Global Policy Forum

By John J. Lumpkin*

The U.S. military will pull tiny contingents out of two U.N. peacekeeping missions because Americans no longer are exempt from international prosecution for war crimes, a Pentagon spokesman said Thursday.

A seven-person team will be removed from the U.N. mission to keep the peace between the African nations of Ethiopia and Eritrea, and two liaison officers will be taken out of the U.N. mission in Kosovo, spokesman Larry Di Rita told reporters at a new conference. "It was determined ... that the risk was not appropriate to our forces, and so they were withdrawn," Di Rita said. Four Americans assigned to the Ethiopia-Eritrea mission will leave immediately and three others will depart once replacements are found, Di Rita said.

The head of the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch questioned the Bush administration's rationale. "This sounds like an excuse to pull a few U.S. personnel out of U.N. peacekeeping missions, not because they are at any risk, but to make an ideological point," said Richard Dicker. He said the International Criminal Court, which started operating last year in The Hague, has no authority over events in Ethiopia or Eritrea because neither country has ratified the treaty establishing the tribunal.

The main U.S. mission to Kosovo, numbering about 2,200 troops, will not be affected because separate agreements exempt them from war crimes prosecution, Pentagon officials said. The move follows the administration's decision last week not to seek a new exemption from prosecutions at the court.

The war crimes tribunal was created as a court of last resort and will step in only when countries are unwilling or unable to dispense justice themselves. Its supporters say that makes it highly unlikely that an American would be prosecuted. Yet the administration has argued that the court could be used for frivolous or politically motivated prosecutions of American troops. The U.S. government is not a member of the court, but some countries with a U.S. presence are. Washington has signed 90 bilateral agreements that bar prosecution of U.S. officials by the court for war crimes, but that does not include the areas the nine people will be leaving, Di Rita said.

Until it expired Wednesday, American officials operated under an exemption preventing international prosecution for war crimes. Washington abandoned its attempt to extend the exemption in the face of strong opposition because of the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan also had raised serious doubts about the legality of an exemption but had expressed hope the Americans would not leave peacekeeping missions.

U.S. troops in Iraq are not subject to the court because neither the United States nor Iraq is a member. Di Rita said all U.N. peacekeeping missions with a U.S. presence are under review.

*Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

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