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U.S. Bans Military Aid to Almost 50 Countries
By Jonathan Wright
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Tuesday declared almost 50 countries ineligible for military aid, including Colombia and six nations seeking NATO (news - web sites) membership, because they back the International Criminal Court and have not exempted Americans from possible prosecution.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said 35 of those countries had been receiving U.S. military aid this year and, in some cases, all the money was already spent. But the ban could still be in effect when a new fiscal year starts in October.
As the deadline passed for governments to sign exemption agreements or face the suspension of military aid, President Bush (news - web sites) issued waivers for 22 countries.
But those 22 did not include Colombia and the eastern European countries of Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Slovenia.
Colombia, where the government is fighting leftist guerrillas and drug traffickers, has been one of the largest recipients of U.S. military aid, with $98 million this year.
Boucher said all but $5 million of the Colombia military aid has already been spent. The $5 million is now frozen.
Richard Dicker, director of the international justice program at Human Rights Watch, said the suspension of aid worked against some of the Bush administration's other policy goals, such as intercepting drugs in the Caribbean and expanding NATO into eastern Europe.
Of the seven eastern European countries expected to join NATO in May, only Romania has signed a deal with Washington on the ICC.
"This campaign has brought resentment and bitterness from some of the U.S. government's closest allies and comes at an extraordinary high price," Dicker told Reuters.
Other major countries liable to the suspension of military aid are Brazil, Cambodia, Serbia and South Africa.
TRAINING AND WEAPONS
A U.S. official said that if countries had ratified the treaty setting up the international court and had not received a waiver, the ban on military aid would come into effect. But the threat, enshrined in the American Service Members Protection Act of 2002, does not apply to the 19 NATO members and to nine "major non-NATO allies."
The suspension covers international military education and training funds, or IMET, which mainly pay the cost of educating foreign officers at U.S. institutions, and foreign military funding, which pays for U.S. weapons and other aid.
IMET funds usually amount to less than $1 million per country a year, but foreign military funding can run into the hundreds of millions.
Congress passed the law out of disapproval of the International Criminal Court, set up to try war crimes and acts of genocide. The United States says it feared politically motivated prosecutions of civilian or military leaders. The United States had hoped that the threat to withdraw aid would lead to a last-minute rush to sign Article 98 agreements exempting U.S. personnel from transfer to the court.
Altogether 44 governments have publicly acknowledged signing the agreement and at least seven others have signed secret agreements, U.S. officials say. The pace of signatures does appear to have picked up a little. About 25 governments have signed in the last four months, about half of those in the last three weeks.
By Jonathan Wright
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Tuesday declared almost 50 countries ineligible for military aid, including Colombia and six nations seeking NATO (news - web sites) membership, because they back the International Criminal Court and have not exempted Americans from possible prosecution.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said 35 of those countries had been receiving U.S. military aid this year and, in some cases, all the money was already spent. But the ban could still be in effect when a new fiscal year starts in October.
As the deadline passed for governments to sign exemption agreements or face the suspension of military aid, President Bush (news - web sites) issued waivers for 22 countries.
But those 22 did not include Colombia and the eastern European countries of Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Slovenia.
Colombia, where the government is fighting leftist guerrillas and drug traffickers, has been one of the largest recipients of U.S. military aid, with $98 million this year.
Boucher said all but $5 million of the Colombia military aid has already been spent. The $5 million is now frozen.
Richard Dicker, director of the international justice program at Human Rights Watch, said the suspension of aid worked against some of the Bush administration's other policy goals, such as intercepting drugs in the Caribbean and expanding NATO into eastern Europe.
Of the seven eastern European countries expected to join NATO in May, only Romania has signed a deal with Washington on the ICC.
"This campaign has brought resentment and bitterness from some of the U.S. government's closest allies and comes at an extraordinary high price," Dicker told Reuters.
Other major countries liable to the suspension of military aid are Brazil, Cambodia, Serbia and South Africa.
TRAINING AND WEAPONS
A U.S. official said that if countries had ratified the treaty setting up the international court and had not received a waiver, the ban on military aid would come into effect. But the threat, enshrined in the American Service Members Protection Act of 2002, does not apply to the 19 NATO members and to nine "major non-NATO allies."
The suspension covers international military education and training funds, or IMET, which mainly pay the cost of educating foreign officers at U.S. institutions, and foreign military funding, which pays for U.S. weapons and other aid.
IMET funds usually amount to less than $1 million per country a year, but foreign military funding can run into the hundreds of millions.
Congress passed the law out of disapproval of the International Criminal Court, set up to try war crimes and acts of genocide. The United States says it feared politically motivated prosecutions of civilian or military leaders. The United States had hoped that the threat to withdraw aid would lead to a last-minute rush to sign Article 98 agreements exempting U.S. personnel from transfer to the court.
Altogether 44 governments have publicly acknowledged signing the agreement and at least seven others have signed secret agreements, U.S. officials say. The pace of signatures does appear to have picked up a little. About 25 governments have signed in the last four months, about half of those in the last three weeks.
STUPID!
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