10 Questions For Carla del Ponte

• Share

Carla del Ponte, the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, next week opens the prosecution of seven men suspected of the murder of some 8,000 Bosnian Muslim inhabitants of the town of Srebrenica in 1995. She met Time's Andrew Purvis at her offices in the Dutch city of the Hague and discussed the frustrations of her work, the hunt for Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic and the war in Iraq.

After 13 years, the U.N. war-crimes tribunal is nearing the end of its work. Has it been worth it? Definitely, yes. It is the first time that international justice has been implemented. Nobody in high, responsible positions had been charged under war-crimes conventions and treaties before. But if we look at the practical side, of course it is not so satisfactory. Victims feel that we are picking and choosing perpetrators.

Why is this new trial — concerning the massacre at Srebrenica — important? It was a genocide, one of the greatest crimes you can imagine, and it happened such a short time ago. Also, after the death of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic we have yet to hand out justice to the political and military criminals who planned, organized and executed this genocide.

What did you feel when Milosevic died? I was stupefied. I could not accept it. We were so near to the end of the trial. I was really very angry. All that we had done, four years' hard work, was finished. We lost the chance to illustrate the global picture of what really happened. Everything else is just a portion of what happened.

You say that Mladic is still in Serbia. How do you know? I have my own information. I have my own tracking team and information from [the government in] Belgrade.

So is the government in Belgrade hiding him, or are they just incompetent? Neither. I identified three times between the end of 2005 and the beginning of 2006 that Serbia could have arrested him and instead they sent him a message asking him to voluntarily surrender. They don't want to arrest him because they feel it could be politically damaging.

Critics in the Balkans say that your obsession with arresting these men is interfering with the political process there. I don't care about politics. I never have. And nobody should complain. These men have been at large 11 years. They should be arrested. My mandate finishes in September 2007. I think it's time to go. But I would like the world to know that I will stay until [former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan] Karadzic and Mladic are in the Hague. Let's get them!

Can international justice be seriously pursued without the support of the largest countries in the U.N. Security Council? The International Criminal Court (icc), which is the future of international justice, faces problems without the support of the U.S., China, Russia and others. But as you see, they are doing very well. If the icc can show that they can do the work and not become politicized, then the U.S. and other countries will have to participate.

As you contemplate the war unfolding in Iraq, do the war crimes of the Balkans seem less severe by comparison? I don't think so. It's not the numbers. It's the motivation. What is happening in Iraq is horrible but in some ways it is just a repetition of what happened in the Balkans.

Is there a role in Iraq for an international court? That should have been decided before they started the trial of Saddam Hussein. It's probably too late.

You are renowned for having a temper. What makes you angry? Injustice. Not criminal injustice — global injustice.