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TV PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT
LOCATION: abc.net.au > Lateline > Archives
URL: http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/s597036.htm

Broadcast: 3/7/2002

UN mission likely to leave Bosnia

Dr Nicholas White, the Balkans program director with the International Crisis
Group in Brussels, tells Tony Jones that if there's no compromise in the rift
between the US and its European allies, "the United Nations mission in Bosnia
will simply have to pack up its bags and leave".

---------
Compere: Tony Jones
Reporter: Tony Jones

TONY JONES: Joining us now to talk about what appears to be a
growing rift between the US and its European allies is Dr Nicholas
White, the Balkans program director at the International Crisis
Group in Brussels.

Nicholas White what happens if we don't get some kind of
compromise from the US in the next 48 hours?

DOCTOR NICHOLAS WHITE, THE INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP: What
seems likely to happen is the United Nations mission in Bosnia will
simply have to pack up its bags and leave.

There will therefore be no ordered transition between the existing
police force and the incoming European police force, which is due
to take over in January, and years of work will be simply have
been thrown away in a matter of days.

TONY JONES: How dangerous will that be, the Bosnian leadership is
clearly worried, they're talking about a vacuum being created
here, a power vacuum, particularly in small towns?

DOCTOR NICHOLAS WHITE: We have to bear in mind that the
context for this is there are crucial elections coming up in Bosnia
in October.

The current Bosnian government is a moderate Coalition that has
only been in power for two years.

The international community has invested huge amounts of
political and other resources into getting it in office to begin with
and then keeping it going.

Part of that is ensuring that local police forces don't fall under
the control of hard-liners and that means they will not then be
able to manipulate the elections at a local level when they come on
in October.

Now, without the international supervision that has been there,
local police officers are vulnerable to the control of the old
nationalists who will try and get back into power.

TONY JONES: Sorry to interrupt you, Nicholas, but it is a genuine
fear though, isn't it, because local police chiefs played quite a big
role during the civil war there?

DOCTOR NICHOLAS WHITE: That's absolutely right and that's why
the United Nations was there in the first place to try and remove
from office those who were implicated in atrocities and human
rights abuses during the civil war and they had got through most
of the police forces but they had not finished the job and there
are still old guard people hanging on particularly in the smaller
rural areas where it's easier to frighten people basically.

TONY JONES: Well, the US ambassador in Sarajevo is saying US
troops will remain in Bosnia and that they and SFOR will provide
peace and security.

They appear to be wiping out the possibility of that happening with
the UN force at all?

DOCTOR NICHOLAS WHITE: In fairness, SFOR apparently is under a
slightly different mandate and therefore it's not affected by this
current diplomatic wrangle.

And the police -- the UN police mission is simply a component of
the overall international mission in Bosnia, and certainly things
will continue without it.

But plans had been made based on its continuance for another six
months, not that it would be wound up now.

It is perhaps premature to forecast disaster but it certainly
wastes a great deal of the effort that had been put in to
reconstructing the Bosnian political system, not least by the
United States over the last seven years.

TONY JONES: What do row think the effect will be on the broader
peace process in Bosnia, and I'm thinking, for example, of the
return of refugees?

DOCTOR NICHOLAS WHITE: Well, of course the presence of a
responsible and well-behaved police force is crucial to the return
of refugees.

Many of the refugees fled in the first place because of
harassment by the police that had fallen under the control of one
nationalist faction or another during the civil war.

The return of refugees had been such a high priority of the entire
international community that it's very difficult to believe that the
US government has decided to shoot itself in the foot by removing
a key lever of control of ensuring that refugee return can
proceed relatively unhindered.

TONY JONES: What do you believe and what is the interpretation in
Europe, I guess, of this move by the United States?

Is it seen in Europe as a form of brinkmanship?

DOCTOR NICHOLAS WHITE: Yes, it is.

Europeans cannot really understand the reservations of the
United States with regards to the International Criminal Court in
the first place, in the unlikely scenario that one of the remaining
46 policemen in Bosnia were to be accused of a war crime.

If the United States had actually signed up to the treaty, then in
fact he could be tried in the United States before the
International Criminal Court would be able to assert its
jurisdiction because the way the court is set up is that if you are
a party to the court you can try your own citizens in accordance
with the court's rules.

So in a sense the American concerns about international
prosecutors running wild and seizing US troops to haul them off to
the dungeons of the Hague for trial by an unaccountable tribunal
-- it's rather exaggerated in the first place to the extent there is
any substance they would be much better advised to participate
within the court structures to try to ensure they have a handle on
the system.

TONY JONES: If the United States, though, does continue to insist
on this principle, isn't there a danger that they'll end up pulling
out their SFOR troops as well?

DOCTOR NICHOLAS WHITE: I don't think it's come to that yet.

The SFOR troops are under a different mandate and different
legal structure and they already enjoy immunity from anything
that happens in Bosnia, somewhat bizarre bad luck in the Bosnians
but that's the way it is.

So the present dispute isn't actually about them.

It's clear from what I hear from my sources in NATO that the
Americans have no intention of removing their peacekeeping
forces either from SFOR or from KFOR.

I think the implications are, however, in other parts of the world
where there are US peace keeping forces present.

The three personnel, I believe, they have in East Timor may well be
withdrawn.

Whether that makes much of a difference in East Timor or not
you're better placed to say than I am.

TONY JONES: How are they able to do that, separate out the SFOR
and NATO troops from any kind of vulnerability?

I thought the ICC's mandate stretched to any war crimes
committed by anybody?

NICHOLAS WHITE: Yeah, well there's a -- basically if countries
happen to derogate for a specific mission from that provision,
then they can do so, and that's a fairly standard -- in the case
where the troops have been invited, as it were, by the host
country -- and Bosnia has technically requested the presence of
the SFOR troops -- then they're allowed to impose certain
conditions as a condition of serving there, and it's an extension in
that logic that the Americans are trying to pull at the moment on
the UN mission in Bosnia.

They're attempting to assert that since they can do it for their
soldiers they should be able to do it for their police as well.

This isn't good enough for their allies in Europe, let alone for any
of the other participants around the table.

TONY JONES: Why not, though, because if the troops are not
covered by the ICC, why shouldn't peacekeepers have the same
advantage?

What's the problem, as far as Europe is concerned?

NICHOLAS WHITE: Well, the logic should really be the other way
around, shouldn't it?

In fact, one would want troops to be covered by the ICC under all
circumstances.

The NATO mission in to Bosnia dates from 1995, when these
concepts in international law were less well developed than they
are now, and indeed, of course, it's partly as a result of Bosnian
conflict that we have the ICC in the first place to create this
problem.

So I think what we'll see in the future is that future peacekeeping
missions will indeed be subject to the ICC.

However, when we say "subject to the ICC", we must, again,
recognise that the chances of the International Criminal Court
actually ever trying a peacekeeper from a Western nation who has
been serving in a developing country -- these chances must be
pretty slim.

It would require, first of all, serious evidence of an atrocity to
have taken place during a peacekeeping mission, which in itself
seems pretty improbable.

It would then require both the jurisdiction of the host country and
of the home country of the soldier to declare that they were
unable or unwilling to take on the trial, the political process.

So this is a rather fantastic set of circumstances that the United
States is attempting to protect its personnel against.

TONY JONES: It's not that improbable, though, is it?

I mean during the War Crimes Tribunal on Yugoslavia, there was an
investigation of the US cruise missile attack on the Belgrade TV
station.

Now, no charges, no indictments were laid there, but there was an
investigation.

Could you imagine the reaction in the United States if a US general
had been indicted?

NICHOLAS WHITE: Yeah, but in fact there was no case to answer,
and I'm sure you're aware as well as I am, that NATO was very,
very careful to investigate, and to make sure it had sound legal
basis for every single action that it took during that campaign.

In fact, there was an indictment that came out of that particular
instance.

Last week the director of the Serbian television was sentenced to
9.5 years in prison for not taking sufficient care of his staff and
keeping them there when he knew the building was going to be a
target.

So, in fact, it does work the other way around sometimes.

I would have thought that Western policy makers would be really
glad of the opportunity of transparency, to make sure that all of
their actions were not just said to be above board, but seen to be
above board.

I would have thought that must add, rather than take away from,
the value of what they're doing.

TONY JONES: That's clearly the position of Europe's leaders at the
moment.

Even the diplomatic language is starting to sound strained.

How big could this rift become?

I mean, it's clearly a complete ideological rift on whether
international bodies such as the UN should have power over US
citizens?

NICHOLAS WHITE: That's right.

I think what -- the worst I can see it becoming is simply that we
have a series of UN peacekeeping missions with no American
presence on the ground.

Now, in fact, if you look at the list of countries involved with UN
peacekeeping missions, you'll notice the Americans are not
massively huge contributors in the first place, so one could
almost say, "Who cares?"

I think we DO care, though.

It's a real shame to have the only remaining superpower in the
world not taking seriously its role as the world's policeman, and if
you're going to be the world's policeman, you have to play by the
world's rules.

TONY JONES: We'll have to leave it there.

Dr Nicholas White, thanks for joining us tonight on Lateline.