UNMIK ON AIR
THE HAGUE TRIBUNAL ISSUE
By Zoran CULAFIC
SLUG:
The Hague Tribunal prosecutor Karla del Ponte accused recently Serbia and Montenegro for not cooperating with the court and for hiding up to 15 indicted war criminals, among them one of the most wanted - general Ratko Mladic.
Hello and welcome …
Talking to the UN Security Council members this week Karla del Ponte stressed that Serbia and Montenegro would have to act more rapidly in arresting indicted persons and extraditing them to The Hague Tribunal, or Belgrade would face a strong international pressure.
Karla del Ponte announced that up to the end of 2004 all investigations will be completed and some more 11 indictments will be raised against top level suspected war criminals in former Yugoslavia – including Kosovo too.
Serbia and Montenegro Minister for minority and human rights Rasim Ljajic denied accusations that Belgrade is not cooperating with The Hague Tribunal.
CUT 1 – Rasim - The cooperation exists in the field of
allowing persons to witness, as well as in providing documents asked by the
Tribunal. We have had, and that is the fact, an interruption in extraditing
indictees simply because we have had a cycle of elections here, but after the
presidential elections there is no doubt that cooperation would continue,
including an issue of extradition, which is our international obligation.
Serbia’s deputy premier Miroljub Labus expects the cooperation to be more sustainable and the first step would be appointing the head of Commision for cooperation with The Hague Tribunal.
CUT 2 Labus – Now it is up to the political parties and
Government, to establish the Commission and to implement the law. Yet, the
cooperation is not just an issue of extradition, the most important issue is how
to deal with sensitive documents The Hague is requesting from us. Some of these
documents are really of utmost importance for national security and we have to
deal with it on appropriate manner.
Full cooperation with the Hague Tribunal is a precondition sine qua non for a membership in Partnership for Peace, the program that Belgrade is keen to join as soon as possible having in mind solving the Kosovo issue too.
NATO leaders gathered last week in Istanbul and sent a massage that they would like to see Belgrade in the Partnership for Peace as soon as possible, but they clearly stressed that there will be no compromise at all regarding the war crimes issue.
In almost every Balkans country the war crimes issue is mostly looked at through politicized lenses, and political elites are often playing on patriotic card trying to get more support, or rather not to loose it.
Music up and under …
Branislav Tapuskovic, prominent Belgrade lawyer, claims that the Hague tribunal policy is no consistent and has very little to do with the law and justice.
This week The Hague Tribunal sentenced former president of Serb Krajina in Croatia Milan Babic on 13 years, a confusing sentence according to tapuskovic, because Babic agreed to cooperate and to witness against Slobodan Miloseveic.
CUT 3 Tapuskovic – I don’t understand the essence of this
sentence ... what is it all about … then what is the most important in such a
things …
Onother Serb, Savo Strbac, is a director of Zagreb based Documentation center VERITAS, and he explains the Milan Babic case as tropical for the Balkans. The reactions are completely different, in Serbia and in Croatia.
CUT 4 STRBAC – Such Babic’s witnessing was received in
Croatia with a feeling of triumphalism, while on the Serbian side it was a
belief that yet another traitor just appeared in their own community … the
feeling of disgust and scorn towards Babic and the feeling of revolt towards
the Tribunal. My personal impression
is, that Babic’s recognition of the guilt, without a trial and without having
all relevant evidences, is not at all a contribution to the establishing the
truth and I think that reconciliation is now more distanced then it was before.
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WITH KOSOVO UPDATE