Following Through on Tribunal Judgments

Are you disappointed in the cooperation that you encountered from political leaders of countries as part of this process?

Well disappointed mainly in respect of the big issue, and that's the arrest of people indicted by the Yugoslav Tribunal. But I don't think that should mask the important cooperation that we received from many governments. Many governments in Europe, particularly from the United States, and in the Rwanda situation from a number of African governments. There has been a tremendous amount of cooperation. But obviously my major disappointment and frustration is the lack of political will to cause the 70-odd people who have been indicted and who remain free to be arrested.

The argument that one hears again and again, especially before the Dayton Accords were reached, was that the process of enforcing humanitarian law conflicted with the peace process. What is your response to that?

Firstly, factually it didn't. I concede it may have. It's not difficult to conceive of situations where the judicial process can retard a cease-fire or a peace agreement. In fact in Dayton it made it possible. If Karadzic hadn't been indicted by our tribunal before Dayton, he would have been at Dayton. And if he'd have gone to Dayton, the Bosnians wouldn't have been there. They made it clear and they've made it clear. Remember, Dayton was a couple of months after the terrible massacres in Srebrenica. There's no way that the Bosnians would have sat down with Karadzic. The fact that Karadzic was indicted meant he couldn't go there, it meant the Bosnian Serbs had to agree to Milosevic representing them. And an agreement was entered into, and there has been at least a formal peace in Bosnia and Hercegovina since then. So it was factually incorrect.

From a philosophical and from a moral point of view, I don't believe that there's any reason to prefer the political process and say that while the political process is going on justice must be suspended. I think that's simply a way of ensuring that any peace is not going to endure.

You must be disappointed in the enforcement powers that the tribunal has had thus far in arresting the persons indicted. Is this going to continue to hinder this process however it goes forth?

Well it's inevitable. No international criminal tribunal can ever expect to be given the power to go and arrest people. It's inconsistent with international law, and even if it weren't, it's inconsistent with what governments will allow. No government's going to allow foreign police to come into their sovereign territory, to invade their sovereignty and go and arrest their citizens. Forget it, it's never going to happen. So for an international tribunal to succeed it has to rely on the cooperation of states. And that cooperation has been lacking, in the case of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Serbia, Montenegro, on the part of the Croatia, on the part of the Bosnian Croats, on the part of the Bosnian Serbs. And what has frustrated us is that the United Nations and the major Western powers have not put sufficient pressure on those governments to arrest, have not had sufficient political will, in the absence of them doing so, in giving instructions to the IFOR troops to go and do it, which they legally may do.

We had Admiral Smith here two weeks ago in the very seat you're sitting in and he made a great deal of the manpower that would be required to actually go after some of the war criminals.

How many? Did he put a figure on it?

I believe he said that it would require doubling the force, actually, because in the case of Karadzic, Smith argued that he lived in a nuclear bunker that was within the French zone and included Italian troops. So he turned it into a logistical issue and a question of his mandate.

I get on quite well with Admiral Smith, but with due respect, that really boggles credibility. Karadzic, according to uncontested evidence and according to eye witnesses, attends political meetings in his headquarters in Pale in his office every day. To suggest that the IFOR troops would have any difficulty in arresting him is just nonsense. And that's not the reason that was given by the leaders in the United States. Bill Perry didn't claim that as a reason for not arresting. What concerned Secretary Perry and other leaders in the administration, and at the Pentagon and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Shalikashvili, what concerned them wasn't the manpower or the danger in arrests. What concerned them was the aftermath of arrests, the possibility of hostage taking and people being sniped at. And that's a real concern, one can't dismiss it. But that's a very different thing from what you told me Admiral Smith suggested. I must say he never suggested that to me in the conversations I had with him, not remotely.

Yes. In this discussion he was arguing that just the logistical issues, the number of troops and so on, were of paramount concern, and that in the end you would have a loss of life and you might not actually catch the individual that you were after.

Even if that was true, it wouldn't excuse not arresting the other 69 that are not living in bunkers.

There he argued that identification was difficult.

Just factually that isn't correct. This sounds to me like ex post facto justification or incorrect facts.

Next page: Conclusions