Especially the part where Ecuador is coming out the biggest loser.
what is your opinion on that?

August 19, 2005
Bush's Aid Cuts on Court Issue Roil Latin American Neighbors
By JUAN FORERO

BOGOTÁ, Colombia, Aug. 18 - Three years ago the Bush administration
began prodding countries to shield Americans from the fledgling
International Criminal Court in The Hague, which was intended to be
the first permanent tribunal for prosecuting crimes like genocide.

The United States has since cut aid to some two dozen nations that
refused to sign immunity agreements that American officials say are
intended to protect American soldiers and policy makers from
politically motivated prosecutions.

To the Bush administration, the aid cuts are the price paid for
refusing to offer support in an area where it views the United
States, with its military might stretched across the globe, as being
uniquely vulnerable.

But particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean, home to 12
nations that have been penalized, the cuts are generating strong
resentment at what many see as heavy-handed diplomacy, officials and
diplomats in seven countries said.

More than that, some Americans are also beginning to question the
policy, as political and military leaders in the region complain that
the aid cuts are squandering good will and hurting their ability to
cooperate in other important areas, like the campaigns against drugs
and terrorism.

In testimony before Congress in March, Gen. Bantz J. Craddock, the
commander of American military forces in Latin America, said the
sanctions had excluded Latin American officers from American training
programs and could allow China, which has been seeking military ties
to Latin America, to fill the void.

"We now risk losing contact and interoperability with a generation of
military classmates in many nations of the region, including several
leading countries," General Craddock told the Senate Armed Services
Committee.

Most of the penalties, outlined in a law that went into effect in
2003, have been in the form of cuts in military training and other
security aid. But a budget bill passed in December also permits new
cuts in social and health-care programs, like AIDS education and
peacekeeping, refugee assistance and judicial reforms.

Though the amounts are a pittance for Washington, their loss is being
sorely felt in small countries.

In an outburst, in June, President Alfredo Palacio of Ecuador told a
Quito television station that he would not yield to
Washington. "Absolutely no one is going to make me cower," he
said. "Neither the government, nor Alfredo Palacio nor the Ecuadorean
people need to be afraid."

His nation has one of the region's largest American military bases
and has become increasingly important as a staging ground for
American surveillance of everything from the cocaine trade to
immigrant smuggling. Still, Ecuador has lost $15 million since 2003
and may lose another $7 million this year.

When the International Criminal Court's 18 judges took their oaths in
March 2003, the tribunal was backed by 139 countries and heralded by
supporters as the most ambitious project in modern international law.