Iraqi cities. We know that the general strategic bombing policyrnof the Allies in 1942-45 was to terrorize urban centers. However,rnit may be years before we are told of the estimate for civilianrndeaths, in Hanoi in 1972, in Baghdad in 1991, or in thernBosnian Serb Republic in 1995; and there will be no trials of thernculprits.rnCompared to the horrors of Afro-Asian postcolonial killingrnfields, the war in the Balkans can be seen for what it is: a medium-rnsized local conflict. Before any facile comparisons of Yugoslaviarnto the Holocaust are accepted at face value, it is legitimaternto ask how many have actually died. For PresidentrnClinton, addressing the nation on November 27, 1995, the easyrnanswer was 2 5 0,000—and that in Bosnia alone. For his DefensernSecretary, William Perry, two sets of figures seem to be equallyrnvalid. Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committeernon June 7, l995, he said that in 1992 “there were, by our best estimate,rnabout 130,000 civilian casualties In 1993, that numberrnwas reduced to about 12,000, and last year, 1994, the estimaternwas about 2,500.” But four months later, on October 18,rnhe told the House International Relations Committee thatrn”the war in Bosnia has been going on for more than three-anda-rnhalf years, with more than 200,000 people killed.”rnWas that latter figure based on anything but repetition?rnCounting bodies may be poor form (“even one death is one toornmany”), but it has to be done if we are not to abet the furtherrnexploitation of lies and distortions for political purposes. Accordingrnto the only serious study published on the subject sornfar, by George Kenney (“All Told, How Many People HavernDied in Bosnia,” New York Times Magazine, April 23, 1995),rnformer acting chief of tfie Yugoslav desk at the State Department,rn”Bosnia isn’t the Holocaust or Rwanda; it’s Lebanon.”rnKenney insists that the number of fatalities in Bosnia’s war isrnbetween 25,000 and 60,000 on all sides.rnThe “Bosnian Holocaust” story was fabricated by the Muslimrnside as part of a wide-ranging and effective PR campaign.rnIn December 1992, the Izetbegovic authorities first claimedrnthat there were 128,444 dead on the “Bosnian” side (includingrnCroats and “Serbs loyal to the Bosnian government”). Accordingrnto Kenney, this figure was cooked by adding together thern17,466 confirmed dead until that time,’and the 111,000 thatrnthe Muslims had already claimed as missing. He stresses that,rnat first, such high numbers were not accepted:rnBut on June 28, 1993—as near as 1 can pin it down—thernBosnian Deputy Minister of Information, Senada Kreso,rntold journalists that 200,000 had died. Knowing herrnfrom her service as my translator and guide around Sarajevo,rn1 believe that this was an outburst of naive zeal.rnNevertheless, the major newspapers and wire servicesrnquickly began using these numbers, unsourced and unsupported.rn. . . An inert press simply never bothered tornlearn the origins of the numbers it reported.rnEver since, Bosnian-Muslim propagandists have peddled thernstory of the “Bosnian Holocaust” without being seriously challenged.rnIn fact, after an initial bout of heavy fighting, fromrn1993 to mid-1995, there was a period of relative calm on mostrnfronts in Bosnia, interrupted by brief outbursts in isolated localitiesrn(Gorazde, Bihae). Stories of mass murder and atrocitiesrnare yet to be substantiated with anything better than aerial photosrnof freshly plowed fields. The Red Cross has been able tornconfirm under 20,000 deaths on all sides. Analysts at the CIArnand the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Researchrnput fatalities in the tens of thousands. This is close tornthe view of British military intelligence experts: a year ago theyrnesdmated fatalities to be 50,000 to 60,000. Even if the as yetrnunknown number of Serbs killed by NATO air power and therncombined Croat-Muslim offensive last September are included,rnthe war in Bosnia is unlikely to have resulted in more thanrn70,000 deaths. Including Croatia/Krajina, the Yugoslav wars ofrn1991-95 have killed up to, but not more than, 100,000 people.rnSo why the war crimes Tribunal? Mrs. Albright’s answer isrnthat “the U.S. Government does not believe that becausernsome war crimes may go unpunished, all must.” Needless tornsay, any determination of which ones should be punished—ifrnleft to the United States government—becomes not a legal,rnbut a political decision. Susan Woodward of the Brookings Institutionrnsays that the Tribunal was pushed largely by the UnitedrnStates for political reasons: “The accusations became a servantrnof American policy toward the conflict itself, whichrnrequired a conspiracy of silence about parties which were notrnconsidered aggressors.” The Muslims and Croats could thusrnget away with murder, literally and figuratively. The Serbs werernto be pilloried, and the “Tribunal” was needed to give due legitimacyrn—and legality—to that decision.rnThe U.N. Genocide Convention could not, in any case, providernthe basis for the Tribunal. It is an international treaty, approvedrnby the General Assembly and ratified by memberstates,rnwhich does not endow the U.N. with radical new powers.rnIn fact, the Security Council acted illegally in setting up thernTribunal: it had no authority to do so. (Boutros-Ghali himselfrndeclared that “in asking the Secretary-General to consider thisrnproject, the Security Council has given itself an entirely newrnmandate.”)rnThe formal basis invoked for the Tribunal, Chapter VII ofrnthe U.N. Charter, deals with “threats to the peace, breaches ofrnthe peace, and acts of aggression,” and to meet them it authorizesrnthe U.N. to deploy the armed forces of its member-statesrnin peacekeeping operations. It would take a very flexible legalrnmind indeed to interpret this as carte blanche to investigaternpeople, indict them, try them, find them guilty, and keep themrnin prison.rnInvocation of Article 29 in the resolution establishing the Tribunalrngives the game away: the Security Council may establishrnsuch subsidiary organs as it deems necessary for the performancernof its functions. This amounts to an admission that thernTribunal is not an independent court of law but a “subsidiaryrnorgan” of its political masters. But while the Tribunal remainsrnfundamentally subordinate to the Security Council, its statuternprovides it with primacy over national courts, including the authorityrnto demand the surrender of the accused. This is in clearrnviolation of the U.N. Charter, which insists that the U.N. mayrnnot usurp the sovereign rights of states.rnA dangerous precedent has been created, and it would bernshortsighted for the American public to overlook it. ICTFYrnmay yet prove to be a step toward the globalist dream of a permanentrnInternational Criminal Tribunal. But the sponsors ofrnICTFY—shortsightedly, perhaps—do not envisage “internationalrnpeace-keepers” patrolling America’s racially or ethnicallyrntroubled areas; they do not contemplate Somalese or Saudirnjudges, sitting on such a Tribunal, demanding extradition ofrnAmericans accused of “hate crimes” against, say, the Nation ofrnIslam.rn16/CHRONICLESrnrnrn