Prime Minister Perry Christie gave a wide-ranging press conference in Jamaica on Wednesday 2nd July following the opening in Montego Bay of the 24th Caribbean Heads of Government Meeting.  The meeting being held at the Ritz Carlton marks the 30th anniversary of CARICOM.  The Prime Minister covered a number of subjects for the Bahamian press including the International Criminal Court, the Caribbean Single Market and Economy and the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas.

The Prime Minister said that The Bahamas under the administration of former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham signed the treaty creating the International Criminal Court, a position which the now Government readily adopted.  He said that the Court was an idea initiated in part by fellow CARICOM nation Trinidad and Tobago and all Caribbean countries signed the Treaty with a view at the time to ultimately following up with ratification. Some CARICOM countries went on to ratify the Treaty.  Others including The Bahamas did not.

The idea of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is to create a supra national court that has jurisdiction to deal with matters of human rights abuse, crimes against humanity and genocide where the national jurisdictions are unable to deal with the matters.  The Court has come into some contention because the United States after signing the statute creating the Court announced that it was repudiating the Court and was removing its signature from the Treaty.  Since that time it has sought bilateral agreements with each country in the world including all the members of CARICOM to have its citizens exempted from the court.

Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell has previously told the country that the legal advice The Bahamas government has been given is that Article 98 does not allow derogation from the ICC Treaty as the United States now proposes.  Nevertheless the United States has asked countries to sign the Article 98 derogation agreement. The Armed Services Protection Act of the US mandates that the President has to cut off military aid to the countries that refuse to sign the bilateral agreement with the US by 30th June.  The Bahamas has not signed such an agreement and no other Caribbean country has so signed.  Six Caribbean countries have since been said to have had military aid cut off by the US.

The Bahamas is not amongst them because the US law only applies to countries that ratified the ICC Treaty. The Bahamas has not yet ratified the Treaty.

With regard to the sanctions in US legislation related to the ICC, the PM said that The Bahamas government believed that The Bahamas should qualify for a waiver under US legislation. The Prime Minister said that the country had not decided when or if to ratify and that it was a matter for the Cabinet to decide.

The Prime Minister in answer to the questions of the press about a claim that military aid from the US might be lost to The Bahamas in the form of $300,000 earmarked for lighting the runway in Inagua said that he had been advised that this was factually incorrect.  He said that his advice was that the time for accepting the money did not end on the 30th June.

The Prime Minister said that with regard to the $300,000 allocation, he was advised that those funds were previously earmarked under the assistance programme of the US to help with the fight against drugs unrelated to the issues of the International Criminal Court and the 30th June deadline to sign an Article 98 agreement.  He said The Bahamas Government’s view on the use of the funds had been communicated to the US representatives in The Bahamas last year and again at the Joint Ask Force meeting in Nassau on 27th June. The US gave a response to The Bahamas’ views at that meeting.  That response is now being studied.

In another matter, the Prime Minister said that The Bahamas will not sign on to the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas treaty, nor the Caribbean Single Market and Economy unless it is manifestly in the best interest of The Bahamas to do so.   He said that he had identified the issues to colleagues in CARICOM on the single market and economy and that CARICOM leaders had understood that the consultation process is still going on in The Bahamas. The Prime Minister confirmed that the Prime Minister of Barbados has accepted the invitation of the Government to come to Nassau to engage with civil society on the question of the single market and economy.  The Prime Minister of Barbados is the lead Prime Minister on the subject of the single market and economy. He said in discussions that the Minister of Trade Leslie Miller had with Robert Zellick US Trade Representative there was a recognition that The Bahamas had certain peculiarities about its economy and the FTAA.  The Minister is likely to follow up with discussions in Washington.  The PM said that some have argued that the 2005 deadline is too early and it ought to be pushed back.

The Prime Minister commented on his meeting with President of South Africa Thabo Mbeki.  Mr. Mbeki has just completed a state visit to Jamaica and he addressed the CARICOM conference.  The Prime Minister described the meeting with Mr. Mbeki as a good one. They discussed exchanges in education and tourism.  He said that he took the opportunity to formally invite Mr. Mbeki on a State Visit to The Bahamas before he goes to Haiti for the 200th anniversary of Haiti’s Independence on 1st. January.  He said that he is confident that once the appropriate follow up is done that the invitation is likely to accepted.  At the meeting with the PM were Fred Mitchell, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alfred Sears, the Attorney General and Leslie Miller, the Minister for Trade and Industry.