War-Crimes Court

Re “War-Crimes Court Makes a Case for Itself,” April 25:

Judge Gabrielle Kirk McDonald of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia is reported to say that conducting the tribunal’s first war crimes trial “was like building an airplane, and we didn’t know whether it would fly.” Then she claims that “it did fly, and it landed safely.”

There is no doubt about the tribunal’s taking off, but it is hard to see how the claim of “landing safely” can be justified while the planners and perpetrators of the most vicious crimes against humanity in Europe since World War II are still at large. Those arrested so far and brought to the Hague are the small fish. Only when the Dayton accords are fully implemented by bringing to justice the likes of Radovan Karadzic, Ratko Mladic, Zeljko Raznjatovic (Arkan) and Vojislav Seselj can we all say that “the plane has landed safely.”

SALAH EZZ

Cairo, Egypt