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January
17, 2002
Gideon
Levy
Bulldozing
Rafah
Uri Avnery
That
Weapons Shipment
January
16, 2002
John Chuckman
The
Angel and the Pretzel
Lawrence
McGuire
Subverting
the
Geneva Convention
Kathy
Kelly
An
Open Letter to
Richard Perle on Iraq
January
15, 2002
George
Monbiot
Greenpeace,
Lord Melchett
and the Business of Betrayal
Jack McCarthy
Follow
the Pretzel
William
Blum
Atta
and the Times:
Follow the Changing Story
Edward
Said
Emerging
Alternatives
in Palestine
January
14, 2002
David
Vest
Open
Bag. Eat Pretzels.
Patrick
Cockburn
Collapse
of Georgia
Ignored by the World
Mokhiber/Weissman
Enron's
Accountants:
When In Doubt, Shred It
January
13, 2002
C.G. Estabrook
Why
We Kill People
January
12, 2002
Cockburn/St.
Clair
Forbidden
Truths
January
11, 2002
Lee Balllinger/Dave
Marsh
Neil
Young's Duet with Ashcroft
January
10, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Bush,
Enron, UNOCAL
and the Taliban
St. Clair/Cockburn
Greenpeace
to Greenwash?
Hans von
Sponek
Iraq:
Is There an Alternative
to Military Action?
Jim Lobe
Israeli
Human Rights Group Assails Army
Marina Mayakova
Russia's
Top Military Astrologer Predicts More Attacks from OBL
January
9, 2002
David
Vest
The
Super-Burqa
and the Big Tent
ND Jayaprakash
Winnable
Nuclear War?
Rafiq
Kathwari
Kashmir
Will Make Ground Zero Look Like a Bonfire
January
8, 2002
Prudence
Crowther
Sting
Like a B-52
Nelson
Valdés
Al-Qaeda
at Guantanamo Bay
John Chuckman
Dark
Tales from the
Ministry of Truth
Richard
Corn-Revere
Do
We Fear Freedom?
Joan Hoff
The
Nixon You Haven't Heard
January
7, 2002
Lawrence
McGuire
Confusing
Economic Tales About Argentina
Wael Masri
They
Are Taking
Our Rights Away
Philip
Farruggio
Better
Medicine
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
Resources:
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About 9/11
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Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
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Photos by Allan Sekula
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War Diary
CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
Nuke 'Em
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How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
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Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
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The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
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January
18, 2002
Human Rights Group: Geneva Convention
Requires US to Treat Guantanamo Bay Prisoners as POWs
International
Law Forbids Trials of POW'S Before Military Commissions; Violation
of Convention May Amount to War Crime
Lawyers with the New York-based Center
for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a leading constitutional
rights and international human rights law group, said today that
by failing to classify the Al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners held
on Guantanamo Bay as prisoners of war, U.S. official may be committing
a war crime.
According to CCR Vice President and international
human rights attorney, Michael Ratner, Article 5 of the Third
Geneva Convention clearly states that if there is "any doubt"
as to whether those captured are prisoners of war; they must
be treated as such "until such time as their status has
been determined by a competent tribunal." The U.S. Army,
in fact, has regulations setting up such a tribunal to make such
determinations. The United States has, however, failed to employ
that tribunal and has made a blanket ruling that the prisoners
are not P.O.W.s.
Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld had acknowledged
that treating the prisoners, as P.O.W.S. would limit the government's
legal options with regard to trying them. Under the Geneva Convention
POWS must be tried by the same courts and under the same procedures,
as U.S. soldiers would be. Assuming any of the Guantanamo detainees
committed war crimes, they could be tried by court martials or
civilian courts but not by military tribunals. Bringing the P.O.W.S.
to trial in a military tribunal, therefore, violates the convention.
Under Article 130 of the Convention it is a serious crime, a
"grave breach," to deprive "a prisoner of war
of the rights of fair and regular trial" required by the
convention and is the basis for a war crimes prosecution.
Says Ratner, who spent extensive time
at Guantanamo Bay when he represented Haitian refugees being
held there and has first hand experience of the conditions at
the base, "The U.S. must adhere to the Geneva Conventions.
Imagine if those were U.S. soldiers being held in cages in Guantanamo.
We would insist that they receive the benefit of international
legal protections. By creating new rules as we go along, the
U.S. is jeopardizing the rights of U.S. soldiers who may one
day be P.O.W.S."
Added CCR Legal Director, William Goodman:
"Picture this: Russian soldiers capture CIA-trained Afghani
Mujahadeen circa 1980 and send them to Cuba where they are held
in cages. It doesn't take much imagination to conjure the State
Department's forceful response: Obey the Geneva Conventions
and treat this mean as P.O.W.S.," he said, "We need
to do this rights."
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