Facing U.S. Threat to End Bosnian Peacekeeping, Council Members Keep Talking

Associated Press ^ | Jun 29, 2002 | Edith M. Lederer

[fella]

Jun 29, 2002

Facing U.S. Threat to End Bosnian Peacekeeping, Council Members Keep Talking

By Edith M. Lederer Associated Press Writer

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Security Council members tried Saturday to resolve a U.S. demand for immunity for American peacekeepers and avert a Washington veto that would end U.N. peacekeeping operations in Bosnia at midnight Sunday.

Washington has said it will vote not to extend the mandate of the peacekeeping force in Bosnia unless American participants are exempt from arrest and prosecution by the International Criminal Court, which comes into existence on Monday.

The United States says it fears a U.S. serviceman or a political official could be brought before the court for purely political offenses. Court supporters say there are many safeguards to prevent such abuse.

At closed-door council meetings on Friday, the United States stuck to its demand for immunity. The 14 other council members - including close U.S. allies Britain and France - were equally adamant, saying immunity would undermine the court and international law.

"We are continuing our discussions with other U.N. Security Council members on this issue," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Brenda Greenberg said Saturday.

The United States has veto power along with the four other permanent council members, Russia, France, Britain and China.

The Security Council is scheduled to meet on Sunday afternoon, just eight hours before the mandate for Bosnia's 1,500-strong U.N. police training mission and the authorization for the 17,000-strong NATO-led force in the country expire.

The new court will prosecute those responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes that take place on or after July 1, but it will step in only when countries are unwilling or unable to dispense justice themselves.

Former President Clinton signed the treaty but the Bush administration announced last month it wants nothing to do with the court.

The United States is seeking a blanket worldwide exemption from prosecution by the court for American peacekeepers. If Washington doesn't get it, it could veto every peacekeeping operation as its mandate came up for renewal.

At stake would be the 14 other U.N. peacekeeping missions from the Ethiopia-Eritrea and Iraq-Kuwait borders to Cyprus, Congo and East Timor as well as the NATO-led force in Kosovo, which is also authorized by the council.

This was supposed to be the last six-month extension for the U.N. police training mission in Bosnia which has been helping to develop a multiethnic and professional police force. The training operation is being handed over to the European Union on Jan. 1.

U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said the plans for a smooth handover to the Europeans "go right out the window if we've got to suddenly terminate the mission on Sunday."

[fella]

Get us out of the UN and Bosnia now.

[11th Earl of Mar]

Are there still those who say there is no difference between Bush and Clinton?

[tonyinv]

Lets hope our guys stick to their guns and the ura-pee-ins do the same, its the easiest way to get out of this crap.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

.

[goody2shooz]

Yup, I'm with you. This would be a great opportunity to get out of the UN and get the UN out of our country.

[McGavin999]

These guys think that Bush is bluffing. I've got news for them......he's not.

[walden]

Of course he isn't bluffing-- that court is UNCONSTITUTIONAL under our laws, and if they try to take one of our people, we'll have to send in the Marines to get him/her out. That's idiotic. And, they expect that we trust them enough to count on the fact that they would be satisfied with our own trials/investigations of any of our own people who mis-behaved? I don't know what they're smoking-- but "trust" and "europeans" don't belong in the same sentence in my universe.

What gets me is that everyone is whining that WE can't have special exemptions-- well, no one held a gun to their head to make them sign the damn thing and comply. They're just sheep, that's all. If they had any balls, they could be on OUR side. (And it's no use telling me that Clinton had originally signed it-- I know that-- and everyone knew it was meaningless, at least everyone who bothered to listen to our Congress.)

Bush HAS to hang tough-- let them go pound sand.