David Obey: “this amendment is a very straightforward amendment. It would simply raise to $50 million the limitation now in the bill…”

“this amendment is a very straightforward amendment. It would simply raise to $50 million the limitation now in the bill of $25 million on the amount of noncash support that we can provide for the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague. For those who are not familiar with it, the International War Crimes Tribunal is the first international tribunal for war crimes established since World War II. It has the responsibility for investigating and prosecuting individuals responsible for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia. The biggest obstacle, frankly, to the functioning of that tribunal has been a simple lack of funds. We seem to want to spend millions for all sorts of special investigations here at home and abroad, but the U.S. has only made modest contributions to the International War Crimes Tribunal. The victims of atrocities committed in the former Yugoslavia, it seems to me, deserve justice, and the war crimes tribunal is the best way to make war criminals answer for their crimes. Moreover, the best deterrent for those kinds of atrocities in the future is for the war crimes tribunal to try and convict these perpetrators now.”