IJCentral: International Justice Central

Richard Colvin had barely finished delivering his incendiary testimony about torture in Afghanistan to a House committee last week before fierce debate broke out. For politicians and the public, the issue was whether the diplomat is a courageous whistleblower or an unreliable rogue. But among international law experts, the argument is about the ultimate outcome if his allegations—about federal officials ignoring clear warnings that detainees transferred by Canadian troops to Afghan authorities were being tortured—hold up. Is there a serious prospect of Canadian military or civilian officials being investigated and even charged as war criminals?

A few outspoken law professors quickly concluded that Colvin’s revelations formed a solid basis for a war crimes case. But others told Maclean’s that dramatic outcome is extremely unlikely. The experts are sparring over a relatively untested federal law. International law on war crimes went through a period of rapid reform in the 1990s, largely in the wake of atrocities committed in the violent breakup of the former Yugoslavia. Prompted by the creation of the International Criminal Court, Canada passed a new Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act on Oct. 23, 2000. The first person convicted under the act, Désiré Munyaneza, a Rwandan who led a band of murderers in that country’s 1994 genocide, was sentenced last month in a Montreal court to life in prison.

The possibility that the same law meant to bring the likes of Munyaneza to justice could be applied to Canadians involved in Afghan detainee transfers is sobering. Recognizing that even raising the possibility is controversial, some lawyers who have been hashing over the issue in private declined to be interviewed on the record. Yet several prominent academic experts said it could and should happen. “We must hope that the will to investigate and prosecute is present,” said Michael Byers, a University of British Columbia law professor and former federal NDP candidate in Vancouver.

Payam Akhavan, a former United Nations war crimes prosecutor, now a law professor at McGill University in Montreal, argues Canada’s war crimes act applies, even though nobody alleges that any Canadian tortured a detainee. Akhavan points to the section of the act that says civilian officials or military commanders are criminally liable if they fail “to exercise control properly over a person under their effective authority and control, and as a result the person commits an offence,” and if they fail to take “as soon as practicable, all necessary and reasonable measures within their power” to prevent those under them from commiting war crimes like torture.

But skeptics doubt that clause could be interpreted to mean that Canadian troops or bureaucrats can be held responsible for torture meted out by, say, Afghanistan’s notorious National Directorate of Security. “A prosecutor would have to go through all sorts of contortions to show that an Afghan prison official was under the effective control of a Canadian military commander,” says Craig Forcese, who teaches national security law at the University of Ottawa. (His view is of particular interest, since he was singled out by lawyers sympathetic to Colvin as an expert whose opinion on this issue would be well worth hearing.)

Forcese said those arguing that charges under the act could be laid fail to realize Canadian officials would only have committed a war crime if they truly intended that detainees be tortured. “Negligence, stupid policy, turning a blind eye—none of that, in my view, rises to the level of conspiracy or being an accessory,” he said. “I know that people are talking about it, but I’m not persuaded. They’re using this murky concept of ‘complicity.’ It’s really hard to nail that down in law.”

However, that doesn’t mean Forcese sees Canadian officials as being safe from investigation and prosecution. He points out that a lesser charge of criminal negligence could be laid even if there is no evidence Canadians intended for torture to occur. “Everything else in the Criminal Code requires that you actually wanted the outcome,” he said. “Criminal negligence means that you’re just unbelievably careless or indifferent to the outcome.” For any official who might have “washed his hands” concerning the possibility of torture in Afghanistan, Forcese said, it’s the possibility of a negligence charge being laid that “would keep me up at night.”

For now, the controversy Colvin has stirred up remains a matter for politics, not prosecution. The House committee on Afghanistan was slated to hear high-profile witnesses try to refute Colvin’s story this week, including retired chief of defence staff Gen. Rick Hillier, and David Mulroney, Canada’s current ambassador to China and former deputy minister in charge of the federal Afghan task force. What the committee uncovers will likely determine if war crimes charges remain a serious debating point. Opposition parties and human rights groups like Amnesty International and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association are signalling their limited expectations on that front: they’re calling for the Conservative government to launch not a criminal investigation, but an independent inquiry.

from Macleans

Kampala/The Hague

Uganda was an architect and beneficiary of tribalised bloodshed in eastern DRC in 2003, the International Criminal Court heard on Tuesday at the trial of two Congolese war crimes’ suspects.

The allegations, immediately denied by the Ugandan military, if proven, would potentially set up some of the country’s generals who participated in the Congo war for possible future prosecution.

DRC’s Germain Katanga, 31, the former commander of Patriotic Resistance Force (FRPI) and his National Integrationist Front (FNI) counterpart, Mr Mathieu Ngudjolo, are being prosecuted in The Hague, The Netherlands on 10 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Defence counsels David Hooper and Jean-Pierre Kilenda raised the alleged complicity of Uganda and Rwandan armies while arguing the innocence of their clients indicted for the massacre of up to 200 people, mainly in Bogoro village.

ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said hundreds of attackers raided Bogoro village in Ituri province one morning, shooting and raping residents, including those found sleeping.

The highest Uganda authorities “hammered out a plan” to force the then Thomas Lubanga-led Union of Patriotic Congolese (UPC) militia group out of the region to gain direct control of the strategic military site, lawyer Kalende said.

UPDF denies
Mr Lubanga, in custody at the same court for allegedly enlisting minors as fighters, was a military protégée of Uganda before other militia groups won the country’s providence.

Yesterday, Lt. Col. Felix Kulayigye, the army spokesman, said the accused should carry their cross because Uganda’s uniformed officers “have no blood on their hands.”

“The purpose of our involvement was to save lives. We only trained Congolese to defend themselves,” he said.

Those who died, he said, were killed by militias, FRPI and FNI inclusive. International NGOs estimate some four million Congolese died during the six-year war.

“These [killings] had nothing to do with Uganda’s involvement in the DRC. If anything, our presence returned sanity and indeed prepared the ground for the process to pacify Ituri (province) agreed upon (by regional leaders) in the Lusaka Peace Accord,” Lt. Col. Kulayigye said.

Sour marriage
Uganda and Rwanda, in 1997, invaded DRC as allies to annihilate the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) and Intarahamwe (comprising mainly runaway 1994 genocide masterminds) belligerent forces.

However, once inside and largely propelled by the allure of DRC’s invaluable gems, the UPDF and Rwandan army overthrew President Laurent Kabila and later turned the barrel on one another in the ruinous Kisangani clashes.

A UN panel of experts indicted senior Ugandan military officers and associated businessmen for plundering Congolese minerals and forest resources. Uganda was later ordered to pay a compensation of $10 billion (Shs18 trillion) for theft of DRC’s treasures.

from The Daily Monitor

From 18 to 26 November 2009, the eighth session of the Assembly of States Parties (ASP) to the Rome Statute of the ICC will be held at the World Forum Convention Center in The Hague, NL.  Below is coverage provided by the Coalition for the International Criminal Court:

All ASP-related documents produced by the CICC are available on the CICC website at: http://www.iccnow.org/?mod=asp8

Please note that official ASP documents can be found on the ICC website at:
http://www.icc-cpi.int/Menus/ASP/Sessions/Documentation/8th+Session/Eighth+session+of+the+Assembly+of+States+Parties.htm

The International Criminal Court starts its second trial Tuesday, focusing on a massacre that left more than 200 people dead and laid waste to their village in eastern Congo in 2003.
Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo are charged with three crimes against humanity and seven war crimes, including murder, rape, sexual enslavement and pillage for allegedly commanding the fighters responsible for the attack.

Prosecutors say they led two mobs of child soldiers and older militiamen who destroyed the village of Bogoro in Congo’s mineral-rich Ituri province on Feb. 24, 2003, hacking to death many of their victims with machetes.

Women were raped and killed or taken as sexual slaves by the attackers, according to the indictment.

Fidel Nsita Luvengika, representing hundreds of victims, said Monday establishing the truth will allow them to mourn slain family members.

“Many victims don’t know where their children are buried,” he told reporters.

The court’s rules allow victims to take part in trials and claim compensation for their suffering.

Victims in this case also include 10 former child soldiers forced to take part in the attack. Their Belgian lawyer, Jean-Louis Gilissen, said he hopes the trial will allow them to rebuild their shattered lives.

“The reparation they are seeking is simply to have a future,” he said.

The court’s chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, said the Ituri conflict was part of a civil war that raged in Congo in the aftermath of neighboring Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.

Prosecutors plan to call 26 witnesses to support their case. In an indication of the ongoing climate of fear in Ituri, 21 of them will testify with their identities shielded from the public.

Prosecutors say Katanga, 31, led the Patriotic Resistance Force in Ituri, while Ngudjolo, 39, commanded the National Integrationist Front. Both are expected to enter pleas of not guilty.

One of Katanga’s attorneys, Andreas O’Shea, said his client, “shares and sympathizes with the grief of the victims.”

Ngudjolo’s lawyer Jean-Pierre Kilenda said his client rejects the charges. “At no time did he concoct any criminal scheme to raze Bogoro village,” Kilenda said.

The only other trial under way at the court, which began operations in 2002, also focuses on an alleged Congolese warlord active in Ituri, Thomas Lubanga, who is charged with recruiting and using child soldiers.

Former Congolese Vice President Jean-Pierre Bemba is in custody and is scheduled to go on trial next year for alleged crimes in the Central African Republic.

Others indicted by the court include Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir and two other Sudanese charged with atrocities in Darfur and the leaders of brutal Ugandan rebel group the Lord’s Resistance Army. A former Lubanga supporter, Bosco Ntaganda, also has been indicted but remains at large in Congo.

from Associated Press

THE HAGUE, Nov 24 (Reuters) - The world’s first permanent war crimes court opens its second trial on Tuesday when two Congolese warlords face charges they ordered subordinates to attack civilians, rape women and enlist child soldiers.

Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui are accused by International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutors of directing a February 2003 attack on a village in the Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as rival groups fought for control of the region’s gold, diamonds and oil.

Katanga, 31, an ethnic Ngiti, allegedly commanded the Patriotic Resistance Force. Ngudjolo, 39, a Lendu, is the alleged former leader of the National Integrationist Front.

Both have denied seven counts of war crimes and three charges of crimes against humanity and through defence lawyers have expressed their sympathies for the victims.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the Congo conflicts had involved the governments of Uganda, Rwanda and Congo.

“The ICC prosecutor should ensure that justice is done in Ituri by focusing on senior officials in Congo, Rwanda and Uganda who armed and supported the Ituri-based militias,” said Param-Preet Singh, counsel with HRW’s international justice programme.

The ICC is currently investigating four cases in the DRC, alongside investigations into violence in Sudan’s Darfur region, Uganda and the Central African Republic.

The court started its first trial in 2008. A Congolese warlord, Thomas Lubanga, is accused of enlisting child soldiers to his Union of Congolese Patriots in the Ituri district to kill rival Lendus.

An arrest warrant was issued in August 2006 against Bosco Ntaganda, an alleged subordinate of Lubanga. He is still at large.

The prosecutor and defence will give opening statements on Tuesday along with two legal representatives of more than 340 court-recognised victims, 10 of whom are child soldiers.

Prosecutors will call 26 witnesses, 21 of whom are protected witnesses. The trial is expected to take several months.

from Reuters

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – Two Congolese militia leaders sent child soldiers and other fighters to wipe out a village in a revenge attack that left more than 200 men, women and children dead, a prosecutor told judges Tuesday at the International Criminal Court.
“Some were shot in their sleep, some cut up with machetes to preserve bullets. Others were burned alive after their houses were set on fire,” Luis Moreno Ocampo said in his opening statement.
The two alleged commanders, Germain Katanga, 31, and Mathieu Ngudjolo, 39, both pleaded not guilty to three crimes against humanity and seven war crimes, including murder, rape, sexual enslavement and pillage.
It was only the tribunal’s second trial since it began operations in 2002. The first case, of alleged Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga who is accused of recruiting child soldiers, started in January.
Prosecutors say Katanga and Ngudjolo led two mobs of child soldiers and older fighters armed with automatic weapons, machetes and spears to destroy the village of Bogoro in Congo’s mineral-rich Ituri province on Feb. 24, 2003. Many of the victims were hacked to death.
The village was strategically located on a crossroad and was the base of a rival militia known as the UPC.
Moreno Ocampo said the attack went far beyond a legitimate military campaign to become revenge for earlier UPC attacks.
“The plan was to wipe out Bogoro,” he said. “Destroy not only the UPC camp but the whole village.”
Katanga and Ngudjolo both sat impassively as Moreno Ocampo outlined his case, accusing their soldiers also of raping women and forcing others into marriage or sexual slavery.
Moreno Ocampo quoted Katanga as boasting after the attack that “nothing was spared. Absolutely nothing. Chickens, goats, everything ... was wiped out.”
Lawyers for some 345 victims — including some of the child soldiers forced to carry out the massacre — also are taking part in the trial.
“Their childhood was brutally interrupted and they have been in hell from one day to the next,” said Belgian attorney Jean-Louis Gilissen, who is representing child soldiers. He said the children were abducted and ordered to fight “as vanguard troops for the butchery of Bogoro.”
Another victims’ lawyer, Fidel Nsita Luvengika, said establishing the truth will allow his clients to mourn slain family members.
“They don’t know what happened to their families. They don’t know how they were killed or whether they were buried,” he said.
Prosecutors plan to call 26 witnesses to support their case. In an indication of the ongoing climate of fear in Ituri, 21 of them will testify with their identities shielded from the public.
Among other cases at the world’s first permanent war crimes court, former Congolese Vice President Jean-Pierre Bemba is in custody and is scheduled to go on trial next year for alleged crimes in the Central African Republic. Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir and two other Sudanese have been charged with atrocities in Darfur. The leaders of brutal Ugandan rebel group the Lord’s Resistance Army also are under indictment.

from Associated Press

LRA leader Joseph Kony has instructed his troops to move into Darfur and report to the first detachment of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) seeking protection and logistical support.

This was revealed by the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) director of operations, ‘Lt. Col.’ Charles Arop, who surrendered earlier this month and was flown to Kampala last week.

“The last time we communicated, in August, Kony said all LRA units should move northwards, enter the first Arab defence and ask them to communicate that we are there,” Arop, 32, told The New Vision.

According to Arop, Kony was planning to move along the Central African border to Chad and then enter into Darfur to meet SAF officers.

“He told me he was going to meet Fadil, the SAF officer who coordinates LRA activities. He wants the Arabs to give him logistical support and a safe haven.”

Asked what pushed the LRA to flee to their long-time backers, Arop said: “Kony is desperate. Things are really hard. We were constantly on the move. Sometimes we would not rest for a week. The UPDF was pursuing us everywhere.”

He estimates that there are only about 250 rebels left, half the number they had before Operation Lightning Thunder, the joint offensive of the armies of Uganda, Congo and Southern Sudan.

“Before the December 14 attack, we had about 500 fighters and 300 unarmed civilians. Most have died or defected since. We now have between 250 and 300 fighters left and not more than 100 civilians.”

Arop, who was himself abducted from Gulu at the age of 16, believes that the LRA would have been finished by now had the UPDF not delayed deploying in the Central African Republic.

“When the LRA relocated to the Central African Republic, it took time for UPDF to catch up and take up positions. They gave Kony ample time to prepare and abduct more.”

Kony’s communication system has been seriously disrupted since Operation Lightning Thunder, said Arop.

“Since December 14, he no longer communicates on phone. He now sends one of his security men on foot to convey messages. They would move 10 to 20km away from him and then communicate on phone.”

In the past week Arop has assisted the Ugandan army to get out the rest of his unit from eastern Congo.

A total of 34 rebels reported to the UPDF intelligence squad in Faradje on Thursday. As a result, Faradje area, the closest LRA location to Uganda, has been completely cleared.

Christmas massacres

The atrocities committed by Arop’s group have been widely documented by human rights groups and are among the worst the Congolese suffered at the hands of the LRA.

On Christmas day, his fighters killed at least 143 people in Faradje and abducted 160 children. According to survivors, the LRA crushed their victims’ skulls with axes and bats. They also set fire to 940 houses, three schools and nine churches.

They killed another 86 people in the first week of January in the towns of Sambia, Akua and Tomate, to the south of Faradje.

The massacres were in retaliation for the participation of the Congolese army in Operation Lightning Thunder, said Arop.

“Kony said the December 14 attack was carried out by the combined forces, including the Congolese. If that is the case, he said, you should go to Faradje and attack them.”

Earlier, the Congolese had annoyed Kony by handing over LRA defectors to the Ugandan army, he added, particularly around Duru.

Arop recalled that a few days after the joint offensive started, Kony selected him and 71 soldiers and gave them orders: to attack Faradje town on December 25.

“He told us that if there was one gunshot from the Congolese, anybody found in Faradje had to be killed; those able to be turned into soldiers had to be abducted.”

Faradje, he said, was chosen because it was the nearest place where such massacres would have an impact and where they would get international publicity.

Asked why he did not defect with his fighters at that time, Arop said he was himself closely watched by a group Kony had attached to his unit.

“Kony gave 30 of his bodyguards to join my group. There was no way I could not execute the mission. They had a phone and were constantly reporting to him. If I refused, I would have been killed.”

Asked how he felt about the killings, an uneasy Arop said: “It was painful but you have to do it. I want to ask the relatives of those we killed to forgive me. Whatever we did, we did it under orders.”

Arop eventually escaped when he found himself with only one fighter left as they were trying to meet messengers Kony had sent. Earlier, after Kony had called back his 30 bodyguards, he had split up his unit in three.

Of the 14 in his group, three were killed; the rest got scattered after they were attacked, and reported to UPDF one by one.

Supplies

Asked where they got their weapons, ammunition and new uniforms from, Arop said they received enough supplies from SAF, many of which were still buried in river banks and hills in Southern Sudan.

“For example in Apatalanga Hill, the mountain range overlooking Agoro Hills, we hid 200 submachine guns, 10 SPG9 missiles, seven 12mm machine guns and four multi-purpose grenade launchers. There are still a lot of arms caches the UPDF has not yet unearthed.”

In Congo, Arop said, they seized weapons from the UN soldiers they ambushed and killed; and on January 2 this year, his unit overran a detachment of game rangers in Garamba National Park and opened their arms depot.

“We could not carry all the weapons. We picked 36 submachine guns, one G3-gun, two micro galil guns, two NATO guns, one PK machinegun and one rocket propelled grenade.”

In addition, he said, they took solar panels, laptops, walkie-talkies, radios, compasses, raincoats and 170 pairs of uniforms.

“We also burned two planes we found at the airstrip. We saw some white people running away but we did not shoot at them.”

As for food, before Operation Lightning Thunder they relied on the supplies given by Caritas during the peace talks.

“We would collect the food from Ri-Kwangba (the place where LRA fighters were supposed to assemble and be disarmed) and carry it to Garamba,” he explained.

“Every month we received 200 bags of beans, 200 bags of rice, 200 bags of posho, 100 jerry-cans of cooking oil, 100 boxes of wheat flour, 100 sachets of salt and 100 boxes of soap.”

Asked about his worst experience in captivity, Arop said the death and horrific injuries of his colleagues. He showed the nine bullets that hit him in the stomach, arm, shoulder and leg, three of which are still inside his body.

Like other commanders who defected before him, Arop said Kony keeps surviving because he never takes part in battles.

“Whenever attacked, he runs away and leaves his fighters to fight back. I have never seen him fight.”

And like his colleagues, he does not believe Kony will voluntarily give up the struggle, even not when the ICC indictment is lifted.

“Kony wants to fight until he overthrows the Government of Uganda. He will never sign a peace agreement. He cannot believe that once he allows himself to be disarmed, he will be forgiven. Signing means you have lost the war and abandoned rebellion. But he does not want to abandon rebellion.”

from New Vision Online

Far from the main stages of the international terror hunt a criminal trial is unfolding which could have profound consequences for the prosecution of heads of state who abuse executive power in the name of national security.

Alberto Fujimori was for ten years the president of Peru - the only Latin American leader of Japanese descent and one celebrated for supposedly crushing Peru’s internal security threats yet reviled for instituting a brutal national security strategy. His eccentricities stood in stark contrast to the brutality of his policies against leftist guerrillas: He would take part in traditional dances with land workers in the countryside and over time developed a paranoid fear of being poisoned.

Earlier this year and a decade after leaving office, Fujimori received a 25-year prison sentence from Peru’s highest court for committing crimes against humanity. The case has seized the nation’s attention and Fujimori’s cry “soy inocente” has become a mobile phone ringtone. If his conviction is upheld following his appeal during the week of November 23 this case will set an important precedent for the prosecution of heads of state in domestic courts around the world, even in situations where they responded to national security threats.

Certainly, until about a decade ago, heads of state enjoyed carte blanche immunity even when evidence revealed their hand in perpetrating egregious crimes. However, a growing number of high profile cases began to chip away at this shield from prosecution. The extradition proceedings against Augusto Pinochet in Chile, the special international tribunal trials of Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia and Charles Taylor of Liberia, and the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant of Omar Hassan Ahmad Al Bashir, the current Sudanese president, all send a potent signal that the rule of law applies to the rulers and not just the ruled.

After a 16 month long criminal trial, the Peruvian Supreme Court determined Fujimori to be the intellectual author of an illegal anti-terrorism strategy that resulted in two notorious massacres and the kidnapping of a journalist and businessman carried out by deaths squads he controlled. The court selected these cases as emblematic of a widespread policy of violence and abuse during Fujimori’s reign.

Significantly, Fujimori’s conviction and sentence represent one of the few times that a wholly domestic court held its country’s own former leader accountable for crimes against humanity. If this trend continues, then the tongue- in-cheek warning to law-breaking leaders to “not dust off their passports” will now become “you can’t even hide in your own backyard.”

The condemnation of Fujimori’s anti-terrorism strategy marks a sea-change in attitude around the world. For many years the international community applauded Fujimori for his success at defeating terrorism—despite the costs. Today, his criminal trial stands for the principle that even in wars on terror there are legal parameters that limit what may be done to alleged enemies—or anyone confused to be as such. Human rights violations cannot be considered just collateral damage in wars on terrorism, but rather are punishable criminal acts.

Moreover, Fujimori faces numerous corruption charges which run parallel to his human rights trial that reveal the risk of political leaders who extend and abuse their executive power. Fujimori manipulated public fear of the terrorist threat to continue to expand his executive privileges for personal gain, even as the actual terrorism threat subsided.

Yet, even if Fujimori’s conviction is upheld, politics may undermine this significant legal holding. Fujimori’s daughter Keiko currently serves as a Peruvian senator and now ranks as the number one candidate for the 2011 elections. She has already promised to pardon her father if elected. In this sense, the upcoming presidential election in Peru will determine its people’s commitment to the rule of law. But regardless of the outcome, on the world stage the Fujimori’s conviction will stand as a warning that the preservation of national security can no longer serve as a cloak for violence and human rights abuse.

From The Huffington Post

THE HAGUE — A United States ambassador said Thursday that Washington was concerned about how aggression will be defined as an international crime.

“I would be remiss not to share with you my country’s concerns about an issue ... to which we attach particular importance: the definition of the crime of aggression,” US war crimes ambassador Stephen Rapp told a gathering in The Hague of the International Criminal Court’s Assembly of State Parties (ASP).

The court’s founding Rome Statute, of which the United States is not a signatory, determines that the ICC can try aggression, though no legal definition has been agreed upon.

The issue is to be discussed at an ICC review conference in Kampala, Uganda, next May.

Rapp, who made no allusion to the United States ratifying the statute in the future, said Washington was concerned about the way a draft definition of aggression had been framed.

“Our view has been and remains that, should the Rome Statute be amended to include a defined crime of aggression, jurisdiction should follow a Security Council determination that aggression has occurred.”

He declined to elaborate when approached afterwards.

The United States is taking part in a meeting of the ASP, as an observer, for the first time since the world’s only permanent court for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity started operating in 2002.

The ASP, the court’s management and oversight body, is made up of representatives of all 110 member parties.

Former president George W. Bush had fiercely opposed the ICC, fearing it could target Americans out of political bias considering US dominance around the world.

Rapp said “the commitment of the Obama administration to the rule of law and the principle of accountability is firm.”

On Wednesday, ASP president Christian Wenaweser welcomed the US presence as “a very important gesture.”