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Iraqi detainees deserve justice
Chong ZiChina Daily  Updated: 2004-06-19 11:59

Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's fate remains in limbo, though official termination of Iraq's occupation by the US-led coalition is around the corner.

The occupation officially ends on June 30, after which US forces will be in Iraq at the invitation of its sovereign government.

Under the Geneva Conventions, the coalition cannot detain any prisoners after the June 30 handover of power if no charges have been filed. However, Saddam may not be turned over to the Iraqi Government at that time.

US President George W. Bush laid out the conditions of the handover.

"We want to make sure that he (Saddam) doesn't come back to power. And so therefore, it's a legitimate question to ask of the interim government: 'How are you going to make sure he stays in jail?' And that's the question I'm asking. And when we get the right answer, which I'm confident we will - we'll work with them to do so - then we'll all be satisfied," Bush said during a media conference at the White House on Monday.

The Bush administration has refused to set a time frame for the handover of Saddam, instead issuing a vague promise that it will be done "at the appropriate time."

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher provided an excuse for his country's refusal to commit to a schedule.

"International law allows prisoners of war to be detained as long as the hostilities continue...(and) it is quite clear at this point that hostilities continue," Boucher said.

With blasts and attacks rampant in Iraq, the coalition forces seem to have every reason to hold prisoners. However, the hostilities do not necessarily justify that the coalition forces can hold Saddam or other captives after June 30.

Occupation spokesman Dan Senor suggested that US authorities had grounds to hold Saddam far beyond the handover ceremony, saying the Americans could keep him "until the cessation of hostilities," which, he said, were not expected to stop on June 30.

The Geneva Conventions require a country to release prisoners of war at the end of a war or occupation unless criminal charges are brought against the prisoners. The Bush administration has insisted repeatedly that the occupation is ending on June 30.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said on Monday US-led forces could hold Saddam and other detainees indefinitely under a United Nations Security Council resolution passed on June 8.

In McClellan's words, the resolution "provides authority for the multinational force to continue to detain individuals in Iraq after June 30 and to detain new individuals where it is necessary for security purposes."

Resolution 1546, however, does not offer the coalition forces such privileges.

The UN resolution requires "all forces promote the maintenance of security and stability in Iraq to act in accordance with international law, including obligations under international law, and to co-operate with relevant international organizations."

Until the abuse scandals in Abu Ghraib cast hazy light, a large number of prisoners outside the "deck of cards" held by the US forces, especially in the offshore prisons, caught little public attention.

A report released by New York-based Human Rights First on Thursday revealed that thousands of security detainees are being held by the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as locations elsewhere which the military has refused to disclose.

The report coincided with news that Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered military officials to hold a suspect in a prison near Baghdad without telling the Red Cross.

"The US Government is holding prisoners in a secret system of off-shore prisons beyond the reach of adequate supervision and accountability of law," the report said.

According to the Washington Post, many of those captured in the context of the so-called war on terror are being held at US detention facilities in Bagram, Afghanistan and in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. A small number of detainees are also being held incommunicado at undisclosed locations.

The Human Rights First report said the US is holding terrorism suspects in more than two dozen detention centres worldwide and about half of these operate in total secrecy.

The US practice is outside the legal framework.

Under international law, the US should notify all detainees' families or give numbers and locations of all prisoners to the Red Cross.

The Pentagon officials' argument that announcing the numbers or locations of detainees would indicate the scope of US anti-terrorism efforts to terrorist groups and give them ideas of sites to attack is absurd.

Saddam and other senior officials of the old regime are the only Iraqi detainees to have been given official "prisoner of war" status. Hundreds of other Iraqis have been seized since the war, often on flimsy suspicion and held for long periods of time without charge or access to their families.

Under the fourth Geneva Convention, an occupying power can jail civilians who pose an "imperative" security threat, but it must establish a regular procedure for insuring that only civilians who remain a genuine security threat are imprisoned.

Paul Butler, deputy assistant secretary of defence for detainee operations, put the detainees at Guantanamo in several categories: those who are no longer a threat and can be freed; those who committed war crimes and will face a military tribunal; and those who remain a threat but cannot be charged with any crime.

In a 45-page report issued in Geneva early this month, Bertrand Ramcharan, acting high commissioner for human rights, said it was a "stark reality" that there was no international oversight or accountability for the thousands of detainees, the conditions in which they are being held and the manner in which they are being treated.

The Bush administration's decision not to grant any suspected al-Qaida and Taliban fighters prisoner of war status under the Geneva Conventions created the climate under which the interrogation abuses at Abu Ghraib prison occurred.

No doubt some of the prisoners are members or leaders of al-Qaida. Some may have been in the Taliban and Saddam regime; some might attack the coalition troops. Whoever they are, their treatment should be a demonstration of the US commitment to justice, not the blot on its honour that Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib have become.

All prisoners the United States detains should be given immediate access to their governments, families and lawyers and deserve some tribunal in which to contest their confinement.

They deserve real, open justice without further delays or excuses.

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