The Bush administration is
now demanding that the chief prosecutor for the International
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Carla Del Ponte, bring
her prosecutions to an end.
Washington is insisting that war crimes cases relating to the Balkan
wars of the 1990s be tried either in domestic courts or be given an
amnesty. This shift not only marks a dramatic change in U.S. policy
toward the ICTY, but more importantly, it is a fatal blow to the
power and credibility of Mrs. Del Ponte.
In a recent
interview, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton told
me Washington is deeply concerned that the ICTY, rather than
fostering ethnic reconciliation, has emerged as a threat to regional
stability. "There is a very real risk that the ICTY prosecutions
will not resolve the situation in the Balkans," Mr. Bolton said,
"but will create new animosities that lead to tensions in the
future."
He
emphasized the Bush administration is demanding war crimes cases at
The Hague be sent back to national domestic courts. Mr. Bolton and
other senior State Department officials are finally realizing what
Mrs. Del Ponte and her fellow left-wing globalists have refused to
acknowledge: The ICTY has degenerated into a politicized tribunal
that has failed to live up to its original mandate.
The irony
is that the Clinton administration was largely responsible for
creating the ICTY. Washington, however, now realizes that it has
unleashed a Frankenstein monster. Instead of being an impartial body
that seeks to punish those who committed or ordered war crimes, the
tribunal has become a vehicle by which Mrs. Del Ponte has sought to
rewrite the history of the Balkan wars. She has abused her office by
issuing deeply flawed and weak indictments. The most obvious example
is the bogus indictment against fugitive Croatian Gen. Ante
Gotovina, the commander of a 1995 military operation that
effectively ended the Croatian-Serbian conflict.
As Mr.
Bolton notes, the problem with the ICTY is that it has no democratic
accountability. Hence, there are no checks or balances against the
misuse of power. Therefore, the Bush administration has concluded
the only solution is to kick war crimes cases back to national
domestic courts.
"That is
why our strategy with respect to the ICTY is to bring these
prosecutions to an end and to return responsibility to Serbia,
Croatia and to the other nations," Mr. Bolton said, "because, after
all, many of the alleged crimes were carried out in their name and
they need to confront that reality. They need to make the decisions
whether to prosecute or not to prosecute Serbs or Croats
respectively."
The
senior Bush administration official emphasized that "responsibility"
for trying alleged war crimes "should rest on the shoulders of the
people who have to live with the decisions they make."
Ultimately, the United States rightly believes that the ICTY has
become not only an undemocratic institution, but a direct threat to
the development of democracy throughout the former Yugoslavia. Its
greatest flaw is that, by virtue of being an international tribunal
with little accountability, it is retarding the growth of
independent judicial bodies and the rule of law within Croatia,
Serbia and Bosnia. For viable democracies to take root in the stony
soil of the Balkans, it is imperative to cultivate fully functioning
legal institutions.
"One of
the downsides of any distant court is that it takes away
responsibility, and I don't think that is conducive to the political
maturation of societies that we hope will become democratic and
realize that they have to confront actions that their prior
governments took," Mr. Bolton said. "So that is why our approach to
the ICTY and with the Rwanda tribunal is to make and create
institutions in the respective countries and to turn that authority
back over to them."
The
record is now clear: The ICTY has been a dismal failure. The trial
of the former Serbian strongman, Slobodan Milosevic, continues to
drag on with no end in sight. Notorious Bosnian Serb leaders Gen.
Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic remain at large. The Gotovina
indictment threatens to destabilize Croatia. Bosnian Muslims and
Kosovo Albanians feel they will never receive justice. Serbs
perceive the tribunal as being biased against them.
Mrs. Del
Ponte has managed to accomplish what no other person has before:
Temporarily unite the warring peoples of the former Yugoslavia in
their opposition to her. She is the Lady Macbeth of the Balkans, an
unscrupulous political climber with delusions of grandeur. And like
Lady Macbeth, Mrs. Del Ponte's lust for power has led to her
downfall.
Washington is right to yank her off the stage.
Jeffrey T. Kuhner is editor of the Ripon Forum magazine and
communications director at the Ripon Society, a Republican think
tank.
January 28,
2004
MILAN BABIĆ PLEADS GUILTY The Hague, January 28 (FPB) - Former leader of rebel
Serbs in Croatia Milan Babić pleaded guilty yesterday before the
ICTY. Babić is indicted for persecuting Croatian civilians in 1991
and 1992, which is a crime against humanity, and for cooperating in
an allied criminal action the goal of which was to occupy and
ethnically cleanse one third of Croatian territory, and to annex
that territory to a new Serbian state.
'I am guilty,' answered Babić when the judge asked him
if he considered himself guilty of the first count of the
accusation, which accused him of political, ethnical or religious
persecution and of taking part in organized criminal
actions.
In an additional statement, Babić expressed deep
remorse for the crimes in which he took part, and invited the
Serbian people to come to terms with the truth. He also requested
that the 'Croatian brethren forgive their Serbian brothers' in the
interest of their mutual future.
SANADER CALLS ON ITALY TO RATIFY SAA
Zagreb, January 28 (FPB) - Prime Minister Ivo Sanader
called on Italy, Great Britain and the Netherlands to follow the
example of 12 EU countries and unconditionally ratify the
Stabilisation and Association Agreement between Croatia and the EU.
These three countries have not yet ratified the SAA between Croatia
and the European Union.
Croatia showed its democratic and pro-European
orientation during the term of office of the former government as
well as during this government's term and there is no reason for
Italy not to ratify the SAA.
The PM said he did not think Italy would again raise
the issue of the restitution of property to Italians who fled
Croatia during and in the wake of WWII because the issue had already
been regulated. He said he also hoped Italy would not bring up the
issue of the fishing and ecological zone in the Adriatic.
" Croatia will implement its laws the way they were
adopted in parliament,"
Sanader told Tonči Tadić of the Croatian Party of
Rights who wondered whether Croatia would implement Sabor's decision
on the fishing and ecological zone in the Adriatic. "We have about
ten months to implement this decision. I wish to talk with Italian
officials to get acquainted with the points of their interest, but
the decision must be implemented and cannot be withdrawn," the PM
said Sanader reiterated he was confident that this spring the
European Commission would adopt a positive opinion regarding
Croatia's application for EU membership and set the date of the
start of the negotiations on full membership. He refuted allegations
that the HDZ's coming to power would undermine Croatia's chances to
enter the EU.
Officials of the European Parliament, the Council of
Europe, the European Commission, and NATO have positively assessed
the transfer of authority in Croatia, Sanader said.
SANADER
REJECTS ACCUSATIONS OF PRESSURE BEING EXERTED ON
MEDIA
Zagreb, January 28 (FPB) - Prime Minister Ivo
Sanader rejected accusations that members of his government were
exerting pressure on journalists, and said that he and his
government fully supported the independence and freedom of the
media. "Democracy is based on freedom of the media," Sanader said in
parliament when responding to criticism by Željko Pavlica of the
Libra party about the intervention of Foreign Minister Miomir Žužul
in Hina and pressure on a Slobodna Dalmacija reporter over an
article on "the Čačija case".
Sanader explained in detail why Žužul had made a phone
call to Hina during his visit to Brussels when he met European
Commission President Romano Prodi. "I am sorry if his intervention
led to a misunderstanding and negative sentiment in the public," the
prime minister said.
Sanader denied allegations that members of his
government or ministries were exerting pressure on Slobodna
Dalmacija reporters over an article on Assistant Interior Minister
Stipe Čačija, which claimed that Čačija had refused to pay alimony
for his illegitimate son despite a valid court ruling. "I have no
knowledge of any such pressure.
I can only appeal on those who exerted pressure to
stop doing it," Sanader said.
Tihic goes to Jasenovac and Covic to Bleiburg
-Oslobodjenje
Although all
three members of the BiH Presidency were invited to attend the
commemorative ceremony in Jasenovac on Sunday, at which homage was
paid to all the victims who were killed in Jasenovac, only Sulejman
Tihic attended this anniversary ceremony in concert with the
Croatian President Stjepan Mesic.
As usual,
there was no trace of Borislav Paravac in Jasenovac.
Dragan
Covic, Croat member of the BiH Presidency, attended the
commemorative ceremony for the victims in Bleiburg.
Milosevic Trial
Continues
The former Yugoslav President, Slobodan Milosevic, has
finished his cross-examination of the Kosovan President, Ibrahim
Rugova, at the war crimes tribunal at The Hague.
It was another acrimonious exchange between the two foes but
it did appear to shed some light on the political wrangling in the
Kosovo conflict during the 1990s. The two men gave sharply
contradictory accounts of their meetings in 1999 as the Kosovo
conflict took place.
Mr Milosevic, who is conducting his own defence, is charged
with responsibility for crimes against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo in
1999, but he claims his forces were fighting Albanian rebels who
carried out terrorist attacks.
Update
on the Gotovina
Case
The
president of the Association for the Protection of Homeland War
Values (HONOS), Nenad Ivankovic, on Tuesday presented the press with
a copy of a letter by US Congressmen Henry J. Hyde and Christopher
H. Smith with regard to the case of General Ante Gotovina, forwarded
to US Secretary of State Colin Powell.
According to
Ivankovic, the congressmen express their concern that the U.N. war
crimes tribunal in The Hague could, if it were to follow the logic
of the indictment against Gotovina, launch an investigation against
and indict US officials for their potential command responsibility
because the USA offered intelligence support to Croatia during the
"Storm" operation against Milosevic´s forces.
They reminded
that at the time the US Ambassador to Croatia, Peter Galbraith, had
said that Serb civilians were not forced to flee during the "Storm"
operation. Read more at www.antegotovina.com
Croatian American Association c/o Steve
Zakic 6607 West Archer Ave. Chicago, IL 60638