Title: RE: [PEN-L:36142] From Amnesty International
why can't the Iraqi government declare "coalition" prisoners to be unlawful combatants?
oh yes, I forgot: it's might that makes right.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
stop the war now!
> -Original Message-
> From: k hanly [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2003 9:09 AM
> To: pen
> Subject: [PEN-L:36142] From Amnesty International
>
>
> Actually Iraq could very well claim that captured US troops
> are not governed
> by the Geneva Convention. Since the war is illegal they
> could very well
> have joined the US dept of inventive terminology and called
> them illegal
> combatants and put them in 7 by 8 ft containers.
>
> Cheers, Ken Hanly
>
> AI-index: AMR 51/045/2003 25/03/2003
> Public
> 25 March 2003
> AI Index: AMR 51/045/2003
> http://web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/Index/AMR510452003?Open&of=COUNTRIES\USA
> UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
> International standards for all
>
> "There are international standards that civilized regimes
> adhere to and then
> there are regimes like Saddam Hussein['s] ...". US Secretary
> of Defence, 23
> March 2003(1)
>
> On 23 March 2003, following the news that US soldiers had
> been captured by
> Iraqi forces during the US-led attack on Iraq, President
> George Bush said
> that "we expect them to be treated humanely, just like we'll treat any
> prisoners of theirs that we capture humanely... If not, the people who
> mistreat the prisoners will be treated as war criminals."(2)
>
> Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld added that "the Geneva Convention
> indicates that it's not permitted to photograph and embarrass
> or humiliate
> prisoners of war, and if they do happen to be American or
> coalition ground
> forces that have been captured, the Geneva Convention
> indicates how they
> should be treated."(3) His statement came after interviews with five
> captured US soldiers had been broadcast on Iraqi television.(4)
>
> On the same day, about 30 more detainees were flown from
> Afghanistan to the
> US Naval Base in Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. This brought to about 660 the
> number of foreign nationals held in the base.(5) They come
> from more than 40
> countries. Most were taken into custody during the international armed
> conflict in Afghanistan. Some have been held in Guantánamo,
> without charge
> or trial, and without access to lawyers, relatives or the
> courts, for more
> than a year. Their treatment has flouted international standards.
>
> >From the outset, the US Government refused to grant any of
> the Guantánamo
> detainees prisoner of war (POW) status or to have any disputed status
> determined by a "competent tribunal" as required under
> Article 5 of the
> Third Geneva Convention. In April 2002, Amnesty International
> warned the US
> administration that its selective approach to the Geneva Conventions
> threatened to undermine the effectiveness of international
> humanitarian law
> protections for any US or other combatants captured in the
> future.(6) The
> organization received no reply to this or other concerns it
> raised about the
> detainees.
>
> On the 9 February 2002, the International Committee of the
> Red Cross (ICRC),
> the most authoritative body on the provisions of the Geneva
> Conventions,
> revealed that there were "divergent views between the United
> States and the
> ICRC on the procedures which apply on how to determine that
> the persons
> detained are not entitled to prisoner of war status".(7) The ICRC news
> release said that the organization would pursue its dialogue
> with the US
> Government on this issue. Nevertheless, to this day none of
> the Guantánamo
> detainees have been granted POW status or appeared before a tribunal
> competent to determine their status.
>
> The US has ignored not only the ICRC on this issue, but also
> the United
> Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the
> Inter-American Commission
> on Human Rights. More recently, on 16 December 2002, the UN
> Working Group on
> Arbitrary Detention noted that "the authority which is competent to
> determine prisoner-of-war status is not the executive power, but the
> judicial power", as specified under article 5 of the Third Geneva
> Convention.
>
> When the first of the detainees arrived in Guantánamo in
> January 2002, the
> Pentagon released a photograph of the detainees in orange jumpsuits,
> kneeling before US soldiers, shackled, handcuffed, and
> wearing blacked-out
> goggles over their eyes and masks over their mouths and noses. The
> photograph shocked world opinion and led Secretary Rumsfeld
> to acknowledge
> that it was "probably unfortunate" that the picture had been
> released, at
> least without better captioning. He added: "My recollection
> is that there's
> something in the Geneva Conventions about press people being around
> prisoners; that - and not taking
