America Press Inc.

September 18, 1999

Indict Kissinger?

It was a pleasure to read Stephen Garrett's clear and informative piece on the International Criminal Court (8/28).

This court is but an extension of the Nuremberg Court, along with the courts established by the U.N. in 1993 to investigate and try war criminals involved in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

There are so many procedural safeguards for the I.C.C. that it is difficult to understand the opposition of the United States to such a court. There are few crimes which would qualify: the genocide in Armenia, the Holocaust, the ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia, the starvation of

Ukraine by Stalin, the massacres by Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot in Cambodia and Rwanda. Perhaps we could add the genocide in Southern Sudan and the massive slaughter by Islamic forces in Algeria. All of these would have qualified for investigation by the I.C.C.

It is difficult to understand the U.S.'s opposition to the I.C.C. along with such betrayers of human rights as China, Libya, Algeria, Yemen and Qatar. There must be more involved than just a fear of indictment of American servicemen in peacekeeping operations. The chances of these men being indicted for planned war crimes against civilians is zero. We must look elsewhere.

What is not so improbable is the indictment of the American principles of covert operations by the C.I.A. and other clandestine American operations. Cooperation of these American personnel in places like Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, whose military were involved in war crimes against civilians, is well known. It is possible that indictments for such people as Henry Kissinger et al. in cooperation with war criminals like Pinochet is a distinct possibility. Until now, covert operations were safe in secrecy. No more. Many of these operations and crimes are now coming to the surface-which may well make some American policymakers and military personnel subject to indictment and trial by the I.C.C. America's secret and covert operations may put some Americans in harm's way.

It is this fear above all else that causes panic among American policymakers, who know very well how Americans covertly helped criminals like Pinochet stay in power because it benefited American foreign policy. They fear the day of reckoning, since there is no statute of limitations on murder, cooperation in murder and war crimes.

Peter J. Riga

Houston, Tex.