U.S. wants immunity for its soldiers worldwide

WASHINGTON, June 13 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The U.S. on Thursday, June 12, signed an agreement with Uganda giving its citizens there immunity from prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC), hours after the UN Security Council renewed a one-year exemption for U.S. peacekeeping troops from ICC prosecution, despite the opposition of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.

The pact, the 38th "Article 98" agreement Washington has signed with a foreign country, came as Croatia announced that it would not consent to such a deal as a U.S.-European rift over the court intensified and a July 1 deadline loomed for nations to sign or lose U.S. military aid, Agence France-Presse (AFP) said.

The deal with Uganda was signed at a State Department ceremony by Secretary of State Colin Powell and his Ugandan counterpart James Wapakhabulo.

France, Germany and Syria abstained from the council vote in an indication of the severity of the transatlantic rift on the matter with Europe favoring the court and the United States vehemently opposed.

Washington refuses to support the ICC, arguing it could become a forum for politically "motivated prosecutions" of U.S. citizens including civilian military contractors and former officials.

It has accused the European Union of threatening E.U. members and aspiring members if they sign Article 98 agreements with the United States.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has threatened that countries that have not signed Article 98 agreements by July 1 could lose all of their military aid from the United States.

France warned Thursday Bosnia  - which signed a deal with the United States last month - that ratification of the agreement would have "negative consequences" for its relations with the European Union.

In announcing that it would not sign an Article 98 with the United States, Croatia's deputy foreign minister Ivan Simonovic said Zagreb could not agree cause of "legal and political obstacles" but would not elaborate.

Although Brussels has denied pressuring any country not to sign an agreements, the French warning to Bosnia and Croatia's refusal to sign appeared to lend credence to the U.S. allegations.

Very Damaging

The United States warned European nations last week of "very damaging" consequences in the matter, U.S. officials said on Tuesday, June 10.

"There are people in the E.U. who have been actively campaigning against members and aspiring members signing Article 98 agreements with us," a second official said. "We think this is wrong."

The E.U. in September agreed to allow member states to negotiate the deals with the United States but only under strict guidelines that limit those covered by the agreements to U.S. soldiers and diplomats.

Washington wants all U.S. nationals covered by the deals and has vowed to ignore the E.U. guidelines.

Under U.S. law, countries that have not signed Article 98 agreements by July 1 could lose all of their military aid from the United States.

In Croatia's case, this could mean the loss of 5.8 million dollars in assistance.

In addition to Uganda, the State Department has confirmed Article 98 agreements have been signed with the following nations:

Afghanistan, Albania, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Djibouti, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Dominican Republic, East Timor, El Salvador, Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Honduras, India, Israel, Madagascar, Maldives, the Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Micronesia, Nauru, Nepal, Palau, the Philippines, Romania, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tonga, Tuvalu and Uzbekistan.

Above The Law

Annan warned the council that it would undermine its own authority as well as that of the ICC if the exemption became "an annual routine"

Earlier Thursday, the UN Security Council renewed a one-year exemption for U.S. peacekeeping troops from prosecution by the International Criminal Court, despite the opposition of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.

The deputy U.S. ambassador, James Cunningham, welcomed the vote, but said "like any compromise, the resolution does not address all our concerns."

Rejecting the arguments of many speakers in an open debate which preceded the vote that the United States was seeking to put its nationals above the law, Cunningham declared that "the ICC is not the law" and described the court as "a fatally flawed institution."

He repeated U.S. government concerns that it could be used for politically motivated prosecutions.

The first speaker in the debate, Annan warned the council that it would undermine its own authority as well as that of the ICC if the exemption became "an annual routine."

Established under the 1998 Rome Statute, the ICC is the first permanent international court to try cases of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. The court's judges and prosecutor were appointed this year, but no case has yet been brought before it.

No soldier serving under the U.N. blue flag had ever been accused of an offence "anywhere near the kind of crimes that fall under the jurisdiction of the ICC," Annan said.

The resolution "deals not only with a hypothetical case, but with a highly improbable one," he said.

Last year, the council voted unanimously for the exemption after the United States vetoed the extension of a UN police-training mission in Bosnia and threatened to do the same for all other peacekeeping operations as their mandates came up for renewal.

Annan told council members he believed they were "acting in good faith" to protect the future of peacekeeping missions.

But the legitimacy of peacekeeping would be undermined if the council repeatedly renewed the exemption and gave the impression that "it wished to claim absolute and permanent immunity for people serving in the operations it establishes," he said.

Fifteen of the 90 countries which have ratified the statute asked to take part in the debate as non-members of the council.

They included the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where the council has authorized deployment of a heavily armed international force, led by France, to prevent further massacres of civilians by rebel militias.

"The logical Extension"

Almost every speaker noted that the ICC can prosecute only when a crime is committed on the territory of a state which is a party to the statute, or where the person accused of committing it is a citizen of such a state.

They also remarked that a case can be brought before the court only if a country is unwilling or unable to prosecute in its national courts.

Jordan's ambassador to the United Nations, Prince Zeid Ra'ad Zeid al-Hussein, said the U.S.-drafted resolution sought to "elevate an entire category of people above the law."

The prince is chairman of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute and presided over the election of the court's 18 judges and first prosecutor in March and April of this year.

"The Security Council should not be rewriting treaties that were negotiated by the entire international community," he said -- a point emphasized by Japanese Ambassador Koichi Haraguchi and other speakers.

Canadian Ambassador Paul Heinbecker said the ICC was "the logical extension" of the post-World War II Nuremberg tribunal and the ad hoc U.N. war crimes courts for Rwanda and Yugoslavia, all of which were set up with the active support of the United States.

The ICC had additional built-in safeguards to prevent frivolous or politically motivated prosecutions, he said.

It was set up to try "monsters," and "its deterrent character is crucial to saving the victims of future crimes," he said.