ABSTRACT: Emma Bonino outlines the political motivations of the radical campaign for the creation of an international tribunal on war crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia. Allowing the crimes committed to go unpunished would be an unacceptable signal for the entire world.

(IL MESSAGGERO, September 17 1993)

Fighting and death continue in Bosnia despite the last of countless "cease-fires" signed in Geneva between the Muslim president Izetbegovic and the Croatian Tudjman. The usual charges of massacres and slaughters bounce back and forth from one party to the other. In the meanwhile the international community is trying to assemble the pieces of a complex mosaic in order to bring peace to the ravaged country. One initiative, calling for the actual implementation of the international law, comes from Rome. The radical party will introduce a petition signed by over 3.000 people (including several heads of state and nine Nobel prize winners) to the United Nations to urge the actual setting up of an international tribunal for the crimes in ex-Yugoslavia--the first body of its kind after the Nuremberg trial, the creation of which Italy also contributed to.

Q: Emma Bonino, secretary of the Radical Party, what are the objectives of your initiative?

A: The objective is first of all that of mobilizing parliaments and governments on the issue. We have launched these international days for the international tribunal tomorrow and Sunday, when stands will be organized for the collection of signatures not just in Italy but also in Tirana, Belgrade, Zagreb, Budapest, Kiev, Moscow, Barcelona and Brussels.

Q: What then?

A: The judges of the United Nations General Assembly will need to be appointed. The Italian candidate supported by us, Professor Antonio Cassese, was elected yesterday. The question of the prosecutor remains instead open. It is a political problem of crossed vetoes. Third World and United States support the candidacy of Cherif Bassiouni, whereas Great Britain and France are against it. But the real risk is that after deciding with Resolution 827 to establish this ad hoc tribunal, this resolution will remain unapplied, or that in unofficial terms if the Geneva agreements are successful, the whole problem will be dismissed.

Q. But wouldn't the creation of an international tribunal hamper the Geneva negotiations?

A. I really don't think so, because diplomacy and law are two distinct instruments. Also, if the international community were to accept a cease-fire at the cost of admitting that the butchers and the organizers of the rapes remain unpunished, this would be a signal to the entire world. It must be extremely clear that the tribunal will not prosecute governments, nor will it carry out a political trial. This is further proven by the fact that the trials and sentences by default will be excluded, as will the death penalty. It is instead the first affirmation of the Convention on genocide, signed in 1949 but never applied owing to the lack of instruments of repression and conviction. It is the first political step towards the creation of a permanent international tribunal of the United Nations which was first planned ten years ago. The terrible thing is not having realized this before.

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.