Specifically, the Cuban government wants to add the phrase "...inhuman acts such as the economic, financial and commercial blockades intentionally causing great suffering or serious injury to body or to mental, physical health" to Article 5 of the ICC statute being debated in Rome.

Cuba's chief delegate José Peraza Chapeau told Terra Viva that - in spite of widespread ironic comments on the odd coincides between Havana and Washington's positions vis a vis a strong ICC - his country remains most intersted in having a Court where the US could be tried and sentenced for crimes against humanity and aggression. Chief among these crimes is the US' 38 year-old economic embargo against the Caribbean island.

Unhappy with sharing - in the public eye - a common stand with Cuba's arch rival, Peraza recalled that in his speech to the Plenary on Jul 17, he had spoken "on behalf of a people victim of injustice, who has for almost 40 years faced a genocidal economic war," waged by the U.S. against the government of President Fidel Castro.

He said the U.S. could also be brought to trial for biological warfare against Cuba, through spreading animal and plant diseases in attempts to destroy Cuban agriculture. This is a subject Havana has denounced in other international fora as well.

Independence

Beyond political bias, however, what emerged at the interview with Peraza, a law professor and director of juridical affairs at the Cuban Foreign Ministry, and Caridad Cueto, a counsellor at the U.N. Cuban mission in New York, is their belief that a fair, truly independent Court is just a dream in a world of economic and military imbalances.

Ironically, this view would also probably coincide with Washington's. After all, the Court - even the watered-down version of it that is likely to come out of negotiations here - stands slim chances of approval by the Republican-controlled Congress.

As if to reassure Cubans that they have gained no sympathies among the U.S. Congress Right, the UN Court Watch, a faxed newsletter produced by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (Chairman, Jesse Helms) included Peraza's speech in its report on the "The Worst Things Said at Start of the Rome ICC Conference". The report highlighted the exact paragraph that Peraza is proudest of.

Critics say that Helms and his followers want a Court in which United States citizens cannot be tried, or no Court at all. But Peraza argued that so far, "the International Law is the law of the powerful and the principle of sovereign equality among states is a system in which we are all equal but some are more equal than others."

Giving control over the Court or its Prosecutor to the UN Security Council is equivalent to canceling every hope for the ICC's independence and impartiality: ''Here there are no coincidences nor alliances'' with the US, Peraza added.

Prosecutor and NGOs Peraza denied that Cuba is against a powerful prosecutor, but insisted on having state consent as a requisite for the Court to act in a country. He questioned the very possibility of a truly independent prosecutor's office: "Who will guarantee that the Prosecutor will be free from interference, pressure, or even corruption?"  Could it be civil society? "Yes, civil society could be an element of control and non-governmental organisations have played an important role so far. But not all of them are here, at least not those like many of the landless and indigenous groups of Latin America, which we know of and who could not afford to make it here."

"It is interesting to see that to these meetings arrive almost exclusively those NGOs with resources and (financial) support, while others have to stay home. For the NGOs apply the same rules as for states: there are some more equal than others'' Peraza said. Alejandro Kirk/IPS