press release

New York, 19 January 1999 - After several UN Security Council resolutions stating ICTY jurisdiction in the Kosovo region, Nato's demands that the Serbian authorities fully co-operate with ICTY investigators, and ICTY Prosecutor Mme. Arbour's visit to Kosovo, the Belgrade regime still refuses to allow Tribunal investigators into the province.

The Transnational Radical Party welcomes Mme. Arbour's decision finally to visit the region and fully agrees with her statement that investigations should aim at "the highest possible level". However, it is unsurprising that the Serbian authorities have banned her from the region. The highest level involved in the whole operation is the Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

Today in Kosovo, like yesterday in Bosnia - Herzegovina and Croatia, the Belgrade regime is carrying out widespread and systematic violation of human rights and humanitarian law, while the international community is watching.

In 1994, the Security Council established the Tribunal to supplement national legal mechanisms for the bringing to justice those responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law in the former Yugoslavia since 1991 and prevent the inability of States to judge their own leaders, from allowing them to escape justice. We call on UN Member States that have worked very hard in establishing the Tribunal, to do their utmost to make it work according to its mandate and end impunity in the Balkans. The time has come to make Belgrade comply with Security Council resolutions and recognize the ICTY's jurisdiction over the whole territory of the former Yugoslavia.

To help this effort, in July '98, the Radical Party launched an international petition to indict Milosevic for the crimes committed in Kosovo. In six months we have collected over 100,000 signatures (309 VIPs, 512 parliamentarians and 71 University professors). The complete list of signatories can be downloaded from our website. www.radicalparty.org