[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 75 (Monday, May 24, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Page S5870]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 SENATE RESOLUTION 105--EXPRESSING THE SENSE OF THE SENATE RELATING TO 
         CONSIDERATION OF SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC AS A WAR CRIMINAL

  Mr. DORGAN (for himself, Mrs. Feinstein, and Mr. Specter) submitted 
the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on 
Foreign Relations:

                              S. Res. 105

       Whereas the International Criminal Tribunal for the former 
     Yugoslavia (in this resolution referred to as the 
     ``International Criminal Tribunal'') has not sought 
     indictment of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic for war 
     crimes committed by Yugoslav and Serbian military and 
     paramilitary forces in Bosnia;
       Whereas Serbian military and paramilitary forces have 
     undertaken a massive ethnic cleansing campaign that has 
     displaced more than one million Kosovar Albanians;
       Whereas Serbian military and paramilitary forces have 
     conducted a systematic effort to strip Kosovar Albanians of 
     their identity by confiscating passports, birth certificates, 
     employment records, driver's licenses, and other documents of 
     identification;
       Whereas the International Criminal Tribunal has collected 
     evidence of summary executions, mass detentions, torture, 
     rape, beatings, and other war crimes;
       Whereas in 1992, the then-Secretary of State Lawrence 
     Eagleburger identified Slobodan Milosevic as a war criminal;
       Whereas the statute governing the International Criminal 
     Tribunal requires that the office of the prosecutor need only 
     determine that a prima facie case exists in order to seek 
     indictment;
       Whereas the House of Representatives and the Senate have 
     previously passed resolutions condemning Serbian police 
     actions in Kosovo and calling for Yugoslav leader Slobodan 
     Milosevic to be indicted for war crimes;
       Whereas the Administration has made no public attempt to 
     urge the International Criminal Tribunal to seek an 
     indictment against Slobodan Milosevic, despite the necessity 
     of NATO air strikes to respond to his campaign of genocide: 
     Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved,

     SECTION 1. SENSE OF SENATE.

       It is the sense of the Senate that the President should--
       (1) publicly declare, as a matter of United States policy, 
     that the United States considers Slobodan Milosevic to be a 
     war criminal; and
       (2) urge the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal 
     Tribunal to seek immediately an indictment of Slobodan 
     Milosevic for war crimes and to prosecute him to the fullest 
     extent of international law.

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am today submitting a resolution that 
will express the sense of the Senate that Slobodan Milosevic should be 
tried as a war criminal. My colleague, Senator Specter, and others, 
have also talked about this at some length on the floor of the Senate 
in recent months.
  It is important, given where we are with the airstrikes in Kosovo, to 
think through this question about Slobodan Milosevic and why we are 
involved in an air campaign in that part of the world.
  These are gruesome pictures, and I will only put one of these photos 
on the easel. But all of these people have names and have lives and 
have the human suffering that is visited upon them by Slobodan 
Milosevic. One million to 1.5 million people have been evicted from 
their homes and communities. Homes have been burned, and innocent 
civilians have been raped and beaten. Thousands have been massacred, 
and thousands more have been packed into train cars, reminiscent of the 
Jews who were hauled to the ovens by the Nazis in the 1940s.
  This country and our allies decided we do not want history to record 
us as saying it doesn't matter. There is a moral imperative for us, 
where we can, when we can to take steps to stop ethnic cleansing, to 
stop the genocide, to stop someone like Slobodan Milosevic. So we 
commenced the airstrikes.
  The very purpose of those airstrikes is underlined by the 
understanding that Mr. Milosevic is committing horrible war crimes 
against these ethnic Albanians. They have been driven from their 
homeland and subjected to rape, torture, and genocide at the hands of 
the troops commanded by Mr. Milosevic.
  The question for these children and these innocent victims is: Shall 
we, as a country, push to have Mr. Milosevic tried in the International 
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia?
  The Tribunal exists for a very specific purpose. Should this country 
not be pressing very aggressively to have this leader, Mr. Milosevic, 
indicted and convicted of war crimes?
  We made a mistake, in my judgment, with respect to Iraq. Saddam 
Hussein was never tried for war crimes. He committed many. He is one of 
the few leaders in the world who has murdered people in his own 
homeland with weapons of mass destruction, but we did not press for his 
conviction in an international tribunal. So now, instead of being a 
convicted war criminal, Saddam Hussein is still in power.
  I understand that perhaps we would not have been able to arrest him, 
but at least in absentia evidence could be presented to say that this 
is a war criminal.
  This monster, Slobodan Milosevic, and the despicable acts committed 
in his name by his troops, ought to persuade our country to support his 
indictment and conviction in the International Tribunal, which exists 
for that purpose.
  Why would we not do that? I am told that, at some point there has to 
be a settlement to end this war, and those who are involved in the 
settlement do not want to be negotiating with a convicted war criminal. 
That doesn't make any sense to me. The very reason for launching the 
airstrikes was that this person and the troops under his leadership was 
committing unspeakable horrors against the ethnic Albanians, which, in 
my judgment, brands him a war criminal.
  In fact, former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, who has a 
long and distinguished career, said in 1992 that Mr. Milosevic was a 
war criminal. And it is now 1999. Thousands have lost their lives; a 
million to a million and a half people have been driven from their 
homes; and the human misery visited on innocent men, women, and 
children by this leader, Slobodan Milosevic, ought to persuade this 
country immediately to press for his indictment and conviction--
immediately--not tomorrow, not next week, now.
  This country has an obligation to do that with our NATO allies.
  I am submitting another resolution today, and the resolution is very 
simple.
  It says:

       It is the sense of the Senate that the President should 
     publicly declare as a matter of United States policy that the 
     United States considers Slobodan Milosevic to be a war 
     criminal. And we urge the chief prosecutor of the 
     International Criminal Tribunal to seek immediately an 
     indictment of Slobodan Milosevic for war crimes and to 
     prosecute him to the fullest extent of international law.

  We have a responsibility to do this. The failure to do this, and a 
resulting negotiated settlement at some point down the line that would 
leave Slobodan Milosevic in power, would be, in my judgment, a tragic 
mistake. In or out of power, this leader ought to be branded a war 
criminal. Whether we apprehend him or not, he ought to be indicted and 
tried, in absentia, if necessary, with all of the evidence, including 
the graphic pictorial evidence and all of the statements that have been 
made by the folks who are pouring into these refugee camps.
  I am not going to describe those statements, but last Wednesday the 
State Department released a tape verifying many of those statements. It 
brings tears to your eyes instantly to understand the unspeakable 
horrors that have been visited upon these people.

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