Subject: From TRANSNATIONAL - Satyagraha - 18 July 1994 - No. 6
X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0 -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas
X-Comment: The Transnational Radical Party List
Fortnightly Newsletter of the Radical Party
AD HOC TRIBUNAL FOR EX-YUGOSLAVIA CHIEF PROSECUTOR FINALLY APPOINTED
It took the U.N. Security Council more than a year to appoint the Chief
Prosecutor for the International Tribunal for war crimes committed in the
territory of the Ex-Yugoslavia. He is a South African, Richard J.
Goldstone, a Supreme Court Judge who in the past was engaged in
investigating acts of violence and violations of human rights in his
country, when it was torn apart by racism. Now the Tribunal, composed of
eleven judges and presided over by Italian Chief Judge Antonio Cassese, can
finally begin its work.
The Radical Party Campaign and the intervention of the Italian Government -
in accordance with the majority agreement between the Pannella
List-Reformers and the Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi - were
all-important to the appointment of the Chief Prosecutor during the
bilateral meetings of the G7.
Chief Prosecutor Goldstone's first task will be to analyse the cases of
documents that comprise the report drawn up by the Committee of Experts,
chaired by Prof. Bassiouni, member of the Radical Party, who has
investigated the crimes committed in the Ex-Yugoslavia. The data on the
atrocities that emerges from the report is shocking: 200/250,000 people
killed, about 50,000 individuals tortured, 20,000 women raped, 715
detention and concentration camps, and over 150 mass graves.
The institution of the ad hoc Tribunal for the Ex-Yugoslavia is the first
step towards the institution of the U.N. Permanent International Court that
has been in the planning stage for over ten years. Setting up such a
Tribunal allows us to start proceedings against war criminals, and supplies
us with an instrument for enforcing the conventions on human rights.
While being interviewed by an Italian newspaper Emma Bonino, Secretary of
the Radical Party, made the following statement: "Now we have broken the
deadlock. And the Tribunal, which is an international instrument for seeing
that justice is done and for ensuring that those rights that have been so
flagrantly violated are reinstated, can finally start to function. One must
not forget that the Tribunal for crimes committed in the Ex-Yugoslavia is
the first to be instituted after those of Nuremberg and Tokyo. This time,
however, it is not a question of affirming justice the way the victors see
it but true justice and international law, starting with the Geneva
Convention on genocide.
Now, we must relaunch the campaign for the institution of the Permanent
International Court. There are tons of conventions on human rights and the
environment, but there is a lack of instruments for enforcing them and
verifying that they are being respected.
The Italian Government should also promote a resolution at the U.N. General
Assembly for the institution of the Tribunal."
