Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: Indicting the bad guys

Thursday, June 3, 1999 | 11:53 a.m.

THE INDICTMENT of Yugoslavia President Slobodan Milosevic and four of his pals for crimes against humanity certainly has pleased many people in the Western World. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague directed the indictment against the individuals and not the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It was a four-count indictment which included:

Count 1 -- Deportation, a crime against humanity, punishable under Article 5 (d) of the Statute of the Tribunal.

Count 2 -- Murder, a crime against humanity, punishable under Article 5 (a) of the Statute of the Tribunal.

Count 3 -- Murder, a violation of the laws or customs of war, punishable under Article 3 of the Statute of the Tribunal and recognized by Article 3 (1) (a) (murder) of the Geneva Conventions.

Count 4 -- Persecutions on political, racial and religious grounds, a crime against humanity, punishable under Article 5 (h) of the Statute of the Tribunal.

Some authorities question the wisdom of the timing of these indictments and serving of warrants for arrests. Will this make it more difficult to bring Milosevic to the bargaining table to settle the conflict over Kosovo? It sure doesn't make dealing with the head of state any easier.

Maybe the indictments will result in a little more cooperation from Croatia, which has refused to turn over some of its generals to the international court. All of the crimes against humanity weren't committed by the Serbs. Our friends in Croatia committed more than their share of brutal acts during Operation Storm. They now call it a "great struggle" that they will not allow the international court to question. So they will set the rules of law that Croatia wants to respect.

All of this brings to mind the actions of Iraq's Saddam Hussein, who directed the invasion and rape of Kuwait, a sovereign nation. Then there is the matter of testing weapons on the Kurds in his own country. Near Dahok, Iraq, the people showed me the fingernail marks made by Kurds being tortured in prison by Saddam's police.

As a member of a small foreign team in northern Iraq I participated in writing a document that in 1992 reported, "The world is continuing to uncover evidence of genocide, mass forced relocation, and political and physical repression perpetrated against the Kurds by the Iraqi army. Some delegation members visited newly discovered mass graves of some of the estimated 20,000 Kurds that were killed in the two years prior to the Gulf War. We viewed torture chambers and destroyed villages whose majority of male populations had been abducted by Iraqi forces 12 years ago and not heard from since. We saw razed villages and hospitals with depleted stocks of medicine full of amputees who had lost their limbs to land mines. We saw the strength and determination of the Kurdish people."

Of course, this isn't enough to indict Saddam as a war criminal. But there's much more evidence that came out of Iraq when I did. Ambassador Peter Galbraith, then a U.S. Senate staff member, and Andrew Whitley of Middle East Watch collected tons of pictures, videos and documents that connect Saddam with brutal atrocities against the Kurdish people in Iraq.

Upon leaving Iraq, my notes tell what happened to this material. "Two days later, I watched as four helicopters brought the evidence to Zakho and the following morning as I crossed the border into Turkey, the same choppers were winging their way toward a U.S. base in that country. The prior evening Whitley told me he was somewhat concerned about the safety of the documents because of political leaks letting Hussein know the documents were on their way out of his country. I smiled with satisfaction the next day because Whitely was aboard one of those choppers loaded with legal evidence needed to prosecute the Butcher of Baghdad."

That's the last I've seen or heard of the files and documents, which certainly must be enough to indict Saddam. Where has this material been kept? It's obvious that an international court hasn't seen it or been pushed by the U.S. to issue a criminal indictment of Saddam. If our country and the NATO nations want to have some credibility in the world they will insist that Croatia turns over its indicted military leaders. Yes, and we will turn over the evidence needed to indict and issue warrants for the arrest of Saddam Hussein.