International War Crimes Tribunal (Hansard, 7 February 1996)

§ 17. Dr. Godman
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the progress of the work of the international war crimes tribunal for the former Republic of Yugoslavia. [12359]

§ Sir Nicholas Bonsor
As my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary has told the House, 45 Serbs and seven Croats have been indicted so far. The first trial 329 of the war crimes tribunal will take place against Dusko Tadic, a guard in the Omarska prisoner of war camp, and has been set for 18 March.

§ Dr. Godman
Will the Minister confirm that under the terms of the Dayton agreement, all parties will have to co-operate with the tribunal? What if the parties refuse to honour those obligations? Can the Minister say, for example, that sanctions will be imposed against states that give refuge to criminals who have been indicted for crimes in the former republic?

§ Sir Nicholas Bonsor
As the hon. Gentleman rightly said, all states have a duty to co-operate fully with the war crimes tribunal and to deliver to it the people whom it has indicted. I cannot tell the hon. Gentleman what sanctions, if any, the international community will impose should states refuse to do so; that would have to be extremely carefully considered. It is of great importance that the war crimes tribunal is properly supported by all countries.

§ Mr. Jacques Arnold
What are the prospects that the really big fish—Mladic and Karadzic—will be brought before the tribunal?

§ Sir Nicholas Bonsor
It is extremely important that everybody concerned is prepared to honour the duty that each state must deliver to justice those indicted by the war crimes tribunal. Those gentlemen have been so indicted, and they must be delivered for trial.

Mr. John D. Taylor
Does the Minister agree that the Dayton peace conference seems to have failed to address properly the problem of war crimes in Bosnia? Does he agree that those who sponsored the peace conference specifically excluded the Bosnian Serb paramilitaries and their elected spokesmen? Will he confirm that Her Majesty's Government supported that exclusion? Will he also confirm that the exclusion was also agreed by European Union Foreign Ministers, who met in co-operation, and that one of the Ministers who supported the exclusion of the paramilitaries and their elected spokesmen was Mr. Richard Spring, Foreign Minister of the Republic of Ireland?

§ Sir Nicholas Bonsor
I am not aware that anybody was excluded under the Dayton agreement who should have been indicted by the war crimes tribunal. If what the hon. Gentleman says is true, I think that the exclusion should be reviewed. However, I am not aware that that is the case. As I said to the House earlier, those who have committed war crimes and those who have been indicted by the tribunal must be brought to justice.