The US government has given Ghana up to November 1, 2003, to ratify its Bilateral Non-Surrender Agreement (BNSA) or risk being cut off from US military assistance.

The ultimatum to Ghana is part of a worldwide campaign being waged by Washington to compel countries with little or no backbone to accept its fiat to grant blanket immunity to all US service personnel from prosecution under the International Criminal Court for war crimes or crimes against humanity.

Information reaching The Heritage from the Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA), a network of over 1,350 Members of Parliament from 105 elected national legislatures, indicate that the cut-off in military assistance from the US is the penalty being applied by Washington to states rejecting the BNSA.

The agreement, which under the US law is called American Service Members Protection Act (Article 98) of August 2, 2002, also allows the US President to issue waivers to countries that are allied with the US or countries for which the national interest of the US could be at stake.

The PGA, citing White House memo dated July 1, 2003, said Ghana received a presidential waiver for "reasons of national interest" on that date valid until November 1, 2003.

According to the PGA, if the Parliament of Ghana fails to ratify the agreement by that date, she might be sanctioned with a cut-off in US military assistance, unless otherwise determined by the US President.

The authoritative French News Agency, Agence France Press (AFP) disseminated information on May 2, 2003 that the BNSA agreement had been signed between Ghana and the US in early May.

It said in early May 2003, other news agencies were reporting that the US State Department had communicated to the media a list of countries that had signed the BNSA against the ICC. The list, according to the AFP, included Ghana.

"We inferred that the signature of such an agreement has been done silently - almost secretly - maybe because Ghana was the fifth nation of the world to join the 'ICC Club' of the law-abiding states in 1999 through a Bipartisan Agreement", the PGA stated in documents sent to The Heritage.

It added that, "the Government of Ghana might have therefore feared the shameful effect of a public declaration that Ghana caved in to US pressures against the court".

The PGA, which is engaged in a wide range of action-oriented initiatives that promote democracy, peace, justice and development throughout the world, disclosed that on July 1 this year, the US suspended more than $47 million in military aid to 35 countries for their failure or refusal to give US citizens immunity from prosecution by the tribunal, which Washington vehemently opposes.

It said the US fears the ICC - the world's first permanent international court to try cases of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide - could become a forum for politically-motivated prosecutions of US citizens.

"Because the agreements are controversial, eight countries including Ghana, have asked that they be kept secret", according to the PGA documents.

Ghanaian authorities have been tight-lipped over the deal. When contacted, an official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the sector Minister had instructed that all inquiries on the subject must be re-directed to the Defence Minister. This was after The Heritage had made marathon phone calls over a two-day period to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

A questionnaire subsequently sent to and duly received at the Ministry of Defence was said to have mysteriously vanished at the office of the Minister of Defence at Burma Camp.

Meanwhile, International Relations experts stress that the BNSA agreement, if ratified, will have far-reaching implications for both Ghana and the ICC.

According to them, the ratification of such a bilateral agreement may limit the court's effectiveness, which might lead to states neglecting their responsibility to co-operate fully with it.

For Ghana, it means one of the first countries to sign the Rome Treaty that set up the ICC and has "Freedom and Justice" as her national motto, would have reneged on her international obligations to ensure justice.