The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, the House takes a hike on Kosovo-- leaders J.C. Watts and David Bonior sort through the reasons and the impact; Phil Ponce talks to the International War Crimes Tribunal's chief prosecutor; Betty Ann Bowser and Elizabeth Farnsworth look at the Internet's role in the Colorado school shootings; and on this 100th anniversary of Duke Ellington's birth, we close with some of his music. It all follows our summary of the news this Thursday.

FOCUS - CAMPAIGN FOR KOSOVO

JIM LEHRER: Congressional leaders exchanged harsh words today over what the House did last night on Kosovo. In a surprising tie vote, it turned down a resolution endorsing American involvement in the NATO air offensive. We'll have more on that story right after this News Summary. In the real war, NATO forces struck Montenegro and, accidentally, Bulgaria. Tom Bearden has our summary report.

TOM BEARDEN: NATO struck hard at the military airport in the Montenegrin capital of Podgorica early this morning. NATO said it destroyed hangars, petroleum facilities, and several attack aircraft on the ground. The city hospital said one woman died and three civilians were injured in the attack. Montenegro is a tiny Yugoslavian republic with a democratically-elected government that has been trying to walk a fine line between Serbia and the West. NATO has avoided attacks for the last two weeks, hoping to keep the populace behind the government's neutral stance. But NATO Spokesman General Giuseppe Marani said there were military reasons for striking the airport now.

GENERAL GIUSEPPE MARANI: Aircraft driven from their main bases by NATO attacks are using the airfield as a dispersal base. As previously stressed many times, there shall be no sanctuary for forces engaged in and supporting the ongoing aggression in Kosovo.

TOM BEARDEN: Mirani also said an AGM-88 HARM, or High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile, had accidentally fallen in Bulgaria, which borders southeastern Yugoslavia. NATO said an F-16 fired the missile at a Serbian surface-to-air battery's radar system after it had locked onto the plane. A house was damaged, but no one was injured. Warplanes again attacked the oil refinery at Novi Sad as part of a continuing campaign to deprive Yugoslav forces of fuel and lubricants. NATO Spokesman Jamie Shea said the strategy was working.

JAMIE SHEA: I saw today that Belgrade is now rationing each car on the streets of Yugoslavia to 20 liters a month, down from 40 liters a month, as the army has to raid, if you like, the petroleum piggy bank of the country's citizens to continue to fuel its own activities. And you can't go very far, as you know, on 20 liters a month. So I think it's a sign that things are beginning to hit home.

TOM BEARDEN: Shea announced that 15 countries had volunteered to join the NATO-sponsored oil embargo against Yugoslavia, and said he hoped other countries would also join. In Washington this afternoon, Defense Secretary William Cohen said the US would send ten additional B-52 bombers to intensify the air campaign.

WILLIAM COHEN: We will start to attack during -- from more hours, more targets, and from more directions. And we intend to take advantage of pressing this campaign forward with the full support of our allies, in addition to moving forward on the interdiction of fuel supplies.

TOM BEARDEN: On Macedonia's border with Kosovo, relief workers continued to struggle to find room for a new surge of refugees. They're opening new camps, but are not keeping up with the flood of people.

RON REDMOND, UNHCR Spokesman: By tonight, we could have 6,000/7,000 people in this camp. The initial stage of it is supposed to hold about 5,000 people and was not supposed to be open until tomorrow, so in effect, this camp is going to be full before it was even supposed to be officially opened.

TOM BEARDEN: The UN Relief Agency appealed to the international community to cut down on bureaucracy and speed up evacuations from the camps, which they say are three to four times beyond capacity.

ASKIR TAHIRI, Kosovar Refugee: Every tent is overcrowded. And you can see all day in the street people walking because they really don't have anywhere to stay. It's too much people in here.

TOM BEARDEN: And relief workers had a new problem to deal with. Ethnic Albanian refugees are arriving with wounds suffered when they strayed into minefields lining the shepherd paths and trails they're using to flee the embattled province. On the diplomatic front, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan met with Russian President Boris Yeltsin in Moscow this morning. They pledged to work together for a solution to the crisis.

KOFI ANNAN: As the conflict escalates and spreads, so does the humanitarian tragedy. And we need to work as fast as we can to find a political solution. And I hope that the leaders in Belgrade and President Milosevic will respond to the concerns of the international community and we can work to find a solution.

TOM BEARDEN: But the adversaries appear to be far apart. Yeltsin said NATO would have to stop the bombing before negotiations could begin, something NATO has consistently refused to do. The Serbian deputy premier reiterated today that no foreign troops could be part of a post- bombing peacekeeping force, another point NATO insists upon. Troops started unloading tanks and other armored vehicles in Greece today. They're bound for Macedonia, where they will train in preparation for possible deployment in Kosovo. In Belgrade, the Milosevic government announced it had filed suit against ten NATO member nations in the International Court of Justice -- the UN's highest judicial body. The suit claims the bombing campaign violates international law, and asks the court to order it stopped. Presidential Spokesman Joe Lockhart:

JOE LOCKHART: Let me just say that it's one of the latest examples of an absurd concept to try to divert attention from the real issue. The real issue is the atrocious acts of violence and brutality against Kosovar Albanians who have been forced from their homes, who have had their towns burned, sacked.

TOM BEARDEN: The Reverend Jesse Jackson and a delegation of religious leaders arrived in the Balkans, en route to a meeting with President Milosevic. Jackson hopes to win the release of three American POW's, and hopes the visit will start a peace process. The Clinton administration does not sanction the trip.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: We'll have more on Kosovo later in the program tonight. On the Colorado school shooting, Attorney General Janet Reno said punishment is not enough to prevent school violence. She said young people must be given tools to cope in violent and dangerous times. In Littleton, the last funeral was held for a victim of the attack. Spencer Michels in Denver has our report.

SPENCER MICHELS: Nearly 5,000 mourners gathered in the Heritage Christian Center in Aurora, just East of Denver today, for the funeral of the only African American killed in last week's massacre. 18-year-old Isaiah Shoels was shot in the head, execution-style, for what witnesses said were racial reasons. A talented athlete, he was the only black in the graduating class at Columbine High School near Littleton.

SPOKESMAN: You know, Isaiah never gave up the fight.

SPENCER MICHELS: This was the final funeral for the thirteen victims of the attack by two fellow students at the high school. At Columbine, where a small memorial specifically to Shoels sits beside a school fence, investigators said they have more than 600 leads in Colorado's largest-ever criminal probe. They focused today on how the gunmen obtained a nine-millimeter semiautomatic pistol, a Tec-DC9, one of four guns used in the shooting. Federal agents visited this pizza shop near the school where they suspect someone who worked here helped Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, also employees, get the pistol. Sheriff Spokesman Steve Davis was asked why the gunmen's parents had not been interviewed.

STEVE DAVIS, Jefferson County Sheriff's Department: They were represented by counsel now. That is certainly between their attorneys and our investigators.

SPENCER MICHELS: School officials in several states plus Canada and Great Britain reported incidents that authorities say appeared to be so-called copycat crimes based on the Colorado massacre. The worst one happened in Alberta, Canada, where police say a former ninth-grade student opened fire during a lunch-time break and shot two students, one of whom died. The suspect was described as an unpopular teenager with a grudge. In Brooklyn, New York, five 13-year-old boys were charged with conspiracy for drawing up a hit list and plotting to bomb their junior high school. These honor students reportedly downloaded pipe bomb information from the Internet. In Colorado, despite rain, people continued to visit the makeshift memorials put up around Columbine High School. School officials are trying to find a way to preserve some of this spontaneous outpouring of emotion as a permanent monument to the students and teachers who died here.

JIM LEHRER: We'll look at the role of the Internet in the Littleton shooting later in the program tonight. Teen pregnancy fell 17 percent in the 1990's to the lowest level since 1973, according to two reports released today. They said more effective birth control, fear of AIDS, and a focus on abstaining caused it. Teenage abortion rates were also down. The studies were by the US Department of Health and Human Services, and the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a private research group. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to: The House bows out on the NATO air campaign, prosecuting war criminals, evil uses of the Internet, and some 100th birthday music from Duke Ellington.

UPDATE - WAR OF WORDS

JIM LEHRER: The House and the war over Kosovo. Kwame Holman begins.

KWAME HOLMAN: This afternoon, the House Appropriations Committee approved more than $11 billion in emergency money to fund U.S. participation in NATO's air campaign against Yugoslavia. Debate on the funding, however, was overshadowed by a vote last night on the House floor in which a Democratic-sponsored resolution in support of those air strikes was rejected, primarily due to Republican opposition.

REP. JOHN MURTHA, [D] Pennsylvania: I was embarrassed that, on the floor of the House yesterday, that we did not vote to support this air campaign. I mean, that embarrassed me personally because I think we made a mistake. I don't think we should be second guessing the President.

KWAME HOLMAN: The Appropriations Committee is considered among the least partisan in Congress, but today Democrats expressed some hard feelings in front of their Republican colleagues.

REP. DAVID OBEY, [D] Wisconsin: I find it mind-boggling that some of the same members who yesterday voted against the operation will today, here, now, vote to more-than-double the amount of spending that the President has asked for to conduct those operations. I think that is spectacularly inconsistent.

KWAME HOLMAN: During yesterday's nearly ten hours of debate focused exclusively on Kosovo, the House first voted on three Republican resolutions, and in succession, required the President get congressional approval before deploying ground troops to the Balkans, rejected a call to remove all U.S. troops currently in the region, and rejected a formal declaration of war against Yugoslavia by a near- unanimous vote. Today, Minority Leader Richard Gephardt said those combined votes sent out confusing signals.

REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT, Minority Leader: You wind up with three votes. "We don't want to go to war." "We don't want to pull out the troops." And"if you're going to use troops, we want you to have a vote." Now what message does that send? We thought it made sense to say something at the end of all of that that sent a clear message that the Congress of the United States is at least behind what we are now doing with 19 other NATO countries.

KWAME HOLMAN: Gephardt admitted he thought his party's resolution of support for the air strikes would pass easily. It had passed the Senate a month ago with a comfortable bipartisan margin. But last night's vote turned out to be tight; the debate, contentious.

REP. NORM DICKS, [D] Washington: I have had an opportunity to go over to the Pentagon to see how the air war is doing, and it's becoming very effective. And so I think there's a lot of hand-wringing here that is premature. I think we ought to give the air war additional time to work. I think we are weakening Mr. Milosevic, and I think there is still a prospect that we may achieve our objective.

REP. RANDY CUNNINGHAM, [R] California: The Pentagon told the President -- told the President -- and I know every one of them by their first names, and I fought in combat with most of them -- told the President not to do this, that it would only cause more problems, and that's what we have done. There was a little over 2,000 people killed in Kosovo prior to the bombing. NATO and the United States have killed more Albanians than the Serbs have in the year prior.

KWAME HOLMAN: The final vote was a 213-tie, a defeat for the resolution. Gephardt blamed the Republican leadership, charging they had acted irresponsibly.

REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT: I'm not saying anybody can't vote anyway they want. That's the way the place works, it's the way it ought to work. But to have a whip operation trying to get people to vote against this is not the way this place should operate in my opinion.

KWAME HOLMAN: In an off-camera response today, Tom DeLay, the House Republican whip, called the charge a joke, and said the minority leader was covering for the 26 Democrats who also voted no.

Speaker Dennis Hastert said members simply voted their consciences. Hastert himself voted for the resolution. This afternoon, Appropriations Chairman Bill Young used the pending vote on emergency military spending to diffuse the political tension.

REP. C. W. BILL YOUNG, Chairman, Appropriations Committee: Mr. Obey mentioned what kind of message did Milosevic get last night on the rather frustrated votes that we had. I'm not sure what he got from that, but I can guarantee you when we pass this bill today there will be no doubt in the mind of Mr. Milosevic where we stand.

KWAME HOLMAN: The bill passed this afternoon by a voice vote.

JIM LEHRER: Margaret Warner takes the story from there.

MARGARET WARNER: For an explanation of these Kosovo votes and what they mean, we're joined by two members of the House leadership. J.C. Watts of Oklahoma is the Republican Conference Chairman; Democrat David Bonior of Michigan is the Minority Whip. So Congressman, how should we read these votes? What do they mean?

REP. J. C. WATTS, [R] Oklahoma: Margaret, there were several votes. One, I think there was a vote to declare war. No one thought that should be done. There was a vote to pull the troops out within 30 days. I think we do have a humanitarian mission there. I didn't think that was the rights thing to do. Many members didn't. That passed. The third vote was to the Goodling-Fowler legislation, was a piece of legislation that said "the President should consult Congress prior to committing ground troops." And so we had a visit with the President yesterday in the White House, and he committed that he would consult Congress. So that legislation just kind of spelled out what the President committed to doing yesterday.

MARGARET WARNER: But then how about this vote, 213-213 not to support the air strikes, even for members such as yourself who didn't vote to pull the troops out. What are you really saying?

REP. J. C. WATTS: Well, there was a lot -- I think you can probably -- many members I think had many different thoughts on that legislation -- on that resolution. But what I was voting to say was -- is I did not think that we should retroactively approve what the President was doing. A lot of us had problems with the policy to go in to start with. I think that vote, the best way to read that vote, Margaret, is members were saying to the President, "Had you asked us to do this prior to committing an air campaign, these are the results you would have gotten. 213-213, No."

MARGARET WARNER: How do you read what happened yesterday?

REP. DAVID BONIOR, [D] Michigan: Well, it was extremely unfortunate, Margaret. What you have here is the American people supporting by about a two to one margin our efforts in the air campaign to stop this brutality. And this is brutality of genocidal proportions. We're talking about a person here who is burning villages, a million homeless in Kosovo as a result of this action -- women being raped as a weapon of war; sons and fathers being dragged off of convoys and shot to death. We heard something yesterday of about 100 that were killed; men and boys being tied up and burned alive. And the American people understand this. They understand oppression. They understand that very, very well. And at their core, they react to it. And that's why there's so much support in the country for this policy. NATO supports it. The Republicans in the Senate, 17 of them went along in a bipartisan way supporting this campaign. And last night the right wing of the Republican Party voted against it. And then this afternoon, as we saw in this film clip, they larded up the very planes they didn't want to fly with a lot of military pork.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. But when you say the right wing, what do you mean? What are you saying is the motivation?

REP. DAVID BONIOR: Well, I don't know what the motivation is, but I suspect that they're not very thrilled with this war, and they're certainly not very thrilled with Mr. Clinton. And they've referred to it as Mr. Clinton's war on the floor of the House on numerous occasions. The last thing we need to do is to make partisan this war effort. These are not Democrats or Republicans that are fighting there on our behalf and trying to end this genocide. These are American, young men and women. And we ought to be on their side. And we ought not to be sending a message and pulling the rug out from underneath them by voting against what they're doing.

REP. J. C. WATTS: Margaret, I think -- I think America can be involved in a humanitarian effort without being involved in a civil war. What that funding was in appropriations was the President sent up a $6 billion request, supplemental request. The President was replacing bullet for bullet, bomb for bomb. Republicans felt like we should go further. We're $3 billion dollars short in basic military ammunition in the United States Army. We're 18,000 sailors short in the United States Navy. We're 700 pilots short in the United States Air Force. Even when we go into humanitarian missions, we still put our soldiers, America's sons and daughters, in harm's way. We feel like we should give them the resources to win. We've deployed our troops over the last six years over 30 times. The previous 40 years we deployed our troops ten times. And the administration, what we're saying is, is that we should put more into our military to give our soldiers the resources to win and not the resources to play the game.

REP. DAVID BONIOR: Nobody will disagree with that, giving them the resources that they need to win. The problem is yesterday a majority of Republicans voted to withdraw our troops from this conflict, and more than a majority, almost your whole caucus -- with the exception of 31 individuals -- voted to not sanction the air war.

REP. J. C. WATTS: And David, as I said, that vote yesterday is going to be seen many different ways. And I think it would be interesting to ask those 26, 28 Democrats why they voted with me on that and what my vote was and what many people's votes were as we visited on the floor of the House with Republicans and Democrats is to say, "Mr. President, we don't think that you should have committed us to an air campaign without coming to Congress, without giving us some type of strategy, without telling us what the exit strategy is, without saying what the cost could be economically, as far as human lives." That was not spelled out. And I think many members had some real concerns that we were retroactively saying we approve of what the President did back on March 26th.

REP. DAVID BONIOR: Let's be clear that almost 90 percent of the Democrats supported the action of our military yesterday. And about 15 percent of the Republicans did. The President has brought leading Democrats and Republicans. We had 50 some or so down to the White House, Senate and House members, to talk about this yesterday. He's done this periodically on a regular basis to keep people apprised of it. I'm concerned that they were trying to pull the rug out from him on this one.

MARGARET WARNER: Let me ask you both something. Will these votes have any practical effect?

REP. J. C. WATTS: I think the Fowler-Goodling amendment - I think -

MARGARET WARNER: Requiring the President to get congressional approval before using ground troops?

REP. J. C. WATTS: Exactly. I think that that is the vote that really amounts to a hill of beans that we took yesterday. And I think it was a good vote. I think it was a right vote. And I'm delighted that Ms. Fowler and Mr. Goodling offered that legislation.

MARGARET WARNER: And a lot of Democrats voted for that.

REP. DAVID BONIOR: About 44 Democrats voted for that. But the other piece of that, Margaret, is that the vote, no to support the present air war is a terrible vote for our fighting people going over there and then they're looking and reading the next day that the House of Representatives did not support what they're doing. And we're having an effect there.

MARGARET WARNER: But you would agree or you would not agree that that vote has -- is symbolic, it has no practical effect?

REP. DAVID BONIOR: Well, it has a practical effect in the sense that it gives sustenance to Milosevic and his people. The day before we had the deputy prime minister of Yugoslavia saying that Milosevic is losing, he's not leveling with his people, that he's isolated, that he can't win this thing. Then we have the House of Representatives voting the very next day to bolster him.

MARGARET WARNER: Briefly, how do you think Slobodan Milosevic should read this vote?

REP. J. C. WATTS: Well, I think Slobodan Milosevic will see that Congress passed about a $12 billion appropriations. We're going to replace bullet for bullet, bomb for bomb. We're also going to go further, as we said in Appropriations, and put more money to strengthen our military even further. And so I think that's a very significant vote to say the President requested $6 billion, but we went above and beyond. That we thought that was woefully low. We went above and beyond that to put more money to strengthen our military further.

MARGARET WARNER: So the President is going to have what he needs to prosecute this war, at least until ground troops?

REP. DAVID BONIOR: Yes. But you can't have it both ways. You can't say, we don want you to fight, but on the other hand, we're going to give you all the money you want.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Thank you both very much.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, prosecuting war crimes, evil on the Internet, and Happy 100th to Duke Ellington.

FOCUS - HORRORS OF WARS

JIM LEHRER: Prosecuting war crimes in the Former Yugoslavia. We start with the latest allegations of atrocities in Kosovo. Bill Neely of Independent Television News reports from a refugee camp in Albania.

BILL NEELY: They came in their thousands, and with them, more horror. From Djakovica in Southern Kosovo, more accounts of killing and rape.

GIRL: Many peoples are killed, women.

BILL NEELY: By the Serb police?

GIRL: Yes, by the Serb police.

BILL NEELY: Mosa Bitzoria says the police took away many of the town's young girls to their camps. This teenager spoke in detail of killings he'd seen. What did you see?

YOUNG BOY: I see killed children, killed man. A man with his family, and they take them from their family and executed.

BILL NEELY: Executed the men?

YOUNG BOY: Yes.

BILL NEELY: How many dead men did you see?

YOUNG BOY: I see ten men.

BILL NEELY: Their paramilitaries ordered Becaria Camberries' husband to let go of his six-year-old son. "The men said to him, 'we're going to kill you.' And they took my husband. I heard gunfire, and was forced to run." So many could not tell their stories, but three people told me of a group of men taken at gun point by Serb police into a house, which was then set on fire. This man helped bury six or seven men-- he couldn't tell. We cannot confirm the truth of these stories, but UN representatives say they are all remarkably consistent. They believe up to 200 people have been killed in Djakovica.

RAY WILKINSON, UNHCR: It's now totally out of control. It seems that the people inside probably feel they have nothing to lose now. And I'm not sure that it's an orchestrated campaign, necessarily, from Belgrade as much as a local level.

BILL NEELY: This woman says she was raped by one Serb policeman as others dragged away two more women and a 15-year-old girl. They have lost their dignity, their land, and their innocence. So many of the young have seen too much. Berrat Taffer says he watched 17 men taken from the tractor in front of his and shot in a field. Donicka Socoly watched her father being led away by police, then heard shooting and saw Djakovica burn.

YOUNG GIRL: All houses was burning. My city, all the schools, nothing -- you cannot see nothing, only the house burning.

BILL NEELY: And then the survivors left, leaving Djakovica and their country behind, and leaving the world to digest more horror from a hidden land.

JIM LEHRER: And to Phil Ponce.

PHIL PONCE: Joining me is Louise Arbour, chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. She's on leave from her position as Justice of the Court of Appeal for Ontario, Canada. The international Tribunal on Human Rights Violations was established by the United Nations in 1993. Justice Arbour, as -- in your role as prosecutor, your job is to help gather evidence and evaluate evidence which includes testimony from witnesses. We just heard testimony. We just heard refugees talking about rapes, mass executions. Do you believe them?

LOUISE ARBOUR: Well, these are very credible accounts, I think; they're not the first accounts. I think somebody there made the comment that we hear great similarities and stories coming from different parts of the region that seem to corroborate each other. But of course we will need to verify. We have investigators on the ground now both in Macedonia and in Albania trying to take first-hand accounts from people who will then be willing to testify, which of course is another matter altogether.

PHIL PONCE: So these people we just saw on the tape, conceivably your investigators might speak to them. And if they're willing to come forward at some point, then they could be involved in giving testimony, which would be part of your investigation?

LOUISE ARBOUR: Yes, very much so. Now, of course, these eyewitness accounts from victims or simple witnesses of killings or rapes and so on help us document, in fact, the first part of the case which is the commission of the crime. The considerably more difficult part of the case for us to build is evidence against not only the actual perpetrators, but those up the chain of command who have to account before an international forum. The expectation is that we will move these cases up the chain of command to the highest leadership level, political leadership and military leadership. And that of course is not easily documented solely from eyewitness accounts or evidence from the refugees.

PHIL PONCE: And when you say you're going to follow the chain of evidence to the highest levels of political leadership, does that include President Slobodan Milosevic?

LOUISE ARBOUR: Well, it includes under you statute, there is no immunity for heads of states or anyone. So it theoretically includes the highest political or military level. The question is, what will the evidence sustain in terms of whether or not the leadership ordered these activities, orchestrated these activities? We are looking not at individual atrocities. Our mandate is to prosecute, for instance, crimes against humanity, which have to be widespread or systemic killings, extermination, rape, torture, enslavement, deportation. It has to be on a widespread or a systemic scale, and then of course we have to examine what is the command responsibility for these crimes.

PHIL PONCE: So the kinds of stories that we just heard and that people have been hearing now for some time, those are the kinds of things you're interested in? If it's part of a large-scale systemic kind of a campaign, is that what you're saying?

LOUISE ARBOUR: Absolutely, yes.

PHIL PONCE: Have you filed any charges yet relating to what's happened in Kosovo so far?

LOUISE ARBOUR: Well, I don't want to show a hand to the extent that we have in the past proceeded, as you know, we investigate offenses committed in Bosnia as well as in Croatia, and we have used the technique of bringing charges under sealed indictments to facilitate arrests, which has been a huge problem for us.

PHIL PONCE: A sealed indictment, does that mean a secret indictment or an unannounced indictment?

LOUISE ARBOUR: Yes. It essentially means that we go -- for us to get an indictment, we have to go to a judge and present evidence upon which the indictment is confirmed. Then we get an arrest warrant issued. We had a lot of problems in Bosnia with public indictments. The accused knew that they were wanted. Their own governments were unwilling to arrest them. So what we did is we started bringing charges without making public the existence of the arrest warrant, and S-4, NATO troops in Bosnia were then very successful, not in every case, but in several cases in arresting the accused. And then of course the minute they're arrested, they have all their rights to counsel. We give them the full detail. These charges are very detailed, all the supporting evidence that goes with it. So this may be a technique that we would use in Kosovo. It's geared to a strategy to facilitate arrest.

PHIL PONCE: So, in other words, you're saying it's possible that you already have these sealed indictments stemming from activities in Kosovo, you just don't care to announce them at this point?

LOUISE ARBOUR: Yes. But I think, in honesty, I mean, the flow of information is coming out from Kosovo so rapidly and so massively that these investigations take time, particularly for us to be able to then document the command responsibility for activities that appear to be perpetrated according to refugee accounts in a mixed environment from police units and army units. So it's very critical for us to identify properly the perpetrators. They're all kinds of allegations of involvements of paramilitary groups. So, we have to identify who the perpetrators are and then who their immediate commanders are and who ultimately higher up the chain of command can be seen to be personally criminally responsible for that. That's going to take some time.

PHIL PONCE: How do you do that? What kind of evidence do you gather? What kind of evidence do you rely on?

LOUISE ARBOUR: Well, we need access, not only to accounts from refugees; as I said, this is going to give us a time base or evidence of the commission of the crimes. But to get -- we need a lot of understanding of the command structure. And that of course we can gather -- some of it is open source information. Other information we are now turning much more actively than ever before to state support, that is to the cooperation of governments.

PHIL PONCE: And that's why you're here now? That's why you're in the United States. What is it that you want from the United States that could help you create a case against people who might have been responsible for these reports?

LOUISE ARBOUR: Well, what we are looking at essentially is information that is collected -- essentially is in the intelligence community that could be made available to us to assist in understanding, for instance, the command structure of the VJ, the Yugoslav army on the ground, and the various police units so that we can bring our cases to the appropriate level of leadership. So we're looking at all kinds of methods of collection of evidence. Some has been revealed publicly, and I think the public understands the significance of it, imagery for instance. If we're looking at activities that are widespread and systemic destruction of hundreds of villages, not only can the refugees tell us something about that, but we can then corroborate their stories by -

PHIL PONCE: By imagery, you mean satellite imagery?

LOUISE ARBOUR: Yes. It could be just airplane, depends very much on for what purpose the images were taken. But more and more, I think, various providers or collectors of this kind of information have been prepared to declassify some of these images, some have been made public, I think, to demonstrate the extent of these kinds of activities. So we're looking at gaining access to these kinds of byproducts of intelligence efforts that are often gathered for military purposes.

PHIL PONCE: So one of the reasons you're in the United States and you're here to meet with the Secretary of Defense, with Madeleine Albright, with Sandy Berger, the National Security Advisor, you want them to share intelligence that would help you build a case?

LOUISE ARBOUR: That's right.

PHIL PONCE: In part, in part.

LOUISE ARBOUR: That's right. Now, I have to say, I mean, many of the information that we want access to is governed by domestic legislation. We're not talking here about doing anything illegal. We're very conscious that some of this information is very heavily regulated. So we are embarking in a dialogue in the United States and elsewhere to see the extent to which governments can either declassify certain information to make it available to us, or provide us the product of their analysis of some of the information where they cannot necessarily release the raw information that they have in their possession.

PHIL PONCE: Very quickly, are you confident that you can catch the people who you accuse, who you indict?

LOUISE ARBOUR: Well, that's another issue that I want to press, certainly here very strongly. I believe that the greatest deterrent message that could be sent to Kosovo right now to deter those who are on the ground committing these offenses would be the immediate arrest of the remaining indictees in Bosnia including Karadzic and others, some indicted under seal.

PHIL PONCE: From years ago?

LOUISE ARBOUR: Well, yes. Some going back to 1995. If these people were apprehended today, it would send a very sobering signal, I think, to the ones who are committing the kinds of crimes that were described by the people we've just seen.

PHIL PONCE: Justice Arbour, I thank you very much for being with us.

LOUISE ARBOUR: Thank you.

FOCUS - EVIL ON THE INTERNET

JIM LEHRER: The Colorado school shooting brought sharp focus to the Internet as a tool for evil. Betty Ann Bowser begins our look.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: It's easy. Turn on a computer, go on the Internet, and in a matter of minutes, anyone can visit a site that will tell them how to build a bomb. This page explains how to make a fertilizer bomb like the one used to blow up the federal building in Oklahoma City; on another site: How to make pipe bombs like those concocted by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold in Littleton, Colorado. And this web site is clearly aimed at teenagers, asking them, "Do you hate school," then suggesting school disruptions by putting a smoke grenade in student lockers. There are also easily accessible hate sites promoting the ideals of Hitler, white pride, and the Aryan nation. These are all the kinds of web sites authorities in Colorado say Harris and Klebold visited during the many hours they apparently spent on the Internet. This was Eric Harris' membership profile on the Internet service provider America Online. Under hobbies, the 18-year-old said he loved to play the video game "Doom," and under personal quotes he entered, "Shut up and shoot it," and later, "Kill 'em all." And these are excerpts from Harris' web page, which the "Washington Post" published today. We have deleted the frequent obscenities. Under the label "Society," Harris stated: "I live in Denver and I would like to kill almost all of its residents, people with their rich, snobby attitude, thinking they are all high and mighty." Then under another label, "Philosophy," Harris wrote: "I am the law and if you don't like it, you die. If I don't like you, or I don't like what you want me to do, you die. I'll just go to some downtown area in some big city and blow up and shoot everything I can." The "Post" obtained the web site from the Randy Brown family of Littleton, whose son, Brooks, was once a friend of Harris's. Fearing Harris might be dangerous, the Browns looked up his web page to find Brooks was a target. He spoke with "Good Morning America."

BROOKS BROWN: It had "Ten Things I Hate Most," and my name was at the list, the top of the list, saying how he would pay people to kill me; he wanted me dead. The entire web site was dedicated to how he was going to kill the entire state of Colorado.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Authorities in Littleton say not only did Harris say threatening things on his web site, he and Klebold spent endless hours on the Internet playing games like this one, called "Quake." Players can annihilate imaginary armed soldiers; listen to them groan as they are reduced to a pile of flesh and blood while flies swarm over a body close by. Although "Quake" and Harris' favorite game, "Doom," can still be downloaded, America Online closed Harris' account and web site at 11PM last Tuesday night after the shootings, and police have seized his computer as they investigate why two teenage boys went to Columbine High School last week and murdered 13 people, then killed themselves.

JIM LEHRER: And to Elizabeth Farnsworth in San Francisco.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And joining me are Katrina Heron, editor-in-chief of "Wired," a monthly magazine covering the new digital culture; Bruce Taylor, president of the National Law Center for Children and Families; and Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which monitors the Internet for web sites produced by hate groups. Thank you all for being with us. Bruce Taylor, first, the sites that show how the make bomb, sites full of hate, should something be done to get those off the Internet?

BRUCE TAYLOR: Well, even though we may not be able to get them completely off the Internet and they may not even be illegal, there are tools available. There are filter programs and they're -- that can be used by parents, schools, libraries. And there are also immunity protections for Internet service companies like AOL or Prodigy or AT&T who could block out those web sites voluntarily, and they have the right to do that. I think they should do that because we're going to see more of this kind of misuse of that if we don't do something.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And should something else be done? Does there need to be state or federal regulation?

BRUCE TAYLOR: I think there's a combination. Parents can't do it alone, and neither can industry do it by themselves trying to block it out, but government can outlaw some unprotected material like obscenity or child pornography and some bomb-making material, but most of that isn't something you can criminalize. It's something they have to give the tools to private industry to do, which is why, for instance, Senator McCain and Hollings have a bill to give money to schools and libraries if they'll use their filter programs to block out some of this material so kids don't get immersed in it and spend all their time having easy access to it.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So, Mr. Taylor, you think that the Internet played a role in this tragedy?

BRUCE TAYLOR: Well, it's not that the Internet is bad, but it's -- the bad stuff on the Internet. It's what's causing these kids to immerse themselves and to get hypnotized and seduced by it. It may not change their minds, but it's the place where their minds are changed. And we should make it a better place for these kids to hang out. The Internet is spreading this message of hate and violence and doom and gloom. And it doesn't have to be that way -- just like AOL doesn't have to carry that Nazi and the Klan news - you know -- web sites. And they don't have to carry the bomb sites. And they could do a lot that government can't do. So I think before the government should try to step in, private industry and parents are going to have to do more on their part. And that wouldn't violate the First Amendment.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Ms. Heron, What do you think should be done about these sites?

KATRINA HERON: I think that the Internet basically reflects the ills of our society, just like any other medium. And I think that the tragic thing here is that the Internet probably could have helped prevent this situation if anyone had been listening. These children could hardly have chosen a more public venue in which to display all their hate, rage, and disappointment with what was going on around them. They were, in effect, publishing their intentions to kill people on the Internet. In fact, as we know, Judy Brown, the mother of one of the other children, took this information to the authorities and asked that something be done about it. These kids -- it took them a year to put this plot together it. It was premeditated. There were so many signs in the school, with the parents, weapons lying around, bomb materials they were putting together. I think that it's obvious that if someone had been paying attention, it wouldn't have happened. And to blame the Internet is the classic case of blaming the messenger.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And what do you think about what Mr. Taylor says, that there really had to be some regulating of sites like bomb-making sites, for example?

KATRINA HERON: Well, I think it's very difficult for AOL to monitor every site. We know that. That would be the equivalent of asking AT&T to monitor every telephone call that's made. Clearly AOL does a very conscientious and good job of monitoring the children's areas, and the chat rooms, they're very conscientious about that. It's difficult for them to look at the contents of every web site. And I think that filters are available at the level of the family and the individual. This is something that the U.S. Supreme court got into when it struck down the Communications Decency Act. The Supreme Court justices had the sense to realize that it doesn't make sense to try to control the Internet at the point of input. It makes sense to try to control it at the point of out take. So when the people -- where people are actually receiving the information -- parents have at their disposal the ability and tools to censer and to filter. Those are their individual decisions.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Taylor, your response to that?

BRUCE TAYLOR: Well, the one good point she makes is you can't shoot the messenger. There's nothing inherently bad about the Internet, but everyone knows who is familiar where most of this violent and hate and dangerous and bomb making and sexual mutilation stuff is, and they have filter programs that already have programmed most of those sites in. And AOL can't monitor the whole Internet, but they certainly could do what they already know are these popular sites, and they could restrict them so that they don't reach these mass audiences of children, and parents do have to be more conscientious in making sure that they do monitor their kids because the Internet is a very hypnotic, very attractive medium. It's like turning a kid loose in a combat zone with a handful of quarters, you know.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Rabbi Cooper, your center monitors these sites. And you've just put out a report on them. Tell us what you've found.

RABBI ABRAHAM COOPER: Digital Hate 2000 was released on the 1st of April. On April 19, 1995, there was one hate site on the World Wide Web. Our report talks about 1426 problematic sites. And I think it's important -

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Like what. Sorry to interrupt. But like what?

RABBI ABRAHAM COOPER: We're talking about bomb making, terrorism, traditional hate groups, special web sites now put out by extremist groups for kids as young as eight and nine years old.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: You mean aimed directly at kids?

RABBI ABRAHAM COOPER: Aimed directly at children. Hate music where you're now selling 50,000 CD's of music that never made it across the Atlantic in the 80's -- and now all the rage of the alternative areas online. The point, though, however, is that the World Wide Web, which is where most of the action is at, really in a sense is marketplace. We have two web sites. It's marketplace to sell a product, to promote an idea. It is not a place primarily for discussion or debate. And as such, I think a good place for us to start is maybe look at the Canadian Internet Provider's Association as a model. Let the people who put the services out set their own guidelines. You don't necessarily need Washington. And they don't need to put on additional staff. Whether a parent calls up or a human rights agency the morning after and says you have an online terrorist tutor, will you pull the plug; give the guy his check back and make him go elsewhere. So we need to start creating an idea that we need some leadership from the Internet community, and some action that really doesn't impact in the First Amendment but reflects on the exact kind of morays that we have in the pre-Internet world. The "New York Times" won't take a prepaid ad from just anyone. And none of the television stations will take a prepaid infomercial without looking at content. So the bottom line is let everybody go on the World Wide Web, but the morning after, if, in fact, the next -- the father of next Eric Harris does look over the shoulder and sees a bomb-making site, a filter may take care of his family, but we're worried about the next Eric Harris and the next possible terrorists. For that, we need help at the source from the collective genius who have given us this technology and from the people who are currently driving the prices of the NASDAQ through the roof.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Ms. Heron, your reaction to that?

KATRINA HERON: AOL certainly is taking down sites when people notify them. They take very good and prompt action in that case, as they did in this case. I think - you know -- the larger point worth making is that parents and communities still need to get involved. There's this enormous urge to blame the government and to look elsewhere for the answers to your problems. The fact is that research shows now that most teenagers surf the web unsupervised, you know. And I think it's also true that while there are like 83 million Americans online now and the overwhelming majority of those are adults -- probably only about 13 million right now are children -- at the same time, there's a perception among adults that they don't understand as much. You hear constantly from parents my kids are doing things on the Internet, I don't know. But parents need toeducate themselves. But I would also like to point out that we're in the middle of an enormous and exciting social transformation that's occurring because of the Internet and the digital culture. There's so much good news about what happens on the Internet. There's long distance learning, there is - until recently -- Radio B92, the only way that we could actually get news out of Kosovo. You know, that's just been shut down. I mean, if you needed a reason to care about the power of the Internet, it's because it allows us to maintain and allow to flourish an open exchange of ideas. Let's not forget that. That's so important. That needs to be protected and encouraged.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Taylor, I want to turn now to what Ms. Heron raised before, which is Eric Harris's web site, his threats: The general threat, "I would like to kill almost all of its residents," referring to Denver; the specific threat against Brooks Brown. What could have been done about that under current laws?

BRUCE TAYLOR: Some of the threats that you make against particular individuals are already illegal. And there was a federal indictment against young college students up in Michigan. But putting hate thoughts up there is not necessarily illegal. And therefore, like we said, the same technology that makes the World Wide Web so big and vast and important, and we want all of our kids to use the Internet and the world wide web, we're going to have to use some of that same technology in the filter programs and in the parental controls.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, specifically on this, what would you do? Do you think that, for example, law enforcement agencies should be browsing and looking for these kinds of threats?

BRUCE TAYLOR: I think more we're going to see law enforcement agencies have to sit down and start looking when they get complaints or even when they don't to see whether the signs appear to be from people who appear to carry them out, or if it's just some kid ranting on. But that's why just like those sites of the Harris kids violated AOL policy, those kinds of company policies should be enforced because their ability to use their technology to block out or to restrict these kinds of material or kick off misusers is much greater than the government's to go supervising. And so that's why I'm saying responsible companies like AOL are probably a bigger answer for parents, because we can't supervise our kids all the time, although we better start paying better attention.

RABBI ABRAHAM COOPER: If I can just add -

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Yes. Yes. Rabbi cooper, you saw this; your center saw it. What did you do?

RABBI ABRAHAM COOPER: We saw an earlier version of a web site that did not have any specific threats but were linked to the anarchy and bomb-making sites. So that wouldn't be enough to take any specific action.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: But you're talking about Eric Harris's site, right?

RABBI ABRAHAM COOPER: That's correct. But we have, for example, dealt with French AOL when there was a skinhead site last year when they published online a hit list of prominent French citizens. Overseas with other democracies it's a much simpler issue. Within 24 hours French AOL took down the site and there were arrests on both sides of the British Channel, the English Channel. We know what didn't happen here with the Nuremberg File site when it came to abortion doctors. And we realize that we have to operate within the democratic values. We're all very much in favor of First Amendment rights, but if I can echo one point, none of us can afford to use orto rely on the Internet as being a baby-sitter service, but at the same time, what do you do when your send your ten- and twelve-year-old kid to do a research project on Martin Luther King, Jr., and you go to mlk.org, it looks like a legitimate site. It takes you ten minutes to figure out its put up actually by racists and white supremacists. We need help across the board not with prior restraint but with morning-after good citizenship online from the mega companies who are bringing us this wonderful tool.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, Ms. Heron, we have little time, but could AOL watch all the sites to be able to kick somebody like Eric Harris off if he's making threats, I mean just technically?

KATRINA HERON: No. At the present time they don't have the technological capability. But I would also argue that's not the really way to go. As I said earlier in the program what we're seeing is the reflection of society's ills here. These things happen. It's not the fault of the Internet. And the Internet cannot correct it. But I would also like to return to something else that's come up.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Very briefly. We're almost out of time.

KATRINA HERON: Well, people talk about the ease of access and how frightening it is that kids can go and learn how to buy bombs and so on. If you want to talk about the real issue of ease of access, it's guns. We all know that. That's the real issue. And that's why President Clinton's initiative now is or so important. That's what really is at stake.

RABBI ABRAHAM COOPER: And hundreds of online sites where you can buy those guns unsupervised adding to the problem.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. That's all the time we have. But, thank you all very much for being with us.

FINALLY - CELEBRATING A CENTENNIAL

JIM LEHRER: And before we go tonight, some music from Duke Ellington, who was born in Washington, DC, 100 years ago today. This archival footage of him performing his best-known song is from the Chicago blues museum.

DUKE ELLINGTON: Now we'd like to play our theme, Billy Strayhorn's "Take the 'a' Train."

[SONG]

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Thursday: Congressional leaders traded harsh words over the House's refusal last night to endorse us involvement in Kosovo. NATO missiles and bombs struck Montenegro and, by accident, Bulgaria. And relief workers issued urgent pleas to evacuate refugees from Macedonia. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening, with Shields and Gigot, among others. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.