Canceling the 4th of July
The International Criminal Court

 

The coverage of Slobodan Milosevic’s arrest in the world press should cause the alarm bells to sound in the mind of every Christian. According to a USAToday.com article, "Milosevic is wanted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, for alleged involvement in atrocities against Kosovo’s ethnic majority" (Mar. 31, 2001). The online newspaper also quoted President Bush as saying that Milosevic "ought to be brought to justice," and Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL), chairman of the House International Relations Committee as saying, "The prompt prosecution of Mr. Milosevic for alleged war crimes will further Yugoslavia’s integration into Europe." While Milosevic is no paragon of virtue nor a statesman of the stature of George Washington (in fact, he has been somewhat tied in with Vladimir Putin’s regime in Russia), it is important to note that he is simply being used as a pawn to further an internationalist agenda. During NATO’s bombing of Serbia (with mostly U.S. planes and at mostly U.S. taxpayers’ expense), "our" ally was the Kosovo Liberation Army, a Maoist terrorist and drug-running outfit whose goal was to produce a Greater Albania and whose successor is currently causing more chaos by launching attacks in Macedonia. So much for furthering the ideals of the American republic!

The arrest of Slobodan Milosevic and the concurrent publicity are designed to produce propaganda preparing the American public for the acceptance of the International Criminal Court. Intermediate "war crimes tribunals" have been set up dealing with the "violence" of the Hutus against their rival tribe, the Tutsis, in Rwanda, Africa, and dealing with Serbia’s "violence" in Kosovo. These tribunals are investigating the internal affairs of these nations. This is the first time that the U.N. and its adjuncts have gone this far in meddling with the internal affairs of nations, and the arrest warrant for Milosevic is roughly equivalent to the issuing of a warrant for the arrest of California Governor Gray Davis for alleged brutalities of the Los Angeles Police Department against blacks. Milosevic has been painted as a monster by the mass media, and the public is thus being stampeded into accepting the authority of international courts as standard operating procedure.

The key players in the promotion of this internationalist agenda are members of the Bush Administration and members of the U.S. Congress. According to the USA Today internet articles, the arrest of Milosevic by Serbian police "came on the very day the U.S. Congress had set as a deadline for Yugoslavia to begin cooperating with the U.N. war crimes tribunal." The article added that "Washington [D.C.] had threatened Belgrade [capital of Yugoslavia] with a suspension of $100 million in economic aid if it did not comply." Before the funds are released, the law passed by Congress specifies that the executive branch must certify "that the Yugoslav government was in compliance with congressionally mandated requirements stemming, in part, from the U.N. war crimes indictment of Milosevic." "It has been expected," stated that article, "that [Secretary of State Colin] Powell would find Yugoslavia in compliance based on the cooperation the country has offered to the U.N. War Crimes Tribunal in the Netherlands." $100 million plus other loan dollars is a lot of pressure on a war-tom country the size of Yugoslavia, and Congress is not likely to back off. Senator Patrick Leahy, D-VT, welcomed the news of the arrest of Milosevic, but said "it is incomplete until he is presented to the war crimes tribunal under international law."

If the internationalists were really interested injustice, they would be calling Fidel Castro of Cuba and the leaders of Red China in for questioning. That is not going to happen. What is happening is the creation of a media issue so that the public can be prepared in a step-by-step fashion for accepting the jurisdiction of the upcoming International Criminal Court.

 

THE AMERICAN COURT SYSTEM
The U.S. Constitution provided for the establishment of the U.S. Supreme Court, and determined that Congress would set up and regulate the lower court system. Foundational to the American court system were practices of British Common Law, provisions for justice wrested at high cost over the centuries from tyrannical British monarchs. In addition, the Constitution itself specified certain rights to ensure their continuation in the American court system, such as the right to a speedy trial, the right to file a writ of habeas corpus requiring the court system to file formal charges against the individual that his innocence or guilt might be established rather than his rotting without trial in some forgotten jail cell, right to trial by a jury of peers, etc. These provisions for justice were not only found at the federal level but in the state court systems as well.

As embedded as these principles have been in American jurisprudence, it has not stopped the judicial activists from effectively altering some of the bases for trial. Executive branch courts have been set up (such as tax courts) in which the executive branch provides both the prosecution and the judge, thus denying the fundamental principle of the separation of powers. The Supreme Court has been willing to overthrow all existing precedents and clear language of the Constitution to legalize abortion, abolish prayer in public schools, eliminate the posting of the Ten Commandments, etc. And juries are routinely instructed that they are not there to determine the constitutionality of a law, but only the guilt or innocence of the individual based on the instructions of the "law" the judge provides.

As the apostle Paul was able to appeal to Roman law to protect himself from the hostile ravages of rabid Jews, so the American Christian can protect himself through his appeal to the American system of jurisprudence. But if the bench in America can be politicized as much as it has been, even with such a legacy of justice and backed by clear constitutional statements, just think what judges who have no such legacy and no such constitutional restrictions could do.

 

RUCKUS IN ROME
Calls for an International Criminal Court had been in the wind for some time. In 1994 William Jasper wrote, "At the United Nations, many different draft statutes for an ICC have been on file for decades. For the past four years, the UN’s International Law Commission (ILC) has been studying the ICC issue with renewed fervor. Last year the ILC brought forth a 67-article statute for an international criminal court. This is the document that has been eliciting such hopeful excitement in internationalist circles. In November 1993 the UN General Assembly voted to request the ILC to complete its work on the statute during the 1994 session. One-world advocates eagerly anticipate this statute as a giant step forward in establishing the structure and the legal precedent for the UN’s ultimate judicial authority over all the world" (The New American, "Court of International Criminals," May 30, 1994). Internationalists inside the U.S. were also already at work setting up this international court. Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) had introduced a resolution in Congress calling for the U.S. to back UN efforts to establish an ICC, and Jasper notes in his 1994 article that "On January 26th of this year, Senator Dodd cited the continuing bloodshed in Bosnia and appealed to his Senate colleagues to support the call for a permanent international court modeled after the newly established UN tribunal for war crimes in Yugoslavia."

As the conference for setting up the International Criminal Court, scheduled for June of 1998, approached, the propaganda organs for manipulating world and American opinion cranked up. Symposiums were held, various Council on Foreign Relations dignitaries appeared on the appropriate talk shows, and President Clinton appointed David Scheffer as the first-ever Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues. Appearing at the Los Angeles "Symposium on an International Criminal Court" in February of 1998, Ambassador Scheffer noted, "At the United Nations General Assembly in September [1997], President Clinton called for an International Criminal Court by the end of the century. The rule of law, which the United States has always championed and which is a core principle of the Clinton Administration’s foreign policy, stands at risk of being trampled by war criminals whose only allegiance is to their own pursuit of power. We believe that a core purpose of an International Criminal Court must be to impose a discipline of law enforcement upon national governments themselves to investigate and prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes; failing which the permanent court will stand prepared to undertake that responsibility. Just as the rule of extradition treaties is ‘prosecute or extradite,’ the rule governing the ICC must be ‘prosecute nationally or risk international prosecution.’" The Clinton Administration’s "rule of law" is quite well understood by little Elian Gonzalez and members of his U.S. family, having endured a dawn raid by an INS SWAT team on "Easter" weekend, with the warrant being provided after the fact. Ever alert to maintain his oath to uphold and defend the U.S. Constitution, Bill Clinton was no doubt watching with holy zeal those rulers in other lands "whose only allegiance is to their own pursuit of power." Such were the noble characters of those who were orchestrating the "need" for an International Criminal Court.

"For five weeks during June and July[1998]" wrote attendee William F. Jasper, "hundreds of delegates from 160 nations met at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) complex to construct what advocates called ‘the last global institution to be created in this century’: the International Criminal Court (ICC)" (The New American, "Courting Global Tyranny, Aug.31, 1998). "Late on July l7th, "recorded Jasper, "the last day of the conference, following grueling hours of high-pressure arm twisting, a global ‘consensus’ was declared by the ICC Plenary Session, and the announcement was made that 120 nations had voted in favor of approving the new ‘Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.’ Only the United States and six other nations - Israel, China, Libya, Qatar, Iraq, and Yemen - voted against the statute. Twenty-one other nations abstained." In view of the Clinton Administration’s predilection toward establishing the International Court, the vote against the Rome Statute must have been a political ploy due to anticipated resistance back in the American homeland.

"The Rome gathering," observed Jasper, "was the culmination of a multi-year program of PrepComs (Preparatory Committee meetings) that had been carefully orchestrated to arrive at the contrived global ‘consensus’ that is now being celebrated by the devotees of ‘world order.’ Far from the careful, deliberative process concerning narrow, tightly defined issues that typify most treaty negotiations between nations, the ICC summit was an exercise in managed chaos aimed at establishing an international criminal code that will be binding upon the entire planet. Yet all the redundant, pious platitudes about reverence for ‘the rule of law’ could not hide the fact that this was truly a lawless conference in pursuit of lawless objectives."

The whole conference was set up as a stacked deck. By holding the confabulation in Rome, the socialist environment and the global cognoscenti of Italy, who have been at the forefront of much of the preparatory work on the international court, combined to tilt the process in favor of the pre-determined outcome. The scales were further tipped by loading the roster of delegates with representatives of all sorts of UN agencies and intergovernmental organizations such at the Organization of American States. "But by far the most dramatic development in Rome," commented Jasper, "was the emergence of the NGOs [non-governmental organizations such as the Sierra Club] as rent-a-mob power brokers in the increasingly sordid business reverently referred to at these gatherings as ‘evolving norms of international law.’ Paul Taylor, diplomatic editor for Reuters, sinned by understatement when he reported that ‘the enormous influence of NGOs inside the conference was one of the key features of the five-week Rome meeting.’ " The challenge of dealing with endless text revisions of the draft statute, the endless chanting by NGO militants, and the schedule manipulation by the conference chairman all were contrived to make sure the delegates arrived at the proper conclusions. "By keeping the conference rolling at a relentless pace and swarming the conferees with nonstop lobbying by militant NGO delegates," wrote Jasper, "the organizers achieved a pressure cooker effect which wore down any resistance to the preordained outcome. The Rome process provides an alarming look into the dreadful prospect of ‘the rule of law’ under an unrestrained UN regime."

The treaty is one of the most audacious of all history. Treaties between nations only take effect when all nations involved agree to the terms of the treaty, but the International Criminal Court will come into existence when 60 nations have ratified the agreement and it is claimed that it will have jurisdiction even over nations and citizens of nations which have not ratified the treaty. Jasper writes: "This is profoundly significant to all peoples who dwell on this planet, and especially to Americans, since the ICC claims universal jurisdiction to try individuals charged with genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and aggression, anywhere on earth…"

The ruckus in Rome set the stage for the production of what Dr. Charles Rice, professor of law at Notre Dame University, calls a "monster." The ICC, said he, according to Jasper, "repudiates the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence and cancels the 4th of July."

 

CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY, ETC.
Christianity flourishes under freedom. It can progress under persecution, but that is generally not the case. The church in the first century grew because men like the apostle Paul were to some degree protected by Roman law and order, but when the force of the Roman Empire turned against the church in the second century AD, Christianity in its pristine form ceased to exist. Regarding a time of comparative calm, the historian Luke wrote: "So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace, being built up; and, going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it continued to increase" (Acts 9:31). Thus Christians are exhorted to pray "for kings and all who are in authority, in order that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity." The tie-in between orderly government, tranquil life, and the spread of the gospel is noted, as the apostle Paul continued the thought: "This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (I Timothy 2:2-4).

The church really came back into measurable existence due to the freedom that existed in the United States of America under the Constitution. What produced that freedom was limited government, separation of powers into specifically defined legislative, executive, and judicial functions, and an excellent system of justice in the courts. What constituted a crime was clearly delineated, the accused was presumed innocent until proven guilty, the accused was to be tried at a local court, the accused could not be convicted of a crime unless there was unanimous agreement among the jurors, and the defendant had full rights to counsel and powers of subpoena to call all necessary witnesses. Thus Alexander Campbell, while he suffered what he called "calumnities" for his preaching in America, that was the worst that could be done to him. But on his one speaking tour in England, he ended up spending time in a dank British jail on trumped up charges. The difference was the court systems.

Note, then, that the proposed ICC is to have jurisdiction to try individuals for "genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and aggression." These are all vaguely defined terms, and would allow the International Criminal Court all kinds of leeway to arrive at a guilty verdict.

Take genocide, for example. Genocide is the "oldest" of the "crimes" specified in the Rome Statute, and the Statute contains the same definition of what constitutes genocide as the Genocide Convention, approved earlier as a treaty by the U.S. Senate. Listen in as Jasper notes the testimony of John R. Bolton, senior vice president of the American Enterprise Institute, in his July 23, 1998, testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "There is hardly complete clarity on what [genocide] means," commented Bolton. "When the Senate approved the Genocide Convention on February 19, 1986, it attached two reservations, five understandings, and one declaration. One reservation, for example, requires the specific consent of the United States before any dispute involving the U.S. can be submitted to the International Court of Justice [a court only involving disputes between nations]. One of the understandings limits the definition of ‘mental harm’ in the Convention to ‘permanent impairment of the mental faculties through drugs, torture, or similar techniques.’ Another understanding provides that the Convention should not be understood to function automatically as an extradition treaty." The fact that the Senate had to try to limit the definition of "mental harm" under the Genocide Convention gives us an indication of how the term could be used in a very broad way against an accused before the ICC. The ICC Statute plainly states that "No reservations may be made to this Statute." An American citizen targeted by internationalists could thus be whisked away to the ICC for trial simply for telling a Polish joke.

War crimes also shows up on the list. Any soldier who ever engaged in armed conflict or any police officer who had to use force against a Rodney-King-type could conceivably be convicted of a war crime. But the definition of war crimes includes "committing outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment," as well as causing "widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment." Contractors who shore up the banks of the famed Yellowstone River against flooding could be tried and convicted of "war crimes."

With those broad definitions of genocide and war crimes, just think what can be done with crimes against humanity and aggression! A preacher who speaks against homosexuality could easily be convicted of a "crime against humanity," and any Christian passing out tracts on the street could be guilty of "aggression." Such are the trappings of a police state.

Will the protections afforded the individual under the U.S. Constitution assist should he be charged by the ICC? Jasper notes the forces at work in these words: "But the CFR [Council on Foreign Relations] opinion cartel is not going to allow concerns over national sovereignty to derail their ICC train. Using their well-honed tactic of simultaneous pressure from above and pressure from below, the CFR’s ‘invisible

college of international lawyers’ at the top, working in tandem with the CFR-directed WFA-CICC [Association, and Coalition for an International Criminal Court] street activists at the bottom, intend to create an artificial ‘consensus’ centered on the emotional hook of war crimes and genocide. What they are really after is a global court that can be used to batter down residual national barriers to full-blown world government."

 

RIGHTS AS AN ACCUSED UNDER THE ICC?
Fundamental to the American system of jurisprudence is that the courts are to protect the individual from the tyranny of government; hence all the safeguards previously mentioned. The war crimes tribunals, which are setting the precedent for the ICC under "evolving international law," provide none of these safeguards at all. The basic purpose of the ICC will be to have a mechanism by which any individual who is perceived to be a roadblock to the progress of world government can be arrested, tried, convicted, and taken out of the way.

The Yugoslav War Crimes tribunal, for example, issues secret or sealed arrest warrants for one of their targets. The agents for the Tribunal track down the target, arrest him, and wheel him off to the Hague in the Netherlands. There he is thrown in jail in a foreign country, without recourse to any of the legal protections that Americans expect as standard. The Tribunal can take as long as it wants to begin court proceedings, as William Jasper notes: "The Sixth Amendment [to the U.S. Constitution] also guarantees ‘a speedy and public trial.’ Under federal law, a speedy trial has been defined to mean that a defendant has the right to be brought to trial within 70 days. There is no such guarantee under the ICC statute. If we look to the Yugoslav Tribunal as a model —as the ICC proponents so frequently advise we see the Tribunal Prosecutor arguing that five years is a reasonable time for a defendant to wait in prison for a trial. Other ICC advocates cite the European Court of Human Rights as a model for the ICC. This international judicial body has ruled in various cases that pretrial detention of three, four, or even seven years, is acceptable." There is no right to trial by jury; the defendant appears before a panel of international judges.

William Grigg describes what would happen if you were to be arrested and brought to trial before such a tribunal: "You will not enjoy any of the procedural rights or immunities provided for in the Bill of Rights. There will be no trial by jury, the right to confront your accusers will be refused, no bail will be set, and the court will not be guided by a presumption of innocence. The prosecutors and judges will work in tandem under the same mandate, seeking the same results: the creation of historically binding precedents in ‘world law,’ not the vindication of individual justice. Both the judges and prosecutors will be accountable to no one. The verdict will be handed down from a three-judge panel that may include jurists from Cuba, Bulgaria, Russia, or Red China, and the same court that renders a verdict will hear your appeal.

"Your defense attorney - who will be provided by the court and given a tiny fraction of the budget used by the prosecution to create its case against you - will have no opportunity to interview the prosecution witnesses prior to the trial, and will not have access to unedited transcripts of pre-trial testimony. Accordingly, he will not be able to establish whether a witness has altered or embellished his testimony. Not that this will matter in the long run, as the court will accept as ‘evidence’ hearsay, double hearsay, and self-contradictory and speculative statements from witnesses.

"During your trial, you will be surrounded by a phalanx of heavily armed security troops and treated as if your guilt had already been established… You will be kept physically separated from your counsel, supposedly for ‘security’ reasons, thus reinforcing the presumption of your depravity. You may even be called upon to provide evidence against yourself - and if you refuse to make a statement in the courtroom, this may be regarded as evidence against you. As the proceedings unfold, it will become clear that the UN Tribunal wasn’t established to acquit those who stand before it. It was created to punish those thus arraigned" (The New American, "Template for World ‘Justice’ Oct. 13, 1997).

If this all sounds like a court appearance in Nazi Germany or in Stalin’s Soviet Union, it should. Secret arrests, secret trials, and pre-ordained outcomes are the hallmarks of tyranny, and many was the Russian who disappeared into the Soviet prison system without his family members’ even knowing what happened. But this time it is tyranny on a global basis; the 1CC Statute claims it will take effect throughout the whole world when 60 nations ratify it.

 

CURRENT ADMINISTRATION POSTURING
The internationalist, sell-out bent of the Clinton Administration is well known. Having created the special office of ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues, the Administration’s failure to sign on the ICC Statute in July of 1998 was viewed as simply a tactical ploy rather than a rejection of the underlying philosophy establishing the court. Sure enough, on December 31, 2000, "Bill Clinton agreed to sign the UN’s International Criminal Court (ICC) treaty just a few hours before the UN’s deadline. (The actual honor, such as it was, of signing the document was given to David Scheffer, the Clinton Administration’s ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues.)" (The New American, "The ICC Charade," Jan. 29, 2001). The former President was setting the stage for his internationalist bosses by indicating that changes would be necessary in the ICC Statute, giving the impression that Americans’ rights would be protected before the U.S. would go along with such an instrument. The article noted that Clinton "stated that he would ‘not recommend to my successor... submit the treaty to the Senate for advice and consent until our fundamental concerns are satisfied.’ (Emphasis added.) By signing the treaty, continued Clinton, ‘we will be in a position to influence the evolution of the Court. Without signature, we will not.’" The goal is to make a few cosmetic changes in the Statute, blow it past the American public, achieve Senate ratification, and let the persecution begin.

Even though the George W. Bush Administration has the appearance of being more pro-American, pro-military, and pro-conservative, the underlying internationalist agenda is unchanged. The New American noted that in regard to the ICC Statute and the Clinton Administration, "George W. Bush transition team spokesman Ari Fleischer was on the same page. Speaking just hours after the Clinton Administration signed the treaty, Fleischer declared, ‘We will review it when we come into office. But we are concerned it is a flawed treaty.’ For this reason, he specified, George W. Bush would not send the treaty to the Senate for ratification ‘in its current form.’(Emphasis added.) Thus both Bill Clinton and his Republican successor have expressed acceptance of the ICC in concept, with the details to be worked out in due time."

The article tries to wake up slumbering Americans. "But, in concept, the ICC represents a revocation of U.S. independence. It recreates the circumstances described in the Declaration of Independence by making Americans ‘subject ... to jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws ...’" "The Senate is showing signs of being increasingly controlled by elements favorable to the destruction of an independent United States of America, and becoming interdependent with other nations under the "global governance" of the United Nations and its adjuncts. The last two UN treaties were approved by an unrecorded voice vote! But even if the Senate were to muster up the courage to refuse to ratify the International Criminal Court treaty, this particular one claims jurisdiction in the U.S. anyway. The article notes, "That is why it is not enough to defeat ratification of the ICC treaty by the Senate ...; the U.S. must extricate itself from the UN, and then the world body itself must be de-funded and abolished."

 

EXHORTATION
What the Christian needs to realize is that while all this posturing about the International Criminal Court seems distant and unconnected to the day-today existence of the church, it in fact is a major scheme by Satan himself against Christianity. The rights that Roman citizens had in the courts in the first century allowed for the distribution of the gospel; the rights that 19th century Christians had in America in the courts likewise allowed for the distribution of the gospel and restoration of first century Christianity. Satan is attacking the court system at the foundational level, attempting to steal a march on the church of the living God.

If the International Criminal Court comes on stream as expected in mid-2002, then the Fourth of July will have been effectively abrogated. Should there arise, anywhere in the world, within the ranks of modern day Christians, someone with the character and influence of an apostle Paul or a Timothy or Titus, the long arm of the Court could issue a sealed warrant for his arrest, secretly detain him, send him to the Netherlands, convict him after a long delay, and execute him or send him off to some slave labor and re-education camp.

The record of the scripture is that God allows His servants to go through such suffering and persecution. Servants of the Lord need to begin to prepare their minds now for the eventuality of their leaders being spirited away, being subjected to all kinds of false and adverse propaganda, and facing the threat of wrongful prison experience or death themselves. Saints need to begin to prepare themselves now; the spiritual mind needs training and discipline before the events happen. Study the scripture, memorize the scripture, teach the scripture, live the scripture, take the scripture to the lost!

The words of the apostle Peter are still appropriate: "Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for the lusts of men, but for the will of God. For the time already past is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousals, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries. And in all this, they are surprised that you do not run with them into the same excess of dissipation, and they malign you; but they shall give account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead" (I Peter4:l-5).