Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 23, 1993 TAG: 9302230131
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and The Associated
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
BALKAN WAR TRIALS GET OK
Reflecting worldwide condemnations of "ethnic cleansing" and other atrocities in the Yugoslav civil war, the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously Monday to establish an international tribunal to punish those guilty of war crimes in the Balkans.Also on Monday, President Clinton invited the U.N. secretary-general to meet with him today in an effort to win his support for a planned airdrop of relief supplies into Bosnia and Herzegovina, administration officials said.
Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, while not opposing the plan outright, is insisting that any relief operation be coordinated with and under the command of U.N. forces already in Bosnia. American officials say they have no problem coordinating with the U.N. but are clearly reluctant to cede military control of the operation.
Monday's Security Council action recalled the dramatic trials of Nazi war criminals in Nuremberg after World War II.
"There is an echo in this chamber today," U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright said. "The Nuremberg principles have been reaffirmed. . . . The lesson that we are all accountable to international law may have finally taken hold in our collective memory."
But Muhammed Sacirbey, the Bosnian ambassador to the U.N., was far less impressed. "We should not kid ourselves that war criminals are going to be deterred by just the establishment of a tribunal," he told reporters.
Details about the implementation of the resolution and the practical workings of the tribunal were cloaked in vagueness and obscurity.
In fact, the Security Council left it up to Boutros-Ghali to come up with a plan. The resolution asked him to submit a report within 60 days that would include "specific proposals and, where appropriate, options for the effective and expeditious implementation of the decision" to establish the tribunal.
But no matter what plan Boutros-Ghali comes up with, the United Nations would have to face the reality that some of those accused of war crimes are the same leaders that the United Nations is trying to pressure into accepting the peace plan developed by former U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and former British Foreign Secretary Lord David Owen.
The State Department, for example, has castigated both Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic as potential war criminals.
To complicate matters further, the United Nations, unlike the victorious allied powers in World War II, is unlikely to have the power or authority to march into the Balkans and arrest political and military leaders for war crimes.
In Sarajevo, Bosnia's capital, senior U.N. officials renewed their warnings against the proposed airdrop.
"If the Americans start dropping supplies by parachute, there will be an explosion here," said Lt. Gen. Philippe Morillon of France, who commands the 8,000-member U.N. military force. Its principal task has been to escort land convoys of food and medicine to communities ravaged by the war.
Morillon said airdrops supplies were "absolutely unnecessary" because the U.N. command could get supplies through overland.
Sarajevo city leaders agreed to resume food distribution to hungry residents Monday after 10 days of withholding the aid. Aircraft packed with supplies resumed their deliveries.