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“ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Senate section on pages S7311-S7314 on July 11, 1997.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS
______
COMMEMORATING THE SECOND ANNIVERSARY OF THE FALL OF SREBRENICA
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, today, July 11, marks the second anniversary of the fall of the so-called safe area of Srebrenica, one of the three eastern enclaves in Bosnia.
By most estimates, following the fall of Srebrenica over 8,000 Muslim refugees fleeing the Serb forces simply disappeared. Many of these refugees were old men, women, and children, killed in acts of inhuman cruelty.
Even today, 2 years later, the vast majority of these people are still unaccounted for.
Others from Srebrenica were luckier--forced to flee their homes as part of a brutal policy of ethnic cleansing.
I am still haunted by an image from a picture that I saw in the newspaper shortly after the fall of Srebrenica. It was a picture of a young woman, a refugee from Srebrenica, around 20 years old, who climbed a tree, tied a rope around her neck, and hung herself. A photographer captured her lifeless body as it hung from the tree.
Mr. President, I look at that picture and I think: What kind of nation are we if we can not see to it that the people who practiced rape, practiced genocide, practiced ethnic cleansing, are not brought to justice? We know who these people are. We know where they live.
The fact is, of the 74 war criminals indicted by the International War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague, only 9 have been apprehended.
Where is the conscience of the world?
I first wrote to the President about this issue on September 11 of last year, following a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, at which administration witnesses provided testimony to the effect that there were no capable international or national institutions in Bosnia with both the authority and the ability to apprehend indicted war criminals.
The President responded to this letter that ``although the peace will not be complete until indicted war criminals are brought to justice,'' IFOR would not hunt down war criminals, and that U.S. policy would be to ``continue our efforts to press all parties to turn over indicted war criminals to the Tribunal.''
In the months since then we have seen how willing the parties to Dayton have been to turn over indicted war criminals.
When the IFOR mandate ended and IFOR was replaced by SFOR, I took up this issue with Secretary Perry, writing him on December 4 last year--
again, following a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee--
that I believed that it was essential that the follow-on force have clear, unambiguous authority for apprehending war criminals or to provide more effective support to other authorities in carrying out this task.
I received a response from the Department of Defense on February 18 of this year that again stated that the administration shared my concern on the importance of this issue, but that no additional efforts to apprehend war criminals would be forthcoming.
I also took this question up with the other Democratic and Republican women of the Senate. The nine of us sent a letter to the President on March 3 of this year in which we requested that the President:
. . . look at this problem as a top priority and indicate to us precisely how the international community might ensure the arrest and extradition to The Hague of those responsible for crimes against humanity.
The President responded to us on April 11. His letter stressed the role of the International Tribunal in ``establishing accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity . . .'' The President also stated that:
I share your sense of urgency and my Administration is committed to assisting the Tribunals in the apprehension and extradition of those indictees who remain at large. We are currently examining a variety of options in this regard.
Frankly, I found the President's response to be inadequate. And in mid-April I wrote to both the President and the Secretary General of the United Nations urging an aggressive stand to see that indicted war criminals are brought to justice.
As I stated in my April 21 letter to the President, it is my belief that:
Unless the United States takes a position of aggressive leadership on this issue in the international community, we run the risk that future historians will conclude that the lessons of current U.S. foreign policy are that crimes against humanity, genocide, and the use of rape as an instrument of war are acceptable--and that those who perpetrate these crimes can do so with impunity.
We would, moreover, put at risk all the gains of the Dayton process if we do not bring these war criminals to justice.
The President responded to me on June 19, stating that, ``My foreign policy team is examining several options to assist and enhance the ability of the Tribunal to bring indicted war criminals into custody.''
Mr. President, I will ask that copies of those portions of this correspondence that I feel my colleagues will find most useful be printed in the Record at the end of my remarks.
Finally, to provide additional tools to the administration in the apprehension of war criminals, in May of this year Senator Lautenberg, Lugar, Leahy, D'Amato, Mikulski, and myself introduced the War Crimes Prosecution Facilitation Act of 1997. This legislation, which has since been included in the committee-passed Senate Foreign Operation Appropriations bill, conditions United States financial assistance to the states and entities of the former Yugoslavia with their cooperation with the war crimes Tribunal.
Mr. President, I do not know what humiliations and deprivations this woman whose picture I saw in the paper suffered. Perhaps she saw a loved one killed. Perhaps she was raped. All I know is that she could take no more.
In the memory of this nameless young woman, and in the memory of the countless thousands of others who were killed, tortured, and raped, we must make sure that peace and justice are restored in Bosnia.
And the bottom line is that there can be no peace and justice in Bosnia without the prosecution of those who committed crimes against humanity.
What happened in Srebrenica was not unique to the war that tore the former Yugoslavia apart. In town after town, village after village, atrocities were committed by all sides in a brutal civil war.
Unlike the countless other villages and towns wiped off the map in the campaigns of ethnic cleansing, however, the fall of Srebrenica--and the brutal atrocities carried on while the international community stood passively by--at long last galvanized the international community to end the war and bloodshed in Bosnia. What we saw in Srebrenica shamed the international community to action, and led to the negotiation of the Dayton accords.
Today, 2 years after Srebrenica and a year-and-a-half since Dayton, should be a day to look back at our accomplishments of the past 2 years and say that we have upheld our vow of ``never again.''
Instead, it is a day when we must admit that we have not done enough to honor the memory of the young women whose photograph I referred to earlier, or the other victims of ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia.
The horrors that tore Yugoslavia apart--the ethnic cleansing, the genocide, the rapes--have been well documented. The perpetrators of these horrors are well known. Yet only 9 of the 75 indicted war criminals in the former Yugoslavia have been apprehended and are in custody.
The rest remain at liberty, their whereabouts known, and many working in jobs with the police, government, and leading businesses in the former Yugoslavia. Many live and work within minutes of NATO camps manned by U.S. troops.
Despite its efforts to amass evidence, lead investigations, and issue indictments, at almost every turn the Tribunal has been stymied by the failure of the international community to apprehend indicted war criminals and bring them to justice.
Estimates are that up to 20,000 women in Yugoslavia were systematically raped as part of a policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide. In Srebrenica, for example, one woman told of Serb soldiers, dressed as U.N. peacekeepers, who came in a factory where refugees were gathered and dragged away two girls aged 12 and 14 and a 23-year-old woman. After several hours the three returned. They were crying, naked, and bleeding. One said, ``We are not girls anymore.''
According to the U.N. Commission of Experts, the victims of rape in Bosnia included girls as young as 6 and women as old as 81. Many women and girls were subjected to gang rapes while being held in detention camps. And, tragically, for many of the women of ex-Yugoslavia rape was merely a prelude to further torture and then death.
I believe the use of rape as an instrument of genocide and ethnic cleansing is a war crime of the highest order. And the failure to assure that those who have been indicted for rape as a war crime are apprehended, extradited, and made to stand trial, does a grave injustice not just to the women of Srebrenica, but to women around the world.
The administration has asserted that rape as a war crime must not be allowed to stand and that the peace in this troubled area ``will not be complete until indicted war criminals are brought to justice.''
Ultimately, it would be a hollow and cynical gesture to claim outrage over rape as a war crime but then to act as if the issue is not important enough to merit the commitment or resources to see that those who committed these crimes are apprehend and prosecuted.
Our commitment to Bosnia, after all, is not just about Bosnia. It is also about the principles that guide us and our conduct in the world. It is about what we, as Americans, value.
Yesterday, with the arrest of one indicted war criminal by SFOR, and the death of another who resisted arrest, the international community took a long-delayed step in the right direction in seeing that the perpetrators of these crimes against humanity are brought to justice.
I hope that the actions of SFOR in Prejidor yesterday sends a clear signal to those indicted war criminals who remain at large that today, on the anniversary of the fall of Srebrenica, the international community is serious about bringing them to justice.
Although I believe that the capture of indicted war criminals is primarily the responsibility of the governments of the former Yugoslavia, yesterday's action illustrate the important role that SFOR has to play in this process as well.
The SFOR mandate clearly states that if SFOR patrols, including U.S. troops, encounter indicted war criminals and the tactical situation permits they are to arrest them and extradite them to The Hague.
But we have also heard stories of SFOR commanders telling their troops that if they encounter an indicted war criminal they should leave the area immediately and take no action.
I can think of no better way to honor the memory of Srebrenica then if today SFOR turns over a new leaf, and vows to pursue its mandate vigorously and to the maximum degree possible.
If indicted war criminals are not brought to justice, the international community will have betrayed the legacy of Nuremberg, the victims of the war that tore Yugoslavia apart, and women worldwide. This will also set a dangerous precedent that will give encouragement to others elsewhere in the world who may consider the use of rape and genocide as tools of war.
In the aftermath of the Holocaust 50 years ago, the civilized world vowed that we would never again allow crimes against humanity to blacken our history.
In the aftermath of the tragedy of Srebrenica 2 years ago, we vowed that we would bring peace and justice to Bosnia.
Today, on the second anniversary of the fall of Srebrenica the international community must vow to redouble its commitment to take immediate strong action to see that the indicted war criminals are brought to justice.
If not, as I stated in my letter to the President on April 21, 1997, we run the risk that future historians will look back on current U.S. policy and conclude that the ethnic cleansing and the use of rape as an instrument of war is acceptable--and that those who perpetrate this crime can do so with impunity. This would be a tragic betrayal of our history, our principles, and the people of Srebrenica.
I ask that the correspondence to which I earlier referred be printed in the Record.
The correspondence follows:
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC, March 3, 1997.Hon. William Jefferson Clinton,President of the United States, The White House, Washington,
DC.
Dear Mr. President: We, the women of the United States Senate, welcome your recent statement that you believe that the establishment of a permanent international institution for the prosecution of those who have committed war crimes should be a high priority for the international community, and to express our concern that those indicted for genocide, systematic rape and other war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia are apprehended and tried.
The Tribunal has clearly established that, for the first time in history, the organized, systematic rape of thousands of women was employed as an instrument of war, and that genocide was used to ``ethnically cleanse'' areas of conflict. These, we believe, are war crimes of the highest order.
Investigators have documented rapes of over 50,000 women and girls and the use of rape as a weapon in a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing. The war that tore Bosnia apart is one more chapter in the reprehensible book of genocide.
Those who ordered and perpetuated these crimes must be brought to justice. The War Crimes Tribunal has publicly indicted 75 people, including 5 for genocide, but only 6 of the indicted suspects are in custody and many war criminals remain at large.
We understand your decision and concerns about the use of U.S. troops to apprehend indicted war criminals in the former Yugoslavia. Like you, we consider the safety of U.S. troops to be of the highest priority and would not support their security being compromised. We are sure that you will also agree that, to ensure the peace they have worked so hard to preserve does not dissolve as soon as they depart, it is critical that the international community take action to assure that war criminals not be allowed to continue to elude justice.
We, the women of the Senate, ask that you look at this problem as a top priority and indicate to us precisely how the international community might ensure the arrest and extradition to the Hague of those responsible for crimes against humanity. We believe that it is critically important that the United States aggressively exercise its leadership in the international community to ensure that the indicted are brought to justice.
We look forward to hearing your thinking and plans on this very important matter.
Sincerely,
Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, Mary L. Landrieu, Carol
Moseley-Braun, Olympia J. Snow, Susan M. Collins, Kay
Bailey Hutchison, Barbara A. Mikulski, Patty Murray.
____
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC, April 21, 1997.Hon. William Jefferson Clinton,President of the United States, The White House, Washington,
DC.
Dear Mr. President, Thank you for your letter of April 11 regarding the deep concern shared by the women of the Senate that only 7 of the 75 indicted war criminals in the former Yugoslavia have been arrested and extradited to The Hague to stand trial. Unfortunately, I was deeply disappointed with the substance of your response.
In our March 3 letter, the women of the Senate asked that you view this issue as a priority and that the United States provide leadership in ensuring that the international community take steps to secure the necessary trials. The essence of your response appears to be that the administration continues to examine ``a variety of options.''
As you may recall, in an October 10, 1996, letter you assured me that the administration ``will continue to assist the War Crimes Tribunal and we will continue to look at all other possible ways to help detain and deliver war criminals to The Hague . . . the peace will not be complete until indicted war criminals are brought to justice.''
In the seven months that have passed between your letter to me of October 10 and your letter of April 11, not one additional indicted war criminals has been arrested or extradited to The Hague, and the United States has undertaken no concrete steps to see that they are brought to justice.
The failure of U.S. leadership makes a mockery of the Tribunal's efforts, and continued procrastination and obstruction in bringing indicted war criminals to justice threaten to undermine both the Tribunals effectiveness and the Dayton peace process as well. Mr. President, justice delayed is justice denied.
If, as you stated to me in your letter last October 10,
``We cannot tolerate genocide, ethnic cleansing and the use of rape as instruments of war,'' then it would appear that current U.S. policy regarding the apprehension of indicted war criminals in the former Yugoslavia is woefully inadequate. In fact, current U.S. policy not only allows those who perpetuated genocide, ethnic cleansing, and rape to remain at liberty, but, as a recent Human Rights Watch/Helsinki report notes, it allows them to occupy positions of authority in running police forces, towns, and businesses in former Yugoslavia.
The International War Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has clearly established that, for the first time in history, the organized, systematic rape of thousands of women was employed as an instrument of war, and that genocide was used to ``ethnically cleanse'' areas of conflict during the tragic conflict in ex-Yugoslavia.
Between 1991 and 1993, the United Nations Commission of Experts documented 800 victims of rape by name, 1,673 who were referred to but not named, and 500 cases of rape with an unspecified number of victims. The youngest documented victim was 5 years old, the oldest 81. The Commission also noted that, due to the social stigma of rape, investigation and documentation were difficult, and estimates are that up to 50,000 women in ex-Yugoslavia were systematically raped as part of a policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide. The use of rape as an instrument of genocide and ethnic cleansing, I believe, are war crimes of the highest order. Those responsible must be apprehended and tried.
Acting under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, the Security Council established the ad hoc International Tribunal in 1993 to prosecute violations of international law in the territories of the former Yugoslavia. This Tribunal was an innovation that renewed the hope that, after the many conflicts during the past half-century in which international law was routinely flouted and justice was denied to the victims of crimes against humanity, the legacy of Nuremberg would be fulfilled.
Instead, the Tribunal has been stymied by the international community's failure to arrest war criminals. Today only seven of the seventy-five indicted individuals are in custody. The Office of the Prosecutor continues to amass evidence, lead investigations, conduct searches, issue indictments, and hold in absentia hearings. But the failure of the international community to take action to arrest those indicted and bring them to trial in The Hague puts at risk not only the credibility and effort of the Tribunal, but the concept of international law and justice as well.
The failure of the international community to take actions, moreover, has not been caused by any difficulty in locating the indicted war criminals, or, even, in many cases, any potential danger in making arrests.
In fact, it is my understanding that the whereabouts of over 40 of the 68 unextradited indicted war criminals are well known. Let me present several examples:
The camp commanders of the Omarska concentration camp, where systematic rape of Bosnian women was a regular part of a campaign of oppression, were working openly last year in the local police force in Prijedor in Republika Srpska.
(Source: Coalition for International Justice (CIJ), Washington Post)
Zeljko Mejakic, the commander of the Omarska camp indicted for rape and crimes against humanity was the deputy commander of the Omarska police station for much of last year. (Source: Boston Globe)
Predrag Kostic, a camp guard at Omarska indicted for crimes against humanity, is frequently sighted at the ``Express'' restaurant in Prijedor (Source: CIJ, New York Times).
Radovan Karadzic, indicted for genocide following the Serb attack on Srebrenica and whose current home in Pale is well known, is building a house in Koljani (near Banja Luka) and, according to stories in the Associated Press, ``makes little effort to conceal his daily movements.'' (Source: Human Rights Watch, AP)
Stevan Todorovic, indicted for a series of atrocities, lives in Donja Slatina, a three-minute drive away from Camp Colt--a 1,000-troop, U.S.-manned SFOR base. To commute to his job with Bosnian state security, Todorovic drives past the base on a road regularly traveled by NATO patrols. (Source: Washington Post)
Drago Josipovic, indicted for his role in the execution of Muslim civilians, is a chemical engineer at the local Vitezit explosives factory and lives in his family house in the village of Santici. (Source: CIJ)
Radovan Stankovic, a member of the Serb paramilitary unit Pero Elez, and who was in charge of a detention facility where women were regularly raped, works as a policeman in northwest Bosnia. According to a story in Reuters, his whereabouts are well-known to the International Police Task Force and U.N. officials. (Source: Reuters)
Blagoje Simic, who has been indicted for failing to halt the torture and abuse of Muslim and Croat civilians, continues to serve as municipal president in Bosanski Samac. Simic was quoted in a Boston Globe article as saying, ``I'm not uncatchable. But I think that someone important still hasn't ordered those arrests to be done.'' Asked who that might be by the Globe reporter, Simic replied ``President Clinton.'' (Source: Boston Globe)
These are but a handful of the indicted war criminals who have been regularly seen by credible journalists, representatives of non- governmental organizations, and others throughout the former Yugoslavia. In fact, the U.S. State Department spokesperson commented on March 14 of this year that: ``There are a number of indicted war criminals who live in Croatia who have not been turned over to the War Crimes Tribunal. And there are certain individuals that we're watching very closely. We've told the Croatian government that we know who these people are. They've been named by the tribunal as indicted war criminals. We know where they live.''
It has become clear that neither Serb authorities within Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina nor Croat authorities in the Federation are meeting their obligations to hand over indicted war criminals--and that the United States is doing very little to force them to meet these obligations.
Regular reports about the whereabouts of several indicted war criminals indicate that many lead remarkably open lives. Last fall the Coalition for International Justice published a comprehensive report on the whereabouts, jobs, and everyday habits of 37 of the indicted war criminals. Earlier this year, Human Rights Watch/Helsinki issued a report documenting that many of the people running the towns, police forces and businesses of the Serbian portion of Bosnia are the same people who orchestrated the horrors of ethnic cleansing. In case you have not had the opportunity to see them, I have attached copies of both these reports.
The United States, unfortunately, must bear a large share of the blame for the fact that indicted war criminals remain at large in the former Yugoslavia.
In the letter to my office last October 10, you stated that
``IFOR will detain indicted war criminals and hand them over to the International Tribunal if they are encountered by IFOR personnel during the normal course of their duties and the tactical situation permits.'' (This mandate regarding war criminals, I understand, has been subsequently extended to SFOR.) Even if we rule out some of the reported war criminal sightings as false, it defies credulity to suggest that so many people in the former Yugoslavia except for SFOR have had regular contact with indicted war criminals.
The SFOR rules of engagement regarding war criminals appear to be interpreted so narrowly that it seems that an indicted war criminal would, in effect, have to actively seek out and surrender to SFOR if SFOR troops were to arrest them.
Indicted war criminals must be arrested and brought to trial if the Tribunal is to have meaning as the ultimate international arbiter of guilt or innocence in the commission of war crimes. If indicted war criminals are not brought to justice, the international community will have betrayed both the legacy of Nuremberg and the victims of the war that tore Yugoslavia apart. This failure will also set a dangerous precedent that will give encouragement to others elsewhere in the world who may consider the use of rape and genocide as tools of war.
In addition, it is my firm belief that the continued presence of indicted war criminals in former Yugoslavia will set the stage for the renewal of violence, bloodshed, and civil war when SFOR departs next year. We will have sacrificed all the gains of the Dayton process because we will have chosen to compromise with war criminals.
I once again call upon you to take an aggressive stand to see that the indicted war criminals are brought to justice. Specifically, I encourage you to:
Examine the feasibility of the United States and SFOR taking a more active role to apprehend indicted war criminals still at large as well as cooperating more closely with the United Nations, the International Civilian Police Task Force, and civilian authorities in the former Yugoslavia on this issue;
Investigate appropriate additional sanctions, which can be enforced either unilaterally or through the United Nations system for the Republika Srpska and Croatia, unless and until they cooperate fully with the Tribunal;
Explore the necessity of any additional U.S. assistance to the International War Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia; and,
Move quickly to implement the permanent international body with the power, authority, and resources to investigate, apprehend, and bring war criminals to trial that you spoke of earlier this year.
I would also appreciate your clarification of the SFOR rules of engagement for detaining war criminals.
Mr. President, you have been called upon to serve the United States at a time of great international change and uncertainty. Unless the United States takes a position of aggressive leadership on this issue in the international community, we run the risk that future historians will conclude that the lessons of current U.S. foreign policy are that crimes against humanity, genocide, and the use of rape as an instrument of war are acceptable--and that those who perpetrate these crimes can do so with impunity. Mr. President, I know that you share my belief that leaving such a legacy would be unacceptable.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts and plans on this very important matter.
Sincerely yours,
Dianne Feinstein,U.S. Senator.
____
The White House,
Washington, June 19, 1997.Hon. Dianne Feinstein,U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
Dear Dianne: Thank you for writing again regarding indicted war criminals in the former Yugoslavia. I continue to share your concerns. My foreign policy team is examining several options to assist and enhance the ability of the Tribunal to bring indicted war criminals into custody.
We are increasing pressure on the parties by linking multilateral and bilateral economic assistance to their compliance with their obligation under the Dayton Accords to turn over indicted war criminals. In addition, we have begun working with the UN and its International Police Task Force
(IPTF) in Bosnia to improve the performance of the IPTF in identifying indictees and their whereabouts.
We continue to work closely with the Tribunal, especially the Office of the Chief Prosecutor, by providing a wide range of assistance, including legal and investigative support. The United States also provides the Tribunal intelligence and information pursuant to Section 555 of the Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act of 1997. On May 2 we contributed $450,000 to the Tribunal's forensic exhumations program in the former Yugoslavia.
I have also nominated David Scheffer as Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues. If confirmed, Mr. Scheffer will coordinate our work in this area and focus on the tasks that are critical to the success of both the Yugoslav and Rwanda War Crimes Tribunals. Finally, knowing our mutual concern for this grave issue, I have asked Robert Gelbard, my Special Representative for Implementation of the Dayton Accords, to give you a confidential briefing as soon as possible on our specific plans to re-energize this critical component of the Dayton peace process.
Thanks again for your letter and your continuing support for our efforts to bring peace and justice to the people of the Balkans.
Sincerely,Bill.
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