Earle has a question about assisting someone in Uganda, so I connected him
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-----Original Message-----
From: Aggo Akyea [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, March 31, 2003 12:52 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Double standards
Prisoners of war in Iraq and at Guantánamo
Jamie Fellner IHT
http://www.iht.com/articles/91327.htm
Monday, March 31, 2003
Double standards
NEW YORK Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has at last recognized the
Geneva Conventions. Observing, correctly, that Iraq's televised display of
captured American soldiers violated the laws of war, Rumsfeld said that the
conventions spell out the rules governing international armed conflict.
The United States is right to insist that Iraq honor the Geneva Conventions.
But its position is weakened by failure to practice what it preaches in
holding 641 prisoners without charges at the U.S. military facility in
Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Most of the Guantánamo prisoners were captured during the U.S. war against
the Taliban government of Afghanistan. The Bush administration says that the
men were all combatants, but has refused to treat them as the laws of war
require.
Under the Geneva Conventions, combatants captured in an international armed
conflict must be treated as prisoners of war unless and until a ''competent
tribunal'' determines that a specific prisoner is not entitled to that
status. The U.S. government chose not to convene such tribunals for the
Afghanistan war captives even though it has routinely convened them in past
hostilities.
Instead, the United States decreed that no member of the Taliban's armed
forces was entitled to POW status - a decision that most independent
international law experts found legally untenable. Furthermore, the United
States insisted that no members of Al Qaeda deserved Geneva Conventions
protection - not even those captured while fighting for Taliban armed
forces.
The United States recently released 18 Guantánamo detainees, having
concluded that they pose no threat to the international community. Five
others were released previously. But hundreds remain in detention, for over
a year now. Held without charges, they are in a legal limbo and subject,
presumably, to continued interrogation.
The release of some detainees is welcome. Even more welcome from the Bush
administration would be an acknowledgment that under the Geneva Conventions
the United States lacks legal authority to hold many of the others. Indeed,
at least three categories of prisoners at Guantánamo are unlawfully
detained.
The first group is Taliban soldiers. In the war between Afghanistan and
America, the Geneva Conventions permitted the United States to hold as
prisoners without charges members of the Taliban government's armed forces.
But that war ended in June when the Hamid Karzai government assumed power in
Kabul. The laws of war do not permit the continued detention of those
soldiers unless they are being prosecuted for war crimes or other offenses.
They should be released and repatriated.
The second group consists of civilians who - according to news reports
quoting unnamed U.S. intelligence officials - were mistakenly sent to
Guantánamo. The laws of war permit the internment of civilians in a war only
when such detention is imperative for security reasons. If there are indeed
civilians at Guantánamo who have no connection to the Taliban or Al Qaeda
and who are not being prosecuted, they too must be released.
Finally, at least some suspected Al Qaeda members apprehended far from
Afghanistan may have been brought to Guantánamo. Six, for example, were
picked up in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The laws of war do not apply to persons who
were not captured on a battlefield and who have no direct connection to an
armed conflict.
President George W. Bush has repeatedly said that the war against terrorism
is a war of values. At Guantánamo, that war is being lost. At risk are not
only the rights of the individuals who are unlawfully detained today: by
ignoring the clear mandates of international law, the United States invites
every other country, including Iraq, to do the same.
The writer directs the U.S. program of Human Rights Watch.
Aggo Akyea
608-274-7409
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