An interview with Emma Bonino

ABSTRACT: Emma Bonino (1) denounces the resistance against the establishment of the international war crimes tribunal, and sounds an appeal to urge the application of the UN Security Council resolution that provides for its institution.

(LA STAMPA, 7 April 1993)

"The news from New York are far from reassuring" warns the President of the Radical Party, Emma Bonino. Bonino has passionately advocated the establishment of the international war crimes tribunal decided by resolution 808, passed in February by the UN Security Council, and she now sounds a warning to prevent the resolution from remaining dead letter.

Q: What are you worried about, Mrs Bonino?

A: The resolution gave Boutros Ghali 60 days time to draft a text summarizing the best part of the three proposals, the French, the Swedish and the Italian, sent to the United Nations.

Q: Has any progress been made?

A: There are two weeks to the deadline of 22 April, and there are still a quantity of problems that have not been solved. What's worse is they haven't even been discussed.

Q: For instance?

A: The seat of the special tribunal, the embryo of the future permanent tribunal on genocide, has not yet been decided. Its financing has not been decided either. There is an obvious risk that on April 22 these problems will not have been solved.

Q: It seems there is another unsolved problem: the gathering of testimonies.

A: The type of cooperation, especially among the Twelve, for the gathering of evidence still needs to be decided. The evidence will need to come especially from the refugees scattered all over Europe.

Q: Of the three projects presented to Boutros Ghali you prefer the Italian one, which has been prepared by a commission chaired by the Justice Minister, Giovanni Conso. Why?

A: Because it is an eminently juridical text, not a political one. It does not provide for sentences by default, which was instead provided for in Nürnberg, and also because it excludes the application of the death penalty.

Q: What is the established penalty for rape?

A: There is an explicit reference to the crime of rape, which is finally considered the equivalent of other war instruments. On the other hand, the objective in Bosnia is ethnic cleansing: in that war, civilians are the military target.

Q: Which problems do you spot in the French proposal?

A: The fact that it provides for sentences by default, among others.

Q: And in the Swedish one?

A: It is full of ill-defined aspects. It would cause huge delays.

Q: You have suggested, among others, that Italy be the seat of the ad hoc tribunal.

A: Because the question of the seat still needs to be solved and should in no way become an alibi for Boutros Ghali. We asked the Justice Minister Conso to at least offer Italy's willingness to host the tribunal.

Q: Where?

A: The seat could be Trieste, because it is close to the witnesses. Or Rome, Florence, Assisi. Perhaps Italy is not a good place because it is a bordering country, but in the meanwhile we are offering our willingness.

Q: Do you think Boutros Ghali is delaying things?

A: Boutros Ghali tried to keep the UN out of the war in former Yugoslavia as much as he could. At any rate, the strongest resistance comes especially from Russia in the Security Council.

Q: What about the Amato government? Do you agree also on the question of the tribunal?

A: Conso is very fond of the idea and is working hard at it. But as usual foreign policy remains the government's least preoccupation.

Translator's notes

(1) BONINO EMMA. (Bra 1948). President of the Radical Party, former member of the European Parliament, as of 1976 member of the Italian Parliament. Among the promoters of the CISA (Information Centre on Sterilization and Abortion) and active militant in the campaign against clandestine abortion. She was tried and acquitted in Florence. Participated in the conduction, on a national and international scale, of the campaign on World Hunger. Among the founding members of "Food and Disarmament International", promoted the circulation of the Manifesto of Nobel Laureates.