INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE Wednesday, June 25, 1997

Croat (and UN Tribunal) Go on Trial

Lack of Cooperation Hinders Prosecution

By Charles Trueheart

Washington Post Service

THE HAGUE A Croatian general charged with authorizing hundreds of civilian killings and other atrocities in wartime Bosnia in 1993 went on trial Tuesday in the first warcrimes proceeding against a commander since World War II.

But as General Tihomir Blaskic, 36, appeared in the dock of the United Nations tribunal courtroom here to begin hearing charges of directing a "ethnic cleansing" campaign against Muslim villages, the infant judicial institution that is trying him is approaching a moment of truth.

The Blaskic trial began the slow grind of its courtroom life with the presiding judge, Claude Jorda of France, noting that "justice which seems to be endless will not meet the expectations of the international community."

General Blaskic, the Bosnian Croat commander of a strategic region in central Bosnia, is charged in the bombardment, plunder and pillage of four towns in the Lasva Valley where more than a hundred Muslim civilians were murdered, tortured or driven out of their homes. In some cases, the Muslims were forced to dig trenches on the front lines and were killed by Serbian fire.

General Blaskic was allowed to say a few words about his occupation "I am a professional soldier of the Croatian Army" his military training and his wife and two sons before the prosecution outlined its case and called its first witness in the first day's session.

The likely duration of the trial was suggested by the opening round of objections, counterclaims and judicial rulings stemming from the prosecution's misspelling of the first expert witness's surname.

In the eyes of critics and champions alike, the tribunal itself is on trial. On the verdict, the, say, rides the fate of a permanent international criminal justice system to prosecute war crimes a body whose use was indicated last week when Cambodian authorities requested a trial of its genocidal former dictator, Pol Pot.

But the International Criminal Tribunal, set up by the UN Security Council in 1993 to prosecute war criminals for the first time since the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials after World War II, is beset by a public perception of ineffectuality: only eight arrests or surrenders out of 75 indictments stemming e from the Bosnian war, virtually all of

them relatively insignificant offenders; one confession and one guilty verdict to

date, and two more trials under way.

Of the indicted, more than twothirds are Serbs. The two most important wanted men, the former Bosnian Serb president, Radovan Karadzic and his military chieftain, Ratko Mladic, remain at large, visible to their neighbors every day but detained neither by local authorities nor by US. :led Western forces in Bosnia, both of which are formally required to apprehend any of the Tribunal's indicted. General Blaskic have himself up to the tribunal, saying he wanted to fight the charge.

Judge Louise Arbour the tribunal's chief prosecutor since last October, said he was concerned that, without major arrest, the tribunal could be dismissed is "a totally impotent institution."

"It's important we don't die a slow death of neglect," she said in an interview on the eve of the Blaskic trial. "We've only made a dent in what we have to do."

Mr. Sherif Bassiouni an expert on international crime who works for the United Nations on war crimes matters, said, "The prosecution is caught between the devil and the deep blue sea."

Citing the "costly arithmetic" of $1.3 million spent per indictment, Mr. Bassiouni said the tribunal's position is very vulnerable to criticism: Four years and $100 million, and what has it produced?"

But Judge Arbour, Mr. Bassiouni, an others monitoring the progress of the tribunal cite plenty of extenuating circumstances:

Establishing an international criminal system without precedent. Running investigations, prosecutions and trials involving witnesses from around the world. Conducting every significant conversation in two or more languages. Managing twin fullscale tribunals (the other one deals with war crimes in Rwanda) that share judges and chief prosecutor. Challenging adamant principles about state sovereignty and breaking legal ground for the superseding authority of an international warcrimes court. Dealing with the shrinking financing for the United Nations, which pays the bills for the tribunal.

But no obstacle to this tribunal's effectiveness is so great as the failure of the former warring entities to turn over to the tribunal documents, witnesses and, especially, the wanted criminals themselves.

The arrival of Madeleine Albright at the U.S. State Department and her recent visit to the Balkans have given new rhetorical impetus to the current U.S. policy of using both friendly and threatening suasion against the recalcitrant leaders of Bosnia ;and Croatia.

But the secretary of state's voiced commitment to bring war criminals to justice has also raised the pressure on the Clinton administration to send its own forces to overpower local resistance and arrest Mr. Karadzic, General Mladic and other big fish and bring them to the detention center in The Hague.

The Pentagon is reported to object to a "snatch" operation, which carries a high risk of casualties and an uncertain prospect of success. Mr. Bassiouni, who shares that wariness spoke of retaliatory hostagetaking, ambushes, terrorist bombing.

"Are the United States and the West willing to accept that?" he asked.

He also said an armed operation would focus public attention on "the kidnapped people rather than on what they did."