of today's briefing, and we will distribute it to participating journalists as soon as they're ready. If you have any questions about today's briefing, please contact the Africa Regional Media Hub at [email protected]. That's [email protected]. And please also follow us on Twitter or X at our handle @AfricaMediaHub. So once again, thank you very much and great day to everybody.

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