UNITED NATIONS — The United States led a boycott
Wednesday of a controversial debate in the U.N. General Assembly about the role
of international criminal justice in reconciliation.
Some diplomats criticized the debate, saying it was
intended to disparage the Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal on the
former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and, by association, all other international
tribunals.
The meeting was the idea of the Vuk Jeremic, president
of the U.N. General Assembly. He is a former foreign minister of Serbia, and
some diplomats say has his eye on the presidency of his homeland.
In a statement, a U.S. spokesperson said American
diplomats would not take part in the debate which Washington feels was set up
to be “unbalanced" and "inflammatory."
The heads of all the international tribunals skipped
the event, as did Canada and Jordan.
Jordan’s U.N. ambassador, Prince Zeid Ra'ad Zeid Al
Hussein, told reporters he had hoped Jeremic would have shown greater sensitivity
in planning the meeting and consulted more with member states about it.
“When it became clear to us that there was a distinct
agenda to this meeting - a 'flavor' to it - it seemed to me the president of
the General Assembly was exploiting his position for a narrower aim, and that
was unacceptable to us," he said.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon made only a brief
appearance at the session, urging all nations to respect and support
international courts. Ban said no one should undermine the courts "for
reasons that have more to do with politics than justice."
Jeremic did not directly criticize The Hague Tribunal
in his opening remarks, but Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic did, for 40
minutes.
“We wonder what kind of impartialities [there are]
when there is a systematic atmosphere of 'lynch-mobbing' of everything that is
Serbian ... The influential Western media have created an image of a presumed
Serbian guilt," he said.
Speakers also included the Bosnian Serb president of
Bosnia and Herzegovina Nebojša Radmanović. At a side event, a controversial
retired Canadian General, Lewis MacKenzie, was expected to speak. He has
previously questioned whether a genocide took place at Srebrenica in 1995 when
nearly 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were massacred after Serb forces
captured the town.
Since it was established in 1993, The Hague Tribunal
has indicted 161 people for crimes, 15 of whom have been acquitted. Several
dozen suspects remain on trial.
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