ABSTRACT: With its behaviour Europe, which has become an accomplice of the massacre of Sarajevo, is destroying legality and jeopardizing its own future. In denouncing this behaviour, the secretary of the Radical Party asks the International Tribunal of The Hague to be placed in the condition of punishing the slaughterers of the Bosnian population, securing the funds necessary for its functioning.

(L'INDIPENDENTE, 10 February 1994)

A grenade on the market of Sarajevo killed 70 innocent victims, to be added to the ten thousand already sacrificed in the twenty-two months of siege. Europe, which has long relinquished the role of spectator to assume one of accomplice, is destroying legality, democracy, tolerance and its own future in Sarajevo.

Through the media we witness an endless havoc. Is this massacre to go unpunished? Are we condemned to remain powerless or the spectators of a tragedy, a criminal operation of huge proportions?

No. Personally speaking I am disgusted with the images of death. We are committed to seeing that this massacre be at least judged for what it is: not just a massacre offered to the contempt of the international public opinion, but above all a heinous crime that must be punished.

In other words, prosecuting the war criminals of the former Yugoslavia can and must be a tangible, immediate action. The ex post justice of the Nuremberg military tribunal was justified by the fact that not all the facts were known. In the Pope's words, we will never be able to say one day of the Bosnian Holocaust that "we didn't know". The TV cameras, the eyes of the world were there last Saturday, as on every day of this calendar of horrors, in the miserable market of Sarajevo, filming the havoc. What can be done then? A military intervention? Or, as some are trying to do, force Bosnia Herzegovina - a state recognized by the UN - to accept a peace at all costs, an unconditional surrender? Clearly this would be a "realistic" and "diplomatic" solution, especially because the costs would not be paid by those who are suggesting it.

But there is something else which deserves the appellation "at all costs": legality. Legality at all costs means that there can be no peace without justice. That is why we welcomed the UN Security Council's decision to create a tribunal charged with prosecuting and punishing the crimes committed in the territories of the former Yugoslavia. It is a first step to achieve that international jurisdiction that will prosecute and condemn violations of human rights in all places of the world like Bosnia. But to do justice it takes adequate funds to allow the Tribunal to punish the criminals that shelled the market, the authors of ethnic cleansing, the mass rapes, the "masterminds" of the mass graves. The Commission of Experts that must gather the evidence and hear the witnesses on the crimes has publicly disclosed an intolerable situation: while it needs an extra $300,000 fund to carry out the activities planned until the term of July 1994, as of 1 January 1994 the Tribunal lacks a budget.

The amount of funds necessary for the actual functioning of the Tribunal is absolutely within the range of possibilities of the international community and of its Member States, if they truly wanted to approve and allocate them. But the United Nations is still incapable of financing this "single accomplishment" of justice. To make up for the lack of political will of the national governments a sort of "current account" has been set up, the Voluntary Trust Fund.

Even our country, Italy, has failed to respect the commitments taken. That is why we shall ask the government to allocate the amount decided by the financial bill, and that 600 billion be placed immediately at the disposal of the Commission of investigation on the crimes. It is urgent to give a clear signal to the institutions. The criminals and butchers of ex-Yugoslavia must be brought to trial at once!