for criminals everywhere, including America, Europe and ... Israel."
George Mukundi of the South Africa-based Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, said of the Lubanga verdict: "What we Africans are saying is, yes, it's useful and good ... But we would also like to see justice done, and being seen to be done, in other cases around the world."
He also voiced concern that the ICC "seems to be looking at only one side of the coin" in targeting some warlords but not other leaders in complex national and regional conflicts.
SYRIAN CONFLICT
The United Nations estimates that some 8,000 Syrians have died in violence since an uprising against Assad began a year ago. Many are civilians and U.N. officials and independent rights groups have amassed evidence from refugees of deliberate killings of demonstrators by Syrian forces and of mass torture.
The United States and its allies have said Assad looks like a war criminal. But political deadlock among the great powers in the Security Council has tied the hands of ICC prosecutors.
"We can't even get a resolution condemning the crackdown, let alone an ICC referral, due to the Russian determination to prevent Council action," one diplomat said in New York.
U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland hailed the Lubanga judgment as "a historic and an important step in providing justice and accountability for the Congolese people".
But she made clear Washington was not about to change its view that the ICC should have no jurisdiction over Americans.
Amnesty International, another group which strongly supports the aims of the court, said: "Today's verdict will give pause to those around the world who commit the horrific crime of using and abusing children both on and off the battlefield." (Additional reporting by Jonny Hogg in Kinshasa, Simon Akam in Freetown, Pascal Fletcher in Johannesburg and Diadie Ba and Mark John in Dakar, Sara Webb in Amsterdam, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations; Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Peter Millership)
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