US opposition to ICC remains firm despite Sudan vote
By GEORGE GEDDA, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON, Apr 1, 2005 (AP) — The United States remains firmly opposed to the International Criminal Court despite American acquiescence to ICC prosecution of war crimes suspects in Sudan, the State Department said Friday.
The “fundamental objections” of the United States to the court remain, spokesman Richard Boucher said. Dropping a veto threat, the administration abstained Wednesday night on a U.N. Security Council resolution that allows ICC prosecution of war crimes perpetrators in Sudan’s Darfur region.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice suggested that a show of U.S. flexibility in the deliberations was necessary because of the “extraordinary circumstance” posed by the continuing humanitarian nightmare in Sudan.
“There are clearly crimes against humanity being committed in Sudan, and there are people who have to be held accountable for those crimes,” Rice said during a photo session with Hungary’s foreign minister.
Given the high priority the United States has given to holding Sudanese war criminals accountable, a veto would have embarrassed the administration. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said last September the abuses in Sudan qualify as genocide.
Hundreds of thousands of people have died in Darfur and more than 2 million others have been uprooted from their homes, victims of an ethnic conflict that began in February 2003. The United Nations has described the humanitarian crisis there as the worst in the world.
The conflict has matched government-backed Arab militias against black African farmers.
During the election campaign last year, President George W. Bush defended American opposition to the ICC. If the United States were to join, he said, “unaccountable judges and prosecutors” could target U.S. military personnel and diplomats.
“I am against the international court,” Bush said.
The United States was able receive guarantees in the resolution that U.S. courts — and not the ICC — would retain jurisdiction for prosecuting Americans guilty of any criminal behavior in Sudan.
Other countries which are not parties to the ICC received the same assurances. The ICC treaty, ratified by 99 countries, was approved in 1999.
Richard Dicker, of the New York-based Human Rights Watch, said the administration showed laudable flexibility in not vetoing the resolution.
He said there was a “train wreck” between the administration’s desire for accountability in Sudan and its “obsession against the only institution that could provide a real threat of prosecution.”
Dicker has long been a proponent of U.S. ratification of the ICC treaty.
The Security Council action, Dicker said, will send a “chilling message” to those most responsible for the suffering in Darfur.
Abdul Galeel Nazeer Karori, a leading Islamist and member of Sudan’s ruling National Congress party, said in Khartoum, “We will not allow any arrest or trial of a Sudanese official, unless they will arrest the 30 million Sudanese people and try them.”
“This is a direct intervention in the affairs of the country,” he said.