MCDONALD REPORTS TO UN ON NON-COOPERATION BETWEEN FORMER YUGOSLAV STATES AND ICTY

ZAGREB/THE HAGUE, Nov 3 (Hina) - President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, on Tuesday forwarded a letter to the United Nations Council of Europe in which she pointed to insufficient cooperation between former Yugoslav countries and the ICTY. McDonald reported on Croatia's failure to recognise the Tribunal's jurisdiction over events relating to the operations of "Storm" and "Flash", and Croatia's failure to extradite Mladen Naletilic Tuta and Ivica Rajic. The Operations of "Storm" and "Flash" liberated the greatest part of Croatia's territory which was under the Serb occupation since 1991. McDonald reminded that her mandate expires on November 16, 1999, and once again she pointed to her reports about the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's, Croatia's, Bosnia-Herzegovina's, and the Bosnian Serb Entity's failure to cooperate with the ICTY. Those states and the entity have systematically undermine the work of the Tribunal. I implore you take the effective measures necessary to bring these States and entity back into the fold of the community of law-abiding nations, read McDonald's letter. She stressed that "the most frequently requested failure to arrest and transfer indicated individual concerns what have become known as the 'Vukovar Three'. These individuals, Mile Mrksic, Miroslav Radic, and Veselin Sljivancin, were indicated for the murder of 260 civilians and other unarmed men, following the fall of Vukovar in November 1991". "On the verge of the twenty-first century, it is simply unacceptable that territories have become safe-havens for individuals indicted for the most serious offences against humanity", McDonald said in the letter. She stressed that it must be made absolutely clear to such states that this behaviour was legally, as well as morally, wrong. (hina) it jn