After the heaviest night of bombing since Operation Allied Force began, the US State Department yesterday rejected criticism by Mrs Mary Robinson, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights of NATO bombing in Yugoslavia.
The former President of Ireland also pointed out that NATO officials as well as members of the Serb forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army could "come under scrutiny if it appears that serious violations of international humanitarian law have occurred".
A State Department official told The Irish Times that there is a "huge distinction" between the actions of President Milosevic and his forces against Albanian Kosovans and the incidents where civilians have been killed by NATO air strikes.
Ms Robinson made her criticism in her final speech at the end of the annual Commission on Human Rights in Geneva in which she also denounced "a pattern of ethnic cleansing" by Serb forces in Kosovo.
In her speech, Mrs Robinson urged NATO to adhere to "the principle of proportionality" and to "weigh the consequences" of its bombing campaign on Yugoslav civilians. Yugoslav officials had told her that more than 500 civilians had been killed and 4,000 injured during the strikes which began over a month ago.
Referring to the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY), she said that "under the Tribunal's statute, the prosecutor may investigate war crimes committed by any of the parties to the armed conflict." The State Department official said NATO had recognised its responsibility for incidents involving the deaths of civilians but "we do not accept any effort to equate those isolated, accidental incidents with a large-scale, carefully planned and as yet unacknowledged actions by the Yugoslav military and special police in Kosovo."
When Mrs Robinson was asked at her news conference whether she believed NATO generals should be indicted, she replied: "No, I have not made any assessment or judgement in that regard."
Mrs Robinson said she would begin a 12-day trip to the Balkans tomorrow and would be meeting President Milosevic. Meanwhile, in Moscow, President Nelson Mandela of South Africa yesterday called for a meeting between Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin to discuss a settlement to the Balkans crisis. At a press conference in Moscow to end his state visit to Russia, Mr Mandela said it was his view that the two leaders must meet. "I feel this point of view is shared by President Yeltsin," Mr Mandela said.
Reuters adds: The US yesterday rejected new Yugoslavian conditions for resolving the Kosovo conflict, saying they fell short of NATO demands for ending its air war.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright spoke after Yugoslavia's Foreign Ministry spokesman Mr Bebojsa Vujovic backed away from an earlier statement at a Belgrade news conference that Yugoslavia would accept an armed international peacekeeping force in Kosovo if it was supported by the UN Security Council.
Vujovic told CNN television after the news conference that any peacekeepers must be unarmed.