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No-Holds-Barred
By Peter G. Mwesige |
Not in our name, Mr President!
June 19, 2003
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He has done it again! President Yoweri Museveni last week broke ranks with the dominant opinion of the international community and signed an agreement that exempts American personnel from prosecution in the International Criminal Court (ICC). This comes on the heels of his support for the US war on Iraq, where he again broke ranks with African and other world leaders and committed Uganda to support the dubious American military campaign. Up to now the Americans and their British allies have not unearthed any credible evidence that suggests Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction prior to the “shock and awe” war that was justified mainly on those grounds. International human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have condemned Uganda’s latest deal with the Americans. “President Museveni should uphold Uganda’s obligations as a state party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court by rejecting such agreements,” Amnesty International said in a statement last week. “These agreements are illegal as they violate Uganda’s duty to cooperate with the ICC and the obligation of all states to ensure that people responsible for … the most serious crimes under international law are brought to justice.” The ICC, the world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal, was inaugurated in March this year in The Hague. The U.N. charter, ratified by both the United States and Uganda, calls for the creation of such a court. The concept had its genesis in the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals after World War II, and gained currency in the 1990s following the creation of international tribunals to consider charges of genocide in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. Individuals can be brought before the International Criminal Court on charges of genocidal crimes that involve the “widespread and systematic” murder, torture, rape, deportation and enslavement of civilians. The Rome Statute that created the ICC in 1998 has been signed by about 140 countries, and ratified by 90. The American administration of Bill Clinton had signed it in 2000, shortly before the cowboy from Texas took over the White House and abrogated the action. The Bush administration justifies its opposition to the Court and exemption from the Rome Statute’s provisions on grounds that American citizens, be they peacekeepers or soldiers involved in military campaigns, could become vulnerable to frivolous or politically motivated prosecutions. Of course the Americans have every reason to worry given their involvement in armed conflicts all over the world. And a lot of these have often been brutal campaigns that claimed the lives of thousands of innocent civilians. A year ago the United States leaned on the UN Security Council to approve a measure exempting American peacekeepers from the jurisdiction of the ICC. In a resolution last week the Security Council passed a one-year renewal to that measure. The United States has also signed so-called Article 98 agreements with 38 countries, including the latest one with Uganda, stipulating that neither side can surrender the other’s citizens for trial to the ICC. The U.S. Congress went as far as enacting a law, the American Members Protection Service Act of 2002, which bars military assistance to governments that ratify the treaty that created the ICC. As UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said last week following the renewal of the Security Council resolution exempting the US, such exemptions could “undermine not only the authority of the ICC, but also the authority of this Council and the legitimacy of United Nations peacekeeping.” The exemption of the U.S. creates a two-tiered standard of justice—one for Americans and another for the rest of us. Now enter our own Mr Museveni. It is amazing that the president can commit the country to such agreements without any attempt at forging national consensus or even explaining his actions to the nation. There was no debate on the matter in Parliament, which he did not consult, and it would not be far-fetched to suggest that his own cabinet was also in the dark. Such is Mr Museveni’s contempt for institutions of government, civil society and public opinion. For all his arrogance and unilateral streak, Mr Bush has the backing of the American Congress on his stance on the ICC. And his administration has clearly put its case before the bar of American public opinion. Not Mr Museveni. He is wont to remind us that “power belongs to the people,” but he often exercises it without due regard to their voice. His unquestioning embrace of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and now his acceptance of the new imperial American foreign policy starkly contradict his self-glorified history of struggle against imperialism and colonialism. Perhaps, as a leading legal mind in Parliament intimated to this columnist, “His history was just a façade. He just wanted to get where he is and now that he is there, he can do anything to stay there. It is unfortunate that after [Uganda] had signed the [Statute] establishing] the ICC, he goes around our back and signs the deal with the Americans.” Mr Museveni could attempt to justify his scratch-my-back politics with the Americans on grounds that Uganda needs US military support to finish off Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army. But a more plausible reason is that he hopes the Americans—who have a rich history of unprincipled alliances with dictators from Africa, Latin America and Asia will turn a blind eye to his political excesses. [EMAIL PROTECTED] |
© 2003 The Monitor Publications
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