BOSNIA: The UN police mission in Bosnia looked doomed yesterday as the Security Council remained deadlocked over a US demand to exempt peacekeepers from the new International Criminal Court, diplomats said.
"It is 14 against one," a European diplomat said, after another round of inconclusive consultations behind closed doors.
US diplomats emerging from the consultations repeated a threat made on Thursday by Ambassador John Negroponte to veto a renewal of the police-training mission in Bosnia (UNMIBH) before its mandate expires tomorrow.
The council scheduled further consultations late yesterday with experts from the UN departments of peacekeeping operations and legal affairs to assess the practical and legal fallout of scrapping UNMIBH.
In a report to the council on June 12th, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said the force of 1,536 police officers, three military and 1,747 civilian staff had played a crucial role in the fight against terrorism. Part of its job was to train the State Border Service (SBS), which controls 88 per cent of the borders of Bosnia and its three international airports and is due to control all its frontiers by September, Mr Annan noted.
Appealing to donors to make good a $5.7 million shortfall in funding, he said "delaying the timely deployment of the SBS will negatively affect the fight against illegal migration, organised crime and terrorism in Europe".
If the United States goes ahead with its threat, the legal consequences are likely to be greater than the practical ones, if only because UNMIBH is due to wrap at the end of the year. It will hand over on January 1st to a 500-strong police mission set up by the European Union.
In his report, Mr Annan recommended that the Security Council extend UNMIBH to December 31st, but draw down its authorised strength from 1,600 officers at present to 460 after the general election on October 5th.
By contrast, Amnesty International said if the Security Council gave in to US demands, "it would undermine the integrity of the international justice system". The decision, which the council makes this weekend, "could be the most significant decision made for the future of international justice", Amnesty said.
Diplomats said Mr Negroponte's deputy, Mr James Cunningham, repeated to council members yesterday that the US would not accept a second, short rollover of UNMIBH's mission to buy more time for negotiation.
On June 21st, the 15-member council extended UNMIBH for nine days instead of the usual six months.
- (AFP)