*EFS113 10/16/95

(FS) CLINTON PUSHES FOR U.N. WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL

(The Washington Post 10/16/95 John F. Harris article) (460)

(Following FS Material Not for Publication)

STORRS, Conn., Oct. 15 - President Clinton paid tribute today to the Nuremberg International Tribunal, which prosecuted Nazi war criminals at the end of World War II, by vowing that the human rights abusers of the Bosnia conflict also will be brought to justice.

"Some people are concerned that pursuing peace in Bosnia and prosecuting war criminals are incompatible goals," Clinton told a crowd at the University of Connecticut. "But I believe they are wrong. There must be peace for justice to prevail, but there must be justice when peace prevails."

Clinton also appealed for a permanent United Nations body to prosecute war crimes. As it now stands, tribunals are established on a case-by-case basis, such as in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

The United States has opposed a draft for a permanent tribunal, pending at the United Nations because, the administration wants such a body to have a narrow mandate, so that it must have approval from the U.N. Security Council to pursue cases.

But the president said he supports the general concept of such a tribunal, as a way to "send a strong signal to those who would use the cover of war to commit terrible atrocities that they cannot escape the consequences of such actions."

Clinton made his remarks at the dedication of the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, a new archive at the campus here. Dodd, a former Democratic senator from Connecticut, served at the end of World War II on the prosecutioral team at the Nuremberg tribunal. His son, Christopher J. Dodd, is a Democratic senator from Connecticut and shared the stage with Clinton today. The career of the elder Dodd, who died in 1971 at age 64, was marked by high achievement across many fronts, even as it ended under an ethical cloud. As a young Justice Department lawyer, he prosecuted civil rights cases in Arkansas in the late 1930s, and as a member of the House of Rh center. Clinton applauded the family's dedication to their father's memory, but some young Republican students said the university was going too far to sanitize the late senator's reputation. A flier distributed by the students said that Dodd "earned money the old-fashioned way....He stole it."

Later this evening, Clinton was scheduled to travel to Austin, where he is planning to deliver a major address Monday morning on race relations - an effort, aides said, for the president's voice to be heard in the clamorous national debate sparked by the O.J. Simpson trial and the Million Man March.

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