Bush Punishes Still More Nations For Backing International Criminal Court

by Jim Lobe

The administration of President George W. Bush on July 1 cut some $30 million in military aid to 32 friendly countries -- most of them democracies -- because they refused to sign deals with Washington.

Among them were a number of new democracies in Central and East Europe, some of which have contributed troops to bolster the U.S.-led occupation in Iraq. Brazil, Costa Rica, Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador, South Africa, and a number of other Latin American and African countries, were also on the list.

The cuts were mandated by the 2002 American Servicemembers Protection Act (ASPA), whose purpose is to ensure that the ICC, which began operating at The Hague in the Netherlands last spring, can never gain jurisdiction over U.S. citizens.

Among other provisions, the ASPA authorizes the president to use all necessary means, including force, to free U.S. service members held by the ICC, the world's first permanent tribunal to prosecute the perpetrators of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

The ASPA requires the president to cut off military aid to countries that have ratified the 1998 Rome Statute, which established the ICC, unless they are NATO allies, specially designated non-NATO allies -- such as Argentina, Australia, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Israel -- or are given a "waiver" if the president determines that sanctions would harm the national interest.

The administration has also determined that signing so-called Article 98 agreements with the United States committing nations not to transfer U.S. citizens to the ICC's custody is sufficient to warrant a waiver.

The State Department said Tuesday that over 65 countries had signed Article 98 deals, although spokesman Richard Boucher declined to name them.

A number of countries have reportedly signed agreements but have not made them public. Several nations had signed in just the last few days in order to avoid an aid cut-off, according to Boucher.

With the exception of Turkey, all of Washington's NATO allies have ratified the Rome Statute, as have Mexico, Costa Rica, all of South America, except Bolivia, and, as of just this past week, Colombia. Both countries are heavily reliant on U.S. aid.

A number of new democracies in Africa, including Mali, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya, have publicly rejected signing an Article 98 agreement, insisting that doing so would violate their obligations under the Rome Statute.

Many English-speaking Caribbean countries have taken a similar position, as have a number of Central and Eastern European nations, including the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Serbia, and Bulgaria.

Critics of the administration's campaign against the ICC have pointed out that most of the countries penalised by the ASPA sanctions are emerging democracies that have generally backed U.S. interests and values, making Washington's position counter-productive.

"This is the first sanction in U.S. diplomatic history targeted exclusively at democracies," said Heather Hamilton of the World Federalist Association (WFA), one of hundreds of non-governmental groups around the world that make up the global Coalition for the ICC.

"The administration's ideological opposition to the ICC is compromising other vital U.S. foreign policy priorities and putting allies and friendly nations in a difficult position," she added in a statement.

"These nations cannot be expected to put U.S. nationals above the law that their own leaders abide and live by."

The administration's 'campaign against the ICC has also been cited as an example of the unilateral stance that has contributed to a rise in anti-Americanism in many countries.

Former President Bill Clinton signed the Rome Statute in December 2000, just a few weeks before Bush became president. In May of last year, the administration renounced Clinton's signature and withdrew from all negotiations to set up the ICC.

Shortly after, it launched its campaign to undermine the ICC by threatening to veto extensions of UN peacekeeping operations unless the UN Security Council gave all U.S. citizens a one-year exemption from the Court's jurisdiction.

The exemption was extended under U.S. pressure -- critics have called it blackmail -- for a second year in June.

The administration has argued that the tribunal grants too much discretion to prosecutors who could bring cases against U.S. officials and soldiers for political reasons.

With some 120,000 U.S. troops currently deployed in Iraq, another 9,000 in Afghanistan, and tens of thousands more in scores of countries across Eurasia and in and around the Gulf, the administration is worried that they could become prime targets for politicised prosecutions.

But groups like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, and U.S. allies -- including Britain, which has some 15,000 troops in Iraq -- say these fears are greatly exaggerated and that Washington should ratify the Statute in the interests of expanding the rule of law and making particularly serious human rights atrocities punishable by an international tribunal.

Countries that depend heavily on U.S. and multilateral assistance and have signed Article 98 agreements despite also signing the Rome Statute include mainly poorer and smaller nations, such as Central America's Panama, Honduras and Nicaragua and several island states, such as Mauritius, the Dominican Republic, Nauru, and the Marshall Islands.

A few Central Asian countries, including Afghanistan and Tajikistan; several Balkan states, including Albania, Bosnia, and Romania; and a scattering of African countries of which Nigeria is the most important, have also made Article 98 deals. A number of these nations also contributed token numbers of troops to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

On the other hand, several others, including the Baltic states, Bulgaria and Slovakia, also contributed troops to the U.S.-led coalition only to see their military aid cut off due to their refusal to sign an Article 98 agreement. Each of the five was due to receive between seven million and 10 million dollars in military aid next year.

Ecuador, which is playing a key role in the anti-drug war in the Andes, could lose $15 million in military aid next year, while Peru could lose $2.7 million worth of assistance.

South Africa, on which Washington has relied for peacekeeping help in Africa, may lose $7.6 million, while Slovakia has about $9 million at stake.