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afrol News, 3 January - Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, has approved the creation of a special court that is to try persons accused of war crimes in Sierra Leone. The approval comes despite a massive lack of funding. In a letter to the President of the UN Security Council released today, Mr. Annan says that having been persuaded of the political will of countries and their commitment to the success and continued viability of the court, he has authorized a UN planning mission to travel next week to Freetown to discuss with the government of Sierra Leone the practical arrangements for the establishment and operation of the court. The mission, scheduled for 7 to 18 January, will be led by the Office of Legal Affairs of the UN Secretariat and include experts in all aspects of the operation of the court and representatives of the members of the Management Committee. According to the letter, the UN Security Council and the UN Secretariat have an understanding that setting up the Special Court for Sierra Leone would begin only after enough contributions were in hand to finance the establishment of the Court and 12 months of its operation, and that pledges had been received equal to the anticipated expenses of the following 24 months. As of 30 November, the UN Secretariat had received US$ 14.8 million in contributions for the first year - a shortfall of US$ 1.4 million - and pledges of US$ 13.0 million and US$ 7.4 million for the two subsequent years - approximately US$ 19.6 million less than what will be needed to run the court. - Having authorized the commencement of the operation of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, I wish nevertheless to reiterate the concerns expressed in my previous communications to the Council regarding the difficulties inherent in securing funds on the basis of voluntary contributions for an operation which engages the services of a great number of Sierra Leonean and international personnel, Mr. Annan writes. He adds that he reserved the right to ask the Council to consider funding any continued shortfall through assessed contributions or other means. The UN Secretary-General expects the government of Sierra Leone and the UN Secretariat to sign an agreement on the temporal jurisdiction of the tribunal at the end of the mission, thus establishing the legal framework for the establishment and operation of the Court. The Special Court has been discussed since year 2000. The controversial question has been whom to try before the court. In December 2000, the UN reached the conclusion that the court "should target top leaders only," both for reasons of funding and the difficulties of treating with the vast number of child soldiers, many of whom having committed terrible war crimes.
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