Category: Human rights

The International Committee of the Red Cross’s flagship publication, the International Review of the Red Cross has devoted most of its latest issue to the question of detentions.
All the articles there that I’ve been able to look at look really, really interesting and important. Including this one, on “Human Rights and Indefinite Detention”.
But perhaps this interview with Lech Walesa— who was interned by the pro-Soviet regime in Poland a number of times in the 1970s, and then again in 1981– is the article that should receive the widest circulation inside the US. (To most members of the US political elite, especially those who shout loudest about the need to “extend freedom”, Walesa– like Vaclav Havel– is regarded as a big hero.)
Here’s an excerpt from the interview:

Qun: Coming back to detention issues, where are the limits that because of religious or moral reasons we are not allowed to overstep?
The United States leads the world economically and militarily, but it no longer does so morally. This is partly due to the fact that it has occasionally resorted to immoral methods to fight the phenomenon of international terrorism. It says: we have the money, we have the means, and we will fix the problem ourselves. But how much will this cost in human terms? You have to prove your high moral standing by deeds, not by words. This also applies to detention. I say it with all due respect for the reasonable concerns of the United States and as a friend of the Americans, who are facing serious threats from terrorist organizations…
What are the responsibilities of politicians?
Politicians have a moral and legal obligation to give clear and unambiguous messages and instructions to uphold minimum humanitarian standards even in the worst situations. It is their moral responsibility. I am afraid the present international atmosphere is not helping us, but I believe that everybody is increasingly aware of their responsibilities and that we are heading in a better direction.

I must say I do not share his optimism on that last count.

The best definition of torture that I know of is one I heard from a physician at the renowned Danish center for treatment and rehabilitation of torture victims. He said, “Torture is an attempt to destroy the indpendent human personality.”
Physical abuse is often a part of it. But the most devastating part is the systematic attempt, using psychological mechanisms, to break a person’s mind.
This is why I found reading the interrogator’s report printed in this week’s Time magazine so disturbing.
Including these portions:

20 December 2002
1115: … Interrogater began by reminding the detainee about the lessons in respect and how the detainee had disrespected the interrogators. Told detainee that a dog is held in higher esteem because dogs know right from wrong and know how to protect innocent people from bad people. Began teaching the detainee lessons such as stay, come, and bark to elevate his social status up to that of a dog. Detainee became very agitated.
21 December 2002
2223: As I began to inform the detainee of the changes the Saudi government has been making in order to support the efforts of peace and terror free world I began to engage closeness with the detainee. [I’m assuming the writer of this report is probably female ~HC] This really evoked strong emotions within the detainee. He attempted to move away from me by all means. He was laid out on the floor so I straddled him without putting my weight on him. He would then attempt to move me off of him by bending his legs in order to lift me off but this failed because the MPs were holding his legs down with their hands. The detainee began to pray loudly but this did not stop me from finishing informing the detainee about the Al Qaeda member, Qaed Salim Sinan al Harethi aka Abu Ali, that was killed by the CIA.

Here below is an entry that has many terms that I don’t understand. (Can anyone explain “sissy slap” to me?) But buried in it is a reference to “dance instruction” that should send shivers down the spine of anyone who remembers the scene in the movie “The Pianist” where the German guards at the crossing point out of the Warsaw ghetto force some of the Jewish detainees waiting to walk through it to dance for the guards’ own amusement…
Or, the narratives of enslaved African people on British and American slave ships being forced to “dance” for the amusement of the boat’s crew members…

13 December 2002
1115: Interrogators began telling detainee how ungrateful and grumpy he was. In order to escalate the detainee’s emotions, a mask was made from an MRE box with a smily face on it and placed on the detainee’s head for a few moments. A latex glove was inflated and labeled the “sissy slap” glove. The glove was touched to the detainee’s face periodically after explaining the terminology to him. The mask was placed back on the detainee’s head. While wearing the mask, the team began dance instruction with the detainee. The detainee became agitated and began shouting.

While you’re reading these accounts, don’t forget that physical force and violence are also being used on the detainee at this point; and earlier, considerably more physical violence may well have been used on him.
The excerpt Time has there on its website is fairly short. But there is no mention anywhere in it of the interrogators actually asking the detainee for any information. Their intention seems only to be to humiliate and “break” him. (Perhaps also to try to “test” some of their techniques on him?)
But what useful information would he have anyway, in December 2002– probably more than a year after he was captured?
Why was he still there, being tortured and humiliated in that way?
He is most likely still there. (Only a small proportion of Gitmo detainees have been released since then.)
Is he still– 30 months after December 2002– being subjected to these kinds of humiliations? Quite likely. Can you imagine what happens to a human personality after a total of, now, some 42 months of abuse, torture, and outrageous, intentional humiliation along these lines?
And Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld have now firmly told everyone— including the President, who looked like he might be getting a little “wobbly” on this point– that they have no intention of closing the Guantanamo prison.

How many of the roughly 530 detainees in the US detention center in Guantanamo were actuially sold into bondage by bounty-hunters eager to make a fortune from US rewards programs?
Quite possibly, a large proportion of them. AP reporter Michelle Faul has a very shocking piece on the wire today that makes this claim. She’s writing from San Juan, Puerto Rico, where she has been following the (far from fair) “military tribunals” staged for many of the Guantanamo detainees to date. She attributes the claim about detainees having been sold into bondage to testimony that detainees gave to the “tribunals”, according to trasncripts of the hearings that AP forced out of the US government through the “Freedom of Information Act”.
In addition, Faul quotes Gary Schroen, a former CIA officer who helped lead the search for Osama bin Ladenas saying the detainees’ accounts,

Faul writes:

[A] wide variety of detainees at the U.S. lockup at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, alleged they were sold into capture. Their names and other identifying information were blacked out in the transcripts from the tribunals, which were held to determine whether prisoners were correctly classified as enemy combatants.
One detainee who said he was an Afghan refugee in Pakistan accused the country’s intelligence service of trumping up evidence against him to get bounty money from the U.S.
“When I was in jail, they said I needed to pay them money and if I didn’t pay them, they’d make up wrong accusations about me and sell me to the Americans and I’d definitely go to Cuba,” he told the tribunal. “After that I was held for two months and 20 days in their detention, so they could make wrong accusations about me and my (censored), so they could sell us to you.”
Another prisoner said he was on his way to Germany in 2001 when he was captured and sold for “a briefcase full of money” then flown to Afghanistan before being sent to Guantanamo.
“It’s obvious. They knew Americans were looking for Arabs, so they captured Arabs and sold them

There have recently been a bunch of news reports about alleged Sunni extremists in Iraq having taken hostage “up to 100” (though no-one really seems to know the real number) Shiite Muslim residents of the town of Madain, south of Baghdad.
This hostage-taking is really a scary, scary phenomenon.
I remember how similar cross-sectarian hostage-taking was a big feature of the early years of the civil war in Lebanon. The agony both of those who are taken hostage and of family members left behind, who have no idea at all about the whereabouts, life/death status, or health situation of their loved ones (and always tend to fear the worst), is hard to convey to people who have never encountered such a happening.
Such actions should all be ended! Immediately!!
But what, at the end of the day, is the moral difference between such hostage-taking and the practice of the US and Allawist forces up to now, of taking massive numbers of Iraqi “insurgents” as detainees and holding them– often in undisclosed locations– for weeks and months without trial?
As I noted in this JWN post April 11, as of then some 14,400 Iraqis were being held without trial, by the US forces or the Allawist-Iraqi forces. Of those, roughly 6,500 were being held by the “Iraqi” forces, just a handful by the Brits, and nearly 8,000 by the US forces.
Shame!
Imagine the anguish of an Iraqi mother whose son or spouse has been picked up in such a raid and taken away– with no real thought of a trial in mind for him– to some distant US-run detention center. The location, life/death status, and health situation may well also be kept secret from the detainees’ family members for many long weeks or months. And we know that terrible mistreatment goes on in these places of detention and indeed– in the case of US detention centers– that non-trivial numbers of inmates have died as a result of their treatment there.
Someone explain to me how this is any different from hostage-taking?
In such situations of mass detentions without trial (Iraq, Palestine, Guantanamo, elsewhere), it is a completely natural demand from members of the targeted community that the people detained without trial should be freed. Simply freed. Unless credible charges of criminal wrongdoing are brought against them, in which case that should happen with due speed, in a duly constituted court of law.
But the powers that hold these “hostage” detainees are often, actually, seeking to use them as a bargaining chip, and to “win” something politically for their release. Or, they are seeking to use them to try to brainwash them, with the hope that by breaking the will of these numerous individuals they can break the will of the opposition movement with which they are assumed to be aligned.
Both such uses of hostages– indeed, the very act of hostage-taking itself– are quite forbidden under international law.
Does this prevent the US and Israel from continuing the practice? No, it does not.
The demand voiced by various opposition forces in Iraq for the release of all those detainnes against whom credible criminal charges cannot be brought is a basic one. New Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has said he’s interested in providing an amnesty for all insurgents who don’t have the blood of Iraq civilians (or, perhaps, Iraqi security forces) on their hands.
What’s to stop him just following through, immediately, on that offer? I think that as President he probably has the authority to free all the Iraqis held by his forces who have not been convicted of or charged with any crime. He also, certainly, has the moral authority to demand, flat out, that the “guest forces” now present in his country release all the Iraqi detainees that they’re holding as well.
So what about it, Uncle Jalal? What’s to stop you doing this? Turn yourself into a truly Iraqi national figure by demanding the freeing of your compatriots from the foreigners’ hands.
If at the same time you’ve been successful in winning the freedom of the hostages from Madain (however many they are), then you would end up with a lot more political legitimacy nationwide than you now have.
And solid democratic principles like “no imprisonment without trial” would meanwhile be strongly reinforced…

This week, I have been focusing mainly on reviewing/revising the three South Africa chapters of my book on Violence and its Legacies. I find much of this project (South Africa, Mozambique) really heartening to work on, because the broad-level changes in the situations in those two countries over the past 15 years have been so evidently for the better. Yes, I know horrendous problems of poverty, social inequality, the legacies of colonialism, the ravages of HIV, and non-trivial problems of governance remain in both those countries.
But still.
Given a choice between South Africa today and apartheid South Africa; given a choice between Mozambique today and civil-war-gripped Mozambique– well, it seems evident to me which is better.
Along the way, though, in the chapters I’ve been working on so far in the past four weeks or so (Rwanda, SA), I’ve had to deal with a lot of narratives of torture and atrocity.
Many, many of the narratives of tortures carried out by SA’s apartheid regime seem shockingly familiar today, if you read the many accounts now surfacing of how the CIA (in particular) but also other US government bodies have been treating suspects in the “Global War on Terror”. There is something sickening about these governments that claim to be so “democratic” and so “civilized”, and that portray themselves, indeed, as “bringing the benefits of civilization to the natives”– but in fact, often interacting with the actual people of the subordinated, marginalized populations in an extremely barbaric way.
I have this emerging theory that the way the US deals with the rest of the world is sort of a macrocosm for how the White South Africans dealt with their non-White compatriots… Except that the SA Whites were around 11-15% of the relevant population there, while US citizens constitute only 4% of the population of the world. So the sheer chutzpah of our “leaders” claiming to be able to act “in the name of” or “on behalf of” or “for the good of” the rest of the world is that much greater.
Anyway here is an excerpt from my Chapter 5, South Africa from conflict to peacebuilding that will give you an idea of some of the things I find so familiar looking at US government actions today:

Continue reading “Legacies of torture, South Africa”

“Progress” comes slowly in the affairs of humankind, and it’s by no means
a unidirectional or linear business. One significant series of steps
forward occurred in the 1860s, when European and a few non-European governments
came together to agree on:

• firstly, 1863, the creation of the International Committee of the Red
  Cross and the establishment in different nations of national-level Red
  Cross and Red Crescent societies affiliated with each other and with the
  ICRC
• secondly, 1864, a formal, intergovernmental agreement that for the
  first time formalized codified a portion of the previously merely customary
  “laws of war”; and
• thirdly, 1869, the first-ever international agreement mandating a total
  ban on using an entire class of weapons (explosive projectiles weighing
  under 400 grams).

It is true that while these states were able to agree these rules
among themselves, they still did not consider most non-European peoples to
be worthy of anything like the same protections as European peoples. Many
of the same states that joined the “humanitarian” conventions
were very happy, in 1885-86, to “carve up”
the whole of sub-Saharan Africa and distribute it amongst themselves. And
most European states as well as Japan continued to run extremely brutal
colonial empires right through to the the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, and even–
in the case of Portugal– till 1974-75.

But still, establishing and
formalizing the principles of what came to be known as ‘international humanitarian
law’ (IHL, also known as the Geneva Conventions and the Hague Conventions)
back in the 1860s was a laudable step forward. And gradually, throughout the end of the 19th century and most of the 20th, the protections offered by these conventions came to
be extended to all the rest of the peoples of the world as well. In addition, in 1949, the content of the Geneva Conventions was overhauled and strengthened in the light of the terrible abuses the Nazis (and the Japanese) had perpetrated during their military occupations of numerous other countries…

And now, here we are in yet another new century…. and the most powerful government
in the world is snubbing its nose at many of the provisions of the Geneva
Conventions, while at the same time it seems to be working to undermine
that important body, the ICRC, which is contractually obliged– acting
on behalf of all Geneva Convention signatories, including the United States–
to uphold and further the application of the principles of IHL. We
have heard much news of the Bushies trying to undermine Kofi Annan, and more
recently the IAEA’s Mohamed ElBaradei. But are they now also trying
to discredit the work of the ICRC’s president, Jakob Kellenberger?

Continue reading “Forward to– a new Dark Age?”

Attentive reader Christiane has been following some of the news stories about developments in the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo cases. Since she figured that I was out of touch while in Iran (and Syria), she compiled a collection of some of the most significant of these stories.

Thanks so much, Christiane! These look like really valuable references to have here on the blog.

So the following is a lightly edited version of what she sent:

Meanwhile, somethings seems to be moving concerning the situation of prisoners,
both in Abu Ghraib or in Guantanamo. Here are 11 links:

1) On the 30th of November the NYTimes reported
on a leaked ICRC Report concerning the Guantanamo prisoners. (Also,
here.)

Usually the ICRC reports are kept secret (it’s a well established policy of
the ICRC; in exchange they are granted access to the prisons and can make
suggestions in order to improve the detention conditions.They also denounce
what breaches the Convention and try to negotiate their end).

It is a good sign that some one in the administration leaked these reports.
Maybe the government will eventually have to do something about it.

2) On December 1 the NYT carried this
editorial on the subject, calling for an intervention in the Congress
“who should make the actual government more accountable”. (Also here.)…

Continue reading “Meanwhile, in the gulag”

… and what women think of them:
First, from Saudi Arabia, the horrific news that the eponymous royals have decided not to let women take part in the (partial) municipal elections scheduled for next February-March.
Those elections will will fill only half of the seats in the renewed municipal councils in the kingdom. (The other members will still be appointed by the eponymous royals.) But still!!! It is truly amazing that even with those highly–as we might say– emasculated forms of election, they could not let women run in them.
I don’t know why they bother to go through this whole charade of pretending to move towards democracy at all…
And then, from the US, we have this great piece of commentary in the NYT today: Being President Means Never Having to Say He’s Sorry, by the sociolinguist and gender-studies expert Deborah Tannen.
She writes,

Many men learn, from the time they’re children, to avoid apologizing, because it entails admitting fault, and that’s risky for them. Boys have to be on their guard against appearing weak – either literally, by losing fights, or figuratively, in the way they speak – because if they act or talk in ways that show weakness, other boys will take advantage and push them around.
But refusing to apologize infuriates women because that makes it seem as if the guy doesn’t care that he let her down, and if he doesn’t care, there’s no reason to think he won’t do it again. This is the negative effect – the collateral damage – that Mr. Bush’s “certainty” is certain to have on many women: if he won’t admit he made a mistake in his handling of Iraq, it seems he doesn’t care about the American soldiers killed and maimed, the civilians beheaded, about the Iraqi children blown up by insurgents’ bombs…

Well, let’s hope Tannen’s right. Apparently the “undecideds” in the US election include a large proportion of women…

To get a glimpse of how tough life is in a country under foreign military occupation, do read Faiza’s blog today.
One exciting prospect: her son Khalid posted there that he, Faiza, and another of her sons, Raed, are all planning to come to the US to do a speaking tour. They’re looking for sponsorship. If you’re interested, contact Khalid.
But Faiza’s main post there is so poignant and powerful. The version up today is in English. I urge you to read it.
Long story short. Faiza decided a while back to try to create a really good social-affairs project–namely to market products made by poor Iraqis. So she got involved with a locally-based women’s NGO. In this post, she and other members of the NGO are invited to a meeting with a visiting potnential donor. It’s inside the Green Zone! Full of trepidation, she goes to it…
Read her account of what it felt like entering the Green Zone, and what happened there…

Continue reading “Life under occupation”

[Update to the following, added Fri a.m.: Excellent lead editorials on this subject today in both the WaPo and the NYT.
The NYT also led with the news story on this on the front page. Down near the bottom of that story is this intriguing little bit of reporting involving our old friend Dougie Feith. End of update.]

From Reuters, today (Thursday):

The United States kept up to 100 “ghost detainees” in Iraq off the books to conceal them from Red Cross observers, a far higher number than previously reported, Army generals told Congress on Thursday.

This is serious. It’s a well-known fact in international human-rights practice that when people are detained in secret, that is the situation in which they are at most risk of extreme abuse.
The one major case people know of, in Iraq, was the one where a ghost detainee was apparently beaten to death and then his body was kept on ice (and photographed) before MPs took it out for disposal.
As I’ve noted here before, the worst abuses the apartheid-era security forces committed against SA nationals happened when those people were not in formal detention. Sometimes they would have people in formal detention, then release them especially so they could pick them up off the streets again and keep them “off the record books” before they tortured them to death.
Today, it was Gen. Paul Kern, commander of the U.S. Army Materiel Command, who told a Senate committee hearing on abuses of Iraqi prisoners that he believed the number of ghost detainees held in violation of Geneva Convention protections was “in the dozens to perhaps up to 100,” far surpassing the eight people identified in an Army report, the Reuters report says.
The main reason Kern and Maj. Gen. George Fay, deputy commander at the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, who was also testifying could not be more precise was, they said, because the CIA–which apparently was responsible for the vast majority of cases of ‘ghost detainees’– did not give the Army investigators the info they needed for a more precise estimate.
Reuters added:

Continue reading ““Up to 100” ghost detainees”