Posted on 06/28/2002 6:42:22 PM PDT by WakeUpChristian
UN to Fight Down to Wire on Peacekeeper Immunity
BY IRWIN ARIEFF
UNITED NATIONS - (Reuters) - The United States vowed on Friday to fight down to the wire to keep its peacekeepers out of reach of a new global war crimes court and renewed a threat to kill the U.N. mission in Bosnia if it did not get its way.
Complicating the situation, the top U.N. legal adviser suggested for the first time that a U.S. move to shutter the U.N. Bosnia mission could also close down the Balkan state's far more strategically important NATO-led multinational peacekeeping force -- a conclusion U.S. diplomats said needed further study.
The 15-nation U.N. Security Council faces a midnight Sunday deadline for renewing the Bosnia mission, which was launched in 1995 to train a professional multi-ethnic police force after Bosnia's three-year war that gave rise to the term "ethnic cleansing."
The United States has threatened to veto the resolution extending the mission if it does not provide its peacekeepers and other U.S. officials with immunity from the International Criminal Court, which comes into force on Monday.
The court is the world's first permanent legal forum created to try such crimes as genocide, gross human rights abuses and war crimes.
Council members, divided 14-1 against the U.S. position, spent Friday looking for common ground and finally gave up.
The council next meets at 4 p.m. on Sunday, just eight hours before the Bosnia mission's mandate expires.
Envoys said they could not recall the last time a Security Council fight pitted Washington against its longtime allies Britain and France. All three have permanent council seats, along with Russia and China.
SERIOUS PROBLEM
"We haven't resolved anything. The differences still remain," U.S. Deputy Ambassador James Cunningham told reporters. "We have a serious problem. We want it to be addressed."
U.S. officials said they hoped council members' governments back home would realize the seriousness of the U.S. concerns and give in.
But most council members are either among the 73 nations that have already ratified the new court or soon plan to. They say that binds them to do nothing to undermine the tribunal.
"We are being asked to choose between peacekeeping and the court, and I don't think people are willing at this point to step back from the court," said one council diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.
President Bush, cheered on by the Pentagon and U.S. conservatives, argues the tribunal would infringe on national sovereignty and could lead to politically motivated prosecutions of its officials or soldiers working outside U.S. borders.
Bush renounced the treaty after the United States signed it while his predecessor Bill Clinton was in the White House.
The U.S. Congress is even weighing legislation authorizing U.S. forces to invade The Hague, where the court will be based, in the event prosecutors grab a U.S. national.
The United States has 46 U.S. police officers in the Bosnia mission, which U.S. officials have in the past said was vital to the U.S. "war on terrorism" as the region is known as a transit point for fundamentalist Muslim guerrillas and arms.
The United States also has 2,500 soldiers in the separate NATO-led peacekeeping contingent.
U.N. Legal Counsel Hans Corell warned the Security Council against moving to a confrontation over the U.N. mission in Bosnia without knowing the full legal ramifications and said it could inadvertently shut down the NATO-led force as well.
A U.S. official, asked about that possibility, would say only that the situation was unclear. "We are not going to leave (the NATO-led force) first thing Monday morning," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The United States, which picks up the bill for about a quarter of U.N. peacekeeping costs, has vowed to pursue the immunity question as every U.N. mission comes up for renewal.
U.S. officials have threatened to pull out of all peacekeeping missions if Washington fails to get its way.
"When you think of what the people of Bosnia have endured over the last decade, it is shameful to see the U.S. government policy shrink to this depth," said Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice Program of New York-based Human Rights Watch.
All things considered, a pre-emptive attack on the court at the Hague might well be in order. Just get this stuff out of the way before all the BS flows.
A key sentence...wasn't it Clinton who declared the UN's Charter the greatest victory for human rights ever? (nevermind our Constitution)
President Bush we stand behind you 100% !!!
David
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