Rice: US still opposes IC Court to prosecute atrocities in Sudan

By THOMAS WAGNER, Associated Press Writer

LONDON, Feb 4, 2005 (AP) — The United States remains opposed to calls by Europe for cases of alleged atrocities in Sudan’s Darfur region to be brought before the International Criminal Court, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday.

The Bush administration opposes the permanent war crimes court in The Hague, Netherlands, out of concern that U.S. troops could one day be brought before it for politically motivated prosecutions.

“We are not party to it (the ICC). We are concerned about unaccountable prosecutors and unaccountable prosecutions,” Rice said after meeting privately over breakfast with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw at Blair’s Downing Street office Friday.

Rice said the Bush administration preferred local and regional tribunals for the prosecution of abuses in Sudan, saying a similar effort regarding similar abuses in Rwanda had been “a great success.”

“American views of the ICC, and the dangers of the ICC haven’t changed,” Rice said at a news conference with Straw.

The British foreign secretary said the United States and Britain “are in complete agreement about the need to see those who have committed these atrocities brought to justice.”

Straw recently said Britain would prefer that the ICC try the atrocities allegedly committed by the Sudanese government and Arab militia in Darfur. But he also said that a consensus on the issue regarding such prosecutions must be reached at the U.N. Security Council.

Sudan has been shattered from a 21-year-civil war in the south and a separate conflict and full-blown humanitarian crisis in the western Darfur region. There, a conflict between government-backed Janjaweed militia and rebels has killed tens of thousands and displaced some 2 million more.