Serious war crimes should be dealt with by permanent international criminal court, says Justice Richard Goldstone.

Q: The concept of an international criminal court for crimes against humanity, initially tested after the Second World War with the Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crimes Tribunals, has been recently revived with regard to the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. How effective do you think the whole idea is?

A: The experience of the two ad hoc tribunals is very relevant. And we all in The Hague and Kigali, in doing work for our tribunals and in judging how effective an international criminal court can be, feel that additional responsibility. But my own strong view is that the only sensible way to go is to have a permanent international criminal court, specifically and primarily to deal with war crimes, serious war crimes. Because if there is any way to begin to stop the commission of war crimes, which has been, unfortunately, more widespread since the Second World War than before it, then this is it. If there is no enforcement of international humanitarian law, people are going to ignore it. If any laws are not enforced, you might as well not have them. Another reason is that it is not satisfactory to have ad hoc courts. It's not fair to have a political body like the Security Council deciding in Yugoslavia we are going to enforce it, in Rwanda we are going to enforce it. What about other countries where there is similar contravention? And this is one of the main objections raised by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia with which I agree. It's a form of discrimination to decide that these international laws can only be applied in some countries and some areas, and not others.

Q: So, in the case of the former Yugoslavia, how effective is the tribunal, since so many people were indicted and quite a few of them arrested and actually put before the court?

A: It's a good week to answer this question, because our prison is going to be filling up in The Hague. Three arrests are placed this week, and we expect more next week. We've already got three people in The Hague, so we are soon going to have at least seven or eight people standing trial there. But since. Dayton, really, we are on a different threshold--a higher threshold of relevance and acceptance by the international community, by Governments, by the media and are now being taken seriously. I also have no doubt that if the Bosnian Serb leaders had not been indicted and if Mr. Karadzic and General Mladic were at the table, there would have been no Dayton agreement.

Q: But what are the prospects for the Bosnian Serb leaders to be arrested and put on trial?

A: It's more guess work, like looking into a crystal ball. All I can say is that prospects now are better than they ever have been. Because the more the international community puts them aside as pariahs, the more likely it is that they will be handed over, because they will become more of an embarrassment to their own people. No people in the modern world can afford to have leaders indicted as war criminals. Rightly, whether they are guilty or innocent, it's for the court to decide. But as long as they are under suspicion, under indictment, and recognizing that there is the presumption of innocence, I don't see how they can effectively lead any people.

Q: You have partly anticipated our next question regarding the determination of guilt. The Bosnian Serbs, their press and leaders claim they were actually defending their territory.

A: You know, for the crimes that we've charged, that's not a defence. You can't rape women and murder people in selfdefence, it's a contradiction in terms. You can't bus people out of Srebrenica and murder them in self-defence, it's just nonsense!

Q: Could you tell us, what is roughly the balance, in percentage terms, of crimes committed by Serbs, Croats and Muslims throughout the war?

A: You know, I really can't comment. We don't have all the facts. It's not a judgement, we don't weigh these things nicely and smoothly, it's not relevant in trial. We are looking into specific allegations, specific kinds of crimes. And I think it would be unhelpful and improper, and inappropriate to myself say that one side is more guilty than the other.

Q: In case those people are put on trial and their guilt is established, what might be the court's decision?

A: Well, the maximum penalty is life imprisonment in a country that offered its prison. There are now seven or eight such countries, mostly in Europe, like Germany, Italy and the Scandinavian countries, but also Iran and Pakistan.

Q: Now, turning to Rwanda, where the number of crimes has been still higher, what is the status of the Rwanda Tribunal?

A: We're making good progress now. We've got two highlevel people under indictment, who have been detained in Zambia. As soon as our cells are ready in the middle of next month, they will be transferred for trial to Arusha. We will soon be bringing out indictments against two people in detention in Belgium. The Cameroons have just detained a very high-level suspect--a former chef de cabinet of the former Government at the time of the massacres, of the killings. And we have just brought a (referral) further application, and will be indicting a Burgermeister (Mayor), against whom we have substantial evidence, who has been detained in Switzerland.

Q: In the case of both Tribunals, will only those people in a position of authority be brought to trial, or also soldiers in the field and other people?

A: We're only going for people in authority. We've only got two courts, so, we can only bring a few people to trial--not hundreds, let alone thousands. We've got to bring most appropriate people to the courts, and they're the most guilty people.

Q: The people in command?

A: People in political or military command.

Q: With regard to the establishment of a permanent international criminal court, what is its status?

A: Well, it's still at a state of being discussed in the United Nations and the International Law Commission. More and more support seems to be being given to it in many more countries than before. I think it's got a long way to go. It will have to be done by treaty, and treaty terms will have to be worked out; and then it will take presumably years before enough countries accept the treaty to make it a viable proposition.

Q: Perhaps, the most complicated issue in this regard is the balance between national sovereignty and international justice?

A: That's true. Obviously, to the extent that an international court has primacy, has the right to decide that it wants to try people, to that extent, it's an invasion of the sovereignty of sovereign States. But I would have thought, and I hope, that any decent Government, any decent people, any decent country would be only too willing to hand over for international justice people who commit crimes like genocide and crimes against humanity and against the Geneva Convention.

Q: And in cases where the country is still governed by those people, then the natural consequence will just be international isolation of that country.

A: Correct. Absolutely. And the world is getting smaller every month, and countries are more dependent on their neighbours.

Q: For how long do you think the two tribunals--on Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia--will last?

A: Rwanda is easier to deal with because the temporal jurisdiction of the Tribunal is 1994,--the calendar year. So, we're looking only at the events in a fit of three months--April to June 1994. The investigations will last, I would guess, in a region of another 18 months--two years, I would imagine, at the outside. The trials will go on maybe for a year, 18 months, a maximum of two years after. So, we're looking at three or four years still for Rwanda.

Yugoslavia, it's difficult to say. It depends really--and that's what happens in the former Yugoslavia--because our jurisdiction there opened on the first of January 1991 and is still open-ended. So, if there is still war and there are still more war crimes in the future and until the Security Council cuts off our temporal jurisdiction--and that won't happen until there's some sort of permanent peace-it could go for at least, I would think, four years after it's cut off.

Q: What new indictments are in the pipeline for Rwanda?

A: We've issued three indictments, ten people. But there are a number of people who have been detained and will be indicted--two in Belgium, one in Switzerland and possibly the one in Cameroon.

Q: There have been some discoveries of some mass graves in Rwanda, in Kibuye and elsewhere, as well as in Bosnia and Herzegovina. How are the dead speaking to the investigators?

A: Our interest in mass grave exhumation in Yugoslavia and Rwanda is for corroboration of eye witnesses. Mass graves in themselves do not prove who committed a crime, but will prove that crimes were committed, because forensically you can prove that people were shot in the back of the head, or killed as many were in Rwanda by machete.

To give you a hypothetical example, taking the former Yugoslavia, if we have eyewitnesses who say that a hundred people were seeking shelter at a school, and they were put into a bus and taken off kilometres away, and then lined up and shot and put into a mass grave, the exhumation can provide important corroboration, because you can find out that the people were shot the way the witnesses said--in the back of the head or whatever the case may be. Also, with DNA testing and other modern forensic methods, one can identify who they (the victims) were. One can find out from other witnesses that they were, in fact, at the school on the day in question. It helps to rebut a defense. Mr. Karadzic, for example, has been alleging that many of the mass graves are not of Muslims, but of Serbs from five or ten years ago. Now, by exhuming the graves, one can establish whether what he says is correct or what he's saying is incorrect. That's the importance from a legal point of view of the mass grave exhumations. We will only exhume graves that are relevant to existing indictments or existing investigations.

Q: Will the withdrawal of UNAMIR (UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda) have any effects on the investigation or prosecutions?

A: None. Obviously, we are going to miss the infrastructure that UNAMIR offered, but from a working point of view no difference at all.

Q: And not from a security point of view either?

A No, because I think we've agreed--and some of the things I've been talking about this week, I'm happy that different security measures will be taken, both by the United Nations and by the Rwandese Government. And I'm confident that that will meet the necessities of the day.

Q: Does the tribunal have its own investigation teams in the field ?

A: Right.

Q: There have been delays experienced by the Tribunal in becoming fully operational, but do you feel that those delays are now behind you?

A: No, we still have the frustration. In Yugoslavia, were more or less over that period. But (in Rwanda) we're still very much in the position of being very short staffed, and it's taking far too long to get people in UN positions. The bureaucratic machinery is just too slow to really deal with what is an urgent necessity of getting fully staffed.

Q: And the funding for the Rwanda Tribunal?

A. The funding isn't really the main problem. The main problem is getting the paper work, getting the people on the ground.

Q: Are they financed solely from the United Nations budget?

A: No. It's mainly the United Nations budget, but we also have the Voluntary Trust Fund for the Tribunals, where Governments pay in money over and above their normal contributions.

Q: You have visited Rwanda. From a personal point of view, how has it affected children and families?

A: Well, the amazing thing that struck me very much when I first visited Rwanda in December of 1994, and in the fairly large number of visits since then, is what a normal society it looks like. It looks like any other society. In fact, it reminds me very much of Swaziland, which I know very well--one of South Africa's neighbours. Similarly hilly, beautiful country, good looking people, happy people. And it really is amazing; it teaches one. It's the same in Yugoslavia. It was the same in Nazi Germany. Ordinary people are capable of doing terrible things, given the circumstances--given propaganda, given historical hatred, given fear.

The other comment I would like to make is that every time I go to Kigali, it's more and more normal. When I went there in December 1994, there were not many people in the streets. There were certainly no open-air bars. Men and women weren't sitting outside drinking beer. Now, you see that. When I first went there, you didn't see children going to and from school, laughing and playing. Now, you do. The society is clearly and visibly recovering.

Q: Your successor, Judge Louise Arbour of Canada, who will take over after October 1st, said that the creation of the two Tribunals would be a "milestone" in the history of international law. Do you agree with that statement?

A: Oh, yes. I've made similar statements myself since I've been on the job. Clearly, it's the first attempt to enforce international humanitarian law.

Q: A question on the personal side. Have you met Karadzic and Mladic?

A: Happily not.

Q: Have you been getting good cooperation from Rwanda's neighbouring Governments?

A: Yes. No Government thus far has refused to cooperate, and obviously countries like Zambia and now Cameroon and Belgium have been particularly helpful. We haven't really had cause to call on the other Governments, but I'm fairly optimistic they'll help us. Firstly, I think most Governments will want to help us, and even if some don't, it's in their self-interest to help and not be ostracized by the international community.

Q: How many suspects are in custody in the neighbouring countries?

A: Well, the ones we're interested in, we've either indicted or brought to application. It's a fairly small number.

Chronicle: Thank you very much.