GEORGETOWN, Guyana — Guyana yesterday agreed to exempt American soldiers from prosecution in the International Criminal Court (ICC), in the face of a possible cut in military aid from the US.

The United States earlier this month suspended US$48 million in aid to dozens of countries, including six Caribbean nations, which had failed to meet a July 1 deadline to sign the treaty exempting Americans from prosecution in the court.

However, Guyana, along with Jamaica, Grenada and Haiti, which had signed the treaty, but yet to ratify it, apparently bowed under pressure and promised yesterday that the exemption agreement would be signed later this year.

“I need the military co-operation with the United States to continue,” President Bharrat Jagdeo said.

In the past two years, the former British colony has received about 30 heavy duty military trucks, light field equipment and four coast guard vessels under a US military assistance programme.

Much of the country’s borders are underpatrolled, Jagdeo said, noting the vulnerability of Guyana’s vast rainforests to Colombian rebels.

American soldiers sometimes use Guyana as a refuelling point, or on regular training exchanges. Under the exemption agreement, US soldiers in Guyana would not be extradited to the court for prosecution.

US President George W Bush’s administration fiercely opposes the new court, fearing politically motivated indictments.

The United States, on the eve of the recently held Caribbean Community (Caricom) conference in Jamaica, announced the cut in military aid to countries which had failed to sign the exemption agreement for Americans. Among them were the Caribbean nations of Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Antigua, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica and Belize. Some of the countries say the military aid cut will lead to more drugs and contraband reaching the United States.

However, Caricom failed to arrived on a common position on the issue, and instead said it recognised that some member states may wish to negotiate bilateral non-surrender agreements with the US if they are advised by their legal authorities that any agreement which they entered was consistent with their obligation under the Rome Statute.

The Community was, however, flayed by Trinidad and Tobago, which accused some states of “political somersaults”. In fact, Trinidad’s foreign minister, Knowlson Gift, who had made it clear that his country’s position on the court was non-negotiable, accused some states of giving him a “capitulation shocker” by changing their stance on entering into arrangements with the US to exempt its nationals from the ICC’s jurisdiction. He did not name any of the countries.

Barbados and St Vincent and the Grenadines also reaffirmed their support for the ICC, during the Caricom summit in Jamaica.

The ICC, based in The Hague, Netherlands, has received nearly 500 complaints from 66 countries since it came into existence on July 1, 2002. Under its mandate, it can investigate war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, but only if they are committed in the territory or by citizens of the countries that ratified the 1998 Rome treaty.