TheWeekInCongress

TheWeekInCongress.com

Week Ending July 15, 2005

Presidential Determination No. 2005-26 of July 4, 2005

Waiving Prohibition on United States Military Assistance with Respect to the Dominican Republic

 ← Click on flag for map and country data, Dominican Republic

The President announced that the US and the Dominican Republic have entered into an agreement whereby

the US will lift a ban on providing military assistance to the Dominican Republic in exchange for the Dominican

Republic’s promise not to turn over to the UN International Criminal Court (ICC) any US personnel accused

of crimes against humanity or other like criminal actions in the Dominican Republic.

This arrangement is nothing new. During the Clinton administration the US and many other major countries

signed onto the Rome Statute, established around 1995, in which Article 98 required that signature countries

agree to refer accused criminals within their boundaries to the ICC. Shortly after taking office President Bush

voided the US signature from the Statute and began an aggressive campaign of approaching various countries

with the offer to provide (most likely ‘sell’) military aid if those countries agreed not to participate in referring

alleged criminals to the ICC.

The types of individuals that would be referred would include armed personnel and persons deliberately sent to

another country. Some have concluded that a native of the participating country that works for the US there

could also referred to the ICC.

TheWeekInCongress.com reported last year on the administration’s agreement between the US and Guinea

and the Central African Republic. Here is a quote from the April 23, 2004 edition:

 "The Bush administration has not been shy about its efforts or reasons for wanting the bilateral agreements and

what the future holds. (Then) U.S. Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security, John Bolton,

was quoted by Global Policy Forum saying, “Using Article 98 of the Rome Statute as a basis, we are negotiating

 bilateral, legally-binding agreements with individual States to protect our citizens from being handed over to the

Court.” He added, “Our ultimate goal is to conclude Article 98 agreements with every country in the world,

regardless of whether they have signed or ratified the ICC, regardless of whether they intend to in the future.”

  "The Bush administration has noted that without the agreements, it fears U.S. citizens would be targeted politically

and prosecuted out of reach of American law.

"The Bush administration further distanced itself from the ICC with a piece of legislation signed into law in 2002 called the American Service-members Protection Act of 2002 which clarified the U.S. position not to cooperate with the ICC and made clear that other countries not willing to sign the bilateral agreement could suffer a termination of U.S. aid. The president is also given a wide opportunity to waive any restrictions on non-participating countries.

   "In late 2003 the Bush administration cut nearly $90 million from military aide to European and South American

countries that did not sign the bilateral agreement. Those countries included Brazil, Costa Rica, Peru, Venezuela,

Ecuador, South Africa, and several other Latin American and African countries. A month later aid to Estonia,

Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Slovenia was restored. Those Baltic states are soon to become NATO

members and military aid to NATO members will not be cut off. Also, some non-NATO member will also

continue with U.S. aid even if they do not sign. They are Argentina, Australia, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines,

and Israel. Among the countries that have signed are Romania, Israel, East Timor, the Marshall Islands, Tajikistan,

Palau, Mauritania, Uzbekistan, Honduras, Afghanistan, Micronesia, Gambia, El Salvador, Sri Lanka, India, Nepal,

Djibouti, Bahrain, Tuvalu, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Nauru, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tonga, Sierra Leone

and Rwanda." {Country status as of April 2004}

There are 192 countries.