The chief prosecutor for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, Judge Louise Arbour, yesterday wound up a series of "excellent" meetings with European governments, aimed at ensuring that she and her team would be among the first to enter Kosovo the moment the opportunity arises, Kathy Sheridan writes.
"We must enter at the earliest opportunity," she said at a press conference in Skopje. "There is a real fear of potential contamination of crime scenes. The most visible aspect of our work up to now has been the exhumation of mass graves, but it is even more critically urgent to identify these sites and to secure them to avoid tampering".
She moved to quell "unrealistic" expectations that they would be able to proceed in the same way as a domestic law enforcement agency. "We will never have that luxury. To do that, you have to be first and you have to have full authority over a crime scene. . . We have been denied access to Kosovo since the beginning of November".
Their priority, she said, was to target the commanders, those at the top of the chain. "We want to explore the chain of command so that we bring to The Hague those who are most responsible. This will leave this region with the very serious challenge of what to do with the actual perpetrators, which the Hague tribunal doesn't have the capacity to address."
Do her "targets" include President Milosevic? "Our tribunal is not impeded by any form of pre-existing immunity for any former heads of state or those holding office. . . "
What if he became part of any peace deal and was then accused of war crimes? Could he be granted immunity? "There cannot be any such legally-binding deal. We will bring the appropriate charges - singly or jointly, on the basis of evidence as we analyse it, as soon as we are ready. And this process is completely independent of any political negotiations".
Asked about the implications of Mrs Mary Robinson's statement, suggesting that NATO might also be guilty of violating human rights, she pointed out that the tribunal cannot bring charges against governments or organisations; it can only bring charges on the basis of personal criminal liability for war crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia. She made it clear that within that context the tribunal does have jurisdiction over the conduct of NATO operations and the KLA.
"But I am not suggesting that we've launched any particular investigation". And so far, she confirmed, "there has been no request from the Chinese government to investigate anything."