Russia, China accuse former Yugoslavia war crimes court of playing politics

June 20, 2000
Web posted at: 11:03 p.m. EDT (0303 GMT)

From staff and wire reports

UNITED NATIONS -- Moscow and Beijing on Tuesday accused a U.N. tribunal of playing politics in prosecuting suspected war criminals in the Balkans and called on the Security Council to keep a close eye on its operations.

Russia's U.N. ambassador Sergei Lavrov told the council The Hague-based court on the former Yugoslavia had adopted "an anti-Serb line" and might need as much as 20 years to wrap up its work, necessitating careful scrutiny to keep it in line.

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In response, U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke termed the charges as "not accurate," and, citing atrocities in Sierra Leone, called for a larger war-crimes tribunal to deal with such "odious people."

Lavrov particularly objected to sealed indictments and a deal with NATO to hunt down suspects in Bosnia without consulting the council. He also faulted the tribunal for not prosecuting NATO for inflicting harm on civilians in Serbia during its bombing campaign over the Kosovo crisis last year.

China's envoy, Shen Guofang, lectured tribunal President Claude Jorda, who appeared at an open council meeting, that the tribunal had become "a political tool ... because you are affected too much by politics."

The tribunal, created in 1993 with a four-year life and extended another four years in 1997, has indicted 96 people and detained 36 of them on charges of crimes against humanity in the conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo.

But proceedings are being handled by just 14 judges while the accused can spend years in detention awaiting trial.

Both Canada and the United States strongly defended the court against Russian and Chinese attacks.

Charges of bias "not only are not proven -- they are not accurate," Holbrooke said, adding he was "deeply concerned" by the attacks by "other delegations."

Canada's representative, Michel Duval, dismissed the charges as "simply not substantiated by the facts."

Jorda at a later press conference denied any unfairness. He acknowledged the court was plagued by delays but said it could complete all initial trials by the end of 2007 -- rather than the current estimate of 2016 -- if new reforms were approved.

Jorda admitted that most of the indicted suspects were Serbs but said the court had never been asked to pursue an equal number of Serbs, Croats and Moslems for crimes committed during the Bosnian war and more recently, in Kosovo.

Among the 27 Serb fugitives being sought by the tribunal is Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who, according to U.S. media reports, was the focus of negotiations involving Washington and other NATO countries seeking immunity from prosecution for Milosevic if he agreed to stand down. The U.S. State Department has denied the report.

Jorda said granting immunity to Milosevic "would be a severe blow" to the tribunal. "This would be particularly hard because Mr. Milosevic has been accused, he is an indicted criminal. He should be at The Hague."

Holbrooke, in his council address said: "I want to point out in the clearest possible terms that long-term peace and stability in the Balkans will not be possible as long as the current leadership in Belgrade is in power. And those people who have been indicted also should be brought to justice."

Under Milosevic's leadership, the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army conducted a reign of terror against the ethnic Albanian majority in Kosovo until last year's NATO bombing campaign.

The procedural changes sought by the tribunal's judges center on speeding up pretrial proceedings typically conducted while the accused remains in detention.

One reform sought from the Security Council would let the tribunal draw on a pool of outside legal aides to rule in pretrial proceedings, easing the burden of the tribunal's regular judges.

Regarding the expansion of the war-crimes enforcement, Holbrooke called for the immediate creation of an "international war crimes umbrella" to prosecute those responsible for massive human rights violations.

He cited the recent atrocities committed in Sierra Leone to highlight the need for such a mechanism. He said a more comprehensive tribunal is needed to try those accused of committing "grave acts of inhumanity," calling such criminals "odious people."

Reuters contributed to this report.

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United Nations Security Council
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