The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“THE WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Senate section on pages S617-S620 on Feb. 11, 1998.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
THE WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, in the absence of any other Senator seeking recognition, this may be a good time for me to report briefly on the travels that I undertook from December 30 to January 13, when I visited the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague and found that this agency is moving forward with prosecutions on war crimes against humanity, arising out of the activities in Bosnia.
It is my sense that after the first conviction, which has been obtained, the tribunal is on its way to establishing a very, very important international precedent. For the past decade-plus, many of us, including Senator Dodd, Congressman Jim Leach, myself, and others, have been working to try to bring an international criminal court into existence. It is my sense that if the War Crimes Tribunal is successful, we may have the most important institutional change in international relations in this century, if we can bring the rule of law into the international arena.
I think it is very important that the outstanding indictments be served. In talking to the military leaders and NATO in Bosnia, I have been informed that we have the capacity to do so if the instructions are given. Up until the present time, the rule has been to serve them with warrants of arrest if our military groups come into contact with those under indictment, but they are not to make an effort to search them out. It is a delicate matter and has to be handled with discretion and with regard to not losing lives in the process of making the arrests. But, I think that ultimately those warrants of arrest do have to be served.
We stopped in Bosnia and saw the activities there. Mindful of the President's recent request for an open-ended stay in Bosnia, we discussed with the military leaders and with some of the soldiers their sense as to what was going to happen there.
The Congress has legislated to bring an end to the funding as of June 30, 1998, with certain exceptions relating to a Presidential extension. But, it seems to me that it is necessary to have some idea as to how long we are going to be there. Those enmities and hatreds go back hundreds of years, and it is necessary, in my judgment, for us to have some idea as to how long we are going to stay there and how long it will take to accomplish that mission if we are, in fact, to remain there.
The U.S. contingents are still much larger than any others. We have some 8,000 personnel--substantially larger than the French, British, Russians, or others--and there ought to be more of a burden sharing than is present now if the United States is to stay there.
We traveled on to the Mideast where we had an opportunity to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, Syrian President Assad, Egyptian President Mubarak, King Hussein of Jordan, and other leaders. And, it is my sense that the Israeli-Syrian tract could be very close to resolution.
Before going, on December 17, I met with President Clinton, told him of my itinerary, and urged him to become personally involved in the Syrian negotiations as he had been in the past. The parties were very close to a resolution of the dispute between Israel and Syria before the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin. The President was personally involved in those negotiations. I believe that with an activist hand by the President, there could be a successful resolution there. It can't be said with certainty, but the parties were very close before Prime Minister Rabin was assassinated.
I had an opportunity to talk to Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Assad in August and November of 1996. At that time it seemed to me that the parties were far apart, with Prime Minister Netanyahu saying he wanted to negotiate for peace but would do so only if there was a clean slate and he had a new mandate. President Assad of Syria, on the other hand, said he, too, wanted to negotiate but would do so only if they would begin where the negotiations left off with Prime Minister Rabin.
While the words were very similar, when I had a chance to talk to Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Assad last month, the music, it seemed to me, was a little bit different. Syria had a new set of problems with their economy, and Netanyahu faces a new set of problems. I think activist intervention by the President could well bring the Israeli-Syrian tract to a conclusion. It is certainly worth a try.
As to the Palestinian-Israeli tract, it is much more complicated. But, here again I have urged the President to bring Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Arafat into the same room, at the same time, to hear their complaints and to try to bring a resolution to those very serious problems.
Part of the mission on this trip was to explore persecution against Christians and other religious groups. Our travels took us to Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Saudi Arabia. The details are spelled out in a written report, which I shall file as well. But, it seems to me that the United States ought to take a stand on the legislation which has been introduced by Congressman Frank Wolf in the House and by myself in the Senate which would articulate the principles of religious freedom and impose sanctions on foreign governments which tolerate or encourage this kind of persecution.
In Saudi Arabia, in talking to Prince Turki, I heard again that the Koran calls for the death penalty if someone changes from Islam to Christianity. I heard the same in Egypt, and found, in fact, that those who have converted from Islam to Christianity had been imprisoned. We heard many complaints talking to people who had been victims of persecution in Saudi Arabia and in Egypt. It is my hope that this issue will come to the Senate floor. I know it is on the majority leader's list to be considered by the Senate sometime between now and the spring.
This is just a brief statement of some of the highlights.
I ask unanimous consent, Mr. President, that the full text of the report, which incorporates two op-ed pieces that have been published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Harrisburg Patriot-News, be printed in the Record as well.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
Report on Foreign Travel
In accordance with my practice of reporting on foreign travel, this floor statement summarizes a trip which I took from December 30, l997 through January 13, l998 to fourteen countries in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. My trip had several purposes: to evaluate the work of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda in The Hague in prosecuting indicted war criminals and in laying down the precedent for the establishment of a permanent international criminal court, to evaluate the President's request for an open-ended extension of time for the U.S. military participation in United Nations Stabilization Force operations in Bosnia, to assess the progress of the Middle East peace process, and to gather information in support of my legislation to strengthen U.S. policy against countries that persecute religious minorities.
INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL TRIBUNAL
The first phase of my trip involved a review of the progress of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda in The Hague. This was my third trip to that body in as many years, and its good work reaffirmed my belief that the tribunal could well set the stage for the creation of a permanent International Criminal Court, which would do much to deter future crimes against humanity.
In The Hague, I met with the Tribunal's Chief Prosecutor, Louise Arbour, and several American members of her staff, to discuss pending prosecutions arising from war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. The prosecutors were much more optimistic than they had been on my two previous visits in 1996. One assistant prosecutor, Ms. Patricia Sellers, declared there had been more progress in international law in the last four years than in the intervening 520 years following the first conviction of a war criminal in 1474.
The most tangible of the tribunal's successes was the recent conviction, on eleven counts after a one-year trial, of Dusko Tadic, charged with crimes against humanity under the statutes of the International Tribunal and cruel treatment of civilians as defined by the Geneva Convention of 1949.
While the Tadic case is a start, it is important to note that only 19 of the 79 defendants under indictment are in custody. Most of the remaining defendants are at large in Serb-controlled portions of the former Yugoslavia.
On a later stop in Sarajevo, I saw that the multi-national force in Bosnia faces a complicated task in taking some of these major defendants, like Radovan Karadic and Ratko Mladic, into custody. The current instruction is to arrest indictees if observed, but not to hunt them down. Our military commanders told me in Sarajevo that they have the trained personnel to take them into custody if provided sufficient intelligence information on their whereabouts.
Some of the Congressional opposition to staying in Bosnia could be overcome with a strategy to hunt down war criminals as part of the SFOR mission, but this would present its own set of problems. Our experience in Somalia was bitter when we sustained extensive casualties in our unsuccessful effort to take Mohammad Aidid into custody. Consideration should be given to an arrest strategy if it could be accomplished with minimal difficulty.
A vastly preferable course to SFOR apprehension would be for Serbia to honor its commitments under the Dayton Agreement to cooperate in apprehending the Tribunal's indictees. After discussing this matter with the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, General Wesley Clark in The Hague, I requested and obtained a meeting with Slobodan Milosevic, President of the Yugoslavian Federation, who had been labeled a war criminal by Secretary of State Larry Eagleburger in December 1992. Fifteen minutes out of Belgrade on a special flight, I was told Milosevic had suddenly caught the flu.
In my testy substitute meeting in Belgrade with Yugoslavian Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovich, I pressed Yugoslavia to turn over several defendants in his country and to help apprehend Karadic and Mladic. I was not surprised by his refusal. While in Belgrade I heardthat many there are worried about the Tribunal's recently adopted procedure to obtain sealed indictments. Some ranking Serbian or Yugoslavian of officials may travel to a jurisdiction where an arrest warrant, based on a sealed indictment from the War Crimes Tribunal, could be served with a one-way ticket to custody at The Hague.
Later stops on my trip validated the importance of the International Tribunal's example to maintaining international stability. In Ethiopia, Yemen and Eritrea, I heard considerable interest in the tribunal's work on Rwanda war crimes. The U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia expressed concern about the slow progress of the tribunal on the Rwanda indictments. Yemeni Foreign Minister Al-Iryani expressed satisfaction that 23 individuals are in custody on charges of war crimes in Rwanda.
Eritrean Foreign Minister Haile Weldensae told me that successful prosecutions against Rwanda defendants would help bring peace to that country which still suffers from massacres. Yemeni President Salih cautioned against the tribunal's handling of the Rwanda prosecutions without a better understanding of African problems. But the his Foreign Minister struck a positive chord, saying the Rwanda tribunal
``will absolutely deter'' future atrocities and that it would set a ``very good precedent that no one should get away from war crimes.''
From my review of the tribunal's progress, it is clear that it faces many hurdles: the body has only one courtroom (with a second under construction), and is frequently undercut by France and Yugoslavia in carrying out its work. The tribunal's budget has been increased, but still will have grossly insufficient resources to carry out its vital mandate. Only resources, perseverance and strong international backing will enable the War Crimes Tribunal to make a success of its unique opportunity to extend the rule of law against international criminals.
BOSNIA
The second phase of my trip involved evaluating the President's recent decision to stay to stay in Bosnia indefinitely in the face of the Defense Appropriations Act cutting off funding for our military operations there on June 30, l998. Clearly, Congress and the President may be on a collision course on this matter. Evaluating our policy in Bosnia took me to Sarajevo, Belgrade and Italy to meet in the field with our troops and with military leaders from the U.S. and NATO Commands.
In Sarajevo, I asked our troops to estimate how long we would need to stay there to avoid the resumption of bloodshed which would happen if they left on Congress's schedule. A frequent answer was a generation, given the intensity and longevity of the religious and ethnic hatreds between the Muslims, Croats and Serbs. Command Sergeant Major Selmer Hyde, a Pittsburgh native, pointed out that Muslims in Sarajevo choose to walk up a high hill adjacent to the city over a winding dirt trail rather than using a new macadam road traveled by Serbs and Croats.
There was considerable Congressional opposition to President Clinton's deployment of U.S. troops for one year in early l996 as part of a multi-national force, and even more skepticism when he extended their stay by 18 months shortly after the 1996 Presidential election. In articulating the three U.S. objectives for an indefinite stay in Bosnia, the President twice refers to European security and once to the rule of international law. While obviously important, those reasons do not measure up to ``vital'' U.S. national interests as defined by the historic Senate debate involving Senators Nunn, Warner, Moynihan, myself and others on the Congressional resolution to authorize the use of force in the Gulf War in January 1991.
There is no doubt about the potential dire consequences if the fighting resumes among the Muslims, Serbs and Croats. The battle may spill into Macedonia. Germany and other European countries would likely be flooded with refugees. The entire region would be de-stabilized.
But there is significant question as to how far can U.S. military resources be stretched on the current $268 billion defense budget. In the mid-1980s, those appropriations approximated $300 billion, which would exceed $400 billion in 1998 dollars. The top U.S. military brass in Bosnia and NATO had no response to my questions on priorities in deciding how to spend among Bosnia, Korea, Iran, Iraq and the world's other hot spots.
The other nations insist on U.S. leadership. The U.S. has about 8000 soldiers in the Bosnia force, compared to approximately 2500 Germans, 5100 British, 3200 French, and 1400 Russians. Most of those nations are AWOL when it comes to supporting the U.S. on tough sanctions against Iraq or on our efforts to isolate Iran, and France has chosen not to let its officers testify in front of the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague. This is particularly outrageous given that General Shinseki's multi-national staff told me that successful prosecution of tribunal inductees forms a lynchpin of future Bosnian stability.
In the field, our Bosnian troops express mixed sentiments on our continuing role there. While there is pride on preserving the peace and noting some improvements, most say we will have to be there for decades.
Doing our part does not mean doing more than other major European nations. This is not the Cold War where the U.S. squared off against the USSR and our dominant role in NATO protected our vital national interests. Obviously, Bosnian stability is of much greater concern to the European nations than it is to the U.S.
If we are to stay, we should (1) get greater commitments from the other major powers--Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, etc; (2) secure agreement from those nations to share on stabilizing the other world hot spots; (3) obtain real cooperation from the Serbs, Muslims and Croats on taking into custody defendants under indictment by the War Crimes Tribunal; and (4) set a time-table on benchmarks for progress which would permit a reduction and, ultimately, a withdrawal of U.S. personnel in Bosnia.
Congress is prepared to be cooperative, but there are important issues and interests which must be addressed to our satisfaction. The Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, on which I serve, should not and will not issue a blank check on Bosnia.
MIDDLE EAST PEACE
The third phase of my trip involved assessing Middle East regional stability and the progress of the peace process. Toward this end, l met in Israel with Prime Minister Netanyahu and various members of the Knesset, in Syria with President Assad and Foreign Minister Shara, in Jordan with King Hussein and Crown Prince Hassan, on the West Bank with Palestinian Authority Chairman Arafat and Minister of Education Hanan Ashrawi, in Eritrea with Foreign Minister Weldensae, in Yemen with President Salih and Foreign Minister al-lryani, in Saudi Arabia with Saudi Intelligence Director Prince Turki and U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Rayburn and in Egypt with President Mubarak.
Before I left I had a talk with President Clinton and urged him to become more involved in the Mideast peace process, particularly on the Israeli-Syrian track. After meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Assad, I am convinced that if the President of the United States became personally involved on that track, there could be some real movement.
In talking to President Assad and Prime Minister Netanyahu on trips to the area in August and November, 1996, President Assad's position was that he's not going to resume negotiations unless Israel agrees to start off where Prime Minister Rabin left off, and Prime Minister Netanyahu contended that he had a different mandate from the Israeli electorate. This time, I noticed the same words, but somewhat of a difference in tone. I firmly believe that progress could be made on this track with direct Presidential involvement.
On the question of the Golan, I raised with President Assad the issue of submitting the return of the Golan to an Israeli referendum as part of any agreement with Israel. While initially President Assad considered this a matter purely for Israeli domestic consumption, after we talked for a while, he acknowledged that it could form a part of a future arrangement. If the sticking point of the status of Golan were decided directly by the Israeli electorate referendum, this would allow Prime Minister Netanyahu to negotiate with Syria, notwithstanding his ``mandate.''
As I did in the past, I also raised with President Assad the issue of Israeli MIAs and I was told that the Syrians have made continuing efforts. I had raised that in the past, and they say they have not been able to find anything to this point. I raised a number of other MIA issues; I've been asked by the U.S. Embassy not to discuss those issues in detail, but I did raise them all. I was assured that work is being done on them.
By contrast with the Israeli-Syrian track, the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks are much more difficult. There are a lot of people in the region who contend that Prime Minister Netanyahu has not kept his promises on the Israeli-Palestinian process. Prime Minister Netanyahu insists that he has kept his promises. I believe that bringing both sides together in this atmosphere is going to take a lot of work. I was glad to see the President bring both Prime Minister Netanyahu and Chairman Arafat to meet with him in Washington last week, but I wish that more could have been attained by way of tangible progress during their visits. I feel that a similar Oval Office dialogue between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Assad would prove more fruitful because the Israeli-Syrian track appears not as intractable.
As ever, Islamic fundamentalist terrorism represents the greatest threat to regional security in the Middle East, and, in light of this, my visit to Saudi Arabia was especially instructive. I visited thousands of U.S. airmen living in tents at the remote Prince Sultan Air Base, to which our forces were sent following the terrorist attack on Khobar Towers in Dhahran in June 1996. Their living quarters made the Allenwood Federal Prison in Pennsylvania look palatial.
I had met with FBI Director Louis Freeh before departing, and discussed, among other issues, the level of Saudi cooperation with our counter-terrorism effort. In Riyadh, I met with Saudi Intelligence Director Prince Turki, and strongly objected to the Saudis' refusal to honor their commitment to allow the FBI to question suspects in the Khobar Towers bombing. Prince Turki replied that Saudi national sovereignty entitled his government to handle the matter as it chose. This is particularly irksome, given the sacrifices that our troops are making in the region to provide the Saudi government protection from Iraq.
FOREIGN RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
The fourth phase of my trip involved gathering information on foreign religious persecution. Worldwide persecution of religious minorities, focused particularly on Christians in Muslim countries China and Tibet, led last year to the introduction of the Specter-Wolf bill which would create a U.S. office to monitor such persecution and impose trade sanctions on countries which systematically persecute any religious group.
Toward the goal of fact-finding, I met with religious leaders and governmental officials in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea and Yemen. I had wanted to visit Sudan to investigate persecution of Christians by the fundamentalist Islamic Sudanese government, but was told by the State Department that Sudan was unsafe for American delegations. I did meet with the Sudanese government-in-exile in neighboring Eritrea, and discussed reports of Sudanese persecution with His Holiness Abuna Paulos, the Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and with the leadership of the Ethiopian Supreme Islamic Council in Addis Ababa.
My fact-finding corroborated the widespread reports of bias, mistreatment and even persecution of religious minorities in the Middle East and Africa.
Egyptian President Mubarak and Saudi Arabian Intelligence Director Prince Turki told me that public intolerance toward non-Muslim religions springs from the Koran. Conversion from Islam to Christianity or any other religion carries the death penalty under Muslim laws that are based on teachings of the Koran.
I heard conflicting statements in Saudi Arabia about whether the death penalty is actually imposed on conversion. One U.S. citizen living in Riyadh told me of a videotaped beheading by Saudi authorities of a Filipino Christian, but there was some question as to whether this individual was put to death solely because of his faith. There appeared to be more substance to a claim of religious motivation for the execution of a Christian charged only with robbery, since that punishment far exceeded the usual penalty for that crime.
Aside from the issue of capital punishment, there is no doubt that the religious police in Saudi Arabia are very repressive against Christians. A Mormon U.S. citizen reported a Saudi investigation seventeen years ago arising from prayer meetings in a private home. A dossier, he said, has been maintained by Saudi authorities on participants resulting in a recent deportation of a Mormon found in possession of a religious video.
Other U.S. citizens in Riyadh told of Christmas decorations being torn down in hospitals, seizures of personal bibles by Saudi customs officials and prohibition of displaying a Christmas tree in the window of a private home if it could be seen from outside. Another Christian from India told of a Sunday School being ransacked by Saudi religious police with the arrest and detention of a pastor, his wife and three children.
American soldiers of Jewish faith feel particularly at risk in Saudi Arabia. They change their ``dog tags'' to eliminate any reference to their religion during their tours there. When a rabbi from the Chaplain Corps recently visited U.S. military posts in Saudi Arabia, many Jewish soldiers declined to meet with him.
The Saudi answer on the religious questions was identical to their rationale on refusing to allow the FBI to interrogate the Khobar Towers suspects. The only difference was that source of their obstinacy was the Koran instead of national sovereignty. Nevertheless, l believe the Saudi attitude on religious bias can be changed at least to some extent in the face of sufficient U.S. and world persuasion and pressure.
On September 12, 1997, Prince Sultan reportedly made a commitment to the Pope that Christians would be permitted to pray together in the solitude of their homes. Even that remains to be seen. Prince Turki claimed that Saudi policy did not preclude people from bringing bibles for their own personal use through customs; but, he said, zealous customs bureaucrats often act on their own in confiscating these items.
From my discussions with foreign leaders and with religious minorities, it was clear that just the introduction of the Specter-Wolf bill has had an effect on foreign repressive practices. My friend, the Special Advisor to President Mubarak, Osama el-Baz, came to see me in my Senate office before my trip to ask that Egypt not be included among countries which persecuted Christians. Also, fifty-three Egyptian Christians recently publicized a letter saying, in effect, the U.S. should mind its own business even though they acknowledged that ``there are certain annoyances that
[Christians] in Egypt suffer from.''
Egyptian evangelicals were not as restrained. They cited cases of eight and nine months in jail for Muslims who sought conversion to Christianity. One scholar produced statistics showing 1624 people were killed by religious violence in Egypt from l990 through 1992 including the deaths of 133 Christians. Evangelicals in both Egypt and Ethiopia also complained about the long time it took to secure official permission to build churches, a snag that, in effect, stymied their religious activity.
Since the State Department advised against visiting Sudan, we sought information on that country's practices in the neighboring countries of Eritrea and Ethiopia. Eritrean Christians confirmed claims of Sudanese children being sold into slavery. They attributed it to profiteering by the militia as part of the booty of war. One Eritrean Christian commented on Sudanese governmental action in closing churches in 1997.
Our Christian, Jewish and Moslem interlocutors in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Ethiopia and Eritrea were particularly pleased that the U.S. Congress was considering the issue. An Egyptian Muslim almost withdrew his objection to the Specter-Wolf bill when he heard it applied to other nations and had no sanctions against Egypt on U.S. foreign aid. Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, Vatican Ambassador to Ethiopia, complimented the proposed legislation for raising the level of dialogue, adding that, if it were enacted with a ``little bite,'' then so much the better.
By raising the profile of the religious persecution issue in the current discourse of foreign policy, Congress has been able to make some progress on advancing the cause of religious freedom abroad. Still, many problems remain. For this reason, Congressman Wolf and I will continue to pursue our bill toward the goal of putting teeth in our country's longstanding policy against foreign religious persecution.
MAGNETIC LEVITATION TRAIN TECHNOLOGY
On my way back to Washington, I stopped in Lathen, Germany, to announce the completion of an agreement to bring German high-speed magnetic levitation (``maglev'') train technology to Pennsylvania. I took a demonstration ride on the maglev train, which is capable of speeds as high as 310 miles per hour.
This is something I have been working on in the area of Transportation Appropriations for a long time. The maglev train ride would improve the quality of life of all Pennsylvanians who feel they spend too much time in traffic or at congested airports. This technology would also bring Pennsylvania's steel industry roaring into the 21st Century because the maglev train uses steel guideways over hundreds of miles.
The train went a little over 250 miles per hour and it was exhilarating to be in a kind of mass transit which goes so fast, a little like Buck Rogers. It would be tremendous for Pennsylvania and a tremendous boon to the economy of every stop along the line from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, such as Lancaster, Harrisburg, Lewiston, State College, Altoona, Johnstown, and Greensburg. People could go from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh in one and a half hours non-stop, revolutionizing our transportation system. I look forward to continuing to support this economical, forward-looking technology in the future.
Mr. SPECTER. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
Mr. GRAMS addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. GRAMS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be able to speak as if in morning business for up to 10 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. GRAMS. Thank you, very much.
____________________
