The New York Times

Friday, March 27, 1998

Helms Vows To Make War On U.N. Court

War Crimes Panel Faces U.S. Restraints

By BARBARA CROSSETTE

UNITED NATIONS, March 26 - A day after President Clinton, moved by his meeting with survivors of the frenzy of killing in Rwanda, endorsed a permanent international criminal court to deal with such crimes, Senator Jesse Helms vowed that the tribunal would be "dead on arrival" in the Senate unless Washington wields veto power over it.

In a letter to Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, Senator Helms, the North Carolina Republican who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that lie was "unalterably opposed to the creation of a permanent U.N. criminal court'.' and other developments that would give the United Nations "a trapping of sovereignty."

"The U.N. is not now - nor will it ever be so long as I have breath in me - a sovereign entity," he wrote. He was reacting to news reports a week ago that the Administration was showing flexibility in negotiations over the court that Mr. Helms perceived would weaken American control through the Security Council.

The Senator's threats come as a team of American legal experts, led by David Scheffer, the State Department's representative for war crimes issues, is in critical talks here with more than 100 other nations over how the court will operate.

In meetings this week and last, Mr. Scheffer has taken great pains, at the expense of criticism front human rights groups and other national delegations, to meet the objections not only of American politicians but also of the Pentagon, which fears legal action against American troops.

The court could be formally established by international treaty as early as July. United States membership would have to be approved by the Senate.

Before Mr. Helms's letter, the idea of compromise had already been dispelled by an American proposal that would double the opportunities Governments would have to block court action by challenging an international prosecutor's right to pursue a case that could be handled nationally.

The court would tackle genocide crimes against humanity and war crimes, which are now covered on y by ad hoc tribunals, like those set up for the Balkans and Rwanda.

Marc Thiessen, spokesman for Mr. Helmes, said that the Senator does not oppose ad hoc tribunals. "But Helms is concerned that a permanent tribunal will turn into a petty claims court that will spend its time taking up complaints about the United States," he said. "We thought that is what the General Assembly is for."

Mr. Helms also delivered a blow today to the Administration's efforts to repair relations between the United Nations and Congress, so that $1.3 billion in outstanding American dues can be paid. He was successful in attaching an amendment making a new set of demands on the United Nations to an emergency spending bill for the International Monetary Fund.

The "sense of the Senate" amendment asks that the United Nations thank the United States for its contributions, lower the percentage of contributions to the organization's peacekeeping budget to 25 percent front 31 percent - as Congress has already legislated - and publicly report to all member nations how much the United States has spent supporting Security Council resolutions since Jan. 1 1990. The amendment passed 90-10.

"While U.N. crybabies whine about not receiving enough of the American taxpayers' money, the real truth is that the United States volunteered more than three times what we were asked to pay," Mr. Helms said in introducing his amendment on Wednesday. He was apparently referring to costs incurred by the Pentagon in international missions that it chose to support.