Author: Helena

More on jurisdiction-free detention zones

Further to this recent JWN post on JFDZ’s, today I found a really excellent report that Human Rights First issued in June on the topic.
So far I’ve only been able to read the report’s well-argued Introduction. It notes that the existence of JFDZ’s at Gitmo and Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan is well known…

    Nonetheless, there is still no or only conflicting information about how many individuals are held there, troubling information about inadequate provision of notice to families about the fact of detainees

Marine’s Girl reports Ohio

Brilliant US heartland blogger (and JWN linkee) Marine’s Girl has a great report on her blog today, on a John Edwards rally she went to in Lima, Ohio on Sunday.
Ohio is of course a crucial swing state in next Tuesday’s election. (So is her present home state, Michigan.) Of course a Democratic Party rally doesn’t provide a representative cross-section of the American populace. But JWN readers–especially those of you outside the US– might really enjoy MG’s record of what she found there.
If you haven’t read her blog before you should know that her boyfriend, also a strong Bush critic, is a Marines sargeant who has been forced to extend his service in Iraq long after he thought he could quit the Marines.
Read this part, for example:

Continue reading “Marine’s Girl reports Ohio”

Riverbend in October

Veteran Iraqi blog-meistress Riverbend has had three good posts (out of three– a great record, Riv!) so far in October. Thank God she’s back, even if only intermittently.
The most recent one is a strong appeal to American voters not to inflict another four years of Bush rule on her country (or indeed, on ours).
The one before that is a great disquisition on the recourse to valium during a war.
Here is one great excerpt:

Continue reading “Riverbend in October”

Jurisdiction-free detention zones: end them!

Today (Monday) the NYT ran the
second of the two excellent pieces in which Tim Golden has been tracking
the evolution of the Bush administration’s policies regarding “enemy combatants”.
Today’s looks in particular at the history of the whole Guantanamo
detention operation, and the series of maneuvers and infighting that have
gone on inside the Bush administration regarding that hell-hole.

I think that all of us in the human rights community should make a huge push–regardless
of who wins the election November 2– to have that whole sorry place of infamy
completely dismantled.

In addition, we should seek
an immediate end to all the other law-breaking moves the administration
has made to create “jurisdiction-free detention zones” in which US government
officials and contractors can interrogate, abuse, and torture detainees at
will.

Where there is no clear jurisdiction, how can there be justice? How
much longer can we let this situation continue?

It’s not just Gitmo, that’s for sure. We’ve learned recently about
the continuation of the practice of shuffling “ghost detainees” around the
world–including out of Iraq, where the administration doesn’t even contest
the applicability of the Geneva Conventions.

The administration has used two mechanisms to keep people whom US forces
have detained, and whom it wants to forcefully interrogate, away from any
protections under either the US civil code or the US military code. One
is to create its own “jurisdiction-free detention zones”– whether at Gitmo,
or aboard various US Navy vessels or in various other US Navy facilities
around the world, or on the territory of pliant other governments. The other
is the policy of “rendering” these detainees to pliant other governments
who essentially do the torturing for them, often under the supervision of
or with the active help of US interrogators.

(Outsourcing torture is another way of describing this. Also, I hate
the use of the term “rendering” in that context: one much more long-established
meaning of it that pertains to flesh is when you boil down the bones and
offal of an animal to make glue and other by-products of butchery….)

And just let me note–again–the irony of the fact that Saddam Hussein is
sitting near Baghdad being accorded the full protections of the Geneva Conventions
in the course of his detention, while some of his far less culpable countrymen
have been spirited out of the country in clear contravention of the Geneva
Conventionsd, and shipped to JFDZs elsewhere for the “full (ill-)treatment”.

So anyway, now I’ve provided a little broad context for the whole Guantanamo
operation, let’s look at some of the main things Tim Golden was writing today.

Continue reading “Jurisdiction-free detention zones: end them!”

Friday sermons from Iraq

Did I tell you that Bill and I have both been focusing a little on our Arabic-language
skills while we’ve been here in Beirut?  Yesterday, we worked through
the lead article in al-Hayat, which gave some interesting reports
of what was in some Friday sermons the day before.  I thought it was
pretty interesting, so I’ve typed out my rendering of the first half of the
article. Here it is:

Headline: A political-sectarian split in Iraq 100 days
before the elections; The Shiites threaten anyone who abstains from
voting with the fire of “hell” and the Sunnis see voting under the shadow
of occupation as “a sin”

Baghdad– al-Hayat, AFP, Reuters– With the approach of the date of the Iraqi
elections, which has been determined to be 100 days hence, the Friday sermons
in the mosques of Iraq yesterday displayed a sharp split between Iraqis concerning
them, along political and sectarian lines. At the same time that the
sermons of the Shiite imams showed an enthusiasm for participation
that reached the degree of threatening anyone who abstains from voting with
“entry into hell”, the sermons of the Sunnis were divided between those who
called for a boycott because the voting under the shadow of occupation is
“sinful” and those who urged a “negotiating” position [that urges participation
in] voting in return for conditions, among them removing from the city of
Fallujah the military option.

Al-Sayyed Ahmad al-Safi, the representative of the Shiite ayatollah Ali al-Sistani,
laid stress in the Friday sermon in the shrine of Imam Hussein in Karbala
on “obligatory participation” in the elections and he said, “He who contravenes
that will go to hell.” He confirmed that, “We must take responsibility
and participate in an obligatory way because this is a national duty, and
not taking part would signify treason against the right of the nation.” And
Safi added that, “Participation has an obligation based in religious law
because the transgressor will enter hell.” He clarified that, “The
topic of the elections represents something truly significant for Iraqis
in terms of following their destiny.” He continued, “We must get ready to
prepare ourselves to participate strongly in them in order to realize the
hopes whose realization we’ve been awaiting a long time,” without spelling
out what these hopes were…

Continue reading “Friday sermons from Iraq”

Faiza in English: read, weep, donate

    Update of Oct. 24th: Regarding the Jarrar family’s humanitarian-aid project, you can send donations to Majid in Canada by mail. He writes on his blog that the address is: Attn. Majid Jarrar, 650 Pearson College Drive, Victoria V9C 4H7, BC, Canada. Receipts will get emailed back to you and continuing info about the project–including accounts– will be posted on Raed’s blog.

Faiza of “A Family in Baghdad” has a long, English-language version up today of posts she wrote in Arabic on October 13 and 15.
This is heartwrenching writing. I can’t even begin to make excerpts from it. She and her family are going to move house… Read about it. The whole post is worth reading.
At the end, she says:

    Iraq needs an election, and anew government

Whatever became of– ?

… the International Criminal Court???
Back on July 1, 2002, the historic Rome Treaty came into force, and the ICC– dream of so many in the international human rights movement– was finally up and running.
But to where, exactly?
I just went over to the ICC’s website to update myself on what this much-lauded institution has been doing for the past two years… And the answer is–
Not very much of anything at all.
In the past year, the ICC seems to have issued a total of eight press releases! (None since April 20.)
Though it’s a new-age international institution and has been in existence for more than two years already, its web-page on its own budgetary affairs gives us zero details on what it’s budget is, how it acquired its funding, or what it spent it on.
Yes, but what of the content of those eight press releases, you ask? Isn’t ICC prescutor Luis Moreno Campo busy using the organization’s budget to launch investigations into atrocities all over the world??
Back in July 2003, Moreno issued a breathless press release to the waiting media, explaining that … he could not start an investigation into anything to do with the US’s launch of a gratuitous war against Iraq because, although the Rome Treaty allows for ICC prosecutions in cases of “Crimes of Aggression” the nature of those crimes has not yet been decided. Oh, also, neither the US nor Iraqi is a State Party to the Treaty.
Ah, but he did promise he’d be “closely following” the tragic situation in Ituri, in eastern Congo. Indeed, he promised that, “If necessary, the Office of the Prosecutor will seek authorisation from a Pre-Trial Chamber to start an investigation.” (An “investigation” is a much more formal thing than “closely following”.)
Since then– nothing more about Ituri.
Then, in late February 2004, we had this from Moreno, promising that he would investigate,

    the crimes committed on Saturday 21 February 2004 in Barlonya camp, North Eastern Uganda. The latest reports estimate the number of deaths at over 200… These crimes could fall under the jurisdiction of the ICC…

Since when– again, no further news on Barlonya. And nothing, nothing at all on any of the other regions of the world–Darfur, Nepal, etc etc– where major atrocities continue to be committed.
Look, I don’t want to criticize Mr. Moreno personally. But I do think that for a huge number of reasons the ICC has turned out to be an extremely disappointing body.
Perhaps this was an inevitable outcome, given the hostility shown towards it by not only the US but also Russia, China, and India, among the world’s great powers?
No, I think the problem’s a bit deeper than that…

Continue reading “Whatever became of– ?”

Shirin (and HC) on Falluja

Well-informed JWN frequent-commenter Shirin responded to my invitation to give us more of her impressions of the history of the insurgency in Fallujah. I thought her comment, which was posted here, was worth putting into a main post, so I’ve done that (after a light edit) right here.
Thanks, Shirin!
I just want to also note the bullying ineptitude of the Negrocontra/Allawi regime in Iraq which actually detained some key Fallujah community leaders who had exited the city to come to talk to them about terms for a possible ceasefire. The US/Allawist forces detained the negotiators from Friday through Monday.
Not surprisingly, after the negotiators– who included the city’s police chief– were released, they said they were suspending any immediate further pursuit of the ceasefire talks.
Duh! This was nearly unbelievably bad behavior by the US/Allawists, which should have been much more remarked on–by me and others–back when reports of it first surfaced over the weekend.
Whether it was political ineptitude, or just plain bullying– which could, after all, be described as the same thing–that caused that behavior, the results for both Iraqis and Americans will certainly be more death, more destruction, more wounding, more hurt and suffering all round.
I’ve been following this story in Al-Hayat over the past few days, and should really show off my re-increasing command of written Arabic by quoting from one of those stories here. Instead, I’ll just lift this quote from Today in Iraq:

    Fallujah negotiator Sheik Khaled al-Jumeili said peace talks to end the standoff in Iraq’s major insurgent bastion will remain suspended as a protest against his detention by U.S. troops, who accused him of representing the militants.
    “The fact is that I’m negotiating on behalf of Fallujah people

Sistani, and US Jews

These are two separate, but very important, news items that I picked up from JWN linkees.
First this, from Juan Cole yesterday. He reports on an item from AFP/ ash-Sharq al-Awsat about Ayatollah Sistani’s spokesman Hamid al-Khaffaf, who said at a gathering at the Sadr Center in Najaf on Monday that:

    — Sistani will be forming his own nationwide list of candidates to “contest” the election (against, presumably, the single list that Allawi has been proposing). Khaffaf said, “”A committee of independents has been formed, the mission of which is to help everyone be represented on a unified list that would gain the confidence of the supreme Shiite leadership.” Note the significance of announcing this at the “Sadr Center”.
    — No “ideal” parliament can, Khaffaf said, be elected under the election system currently ordained for next January’s election system… (We’ve heard that criticism from Sistani/Khaffaf before).
    — But Khaffaf also warned that “the grand ayatollahs would not hesitate to bring people into the streets for the sake of a good result in the elections such that the righteous win their rights.” (The direct quote there is from Juan, and maybe AFSP, though not necessarily from Khaffaf.)

The above is all news that should have been in every headline in the world today. Or yesterday. I haven’t seen it in the WaPo or the NYT.
Another headlining piece of news… This from Matt, filling in for Yankeedoodle at Today in Iraq:

Beirut downtown

Okay, we’ve been here in Beirut for 16 days and finally, tonight, Bill and I made a foray into the rebuilt “downtown” area.
We’ve driven through it a few times; at some speed, remarking on the number of new buildings that have gone up there in the five years since we were last here. Tonight, we exited the AUB campus onto the Corniche and walked east about a mile (through the old hotel district) till we came to the still-being-rebuilt areas of the old downtown.
For a period soon after I came to live here in 1974, I would transit downtown three or four times a day. I was living in Fakhani, a strongly Palestinian area quite a ways out of the central district to the southwest. I was studying Arabic at St. Joseph, the Jesuit university not far from downtown, and I also had a part-time job in an ad agency up on Hamra Street. So in the mornings I’d get a service (share-taxi) from Fakhani to downtown, walk briskly the few blocks to St. Joseph– where Bashir Gemayyel was studying law at the time. After a couple of hours there I’d walk back to downtown, perhaps pick up a knafeh bi-kaakeh to eat along the way, and get a service up to Hamra to go to my job for 2-3 hours. Then, a service back to downtown and to St. Joseph for the afternoon classes. Later, go back to the ad agency.
Gosh, I got to know certain routes and parts of the downtown really well… Where to go and look for a gypsy service if the main thoroughfares were blocked. Which corners were, on a dark evening, places where some stupid guy might make a grab at you. Where there would often be Egyptian migrant workers fighting on the street. Which were the fun little souks to come to late at night with friends for a sahlab treat. Where the cheap restaurants were that you could sit at late at night and watch the porters sweating as they hauled huge loads of fresh vegetables in to the market stalls at 3 a.m. Where the tricksters and shell-game artists would congregate to take advantage of people coming fresh into the city from the countryside. All of that.
Later, I’d come and hand in my copy at the Daily Star offices downtown.
A little after that, downtown became a battlefield…

Continue reading “Beirut downtown”