Chile being pressured to grant U.S. citizens immunity from the ICC

and, omg, it's hurting our ability to train latin american military...



we have no shame...

Chile’s newly elected president Michelle Bachelet is on Friday expected to face pressure from US president George W. Bush to grant US citizens immunity from prosecution for alleged human rights abuses at the International Criminal Court.

Chile has yet to decide whether to fully ratify the 2002 Rome Statute, which created the ICC in The Hague, or to sign a bilateral agreement with Washington that would exempt US citizens from prosecution.

Twelve Latin American countries, including Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador and Mexico, have seen Congress block millions of dollars in US military aid since 2004 for not signing exemption clauses.

That has damaged the Pentagon’s efforts to build relations in Latin America and offset the rising influence of radical populism in the region.

US Army Brigadier General Frederick Rudesheim, the joint staff’s deputy director for western hemisphere politico-military affairs, said sanctions on assistance have complicated military to military relations.

“Our ability to bring in military leaders for training is made more difficult by not having the funds available because of the sanctions imposed,” said Gen Rudesheim. “It’s not a show-stopper but it certainly makes things more difficult in that regard.”

WHAT...?!?! you mean the enrollment at the school of the americas western hemisphere institute for security cooperation is dropping...?

Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), located at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia, is the Defense Department's principal Spanish-language training facility for Latin American military and law-enforcement personnel (though some civilians attend as well). It is the successor to the School of the Americas (SOA), a facility established in 1946 and legally closed in 2001. The WHINSEC is located in the same building, and offers many of the same courses, as the school it replaces. Along with the U.S. Air Force's Inter-American Air Forces Academy (IAAFA), WHINSEC attracts the largest number of Latin American military students.

they could call it the fluffy-bunny institute for hemispheric harmony and it wouldn't change the basic purpose - training foreign national military forces to serve as u.s. agents on their own soil...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet