Complementarity: Contest or Collaboration? - FICHL

Complementarity and the Exercise of Universal Jurisdiction for
Core International Crimes
another 400 during mass demonstrations in September and October 2003,
especially in La Paz and El Alto following the signing of an agreement by
the government with US oil companies for the selling and exporting of
natural gas. The trial began on 18 May 2009, but only eight of the accused
were actually in court since de Lozada and several others were living
abroad. Bolivian law does not allow a trial to proceed if the accused are
not there, so Bolivia has requested the extradition of Lozada from the
United States. On 16 September 2008, President Evo Morales announced
the arrest of a provincial governor and political opponent on genocide
charges in connection with the deaths of several Morales supporters during
demonstrations a week earlier.
Former Mexican president Luis Echeverria Alvarez was accused of
having ordered the Mexican army to fire on a demonstration in Mexico
City on 2 October 1968 while he was Minister of the Interior. A federal
tribunal ruled on 12 July 2007 that the massacre, which left between 200
and 300 people dead, constituted genocide, aimed at exterminating a national
student group, but in the same ruling the charges against the president
were dismissed since there was no evidence linking him to the massacres.
In Paraguay, a judge ordered the extradition on 5 August 2009 of an
Argentine doctor, Norberto Atilio Bianco, on charges of child trafficking
and forced disappearances of children born in a military hospital during
his country‟s dictatorship.
A former Uruguayan military officer suspected of participating in
Argentina‟s “Dirty War” was extradited from Brazil to Argentina to face
charges on 23 January 2010. Major Juan Cordeiro Piacentini is accused of
participating in Operation Condor, a plan to oppress opposition during
Argentina‟s dictatorship in the 1970s, a period known as the “Dirty War”.
Specifically, Piacentini was charged with kidnapping related to the
snatching of a 10 year old boy in 1976.
2.4.3. Asia
In Asia, Indonesia established in 2000 the Ad Hoc Tribunal for East
Timor to deal with the same events as the special courts in East Timor. Of
the twelve indictments with charges of crimes against humanity involving
FICHL Publication Series No. 7 (2010) – page 40