| The Daily Star |
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| Exterior view of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon building, near The Hague, Netherlands, Friday Nov. 11, 2011. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong) |
BEIRUT: Money finally provided to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon this week will allow it to start “important” projects that had been delayed by Lebanon’s 11 month-long failure to come up with court funding, a spokesperson at The Hague said Thursday.
STL spokesperson Marten Youssef, in his first interview since Lebanon provided the tribunal with $32 million worth of 2011 funding Wednesday, told The Daily Star that while the money was welcome, it did not signal the end of Lebanon’s contribution to the court.
“This is a really positive sign and we are of course very pleased with [Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s] announcement [that Lebanon will fund the STL],” Youssef said. “Lebanon still has an ongoing obligation to the court. Funding is one part of that, providing security for judges and to search [for] and arrest accused individuals are others.”
The court has accused four Hezbollah members of carrying out the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Lebanon is required under U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 to provide 49 percent of the STL’s annual funding. Although the court maintained throughout the year that its operational ability had not been affected by the financing shortfall created by Lebanon’s refusal to pay up, Youssef disclosed that several projects had needed to be put on hold.
“The money [from Lebanon] will go toward our budget year in 2011 and there are some important projects that had to be put on hold to accommodate Lebanon’s failure to contribute so far,” he said. “Our work was continuing but they were important projects and now Lebanon has contributed we can get on with them.”
Youssef declined to specify exactly which projects would now be started. The court has survived on donations from other U.N. member states in lieu of a financial contribution from Beirut.
Given that Lebanon’s funding for 2011 finally came 11 months into the year, Youssef explained that whatever is not spent before Dec. 31 will transfer into the court’s budget for 2012.
“Lebanon’s contribution will always be 49 percent of our expenditure. If we had extra money, then what we received from other countries will obviously shift over to next year,” he said.
The STL’s mandate expires in March 2012, and there has been speculation in Beirut that the government may seek to amend or annul its cooperation agreement with the court.
Youssef said that the tribunal would continue its work with or without the support of Lebanon.
“We’ve made our position known to the [U.N.] Secretary-General [Ban Ki-moon] that we haven’t yet completed our mandate and it will be up for the secretary-general, in consultation with Lebanon’s government and Security Council to decide,” he said, adding, “We were definitely going on with our mandate. Eleven months have gone by [without Lebanese funding] and we have shown we can go on and that we have the support of the international community to continue.”
The STL has already compiled a draft 2012 budget that has been put to the court’s management committee, Youssef added.
“It will be subject to funding and subject to the extension of our mandate,” he said.
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