U.S. accused of mistreating al Qaeda, Taliban detainees
Edward Epstein / SF Chronicle 22jan02
Washington -- A growing international clamor is calling into question the treatment of prisoners held at the makeshift U.S. jail at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the "unlawful combatants" face more interrogation and possible criminal charges as international terrorists.
In Britain, elsewhere in Europe and in Canada, the press and some government leaders are urging the United States to treat the 160 Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners already at its Cuban naval base as prisoners of war, which would provide them with the protections of the 1949 Geneva Convention.
Washington maintains that the men, called the "worst of the worst" by top Pentagon officials, are illegal combatants, which makes them ineligible for the rights granted under the convention.
Despite that, the Defense Department says, the prisoners who have been flown to Guantanamo are being treated humanely.
They are well fed, clothed, kept clean, provided with medical help and exercise time and allowed to say their Muslim prayers five times a day.
The prisoners, who guards say regularly threaten to kill them, are kept in 8-by-8-foot wire mesh cells with corrugated metal roofs open to the semitropical elements. They are shackled and their heads are covered when they are moved. Hundreds more are expected to arrive in the coming weeks as a more permanent jail is built at the isolated base.
A photograph showing the prisoners on their knees, shackled in orange jumpsuits and wearing black goggles, appeared in Sunday's London newspapers. "These prisoners are trapped in open cages, manacled hand and foot, brutalized, tortured and humiliated," the Sunday Mirror (below) tabloid said.
By yesterday, a junior Foreign Office minister, on behalf of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a leading U.S. ally in the war on terrorism, defended the prisoners' treatment.
DELEGATION TOURS GUANTANAMO
A small team of British officials was at Guantanamo yesterday, along with a delegation from the International Red Cross.
"The officials received full cooperation from the camp's commander, who said that the more lurid allegations about torture and sensory deprivation are completely false," said Minister Ben Bradshaw.
The photograph in the Sunday Mirror apparently was taken while the prisoners, some of whom continue to make death threats against their guards, were being moved, and the guards took severe precautions.
Bradshaw said the three British citizens among the prisoners in Cuba were in good health and had no complaints about their treatment.
But Canada, another U.S. ally in the war, disagreed with the Pentagon's denial of POW status. Deputy Prime Minister John Manley, visiting Pakistan yesterday, said his government thinks the men are POWs.
"There's an issue around whether the Geneva Convention applies, but . . . we believe that they should be applied," Manley said.
On Sunday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the prisoners were being treated humanely.
"Obviously, anyone would be concerned if people were suggesting that treatment was not proper. The fact is that the treatment is proper," Rumsfeld said.
DEFINITION OF POWS UNCLEAR
At the root of the disagreement is the critics' contention that the Guantanamo prisoners meet the four-part test set forth in the 1949 Geneva Convention for awarding prisoner-of-war status to captured combatants.
The convention says POWs are part of a military force with recognized commanders that wears distinctive uniforms or markings, carries arms openly and operates "in accordance with the laws and custom of war."
The United States says al Qaeda is a terrorist organization whose members do not meet those standards, especially the part about obeying the laws of war.
It apparently feels the same about some of the Taliban fighters in custody in Cuba.
POWs would be returned to their homeland when hostilities cease and could be tried only for offenses outside the rules of war.
"I have no objections to what they're doing at Guantanamo," said Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., an Army reservist who served as a legal officer at a 44,000- prisoner detention camp in Saudi Arabia during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. "We follow the letter of the law in how we treat our prisoners."
He said it is important for the United States to get the prisoners out of Afghanistan to extract information from them.
"You segregate them, . . . they'll (turn) on each other pretty quick. In these conditions, life becomes very basic," said Buyer, who was elected to the House in 1992.
He said the critics are premature. "You've got to give some time here and let this situation sort out. We're well within our rights to detain these people," whom he called "trained terrorists and trained killers."
Buyer said he dealt with Red Cross lawyers in Saudi Arabia and found it hard to satisfy them. "They make Ted Kennedy look conservative. They're way out there."
The public is not supposed to hear what the Red Cross inspectors find at Guantanamo. Their findings are to be kept confidential and only turned over the United States, the "detaining power."
The Red Cross, along with Amnesty International, says the United States does not have the right to decide which of its prisoners gets POW status. Rather, it must allow a competent tribunal, an independent U.S. court, to make such determinations.
Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, a longtime critic of U.S. foreign policy, has petitioned a U.S. District Court in Los Angeles to order the Pentagon to turn over the detainees and grant them access to lawyers.
A judge is scheduled to hear arguments in the case today.
The West at War:
THE TERROR MEN WITH NO PRAYER
Sunday Mirror (UK) 22jan02
Blindfolded: US stops prisoners facing to Mecca
HANDCUFFED and blindfolded, they sit with their heads bowed under the watchful eyes of US military police.
These are the captured Taliban and al Qaeda suspects whose controversial treatment has triggered an international diplomatic storm.
The 18 prisoners were among the first to arrive at Cuba's Guantanamo Bay naval base.
The captives, most of them in their 20s and 30s, have had their heads and beards shaved and are in manacles and leg irons. They cannot see or hear because they have been made to wear goggles, earmuffs, and surgical masks.
They have not even been told which country they are being held in. And their blindfolds deny them the ability to find out which way is Mecca - the direction in which devout Muslims must pray.
The chainlink pens are only used as a holding area before the men are "processed" by being given a basic physical examination by a doctor.
Once inside the main makeshift camp, conditions are better. Although their 8ft by 6ft cells leave the men prey to heat and insects they at least have roofs and cement floors. Three Britons are believed to be among the 110 captives, described as extremely dangerous, who have been flown from Afghanistan to Cuba - where workers are building a permanent camp to hold up to 2,000 such prisoners.
As officials from the UK flew to the island to question the British men yesterday, human rights activists renewed their calls for the US government to reclassify the captives as prisoners of war.
MPs are calling for a meeting with US ambassador William Farrish to voice fears about their "inhumane" conditions.
Under the Geneva Convention, POWs must be tried by the same courts and under the same procedures as US soldiers. But America, which maintains the prisoners are being treated humanely, claims the men are "illegal combatants".
Prime Minister Tony Blair has called the prisoners "very dangerous people" but insisted they must be treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention.
Labour MP Ann Clwyd, who chairs the Parliamentary human rights committee, said it was "playing with words" to suggest that the detainees were not POWs.
She added: "Mary Robinson, the United Nation's High Commissioner for Human Rights, is quite clear that they are prisoners of war. Any dispute about that should be settled by an independent tribunal."
Red Cross workers yesterday visited the camp to question detainees about their treatment. The Foreign Office refused to comment on reports that there were intelligence officers with the team.
A spokesman said: "They are identifying those who claim to be British citizens, reporting on the welfare of those people and assisting the US authorities with legal inquiries into the terrorist atrocities."
Meanwhile, 87 members of 2 Battalion The Parachute Regiment based in Colchester, Essex, were due to fly to Afghanistan this afternoon.
The soldiers, including 45 Gurkhas, will be among the first British troops based in the UK to be deployed in the country.
An Army spokesman said: "More troops are expected to be deployed there throughout next week. Their main tasks will include security, the patrolling of streets and working with the interim authority while building up trust with local forces.
"The re-building of infrastructure will also be high on their agenda."
POLICE were last night given more time to quiz nine suspected terrorists aged 20 to 40 arrested in Leicester last week. They men are being questioned about possible links to the al Qaeda network and alleged plans for terrorist attacks in Europe.
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