US Pulls the Strings in Haiti

Laden with heavy security, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice paid a quick visit to Haiti on Tuesday. Her mission: to reassure Haiti's interim government that the United States wants the elections to go forward in November, and to see to it that President Jean-Bertrand Aristide does not return to Haiti.

Once again, the US is manipulating Haiti.

On February 29, 2004, the United States had forcibly removed President Aristide from Haiti, then maintained that he voluntarily resigned. President Aristide had been elected with 80 percent of the vote. True to form, the Bush administration, which claims to love democracy, engineered a coup d'etat and removed a democratically-elected leader of another country.

The Aristides are now in South Africa, which granted them asylum. On August 31, President Aristide issued a statement, cautioning that free and fair elections could not take place in Haiti until the thousands of Lavalas [the pro-Aristide party comprised mostly of Haiti's poor] who are in jail and in exile are free to return home, the repression that has already killed over 10,000 people ends immediately, and national dialogue begins.

President Aristide asked, "In 1994, who could have expected free, fair and democratic elections in South Africa with Nelson Mandela, Govan Mbeki, Oliver Tambo and other leaders and members of the African National Congress in jail, exile or in hiding?"

Two prominent Lavalas leaders are in jail. Rev. Fr. Gérard Jean Juste, who has been in custody for two months, was declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. More than 400 interfaith religious leaders have signed a letter asking for Fr. Jean Juste's release. Former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune has been jailed for 16 months, with no charges against him. Both men are in frail health.

The United Nations maintains a peacekeeping force of 8,000 in Haiti. I asked Mildred Aristide, the President's wife, what role the UN has played in Haiti's problems. She told me: "Before the coup in February 2004 - up until that very day - the constitutional government requested assistance from the UN to help defend Haitians from the murderous band of former soldiers, drug dealers, and thugs who were set on destabilizing the country and killing innocent people."

How did the UN respond? It "stood by and allowed a democratically elected President, along with nearly 7,000 elected officials, to be removed from office," Mrs. Aristide said. Only then, she added, did the UN vote to send an intervention force to Haiti.

"Credible reports of UN complicity in human rights abuses have surfaced," Mrs. Aristide noted. "The UN has been forced to investigate allegations. The Haitian Police distribute machetes to hooded attachés, gun down innocent demonstrators, systematically raid poor slums, disappear prisoners turned over to them by the UN - all under the official sanction of the UN which voted to exercise control over the police."

Referring to the police and the UN, Mrs. Aristide said, "The people of Haiti who are under siege are hard pressed to see any distinction among their repressors." Both Haiti's police and the UN force are enabled by United States political and economic clout.

When Rice was in Haiti Tuesday, she made clear the US does not want President Aristide to return to Haiti. "The Haitian people are moving on," Rice said.

But things in Haiti are not going according to "script," says Mrs. Aristide. Roger Noriega, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs in the State Department, resigned. In August, Haiti's interim government released the imprisoned Louis-Jodel Chamblain, a leader of the vicious Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH), a paramilitary group blamed for thousands of killings during the military dictatorship that ruled Haiti after forcing President Aristide from power in 1991. James B. Foley, the US Ambassador to Haiti, left his post in August for unknown reasons. Foley called Chamblain's release a "sham," especially in light of Neptune's continued incarceration with no evidence against him. Foley characterized Neptune's detention as "a violation of human rights, an injustice and an abuse of power."

"Kidnappings, murder and other crimes have become widespread in Haiti since the interim government came to power a year-and-a-half ago," Rep. Maxine Waters (CA) said in an August statement.

On August 20, police accompanied by machete-wielding civilians attacked a soccer crowd of thousands, shooting or hacking to death at least six and as many as 30 spectators. "Our tax dollars were at both ends of the killing," Brian Concannon, Director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, told the Congressional Black Caucus last week. "The soccer game was sponsored by a USAID program, to promote peace in the neighborhood. The US also sponsors the killers, the Haitian National Police, by providing guns and weapons despite a consistent history of police killing over the last 18 months."

"Roads and infrastructure have fallen into disrepair, and public services have virtually disappeared. The interim government has done nothing to stem the growing violence in the country, and it has done nothing to make millions of dollars in promised aid from international donors available to the Haitian people," said Rep. Waters. "Just about the only thing the interim government has done is jail hundreds of political prisoners."

Since President Aristide's ouster, thousands of people have demonstrated to protest the horrific conditions, and the interim government has responded with violence against the people. Spurred by the US to take a more "proactive role" in going after armed pro-Aristide gangs, UN troops have engaged in "a wave of Fallujah-like collective punishment inflicted on neighborhoods known for supporting Aristide," according to Naomi Klein.

The International Crisis Group (ICG) has documented that 18 months after President Aristide was forced out of the country, Haiti remains insecure and volatile. Much of the population displays "disenchantment, apathy and ignorance about the electoral process," the ICG found.

The IGC reported that "a week before the scheduled close of registration, only 870,000 [of 4 million] potential voters had registered, and none had yet received the new national identity card required to vote."

Although Rice tried to put a positive gloss on Haiti's prospects for fair and free elections, "Haiti is in the midst of a comprehensive program of electoral cleansing," said Concannon. "Its ballots are being cleansed of political dissidents, its voting rolls cleansed of the urban and rural poor. The streets are being cleansed of anti-government political activity," he said.

Lavalas supporters have said they will not participate in the elections unless political prisoners are released, political persecutions are ended, and President Aristide is returned to Haiti. Senior officials at Canada's Foreign Affairs Department admit that Lavalas remains Haiti's most popular party. Thus, an election without Lavalas would be sham.

On June 28, the House of Representatives passed Rep. Barbara Lee's resolution to block arms transfers to Haiti. The State Department responded by announcing on August 9 that it would send $1.9 million worth of guns and other equipment to the police before the elections and presumably before the Senate could vote on the resolution, according to Concannon.

Rep. Waters' proposed amendment to H.R. 2601 provides good standards for evaluating conditions in Haiti as the elections approach, in Concannon's opinion. It requests adequate security, disarmament of paramilitary groups, and trials or release for the political prisoners. Concannon stresses the importance of the opportunity to vote, to organize, and to campaign.

Haitians are still demonstrating in spite of the repression. Haitian democracy supporters are planning a demonstration in Port-au-Prince tomorrow to commemorate the anniversary of the 1991 coup against President Aristide, which they have done every September 30 since 1996. The interim government has outlawed all demonstrations until October 2. That decree "is as unconstitutional in Haiti as it would be in the US and most other countries," said Concannon.

Demonstrations and other Haiti solidarity events will be held in 38 cities in 14 countries on or around September 30.

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Another World Is Possible

The Fifth Annual World Social Forum (WSF) held in Porto Alegre, Brazil from January 26-31 garnered almost no media coverage in the United States. Timed to coincide with the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the WSF drew 155,000 activists from 135 countries, who assembled to challenge Bush's agenda.

The weeklong happening, called "Another World Is Possible," kicked off with a "march for peace." An estimated 200,000 people, many with turbans or indigenous clothing, carried bright flags and marched to the beat of omnipresent drums. Several bore posters with pictures of Bush ("The World's No. 1 Terrorist"). The mood was festive but purposeful as old and young, black, brown, yellow and white, prepared to strategize about how to create a just and peaceful world.

One of the most compelling speakers at the WSF was John Perkins, a former CIA operative and self-described economic hit man for U.S. imperialism. It was Perkins' job to meet with a leader of a targeted country and encourage him to accept a large loan for a project that both the CIA and the leader knew the country could not afford. The money would go to a bank in the United States and U.S. corporations would get the contract to do the job. The country was then beholden to the United States, manipulated to support U.S. policy and make its natural resources available to U.S. corporations. This is the model of "neo-liberalism."

Where a head of state refused to accept the CIA's offer, Perkins would remind him that several leaders had been assassinated or become the victims of a coup and removed from office (e.g., Chile, Haiti). In such a situation, the CIA would back opposition movements within the target country, support corrupt military leaders, or undermine the country's economy. The CIA often sent in "jackals," or "hit men," who plied their trade when other methods failed. Omar Torrijos, former president of Panama, was one victim of these jackals.

When both the economic hit men and the jackals were unsuccessful in bringing the country under U.S. domination, the tactic of last resort was war. This is what happened in Iraq after the U.S. was unable to convince Saddam to support its policies.

Notwithstanding Bush's rhetoric about creating democracies throughout the world, the United States has tried mightily to facilitate the overthrow of twice democratically-elected Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. But it has thus far failed. (See my editorial, Chavez Victory: Defeat for Bush Policy). There was talk last week at the WSF that the U.S. is attempting to get Colombia to invade Venezuela, but Chavez and other Latin American leaders are trying to defuse the situation. Likewise, Dick Cheney lobbed out the possibility that Israel might attack Iran (thereby using Israel as a U.S. surrogate to enable the installation of an Iranian government more receptive to U.S. policies).

Hugo Chavez, who also spoke at the WSF, received a hero's welcome. He highlighted the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), a proposal made by Venezuela as an alternative to the Free Trade of the Americas. The ALBA emphasizes social and cultural exchanges over profit-based economic deals. Chavez noted, "We can't wait for a sustained economic growth of 10 years in order to start reducing poverty through the trickledown effect, as the neoliberal economic theories propose."

Chavez criticized Condoleezza Rice's recent assertion that Chavez was "a negative force in the region." He said relations between the U.S. and Venezuela will remain unhealthy as long as the United States continues its policy of aggression. "The most negative force in the world today is the government of the United States," Chavez said.

Significantly, Chavez maintained, "We must start talking again about equality. The U.S. government talks about freedom and liberty, but never about equality." Indeed, Bush told the Congressional Black Caucus a few days ago that he was "unfamiliar" with the Voting Rights Act.

Walden Bello, executive director of Focus on the Global South and professor of sociology and public administration at the University of the Philippines, analyzed the role that cultural oppression played in the U.S. presidential election. Bello said that although neo-liberalism and militarism are significant problems, "the cultural dimension is what led the Bush administration to victory by drawing its support largely based on white people in the U.S." He noted, "The Bush administration in fact appeals to traditional forms of cultural oppression through traditional forms of cultural ethnocentrism and of traditional and old forms of racism." The people who voted for Bush, according to Bello, "were voting against blacks, they were voting against immigrants, the feminist movement, foreign imports and foreign ideas that are not American."

The American Association of Jurists (AAJ), in association with the Latin American Association of Labor Lawyers, sponsored three days of panel discussions on Law, Public Order and Social Integration at the WSF. As the U.S. representative to the AAJ, I gave a presentation on Human Rights and the New World Order, in which I noted that Bush told his advisors on the evening of September 11, 2001, that the terrorist attacks provided a "great opportunity" for the United States. Likewise, when the tsunami devastated Asia, Condoleezza Rice used almost the same words. She said the tsunami was a "wonderful opportunity" for the U.S. I presented an analysis of how the neoconservatives have hijacked United States foreign policy and the resulting decimation of human rights, including the torture of prisoners in U.S. custody.

Another speaker at the AAJ conference was Arnel Medina Cuenca, president of the National Union of Cuban Jurists. Discussing the U.S. policy of neo-liberalism, he said, "Matan a los pobres pero no a la pobresa" ("They kill the poor but not the poverty.")

The AAJ passed a resolution in support of the five Cuban political prisoners incarcerated in New York for what was, in effect, their anti-terrorist actions against terrorists in the U.S. who sought to overthrow the Cuban government. Another AAJ resolution calls for the return of Vieques, a United States military installation on the land of the U.S. colony Puerto Rico. The resolution also calls on the U.S. government to finance the decontamination of Vieques, which has been poisoned by depleted uranium and heavy metals from U.S. weapons testing and military training exercises. As a result the people of Vieques have the highest incidence of cancer in Puerto Rico.

Programs at the WSF advocated sustainable development, cancellation of Third World debt, an end to corporate abuse, struggle against United States imperialism, and termination of the occupation of Iraq.

In Bush's State of the Union address this evening, we can expect to hear more rhetoric about "freedom," "liberty" and "spreading democracy throughout the world." For most of the people of the world, however, Bush's words signal the spread of neo-liberalism, aggression and regime change, to their detriment. The World Social Forum is one small step toward uniting progressives from around the world to defy Bush's agenda which threatens us all.

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Chavez Victory: Defeat for Bush Policy

The Bush administration is gritting its collective teeth at the outcome of Sunday’s recall election in Venezuela, which overwhelmingly affirmed President Hugo Chavez’s tenure. If President Jimmy Carter had not lent his enormous credibility to the election results, Bush and his minions would surely be crying foul in unison with the opposition.

Chavez was popularly elected by his countrymen and women in 1998 and 2000. Yet in spite of Bush’s claims to support democracy around the world, his administration has given succor those trying to overthrow Chavez’s government before, during and since the aborted coup in April 2002.

Officials at the Organization of American States affirmed that the Bush administration had sanctioned the coup. Bush’s then-Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere, Otto Reich, met with leaders of the coup for months before it was executed. Elliot Abrams, one of the neoconservative policymakers in Bush’s inner circle, approved the coup, according to the London Observer. And John Negroponte, now our ambassador to Iraq, was in on it, too.

Reich, Abrams and Negroponte comprised the troika that administered the “Reagan doctrine” in the 1980s, which supported vicious dictatorships in Central America, including those in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.

As documented in the film, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” Chavez was forcibly removed from the presidential palace on April 11, 2002 by forces acting on behalf of Venezuela’s propertied class. Pedro Carmona, head of Venezuela’s confederation of business and industry, declared himself president. Within hours, Carmona purported to repeal laws enacted under Chavez that the executives of foreign oil companies opposed.

Forty-eight hours later, after thousands of workers and peasants stormed the palace demanding Chavez’s return to power, the military did an about-face and brought him back. The filmmakers, fortuitously present at the scene, were caught inside the palace and filmed the class struggle that played out with Chavez’s ouster and reinstatement.

Former U.S. Navy intelligence officer Wayne Madsen told the Guardian that our navy helped with communications jamming support to the Venezuelan military during the would-be coup. An American plane was present on the island to which Chavez was whisked away. The Bush administration provided financial backing to key participants in the coup attempt, which resulted in the deaths of 19 people.

Chavez incurred the wrath of Team Bush by championing the interests of the working class over the oil-igarchy in Venezuela. The fifth largest oil supplier in the world, Venezuela is a key provider of U.S. petroleum. By using oil profits to help his people instead of the multinational corporations, Chavez created an alternative model to Bush-backed neoliberal globalization.

Hugo Chavez’s plan of Bolivarianism – named after Simon Bolivar, father of Venezuelan independence – focused on a redistribution of the massive wealth generated by his country’s rich oil profits. He passed a law that doubled royalty taxes paid by ExxonMobil and other oil companies on new finds.

Chavez enacted the Ley De Tierras, which provided for unused land to be given to the landless; he instituted free health care and public education to all; he backed a new Constitution that enshrines rights for women and indigenous peoples; and he lowered the inflation rate.

Unlike the U.S.-backed Iraqi interim government, which shut down Al Jazeera for its broadcasts critical of the occupation, Chavez never shut down or censored private media controlled by tycoons trying to unseat him in the months leading up to Sunday’s election.

Nearly 95 percent of the electorate voted in the election, the largest percentage Jimmy Carter has ever seen. Carter and the Organization of American States have independently verified the validity of Sunday’s election results, and have even supported an audit, which Carter calls “infallible,” according to The New York Times. Nevertheless, the opposition refuses to sanction the results of the election or the audit.

Opposition exit polls, which Carter has dismissed as inaccurate and “deliberately distributed … in order to build up, not only the expectation of victory, but also to influence the people still standing in line,” were funded by the National Endowment for Democracy.

NED, a U.S. government organization purporting to promote democracy, was set up in the early 1980s by Reagan to counter negative revelations about the CIA’s covert operations in the late 1970s. NED successfully manipulated the Nicaraguan elections in 1990 and worked with right-wing groups in the late 1990s to oust Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Just last February, the Bush administration engineered a coup d’etat in Haiti, as I described in my editorial, Coup d’Etat – This Time in Haiti. The U.S. Marines put democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on a plane out of Haiti after officials from the United States threatened him into signing a purported resignation letter. Aristide, like Chavez, fell out of favor with Bush by resisting neoliberalism.

Hugo Chavez is, according to The Wall Street Journal, “Washington’s biggest Latin American headache after the old standby, Cuba.” Indeed, Venezuela is Cuba’s top trading partner, selling it discounted oil, while Cuba has sent thousands of doctors, teachers and engineers to work in Venezuela.

Speaking of Cuba, NED donated a quarter-million dollars in the early 1990s to the Cuban-American National Fund, the terrorist anti-Castro group in Miami. CANF financed Luis Posada Carriles, notorious for his involvement in the blowing up of a Cuba airplane in 1976, which killed 73 people.

Chavez, now trying to reunify his country in the wake of a contentious election, says: “Violence can only be ended if actions are taken so that all human beings have access to the fundamental human rights, including education, housing, work and health.” In a déjà vu from a hot-button issue facing us in the United States, Chavez told journalist Greg Palast: “Our upper classes don’t even like paying taxes. That’s one reason they hate me. We said, ‘You must pay your taxes.’”

Critical of the Bush administration’s covert activity against him and Fidel Castro, Chavez maintains: “They are also manipulating the U.S. people because there is a dictatorship in the United States.”

One would hope our election results in November are as reliable as Venezuela’s. If Bush is elected, we can expect him to go after Chavez again, and Castro as well. This would likely destabilize Latin America in much the same way Bush has destabilized the Middle East with his war on Iraq.

Leaders of countries throughout Latin America congratulated Hugo Chavez on his victory Sunday. Yet the Bush government, although grudgingly accepting the results, did not hail the exercise of democracy in Venezuela.

Bush’s agenda was roundly defeated with Chavez’s triumph. Chavez has opposed U.S. policy in Latin America, including military aid to Colombia and efforts to spread free trade agreements throughout the region. Voters who supported him understood that a vote to recall Hugo Chavez would be a vote for U.S. imperialism.

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Coup d'Etat - This Time in Haiti

In 1953, the CIA overthrew Iran's democratically elected government. It took 47 years to report that coup d'etat to the American public. Twenty-seven years after the CIA engineered the coup that ousted Chile's democratically elected president, the agency's report finally saw the light of day. How long will it take for the United States government to admit its role in forcibly removing the Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, whose people had elected him with 80% of the vote?

Colin Powell, now denying Bob Woodward's explosive report about the Iraqi debacle, also denies the U.S. did anything untoward when the Marines put the Aristides on a plane to the Central African Republic on February 29. Yet the Bush Administration adamantly opposes an independent investigation of the Aristides' departure and the quick installment of a de facto government in Haiti.

If it has nothing to hide, why did the U.S. State Department threaten the Caribbean Countries (CARICOM), who called for the United Nations to investigate the situation in Haiti? Indeed, the Bush Administration has made a habit of resisting independent investigations - of the Cheney energy task force, the 911 Commission, and the lead-up to the Iraq war.

The irony of George W. Bush's claim that he invaded Iraq to bring democracy to the Iraqi people was not lost on President Aristide and his wife, whom I visited in Jamaica last month. President Aristide is grieving not just for himself, but also for the millions of Haitians, many of whom are in hiding from the notorious criminals who are the power behind Haiti's de facto government.

President Aristide told us the coup was not just about 8 million people and democracy in Haiti. It is also, he said, about the right of the African people to reparations for the bitter legacy of slavery in Haiti. When threatened with a French invasion and the restoration of slavery in 1825, the Haitian government agreed to pay France 150 million francs in return for recognition as a sovereign state. France insisted upon restitution for its loss of slave "property."

That debt has crippled Haiti ever since. It took 100 years to repay, and in the process, Haiti's education, healthcare system, and infrastructure were eviscerated. President Aristide incurred France's wrath by demanding the French pay restitution to Haiti, $21 billion in today's currency, for the unjust debt. France joined the United States in engineering the removal of President Aristide from Haiti.

What did President Aristide do to offend the United States enough to remove him from power? During his first term, President Aristide had resisted privatization. The U.S. feared this threat to globalization would spread to other parts of the Caribbean and Latin America - the old domino theory. Since President Aristide's election in 2000, the U.S. tried to sabotage Haiti's fledgling democracy by imposing a crippling economic aid embargo, which prevented $550 million in promised international aid from reaching Haiti.

The coup in Haiti was executed through surrogates in the Dominican Republic, as well as members of the dissolved Haitian army and former paramilitary organizations. U.S. diplomats told the Aristides they would be killed if President Aristide did not sign a resignation letter. Under extreme duress, he signed a letter, which the State Department-hired interpreter would not characterize as a resignation. The Aristides were held incommunicado for 20 hours as they were flown to the Central African Republic. The U.S. had refused to send troops to protect the Aristide government. Yet one hour after he left Haiti, the U.S. ordered troops to Haiti.

The National Lawyers Guild delegations to Haiti verified brutal and indiscriminate repression against the civilian population since the coup. It is incumbent upon the United Nations to immediately address this emergency. The forcible removal of the Aristides from Haiti violates the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Internationally Protected Persons, a treaty ratified by the U.S.

Since March 15, the Aristides have been in Jamaica, where they were granted temporary asylum. The United States has exerted intense pressure on Jamaica and the other CARICOM countries to recognize the de facto government in Haiti. As a result, the Aristides must leave Jamaica and travel to South Africa, which has granted them asylum until the situation in Haiti stabilizes and they can return. Spokesman Joel Netshitenzhe said the South African government supports the call for an investigation into President Aristide's removal from Haiti and seeks to build an international consensus against unilateral regime changes.

As we took leave of the Aristides in Jamaica, President Aristide quoted the slave general Toussaint l'Ouverture, who led the successful rebellion that ousted the French from Haiti in 1804: "In overthrowing me, you have cut down in San Domingo [Haiti] only the trunk of the tree of black liberty. It will spring up again by the roots for they are numerous and deep." The Haitian people, who have endured insufferable hardships at the hands of colonial powers, hold the roots of liberty within themselves.

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Bush & Co. Fear Prosecution in the International Criminal Court

Overcoming Impunity with the International Criminal Court

Non-governmental organizations and individuals from sixty-six different countries have filed 499 "communications" – or complaints – with the International Criminal Court (ICC), between July 2002 and July 2003. Many of them urge the ICC to investigate the United States conduct in the war on Iraq. The primary charge is that the U.S. committed an act of aggression against Iraq. The ICC has jurisdiction to punish the crime of aggression. However, this crime remains undefined in the ICC’s statute due to disputes among the states parties about how to define it.

The United States is not a party to the ICC treaty. The Bush administration has vigorously opposed it, for fear that U.S. military officials and personnel could be subject to "politically-motivated" prosecutions for war crimes.

In an unprecedented move last year, George W. Bush removed Bill Clinton’s signature from the treaty. A few months later, Bush signed into law the American Serviceman’s Protection Act, which restricts U.S. cooperation with the ICC and prohibits military assistance to states parties to the treaty unless they sign bilateral immunity agreements with the U.S. States which sign these "Article 98" agreements – referring to the section of the ICC statute that addresses treaties between countries – pledge not to hand over U.S. nationals to the ICC. The United States has reportedly extracted these agreements from 60 countries – primarily small nations, or fragile democracies with weak economies. And the U.S. has withdrawn military aid from 35 nations that refused to be coerced into signing Article 98 agreements.

The U.S. has also demanded express immunity from ICC prosecution for American nationals. This demand delayed the passage of several peacekeeping resolutions in the Security Council. But in 2002, the Security Council capitulated when it unanimously passed Resolution 1422, which called for one year of immunity for peacekeepers from countries not party to the ICC statute, and provided that immunity could be renewed in subsequent years. The resolution was renewed in June. But this time, the U.S. was unable to achieve unanimity. France, Germany and Syria abstained from the vote.

Ninety-one countries have signed on as parties to the ICC treaty. So why has the Bush administration resisted it so vehemently? Bush’s handlers were likely prescient about how the world would react to the United States’ illegal invasion of Iraq, which was not executed with Security Council approval or in lawful self-defense. They evidently knew they and their boss might be vulnerable to prosecutions for the unlawful killing of thousands of Iraqi civilians, the destruction of the civilian infrastructure, and the use of weapons of mass destruction – cluster bombs and depleted uranium – by "coalition forces."

A Preemptive War is a War of Aggression

The United States has sought to ensure the ICC’s legal processes do not jeopardize its role as global superpower by subjecting U.S. leaders to prosecution. It has consistently resisted definitions and jurisdictional provisions that may challenge U.S. impunity for wars of aggression.

Many ICC parties favor a definition of aggression set out in 1974 in General Assembly Resolution 3314, passed in the wake of Vietnam: "Aggression is the use of armed force by a state against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations, as set out in this definition."

Bush’s new doctrine of "preemptive war" is a license to prosecute wars of aggression. It runs directly counter to the United Nations Charter’s prohibition on the use of armed force except in self-defense or when authorized by the Security Council. A preemptive war is a war of aggression. "Operation Iraqi Freedom" falls squarely into this category.

More than 50 years ago, Associate United States Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, one of the prosecutors at the Nuremberg Tribunal, wrote: "No political or economic situation can justify" the crime of aggression. He added: "If certain acts in violation of treaties are crimes they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us." An impartial international criminal tribunal is necessary to prevent "victor’s justice," where only the vanquished are subject to prosecution.

Universal Jurisdiction for International Crimes

Under the treaty, the ICC can take jurisdiction over a national of even a non-party state if he or she commits a crime in a state party’s territory. The U.S. vehemently objects to this. But it’s nothing new. Under well-established principles of international law, the core crimes prosecuted in the ICC – genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression – are crimes of universal jurisdiction.

That means that an alleged perpetrator can – and always could – be arrested anywhere. Indeed, the United States itself has asserted jurisdiction over foreign nationals in anti-terrorism, anti-narcotic trafficking, torture and war crimes cases. Even Resolution 1422 notes that states not party to the ICC statute "will continue to fulfill their responsibilities in their national jurisdiction in relation to international crimes."

However, the U.S. has not fulfilled its responsibilities to seek justice for international crimes. It has refused to extradite four terrorists – right-wing Cuban exiles trained by the CIA – who were convicted more than 20 years ago in Venezuela for blowing up a Cuban airliner in 1976. The U.S. similarly refuses to extradite John Hull, an American CIA operative indicted in Costa Rica for the 1984 bombing of a press conference which killed five journalists in a Nicaraguan border town. It has also refused to extradite former military officer Emmanuel Constant for trial in Haiti. Constant, who worked closely with the CIA, is believed to be responsible for the murder of more than 5000 people under the Haitian dictatorship in the early 1990s.

The ICC statute adds a special safeguard to the venerable principle of universal jurisdiction. It promises the ICC will only prosecute when the alleged perpetrator’s native country cannot, or will not, prosecute one of its nationals. The U.S. should not then fear ICC prosecution, especially in light of the Article 98 agreements it coerced – and continues to coerce – from a multitude of countries. Unfortunately, however, these agreements contain no guarantee that an American national accused of an international crime would be tried if handed over to the U.S.

In June, Belgium indicted Bush, Tony Blair, Paul Wolfowitz, John Ashcroft, and Condoleezza Rice for war crimes during the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan, which predated the effective date of the ICC. The indictment was issued under Belgium’s universal jurisdiction law, which gave Belgian courts the right to judge anyone accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide, regardless of where the crimes were committed. Four Rwandans have been convicted in 2001 under Belgium’s law for their participation in the 1994 genocide which left more than one million dead.

The government of Belgium, fearing a backlash, decided to refer the cases against Blair, Bush and the others to London and Washington, making trials unlikely. Even so, Donald Rumsfeld threatened to move NATO out of Brussels unless Belgium changed its universal jurisdiction law. Belgium capitulated, and its Court of Cassation has asked for the dismissal of the war crimes indictments.

Belgium isn’t alone in indicting Bush and Blair for war crimes. In July, Greece’s Athens Bar Association filed a complaint in the ICC against the two for crimes against humanity and war crimes, this time in connection with their war on Iraq. "Operation Iraqi Freedom" began after July 2002, the effective date of the ICC.

The Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks occurred before the ICC went into effect. Two years later, a Spanish judge charged Osama bin Laden and nine alleged Al Qaeda members with terrorism and murder under the principle of universal jurisdiction.

U.S. Undermines War Against Terrorism

Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the Argentine Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, has decided to begin the work of the Court by investigating possible genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity for the recruitment and use of children as soldiers and sex slaves in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Moreno-Ocampo’s selection of the Congo for his maiden investigation was made partly with an eye to the credibility of the ICC because, he says, "the Congo was a clear case."

But, John Shattuck, the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, wrote in the Washington Post in September that the United States has "so far played a passive and sometimes negative role in the region." Just two days after the Security Council adopted a resolution on July 28 which imposed an embargo on "the direct or indirect supply" of arms or assistance to "armed groups and militias operating in the territory," the U.S. lifted its own embargo on weapons sales to Rwanda, which has armed its clients in eastern Congo.

Moreno-Ocampo, who has described the genocide in Congo as the "most important case since the Second World War," plans to investigate businesses in 29 countries, including the United States, suspected of financing ethnic violence in Congo.

Ironically the Chief Prosecutor, an attorney with extensive experience investigating atrocities and prosecuting officials in Argentina, says that the United States’ refusal to work with the ICC will undermine the International Criminal Court’s role in the U.S. efforts to fight terrorism.

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