AP (with additional material by AFP). 22 January 2002. Treatment of Detainees at Guantanamo Getting More Scrutiny.
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE and KUWAIT CITY -- The treatment of detained terrorist suspects from the Afghanistan war is getting more scrutiny from the international community. A federal judge in Los Angeles, meanwhile, delayed ruling on a petition that alleges the prisoners are being held in violation of the Geneva Conventions and U.S. Constitution. U.S. District Judge A. Howard Matz said he had "grave doubts" about his jurisdiction and gave federal prosecutors until Jan. 31 to file papers calling for dismissal of the petition on jurisdictional grounds. The judge said he will hold another hearing Feb. 14. Federal attorneys said they would file for dismissal of the case. The court challenge of the detention of al-Qaida suspects at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base demanded that the U.S. government bring the suspects before a court and define the charges against them. A coalition that includes former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark and other prominent civil rights advocates brought the suit. The European Union and Germany on Tuesday joined a chorus of protests from the Netherlands, British legislators, Amnesty International and the International Committee of the Red Cross demanding that the detainees be given prisoner-of-war status subject to the Geneva Conventions. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said his government was talking to Washington on the need to deal with the detainees as prisoners of war. "In the fight against international terrorism, we also defend our basic values," Fischer said in a statement. "They apply whoever the person may be. They protect the life and dignity of men." French foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero, speaking as a French delegation prepared to travel to Cuba this week, echoed the same theme. Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Pique, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, said the prisoners' rights should be respected. Sweden called Monday for fair treatment for a Swedish captive. Denmark said one of its citizens was also among the prisoners detained by the United States - though it did not specify whether he was being held in Afghanistan or Cuba - and said all prisoners should be treated with respect. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana told Spanish National Television that "the detention of people like this should be as laid down by international conventions." Solana said the fact that Washington has linked the prisoners to the September 11 terror attacks in the United States should make no difference. The West risks losing support in the fight against terrorism if it mistreats the prisoners or subjects them to the death penalty, said EU External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten. "That would be a way of losing international support and losing the moral high ground," Patten said. He urged a show of "decency and generosity of spirit to the vanquished, even if they are pretty dangerous." The International Committee of the Red Cross said Tuesday that the U.S. military has implemented some recommendations from its team in Guatanamo. But Urs Boegli, the agency's senior representative from Washington, D.C., declined to say what those were. "I'm confident through this work we can make a difference," he told reporters. The number of detainees at the base in remote Cuba rose to 158 with Monday's arrival of 14 battle-scarred fighters on stretchers, including two amputees and three with infections requiring surgery. The military C-141 cargo plane bringing them here was the sixth flight bringing detainees from the U.S. base at Kandahar in Afghanistan, where 218 detainees remain. The 14 prisoners were carried from the aircraft on stretchers by Marines in yellow rubber gloves and turquoise surgical masks. The Marines seemed to frisk the captives before carrying them to a bus. The detainees wore blacked-out goggles and orange jumpsuits, and appeared to have their arms strapped to their bodies. Similar photographs of detainees kneeling on rocky earth, published by the U.S. Department of Defense on Friday, have provoked protests in Britain. The Red Cross, which has a team at Guantanamo, said Monday it considers the detainees prisoners of war, and the photographs violate a Geneva Convention protecting them from "public curiosity." "Such pictures should not be disseminated. They could have a strong impact on the family and the Muslim community worldwide," spokesman Darcy Christen said in Geneva. Recognizing the detainees as prisoners of war would mean trying them under the same procedures as U.S. soldiers - by court-martial or civilian courts, not military tribunals. Meanwhile, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, whose rights record has been criticized by the United States, accused the Americans of failing to heed their own strictures. "They used human rights and the rights of prisoners for propaganda purposes against other countries," he said. "But when their turn came to uphold those rights, they openly violated them." [And where, might we ask, is the voice of Havana?] Meanwhile, Islamist sources in the emirate told AFP on Tuesday that a Kuwaiti national is among the 158 prisoners from the war in Afghanistan held by the US military at a naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They identified the prisoner as 34-year-old Omar Amin and said he had worked in Bosnia for several years before going to Afghanistan, where he was captured during US-led strikes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barry Stoller http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProletarianNews
