US senator expresses "strong" support for ICTR

US Senator Russ Feingold expressed his "strong and continuing support" for the work of the International Criminal Tribunal (ICTR) for Rwanda during a visit to its seat in Arusha, Tanzania, on Tuesday.

"I have a more than theoretical interest in the work of this Tribunal and appreciate the impact of its profound judicial precedents in establishing a culture of accountability in Africa and the world as a whole," said the senator for Wisconsin and chairman of the Africa Sub-Committee of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Tribunal officials met by Feingold and the US ambassador to Tanzania, Robert Royall, emphasised the need for approval of a request made to the United Nations Security Council for additional judicial manpower for the Tribunal, the ICTR said in a press release. Eighteen additional judges have been requested in order to speed up the trials of the accused persons detained, following complaints about the duration of time proceedings were taking, as well as the expense involved.

In the case of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY), 27 additional judges were elected in 2001 for similar reasons.

The senator's sign of approval follows a statement made last week by the US Ambassador at Large for War Crimes, Pierre-Richard Prosper, saying the US was keen to see the work of both the ICTR and the ICTY coming to a successful conclusion by 2007 or 2008.

Internews quoted Prosper as saying that the process of creating "an end-game strategy" was not easy, especially when one considered "the legitimate question of what you do with the balance of the cases after the courts fold up".

"We will continue to encourage both tribunals to work as hard as they can, and as quickly as they can, without compromising justice, in order to move forward towards the closure we want to see," Internews quoted him as saying.

Referring to requests made to countries to hand over suspects being harboured by them, Prosper said the US was absolutely committed to using whatever influence it might have to encourage states to cooperate with the ICTR. "We want to do this because we recognise that the tribunal cannot move forward and move to a successful conclusion that we all want while the indictees remain at large."

He said the US would become "more aggressive" with regard to encouraging governments, including those in the Democratic Republic of Congo and European states, to turn over indictees, Internews reported.

Prosper said that in the coming months the US rewards programme for anyone with information about suspects indicted of genocide would also be more aggressively advertised, the agency added.
The US government currently offers up to US $5 million for information leading to the transfer to the ICTR, or conviction by the ICTR, of any individual indicted by the ICTR for his or her actions in Rwanda.

He reiterated US reservations about the establishment of an international criminal court being pushed for by international human rights organisations, saying that the US government wanted to "encourage states to exercise their responsibility and sovereign authority to pursue war criminals and pursue abuses whenever they occur".

"No matter what efforts international tribunals put forward, it is not the same as a community addressing the justice issue themselves," Internews quoted him as saying.

In 2001, the US donated US $20.2 million to the ICTR and $22.6 million to the ICTY. These figures are significantly higher than the $3.8 million and $9.1 million respectively in 1995. Asked if the US would consider withdrawing its funding for the tribunals, an official from the US Office of War Crimes Issues told IRIN that the answer was no. The US was the single largest donor, he said, and US policy was to support both tribunals' work to a successful conclusion.