Del Ponte condemns Yugoslav stand

By Robin Oakley, CNN.com Europe political editor

DAVOS, Switzerland (CNN) -- The chief prosecutor for the U.N. tribunals on Bosnia and Rwanda has condemned Yugoslavia's refusal to allow ex-President Milosevic to be tried in The Hague.

Carla Del Ponte said the reasons Belgrade gave, referring to the NATO bombings in the Kosovo war and insisting that Serbs were only victims, were "a great deception."

"If the international community does not follow its words with actions future dictators will both be able to run and to hide," she said, referring to the Milosevic case.

Del Ponte, who was speaking at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, said there must be "real efforts" to arrest those alleged to have committed serious violations of international law.

"If we lose our nerve now it may take centuries to recover and to assert the rule of law over the rule of violence."

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The U.N. prosecutor also backed the case for international courts to be able to prosecute cases of corruption as well as genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, saying that corruption was the "big new danger" to society.

But Del Ponte resisted calls from Pierre Sane, Secretary-General of Amnesty International, for the tribunals to investigate whether NATO had committed war crimes by bombing the studios of Radio Television Serbia, and bridges carrying trainloads of civilians during the Kosovo war.

She said that compared with the "thousands of bodies" exhumed in Bosnia for which Karadzic, Mladic and Milosevic must be put on trial, the allegations against NATO were "not my priority."

Sane said investigation of the claims against NATO was essential if The Hague tribunals were to be seen as impartial.

In a debate which brought fierce if civilised controversy to the Swiss meeting of business leaders and politicians, Republican Senator Orrin G. Hatch from Minnesota predicted that the U.S. would never ratify the proposed International Criminal Court which was backed last year by President Clinton.

So far 139 countries have backed the plan but only 27 have ratified the court and 60 ratifications are needed for it to come into existence.

Senator Hatch said the U.S. would not accept encroachments on its sovereignty, especially when it meant giving powers to prosecutors accountable to no one.

If it did become subject to an International Criminal Court covering issues like war crimes, then America would have to reconsider its international commitments. "The world would become a more dangerous place."

Hatch, chairman of the Senate Justice Committee, declared: "The U.S. would not want an international tribunal trying a U.S. president for making a decision that may have saved hundreds of American lives."

He added: "We do not like war crimes but nor do we like subjecting Americans to decisions of judges appointed by 139 nations many of whom may not like America."