By SLOBODAN LEKIC (AP)
JAKARTA, Indonesia - The spotlight of international justice has shone on Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic to hold them accountable for alleged war crimes. But many are asking: What about Suharto in Indonesia, Gen. Augusto Pinochet in Chile and Charles Taylor of Liberia?
"The problem for any post-Suharto government is that it is difficult to bring him to trial ... because he is still backed and supported by the military, which itself participated in the killings of tens of thousands of people," said Munarman, head of the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation. Like Suharto, he goes by one name.
Critics say the case of Suharto and others like him highlight an inconsistency that lends credibility to charges that the trials in The Hague , Netherlands, and Iraq are "victors‘ justice."
But Suharto, 85, is among former leaders in the world who have managed to evade or delay an accounting for their alleged misdeeds.
There have been repeated attempts to try Pinochet, most of which failed after his attorneys argued he was too ill to stand trial. He is now free on bail after being charged in a tax-evasion case.
Liberia‘s new government had been urging Nigeria to extradite Taylor, a former president accused of causing tens of thousands of deaths during his nation‘s civil war and of supporting rebels in neighboring Sierra Leone.
Taylor, who escaped from a Boston jail in 1985 to launch Liberia‘s war, has been able to tap the West African nation‘s treasury even from exile, according to U.N. investigators.
The U.N. Security Council U.N. Security Council had expressed concern Taylor was using "misappropriated funds" to undermine his homeland‘s stability in the run-up to recent elections.
In Cambodia, meanwhile, no Khmer Rouge figure has stood trial for the death of an estimated 1.7 million people in 1975-79. Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in the jungle in 1998, and about a dozen top Khmer Rouge aides were to face a U.N.-assisted tribunal.
"Obviously the deterrent value would be much greater if they indicted all these people," Crouch said.
Suharto was an unknown two-star general in 1965 when he put down a still-unexplained military mutiny that he attributed to leftist officers. Suharto seized power and launched a purge in which an estimated half-million people — mostly communists, socialists, trade unionists and other leftists — were executed.
The leaders of Indonesia‘s fledgling democracy set out to try Suharto for corruption, gave up, and have never sought to bring him to justice.
Several dozen officers have been tried on charges of killing hundreds of civilians in East Timor and elsewhere during Suharto‘s time, but all were freed.
"If you can‘t convict a captain, how can you convict his president?" Crouch said.
"The problem for any post-Suharto government is that it is difficult to bring him to trial ... because he is still backed and supported by the military, which itself participated in the killings of tens of thousands of people," said Munarman, head of the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation. Like Suharto, he goes by one name.
Critics say the case of Suharto and others like him highlight an inconsistency that lends credibility to charges that the trials in The Hague , Netherlands, and Iraq are "victors‘ justice."
But Suharto, 85, is among former leaders in the world who have managed to evade or delay an accounting for their alleged misdeeds.
There have been repeated attempts to try Pinochet, most of which failed after his attorneys argued he was too ill to stand trial. He is now free on bail after being charged in a tax-evasion case.
Liberia‘s new government had been urging Nigeria to extradite Taylor, a former president accused of causing tens of thousands of deaths during his nation‘s civil war and of supporting rebels in neighboring Sierra Leone.
Taylor, who escaped from a Boston jail in 1985 to launch Liberia‘s war, has been able to tap the West African nation‘s treasury even from exile, according to U.N. investigators.
The U.N. Security Council U.N. Security Council had expressed concern Taylor was using "misappropriated funds" to undermine his homeland‘s stability in the run-up to recent elections.
In Cambodia, meanwhile, no Khmer Rouge figure has stood trial for the death of an estimated 1.7 million people in 1975-79. Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in the jungle in 1998, and about a dozen top Khmer Rouge aides were to face a U.N.-assisted tribunal.
"Obviously the deterrent value would be much greater if they indicted all these people," Crouch said.
Suharto was an unknown two-star general in 1965 when he put down a still-unexplained military mutiny that he attributed to leftist officers. Suharto seized power and launched a purge in which an estimated half-million people — mostly communists, socialists, trade unionists and other leftists — were executed.
The leaders of Indonesia‘s fledgling democracy set out to try Suharto for corruption, gave up, and have never sought to bring him to justice.
Several dozen officers have been tried on charges of killing hundreds of civilians in East Timor and elsewhere during Suharto‘s time, but all were freed.
"If you can‘t convict a captain, how can you convict his president?" Crouch said.
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