May 4, 2005

One-Year Anniversary of Abu Ghraib Torture
• Close Concentration Camps at Abu Ghraib & Guantánamo Bay! Charge Top Officials for Crimes of Torture! Geneva Conventions Apply to ALL!
• Detainees? What Detainees? — Inter Press Service
• Calls for Guantánamo Investigation by UNCHR: Cuba Stands Up to Defend Human Rights
• 61st Session Ends: UNCHR Head Gives Stinging Rebuke

For Your Information
• Pentagon Memorandum: Pentagon Definition of Enemy Combatant
• Afghans Freed from Guantánamo Say They Were Tortured

One-Year Anniversary of Abu Ghraib Torture

Close Concentration Camps at Abu Ghraib & Guantánamo Bay! Charge Top Officials for Crimes of Torture! Geneva Conventions Apply to ALL!

The reports coming out of the U.S. concentration camps at Guantánamo Bay, and Abu Ghraib and prisons in Afghanistan continue to confirm that the people held there are being tortured. A group of Afghanistanis recently released from Guantánamo, with no charges of any kind, are among the many detainees testifying to the on-going torture and to their brutal years-long illegal detention. A number of former detainees have filed suit against the government for the crimes of torture.

Human rights organizations are also investigating U.S. torture and other human rights abuses at Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, and elsewhere. They have demanded that the government appoint a special prosecutor to investigate and charge all those responsible, from the top down. Human Rights Watch (HRW), for example, in a report issued April 23, targeted Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and former CIA head George J. Tenet as among those directly responsible. Their report concluded that there is "overwhelming evidence that U.S. mistreatment and torture" of prisoners took place "not merely at Abu Ghraib, but at facilities throughout Afghanistan and Iraq as well as at Guantánamo and at `secret locations' around the world in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the laws against torture."

The report found that none of the top officials responsible took action to stop the torture and in fact supported it. This was seen, for example, in the policy, stated by President George W. Bush, that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to the people held by the U.S. at the various concentration camps. Current Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was also deeply involved in the policies defending torture.

The HRW report coincides with the one-year anniversary of the public exposure of the brutal torture at Abu Ghraib. The report builds on the evidence that has become known in the past year, documented by more photographs, testimony from more detainees, the International Red Cross and others. It and numerous other reports fully document the systematic torture and breaches of the Geneva Conventions and laws against torture carried out by top government officials. For example, in addition to claiming the Geneva Conventions do not apply, Rumsfeld sent General Geoffrey Miller, who headed the Guantánamo concentration camp and organized much of the torture there, to Iraq — to implement the same torture methods made infamous at Abu-Ghraib.

Far from charging Miller, or Rumsfeld, or Bush, or any top civilian or military official, the Army recently cleared the highest-level officers that were charged, not for the crimes of torture but for what the military calls "leadership failure." No top official has been charged with the crimes of torture or carrying out acts against the Geneva Conventions, acts which are war crimes.

In addition to systematically carrying out torture and protecting those responsible, the government is now moving to codify, in the military, the rejection of the Geneva Conventions. Rumsfeld is supposed to sign-off on a new Pentagon memorandum, known as the "Joint Doctrine for Detainee Operations." The final memorandum has not yet been made public.

A draft of the memorandum currently available codifies the U.S.-created category of "enemy combatant" and says that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to anyone branded as an "enemy combatant." All those held at the concentration camps have been branded "enemy combatants," along with two U.S. citizens. The draft repeatedly says the U.S. "remains steadfastly committed to upholding the Geneva Conventions" and to treating all detainees "humanely." However, by elevating "enemy combatant" to its own category and authorizing the U.S. military to determine who is to be branded "enemy combatant," the document provides the basis for continued breaches of the Convention.

As well, the new memorandum reportedly gives the Pentagon authority to also brand anyone on its famed "watchlists" as "enemy combatants." This represents a significant codification of government impunity on a far broader scale. The watchlists are already notorious for being used as a weapon to broadly and falsely target and terrorize people who have last names similar to those on the lists. They are inherently arbitrary and inaccurate, and very broad, including many political forces and activists of various kinds, as well as people only "suspected" of terrorism. The memo also includes extensive plans for long-term detention in facilities holding 4,000 detainees, complete with "educational facilities for juveniles," and approval for use of deadly force.

The continued refusal to punish those responsible for the torture and human rights violations at Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib and the authority given to the military to essentially brand any and all as "enemy combatants" must be vigorously opposed. They represent the dark reaction being imposed by Bush and require determined resistance by all.

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Detainees? What Detainees?

The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, the military's most senior leaders, want Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to approve new guidelines that will formalize the George W. Bush administration's policy of imprisoning so-called enemy combatants without the protections of the Geneva Conventions and enable the Pentagon to legally hold "ghost detainees," a human rights group is charging.

US Military Tribunal President speaking to Guantanamo prisoner Feroz Ali Abbasi In a letter to Rumsfeld, advocacy group Human Rights Watch (HRW) said, "Denying the protections of the Geneva Conventions to persons apprehended in the global war on terror is unsupported as a matter of law, represents a radical deviation from the standards that have traditionally guided U.S. military operations, and places U.S. service members and civilians detained by enemy forces at greater risk of mistreatment."

The new memorandum, now in final draft, is known as the "Joint Doctrine for Detainee Operations: Joint Publication 3-63", and is dated Mar. 23, 2005.

"If the draft memorandum is approved, it will formalize `enemy combatant' as a class of prisoner that the Bush administration says has no protections under the Geneva Conventions," HRW attorney John Sifton told IPS. "There are no categories of prisoners unprotected by one or another of the Geneva Convention."

An additional concern, he said, is that the draft memorandum would give the military authority to classify as an enemy combatant anyone whose name appears on a government watch list.

"The proposed watch list includes a wide variety of groups from Sikhs to followers of Peru's Shining Path, and potentially hundreds of thousands of people named Ahmed or Mohamed. This is a huge and radical departure that could further erode the rule of law."

The letter to Rumsfeld, signed by HRW Executive Director Kenneth Roth, says if the Defense Department acts on the new guidelines, "U.S. military personnel may be committing grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and placing themselves at risk of prosecution for war crimes."

The organization argues that the U.S. government's decision in January 2002 to "disavow the applicability of the Geneva Conventions in the global war on terror" has been at the root of detainee abuse scandals in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay.

HRW says the new rules "will send a message to the world that the Geneva Conventions are not law, but mere policies that can be changed according to tastes of a particular government."

This in turn would have "a profound impact on future armed conflicts between states and the soldiers and civilians affected by them, including Americans." The new policies include a directive that would allow the military to hold enemy combatants as "ghost detainees" by denying them access to the International Committee of the Red Cross, HRW says.

They also contain overly broad criteria for designating as an enemy combatant anyone who appears on a government list that contains common names and aliases shared by tens of thousands of persons worldwide.

The Pentagon document has not yet been publicly released, and is to be submitted to Rumsfeld for approval on April 16.

The Defense Department declined to comment on the draft memorandum or the HRW letter to Rumsfeld. Last June, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down two decisions related to the detention of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In the first case, the justices ruled that detainees had the right to due process and must be allowed to contest their imprisonment before a "neutral decision-maker."

The second case confirmed that U.S. courts have jurisdiction to hear such challenges. The Defense Department then created special military tribunals to determine which Guantanamo prisoners posed threats to the U.S. These bodies have been criticized for denying detainees the most basic due process, including attorney-client confidentiality.

Little information about those held at Guantánamo has been released through official government channels. But stories of 60 or more of the prisoners are spelled out in detail in thousands of pages of transcripts filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, where detainees have filed lawsuits challenging their detentions.

Court documents publicized last week are giving dozens of Guantánamo detainees what the Bush administration had sought to keep from public view: identities and voices. The government is holding about 550 terrorist suspects at its naval base in Cuba. An additional 214 have been released since the facility opened in January 2002 — some into the custody of their native governments, others freed outright.

The detainees appeared last year before the three-officer military tribunals which, after quick reviews, confirmed their status as "enemy combatants" who could be held indefinitely.

In the transcripts, one terror suspect asked his U.S. military judge: "Is it possible to see the evidence in order to refute it?"

In another case, Guantanamo prisoner Feroz Ali Abbasi was ejected from his hearing for repeatedly challenging the legality of his detention.

"I have the right to speak," Abbasi insisted in transcripts reviewed by the Associated Press.

"No, you don't," the tribunal president replied.

"I don't care about international law," the tribunal president told Abbasi just before he was taken from the room. "I don't want to hear the words `international law' again. We are not concerned with international law."

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Calls for Guantánamo Investigation by UNCHR

Cuba Stands Up to Defend Human Rights

At the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) annual meeting in Geneva in April, the U.S. had an opportunity to take responsibility before the world for its crimes of torture and massive human rights violations at its concentration camps at the Naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in Iraq and elsewhere. Instead, it acted to vigorously oppose and defeat a resolution, submitted by Cuba, calling on the UN to look into the situation at the U.S. prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Using blackmail and threats, the U.S. blocked the resolution from being passed.

The resolution called on the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, the Special Rapporteur on Torture, the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Enjoy Physical and Mental Health and the Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers — UNCHR mechanisms that the United States itself considers impartial and universal — to determine, on the field, the truth of the serious charges of torture and numerous other human rights violations being brought against the U.S.

The Cuban resolution was specifically supported by more than twenty non-governmental organizations. The demand to hold the U.S. accountable has also been widely demanded by world public opinion. Many demonstrations and actions in the U.S. have called for top U.S. government officials, including Bush and Rumsfeld to be charged as war criminals for their actions against the Geneva Conventions at the prisons and in the war against Iraq.

The U.S. exerted great pressure and blackmail on the 53-member body to block discussion of its crimes. Even so, the number of votes in favor and abstentions were greater than those against: 8 in favor, 23 abstentions and 22 against. China, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Sudan, Malaysia, Guatemala and Mexico joined Cuba in voting for the investigation.

Cuba said after the vote that it will continue denouncing the illegal detentions and use of torture at the US Naval Base. Cuban representative to the UNCHR Juan Antonio Fernandez said Cuba will "continue this battle in the name of humanity." He said defending the people imprisoned at Guantánamo and opposing U.S. human rights violations is "a matter that has not concluded but instead is just beginning."

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61st Session Ends

UNCHR Head Gives Stinging Rebuke

United Nations human rights chief Louise Arbour delivered a stinging closing report to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR), saying the way it singled out just four states was "not credible."

Addressing the 53-state Commission on Human Rights at the end of its annual six-week session, Arbour said nobody could believe that only those four — Cuba, Myanmar, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and Belarus — merited scrutiny by the Geneva-based body.

"There is something fundamentally wrong with a system in which the question of the violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms in any part of the world is answered by reference to just four states," the High Commissioner for Human Rights said.

Israel was, as usual, singled out for violations in the occupied territories, but it is not dealt with under the individual country section and Arbour did not include it in her reference to the four states.

The former international war crimes prosecutor urged the commission to quickly take up one of the recommendations made by Secretary-General Kofi Annan in his plan for reform of human rights' monitoring — namely that the records of all states be reviewed.

"I commend to you the concept of peer review ...The space is there, now, for its creation: the status quo on this issue is not a credible option," said Arbour, who was attending her first commission since her appointment last year.

Annan is calling for various reforms, including those for the UNCHR. Arbour has been among those questioning the workings of the commission, telling journalists she had initially feared it lacked "legitimacy and credibility," and finished up feeling "that the hypothesis is entirely justified."

Rights activists said that decisions taken — and those not taken — over the past six weeks had underlined the need for radical change, despite some positive developments.

"This year's session ... ended without addressing a number of the most disturbing human rights situations which afflict the world," the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement. Their reference was to the refusal to examine U.S. rights abuses at Gauntanamo Bay. A resolution to do so, submitted by Cuba, was blocked by the U.S. Many participants and observers gave this as a clear example of double standards, especially where the U.S. is concerned.

Nick Howen, secretary-general of the International Commission of Jurists added that, "The five permanent members of the (U.N.) Security Council are still untouchable. Regional blocs of states still protect some of the worst violators in their ranks."

All those concerned with human rights are taking up discussion on how best to reform the UNCHR so it serves as a mechanism to defend the human rights of all.

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Pentagon Memorandum

Pentagon Definition of Enemy Combatant

The Pentagon Memorandum on Detainees, known as the "Joint Doctrine for Detainee Operations," joint publication 3-63, is considered to be authoritative. This means it will be followed unless specific exceptions are made by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It also overrides any other service manuals in regards to detainees.

The following section (from Chapter I, p.11-13) outlines the Pentagon's codification, through this memorandum, of the U.S.-created category of "enemy combatant." As brought out below, anyone branded an "enemy combatant" is arbitrarily removed from the protections of the Geneva Convention. The category has also been greatly broadened to include not only those captured on the battlefield, such as in Iraq, but also people on the government's various watchlists, and those "affiliated with" the numerous individuals and organizations listed by the government as "terrorist."

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"Enemy Combatant (EC).

1) Although they do not fall under the provisions of the Geneva Convention, they are still entitled to be treated humanely, subject to military necessity, consistent with the principles of GC, and without any adverse distinction based on race, color, religion, gender, birth, wealth, or any similar criteria, and afforded adequate food, drinking water, shelter, clothing, and medical treatment; allowed the free exercise of religion consistent with the requirements of such detention. There is a comprehensive list of terrorists and terrorist groups identified under Executive Order 13224, located at http://www.treas.gov/ofac/. Anyone detained that is affiliated with these organizations will be classified as EC. Furthermore, there are individuals that may not be affiliated with the listed organizations that may be classified as an EC. On these specific individuals, guidance should be obtained from higher headquarters.

"As defined by the Deputy Secretary of Defense, an EC is defined as: `Any person that US or allied forces could properly detain under the laws and customs of war. For purposes of the war on terror an enemy combatant includes, but is not necessarily limited to, a member or agent of Al Qaida, Taliban, or another international terrorist organization against which United States is engaged in an armed conflict. This may include those individuals or entities designated in accordance with references E or G, as identified in applicable Executive Orders approved by the Secretary of Defense. (Deputy Secretary of Defense global screening criteria, Feb 20, 2004)'

"Reference E: Comprehensive List of Terrorists and Terrorist Groups Identified Under Executive Order 13224 (updates at http://www.treas.gov/ofac)

"Reference G: Patterns of Global Terrorism. Department of State, 2002 (updates at http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/).

"(2) Enemy combatants may be identified into the following sub-categories:

(a) Low Level Enemy Combatant (LLEC). Detainees who are not a threat beyond the immediate battlefield or that do not have high operational or strategic intelligence or law enforcement value that requires the specialized type of exploitation capability available at a Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center.

(b) High Value Detainee (HVD). A detainee who possesses extensive and/or high level information of value to operational commanders, strategic intelligence or law enforcement agencies and organizations.

(c) Criminal Detainee. A person detained because he is reasonably suspected of having committed a crime against local nationals or their property or a crime not against US or coalition forces. Excludes crimes against humanity or atrocities. (Note: this sub-category may also be applied to CIs).

(d) High Value Criminal (HVC). A detainee who meets the criteria of a HVD and is reasonably suspected of having committed crimes against humanity or committed atrocities, a breach of humanitarian law that is an inhumane act committed against any person.

(e) Security Detainee. A civilian interned during a conflict or occupation for his or her own protection."

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Afghans Freed from Guantánamo Say They Were Tortured

Wednesday, April 20, 2005, Kabul, Le Devoir — Seventeen Afghans held at Guantánamo and finally cleared of accusations of terrorism by the United States returned to their country yesterday, recovering their freedom after having spent as many as three and a half years in detention, during which, they said, they had been the victims of "indescribable tortures."

The seventeen former prisoners at the Guantánamo American base in Cuba, all ethnic Pashtuns, landed in the early afternoon at Bagram, the principal American military base in Afghanistan.

Clothed in American civilian jackets and pants, their features drawn, they were then led to Kabul's Supreme Court, where the senior Afghan magistrates presented them to the press.

Court official Fazil Hadi Shinwary pointed out that these men, who had spent between a year and a half and three and a half years at the base, would not be charged with any crime and were not under investigation.

This liberation came three weeks after Washington had announced that it would be sending home 38 Guantánamo detainees who had been cleared of the charges of being "enemy combatants" that got them into prison in the first place.

That decision had been reached as a result of the inquiry conducted on each of the 558 Guantánamo prisoners, including citizens of more than 20 countries, mostly captured in Afghanistan. "Negotiations continue with American officials for the liberation of the other prisoners," Mr. Shinwary added.

The Head of the Supreme Court emphasized that if certain Guantánamo prisoners had committed crimes, others had been arrested on the basis of false testimony furnished by others to settle personal scores. "Some prisoners were arrested as a result of American mistakes," he explained.

Abdul Rahim Muslimdost, arrested in Pakistan, and who describes himself as a journalist, stated that he had been horribly tortured. "Of course we were tortured, but I can't discuss it: it was indescribable," he declared to the journalists present. Another former detainee, Nasibullah Khan, arrested while he was Chief of Police for the Shinkay District in Zabul province, declared for his part: "Even I don't know why I was arrested."

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