Global Policy Forum

By Christopher Wren

The United Nations is pressing ahead with arrangements for a special war crimes court in Sierra Leone that officials say will be leaner and less bureaucratic than the tribunals that were created to prosecute war criminals in the Balkans and Rwanda.

The United Nations signed an agreement with Sierra Leone two months ago creating a legal framework for trying a score of defendants accused of atrocities in the West African country's civil war.

Ralph Zacklin, the assistant secretary general for legal affairs, visited Sierra Leone from Jan. 7 to 19 to lay the groundwork. He said today that the new court could start operating in Sierra Leone by this fall and return its first indictments before the end of the year. Mr. Zacklin briefed the Security Council on the proposed court on Tuesday. Today, he discussed some of the details.

The new court, he said, would enlist judges and lawyers in Sierra Leone as well as prominent jurists from outside the country. Secretary General Kofi Annan would appoint a majority of judges; the Sierra Leonean government would select the other judges and the chief prosecutor.

The court in Sierra Leone would have a single trial chamber with three judges, two of them foreign. The appeals chamber would have five judges, three of them foreign. In a report last week to the Security Council, Mr. Annan said the United Nations mission in Sierra Leone, through its human rights section, was in a position to provide evidence of abuses to the prosecutor.

Three weeks ago, the Bush administration's war crimes ambassador, Pierre-Richard Prosper, criticized the tribunals for the Balkans and Rwanda, suggesting they were flawed by unprofessionalism and mismanagement. United Nations officials and other legal experts disputed Mr. Prosper's characterization.

The tribunals for Rwanda and the Balkans have annual budgets of $100 million. The Sierra Leone special court, with a smaller staff, would get only $60 million over three years, financed by 15 to 20 countries, including the United States, Britain and the Netherlands. "A lot of states are looking at the special court to see if this kind of court can work and if it can be leaner" than the other tribunals, Mr. Zacklin said.

He cited Cambodia, which has yet to bring to justice the Khmer Rouge officials who oversaw the killings of more than a million Cambodian civilians. "I have no doubt whatsoever that the Cambodians are looking at what is happening in Sierra Leone," Mr. Zacklin said.

The defendants in Sierra Leone would include the likes of Foday Sankoh, a former army sergeant who headed the Revolutionary United Front. His insurgent group inspired terror by hacking off limbs of thousands of civilians, raping women and forcing children to fight. Some former rebels contend that government soldiers also committed atrocities and should be brought to account. The court is deemed essential for Sierra Leone's return to relative normality. With elections planned for May 14, the government has lifted the state of emergency to allow campaigning by political parties.

The United Nations had 17,400 troops deployed in Sierra Leone as of Jan. 31, making it the largest peacekeeping mission. Mr. Annan asked the Security Council to extend the mission's mandate, which expires at the end of this month, until Sept. 30. The secretary general said in his report that more than 47,000 combatants in Sierra Leone have put aside their weapons.

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