| Photo by S. Beth Atkin |
John Shattuck Interview (1997): Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
| Photo by S. Beth Atkin |
Page 6 of 7
How do we implement these notions of justice and reconciliation? The obvious sore point here is that, after doing the hard work of negotiating human rights elements in the Dayton accords, which you were responsible for, witnesses apparently are not following through on some of those issues when individuals are identified, indicted, but nothing is done to capture them. So tell us a little about the dilemmas that that poses for you, in the government, as somebody who's very sensitized to those issues and wants to move ahead.
Well, two aspects of this. First, the war crimes issue has to be addressed. The work of the U.S. government in establishing this War Crimes Tribunal, and very specifically in the work of our new Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, in championing it when she was at the UN, demonstrates a will to see it through. Now, under Dayton, the obligation to arrest indicted war criminals is squarely on the parties, and they are subject to various sanctions if they don't do that. Right now that is in fact what's occurring. Sanctions are being implemented against Croatia and against the Bosnian Serbs, who have failed to turn over indicted war criminals. The screw probably needs to be turned even tighter. We probably have to look squarely at the possibility that the parties, even under sanctions, will not actually go ahead and arrest, in which case other means need to be found to bring these people to justice. One of the virtues and yet difficulties of serving in the government is that you get a voice at the table to try to get some of these things done. One of the difficulties of that is that you can't go around talking about what it is that you're actually trying to do for fear that that will, in fact, undermine the very possibility of getting it done. In this case, obviously, I'm talking about arresting war criminals. But I am convinced that this is pretty clearly on our agenda and that's been made very clear by Madeleine Albright and others.
The other answer to the question is that justice is not served only by war crimes prosecutions. We have to look for, and we are achieving, other justice elements. We have supported the International Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. There are similar kinds of truth commissions in El Salvador and Guatemala and Haiti. What these truth commissions do is to shine a spotlight on who did what when, and, for people who are unwilling to come forward and seek some form of reconciliation, make it impossible for them to serve in government if they were responsible for human rights crimes and human rights abuses. Those are very important mechanisms. I think that there shouldn't be a war crimes approach to justice in all situations of countries moving out of authoritarian repression. Some countries, and we welcome this and support this too, have established their own internal, national human rights commissions. In India, for example, there's a very effective human rights commission, which could be even more effective but certainly it's important that it's there. In Indonesia, a country with a very authoritarian approach to human rights issues, they've just started to look at this through an Indonesian human rights commission. In Mexico as well. So those countries with a record of human rights abuses are beginning to respond to the international pressure to do something about it by establishing their own national institutions. We welcome all of this, we need to support that. All of this relates to the justice part of conflict resolutions.
And our support and aid in this context is not just the bully pulpit but legal advice, legal expertise, and even funding.
My office in the State Department is the chief external supporter of the South African Truth Commission. We've given a million dollars to South Africa to support this process. We've also given financial support to Haiti. We support El Salvador and Guatemala in the establishment of these kinds of things. So it's not just saying that this ought to happen, but it's working with the countries to try to develop these institutions.
Next page: Conclusion
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