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The almighty dollar speaks, doesn't it?

- Wilmot


On Thu, 7 Aug 2003 12:38:32 -0500
  Dzigbodi Akyea <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
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>
>General News of Thursday, 07 August 2003
>
>USA Threatens Ghana
>  The US government has given Ghana up to November 1,
>2003, to ratify its
>Bilateral Non-Surrender Agreement (BNSA) or risk being
>cut off from US
>military assistance.
>
>The ultimatum to Ghana is part of a world-wide campaign
>being waged by
>Washington to compel countries with little or no backbone
>to accept its fiat
>to grant blanket immunity to all US service personnel
>from prosecution under
>the International Criminal Court for war crimes or crimes
>against humanity.
>
>Information reaching The Heritage from the
>Parliamentarians for Global
>Action (PGA), a network of over 1,350 Members of
>Parliament from 105 elected
>national legislatures, indicate that the cut-off in
>military assistance from
>the US is the penalty being applied by Washington to
>states rejecting the
>BNSA.
>
>The agreement, which under the US law is called American
>Service Members
>Protection Act (Article 98) of August 2, 2002, also
>allows the US President
>to issue waivers to countries that are allied with the US
>or countries for
>which the national interest of the US could be at stake.
>
>The PGA, citing White House memo dated July 1, 2003, said
>Ghana received a
>presidential waiver for "reasons of national interest" on
>that date valid
>until November 1, 2003.
>
>According to the PGA, if the Parliament of Ghana fails to
>ratify the
>agreement by that date, she might be sanctioned with a
>cut-off in US
>military assistance, unless otherwise determined by the
>US President.
>
>The authoritative French News Agency, Agence France Press
>(AFP) disseminated
>information on May 2, 2003 that the BNSA agreement had
>been signed between
>Ghana and the US in early May.
>
>It said in early May 2003, other news agencies were
>reporting that the US
>State Department had communicated to the media a list of
>countries that had
>signed the BNSA against the ICC. The list, according to
>the AFP, included
>Ghana.
>
>"We inferred that the signature of such an agreement has
>been done silently
>- almost secretly - maybe because Ghana was the fifth
>nation of the world to
>join the 'ICC Club' of the law-abiding states in 1999
>through a Bipartisan
>Agreement", the PGA stated in documents sent to The
>Heritage.
>
>It added that, "the Government of Ghana might have
>therefore feared the
>shameful effect of a public declaration that Ghana caved
>in to US pressures
>against the court".
>
>The PGA, which is engaged in a wide range of
>action-oriented initiatives
>that promote democracy, peace, justice and development
>throughout the world,
>disclosed that on July 1 this year, the US suspended more
>than $47 million
>in military aid to 35 countries for their failure or
>refusal to give US
>citizens immunity from prosecution by the tribunal, which
>Washington
>vehemently opposes.
>
>It said the US fears the ICC - the world's first
>permanent international
>court to try cases of war crimes, crimes against humanity
>and genocide -
>could become a forum for politically-motivated
>prosecutions of US citizens.
>
>"Because the agreements are controversial, eight
>countries including Ghana,
>have asked that they be kept secret", according to the
>PGA documents.
>
>Ghanaian authorities have been tight-lipped over the
>deal. When contacted,
>an official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the
>sector Minister had
>instructed that all inquiries on the subject must be
>re-directed to the
>Defence Minister. This was after The Heritage had made
>marathon phone calls
>over a two-day period to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
>
>A questionnaire subsequently sent to and duly received at
>the Ministry of
>Defence was said to have mysteriously vanished at the
>office of the Minister
>of Defence at Burma Camp.
>
>Meanwhile, International Relations experts stress that
>the BNSA agreement,
>if ratified, will have far-reaching implications for both
>Ghana and the ICC.
>
>According to them, the ratification of such a bilateral
>agreement may limit
>the court's effectiveness, which might lead to states
>neglecting their
>responsibility to co-operate fully with it.
>
>For Ghana, it means one of the first countries to sign
>the Rome Treaty that
>set up the ICC and has "Freedom and Justice" as her
>national motto, would
>have reneged on her international obligations to ensure
>justice.
>
>Source: The Heritage
>
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