| http://web.realcities.com/content/rc/news/attack/kansascity/1956380901.htm
Plan made in '80s to intern Arab Americans, document shows By THOMAS GINSBERG Philadelphia Inquirer Mark Chiang doesn't need to think back to America's internment of Japanese during World War II to shiver at the idea of the same thing happening to Arabs today. History, unfortunately, obliges with more recent scares. "It seems there were contingency plans (to intern Arab Americans) in the 1980s," said Chiang, 37, a professor of Asian American studies at the University of Pennsylvania. "So it does seem like a scary possibility." Could an internment based on race or ethnicity happen again in this country? Fearful memories of World War II, and more recent ethnic profiling of Arab Americans and even indiscriminate acts of rage against turban-wearing people, are prompting many to wonder. The answer from scholars, civil rights activists and government officials is "no," voiced with varying degrees of confidence. Although U.S. law may still leave open the possibility of internment, they said, most other circumstances have changed since the 1940s. Laws that didn't exist 60 years ago prohibit racial or ethnic discrimination today. Outspoken civil rights and religious groups would fight internment. People of Arab and Japanese heritage in the cabinet — Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta — presumably would not countenance internment. And President Bush repeatedly has denounced any retribution against innocent Americans and immigrants. But many add some caveats, including one little-known fact: As recently as 1986, U.S. officials drafted an antiterrorism plan that called for Muslim immigrants from the Middle East to be registered and some deported or detained at Immigration and Naturalization Service facilities in Oakdale, La., and possibly Florida in the event of war. The plan estimated a cost of between $2 million and $4 million to modify the Louisiana facility to hold 5,000 people "in tents," according to a copy seen by The Philadelphia Inquirer. The 1986 document was written on INS stationery. It was found and publicized in the early 1990s by the Washington-based American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Several scholars said the document probably was genuine. The committee said the plan apparently never was made into formal policy. "But the fact that the government once developed a plan in a situation that was less dire ... makes it not unreasonable to think there still might be a plan like that," said Frank H. Wu, a Howard University law professor and coauthor of a textbook on internment who has studied part of the document. Russ Bergeron, an INS spokesman, said he knew of no such current or former plan. Doris Meissner, INS associate commissioner from 1981 to 1986 and commissioner from 1993 to 2000, also said she had never heard of the plan but acknowledged that it could have existed, drafted perhaps by security officials as part of a planning scenario. In any case, she said, it was never official policy. "I don't think internment is possible now," said Meissner, now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "But I do think we do have to watch very closely some of the ideas behind the antiterrorism bill," she said. "Instead of wholesale internment, we could see people detained for questioning in fairly substantial numbers ... for a long time if it passes." Formally, internment differs from incarceration, which many Japanese suffered illegally during World War II. Internment is defined as detention of "enemy aliens" — including civilians — of a country against which the U.S. government has declared war. Internment is legal under the Geneva Convention on Human Rights. A series of U.S. Supreme Court cases in the 1940s left its legality under U.S. law vague — even though the high court and many Americans had come to see it as morally and politically wrong. The government has interned foreigners three times, all in wartime, said Roger Daniels, a University of Cincinnati historian and leading scholar on internments. During the War of 1812, an unknown number of British citizens in East Coast cities (apparently including Philadelphia) were interned in nearby towns. During World War I, about 6,000 German, Austrian, Greek, Dutch, French, Belgian and other European-born civilians were interned in barracks in Georgia, Tennessee and Utah. During World War II, about 8,000 Japanese non-citizens were interned. About 120,000 more — including children born here (and thus citizens) — were illegally incarcerated. About 3,500 Germans and 1,000 Italians also were interned. "Nothing has happened again since World War II because we haven't formally declared war since then," Daniels said. "God knows what would happen if we declared war." At least two formal declarations of war have been introduced in Congress since the Sept. 11 attacks, one by U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon. R., Pa. Eiichiro Azuma, a University of Pennsylvania historian, cited three broad circumstances that underlay the World War II incarcerations: public hysteria, racial prejudice, and failure of government leadership and restraint. "The first two I can see going on now again," Azuma said. "But the third one is quite different. We have to give credit to (Bush) and state and local leaders who have been very clear from the beginning that excluding Arab Americans from this united America is wrong." There are pressures in the other direction. Attorney General John Ashcroft is seeking expanded powers to summarily deport or indefinitely detain immigrants suspected of having ties to terrorist groups. The INS already may hold non-citizens without charge for two days and seek deportation without divulging the reason. There also are reports that FBI investigators have targeted people from the Middle East for questioning, including visiting mosques during prayers. So while most officials reject internment, there is no such broad disapproval of the way the country has begun hunting for home-based enemies. "This is going to be a very difficult balancing operation," said a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Charles M. Lichenstein, who is a critic of internment but a proponent of strict antiterrorism measures. "To some extent, you have to engage ... 'ethnic profiling,'" Lichenstein said. "If you're looking for people who are members of the kinds of groups we have reason to believe are involved, you don't go looking for blond-haired, blue-eyed Swedes." For now, the government says it knows the limits. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, director of the new federal office for homeland security, said: "There's a delicate balance between liberty and safety, particularly in times of peril. We've got to work extra hard." |
