(Petaling Jaya, Thursday): The United Nations Security Council has averted an
immediate shutdown of the UN peacekeeping mission in Bosnia and which will
affect the other 14 UN peace-keeping missions when they come up for renewal of
their mandates over the United States demand for immunity for American
peacekeepers from the new war crimes tribunal when it extended the Bosnian
peace-keeping mission until July 15.
The Security Council has now more time to resolve the
crisis over the International Criminal Court (ICC) and UN peacekeeping missions
because of the unilateralist and irresponsible decision by
US President Bush.
The 14 other UN Security Council members
must stand firm against any compromises which distort the spirit and
letter the 1998 Rome Treaty to
establish the ICC
with jurisdiction to prosecute those responsible for genocide, crimes
against humanity and war crimes on or after July 1.
The US compromise proposals to put American peacekeepers
beyond the reach of the war crimes tribunal, as giving the Security Council’s
veto-wielding members - the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China —
the right to permanently block the ICC’s investigation or prosecution of
peacekeepers not only fly in the face of treaty law, illegally attempting to
amend the Rome statute, but also put at risk the whole system of UN peacekeeping
operations.
As the Foreign Minister, Datuk Syed Hamid Albar has in the
past four days
abdicated the country’s international responsibilities and commitments
to take a clear and strong stand against the
irresponsible US action to wreck the ICC and undermine UN peacekeeping
missions, DAP calls for the formation of a national coalition of political
parties and NGOs in Malaysia and a regional coalition in ASEAN to save and
protect the ICC, the world’s most important new institution for enforcing
human rights in 50 years to prevent future Hitlers and Pol Pots.
DAP proposes the convening of a roundtable conference of Malaysian political parties and NGOs to defend the ICC and UN peacekeeping missions to send a strongly-worded memorandum to the Bush and the UN Security Council before expiry of the July 15 deadline for the Bosnia peacekeeping mission.
(4/7/2002)