-Caveat Lector-
From
1 -
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/comment/story/0,11447,634712,00.
html
2 - http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,634766,00.html
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We will not tolerate the abuse of war prisoners
Guantanamo could be where America and Europe part company
Hugo Young
Thursday January 17, 2002
The Guardian
One value that's meant to bind Anglos and Americans is their attitude
to justice. The common law runs through England and America, and we
believe the principles underlying it are shared. That's partly what
the world war against terrorism is supposed to be about. Yet some of
these values turn out not to be shared at all. It's a salutary,
ominous phenomenon. Just as significant as America's treatment of
Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners held at its Guantanamo base in Cuba is
the gulf this is opening up between two cultures that imagine they
have everything important in common.
For Washington, Camp X-Ray is plainly an extension of the war. The captives are not
allowed to be called prisoners of war, but are held under rules of war defined by the
side that's continuing to fight and maybe win it. T
hey're kept off US territory, and outside the reach of the Geneva Conventions, so they
can be treated the way American generals and politicians rather than American lawyers
want to treat them: which is to say, without fun
damental rights or international protection.
Until the Red Cross get into the camp, it's not possible to be sure what goes on
there. And shackling potentially suicidal killers to their plane seats doesn't seem an
outrageous form of maltreatment in the circumstances.
But the US authorities haven't denied many details: the shaving of the beards, the
open-air cages, the selective hooding, the less than persuasive evidence that the
captives are being held as individuals with specific ch
arges against them. When the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said he had "not
the slightest interest" in the camp's conditions, he signalled simultaneously contempt
for the prisoners and bilious disdain for any cri
tics who might dare to speak.
There have been some of these in the US. A few sharp voices are heard. To accompany
yesterday's publication of its annual report on human rights in 66 countries, Human
Rights Watch, an essentially American research group,
issued a blistering statement against hypocrisy. "Terrorists believe that anything
goes in the name of their cause," said Kenneth Roth, the executive director. "The
fight against terror must not buy into that logic. Huma
n rights principles must not be compromised in the name of any cause." Mr Roth likened
the military tribunals President Bush has announced to those of a tin-pot tyrant
wanting to get rid of his political enemies - which i
n another life Washington would be the first to condemn.
But HRW is not the mainstream. The mainstream all flows in one acquiescent direction.
Searching the New York Times and Washington Post websites, I can find neither an
editorial nor a column that criticised the regime Rums
feld approves for Camp X-Ray. The rights and wrongs are barely discussed. Here's a
considerable issue of principle, staked out by a president in seeming defiance of
international conventions, which the big US papers would
normally be full of. Instead, it succumbs to the fog of loyalty that has choked the
oxygen out of controversy in the citadels of the US media ever since September 11.
The national crisis sets severe limits to discussion even now. There was a sense of
generalised vengeance in what Rumsfeld had to say. Having failed to catch Osama bin
Laden, the US is evidently adopting the alternative o
f netting any number of Taliban and al-Qaida and sticking them with collective
responsibility for the monstrous mass murder at the Pentagon and World Trade Centre.
The issue is not whether this is true, but in what forum,
what context and what conditions the truth will be determined. The establishment mind
is content to let such questions pass. The mood of America is to switch off tough
calls on justice.
The mood of Britain was once the same. Parliamentary Britain, at least. David Blunkett
wouldn't otherwise have been able to legislate against habeas corpus. Anti-terrorism
laws bring out compliant panic in politicians her
e as well as there. But British responses to the Rumsfeld camp have been different.
Not only the Guardian finds the overriding of the Geneva Convention deplorable, but
the rightwing press is also weighing in. The Mail ran
a column of regretful outrage by Stephen Glover, a rock-ribbed pro-American.
Yesterday's Telegraph laid into Washington for endangering the distinction "between
civilised society and the apocalyptic savagery of those who
would destroy it".
Ministers too are worried. They have no easy answers in defence of the unilateralist
interpretation of international law that Washington seems bent on imposing by force
majeure. Challenged about it on the BBC, Jack Straw
was reduced to the gibbering squeaks of a man who had no stomach for the task.
Whatever lousy laws they're prepared to pass themselves, Labour politicians are
horrified by what seems to be happening in Guantanamo. Interro
gated by MPs, Mr Blair gave voice to this feeling yesterday, with repeated assurances
that "of course" all prisoners must be treated "properly and humanely". Rightly
cautioning us to wait until the Red Cross reported, he
sounded like a man who could not believe the Americans would be doing anything
unpleasant. But also one who would have a predisposition to deny it, even if they were.
The trouble is, he is probably wrong. Rumsfeld's statements, and the indifference of
public opinion, announce a nation that's likely to remain impatient with the trifling
details of international law for a long time. So h
ere comes another set of issues that put the Anglo-American relationship under special
strain. It could be the most taxing of all the challenges to Blair's mantra about not
having to make any choice between Europe and Ame
rica: which really means any severance from Washington's side.
For some time the hardest break-point looked like being Iraq. It still may be. The
justifiable desire to see the back of Saddam Hussein remains very strong in
Washington, but has for the moment been overtaken by the even
more justifiable perception that this carries many, perhaps futile, hazards. However,
even if it re-emerged as an American priority, it no longer looks certain to tear
apart the European wing of the coalition. There's a d
ecent chance that, if the UN set out once again to get weapons inspectors into
Baghdad, and was once again rebuffed, few EU members would push heavy opposition to
what America wanted.
The likely outgrowths from Guantanamo are more toxic. Secret hearings
in military tribunals, of EU citizens who might face execution, will
offend every European instinct. If that's what happens, even short of
the execution factor, America can expect its own long drawn-out
vengeance on al-Qaida to be matched by a European public opinion
increasingly roused against it. For, contrary to the myth of Anglo-
America's unique respect for individual liberties, the continental
ethic of human rights is even stronger. In response to September, not
one EU country passed such draconian laws as Britain. If Mr Blair
defends the US as humane and proper, come what may, he finally risks
losing a lot of more important friends.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002
End<{{{
2}}}>Begin
20 British Taliban suspects now held
Richard Norton-Taylor and Michael White
Thursday January 17, 2002
The Guardian
At least 20 Britons suspected of fighting with Taliban or al-Qaida
forces are being held in Afghanistan and Pakistan, western
intelligence sources said last night. The figure emerged as Tony
Blair responded to increasing pressure over US treatment of prisoners
being held at its base at Guantanamo in Cuba.
Faced with a series of public and private challenges by concerned
Labour MPs and the Liberal Democrat leader, Charles Kennedy, the
prime minister told the Commons that, although they are "highly
dangerous", the al-Qaida prisoners must be treated humanely, in
accordance with the Geneva convention.
One senior official called the conditions in which prisoners have
been transferred to Cuba - shackled, hooded and even drugged - as
"scandalous".
It seems likely that at least some of the captured Britons will join
the three already being held at the controversial Cuban base.
It is known that three British Muslims were captured last month after
US attacks on the Tora Bora caves in eastern Afghanistan.
They have been identified as Mohammad Amin, Nabil Said and Shakir
Abdul Rahim, who is understood to be from Battersea in south London,
although officials always stress the problem of false identities.
Three other British Muslims, believed to be from the West Midlands,
were found by the Red Cross last month in a prison near Mazar-i-
Sharif in northern Afghanistan.
International concern about the prisoners was heightened last night
by remarks by Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, who had
already described the prisoners as "unlawful combatants". He said
they were "the hardest of the hard core", adding: "I do not feel the
slightest concern over their treatment."
Yesterday Mr Blair stressed that they are getting showers, medical
care, suitable food, copies of the Koran and time to pray. The
International Red Cross (IRC) and British officials are shortly being
allowed to see the prisoners.
The UN human rights commissioner, Mary Robinson, insisted that the 80
people now detained in the holding camp were prisoners of war and
entitled to the protection of international law. "I think it is
important at a time of difficulty that human rights and international
humanitarian standards be clearly upheld and observed," she said.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002
End<{{{
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