[North-NV-Greens] Fwd: Can Bush & Company be Tried for War Crimes

Wed Dec 1 22:44:52 PST 2004

>
>Can Bush & Company be Tried for War Crimes
>
>* Rumsfeld facing war crimes case in Germany (Reuters)
>* Center for Constitutional Rights Seeks Criminal
>Investigation in Germany into Culpability of U.S.
>Officials in Abu Ghraib Torture
>* Should Canada indict Bush? (Toronto Star)
>* Red Cross: Guantanamo Tactics 'Tantamount to Torture'
>(Reuters)
>
>=========
>
>Rumsfeld facing war crimes case in Germany
>
>Reuters -  Tue 30 November, 2004 05:33
>
>http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=629860&section=news&src=rss/uk/worldNews
>
>BERLIN (Reuters) - Lawyers acting for a U.S. advocacy
>group will today file war crimes charges in Germany
>against senior U.S. administration officials for their
>alleged role in torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
>
>"German law in this area is leading the world," Peter
>Weiss, Vice President of the New York-based Centre for
>Constitutional Rights (CCR), a human rights group, was
>quoted as saying in Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper's
>Tuesday edition.
>
>According to the group, German law allows war criminals
>to be investigated wherever they may be living.
>
>Those to be named in the case to be filed at Germany's
>Federal Prosecutors Office include Secretary of Defence
>Donald Rumsfeld, former Central Intelligence Agency
>chief George Tenet and eight other officials.
>
>The group is due to present details of its case at
>several news conferences on Tuesday, according to
>invitations faxed to media organisations.
>
>==========
>
>Center for Constitutional Rights Seeks Criminal
>Investigation in Germany into Culpability of U.S.
>Officials in Abu Ghraib Torture
>
>German Prosecutor Asked to Meet Obligations Under Law
>Requiring Investigation into Torture and War Crimes
>Doctrine of Universal Jurisdiction Permits Prosecution
>of Suspected War Criminals Wherever They May Be Found
>
>
>NEW YORK - November 29 - In a historic effort to hold
>high ranking U.S. officials accountable for brutal acts
>of torture including the widely publicized abuses
>carried out at Abu Ghraib, on Tuesday, November 30,
>2004, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and
>four Iraqi citizens will file a criminal complaint with
>the German Federal Prosecutorís Office at the Karlsruhe
>Court, Karlsruhe, Germany. Under the doctrine of
>universal jurisdiction, suspected war criminals may be
>prosecuted irrespective of where they are located.
>
>The four Iraqis were victims of gruesome crimes
>including electric shock, severe beatings, sleep and
>food deprivation, hooding and sexual abuse. (Further
>details of the treatment of the complainants will be
>provided at the press conference.)
>
>
>The U.S. officials charged include Secretary of Defense
>Donald Rumsfeld, Former CIA Director George Tenet,
>Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Dr. Steven
>Cambone, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, Major
>General Walter Wojdakowski, Major General Geoffrey
>Miller, Brigadier General Janis L. Karpinski,
>Lieutenant Colonel Jerry L. Phillabaum, Colonel Thomas
>Pappas, and Lieutenant Colonel Stephen L. Jordan.
>
>For more information:
>CONTACT: Center for Constitutional Rights
>David Lerner; 212-260-5000
>http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/home.asp
>
>==========
>
>Should Canada indict Bush?
>
>by Thomas Walkom
>
>Toronto Star - Nov. 16, 2004
>
>http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1100517502971&call_pageid=968256290204&col=968350116795
>
>When U.S. President George W. Bush arrives in Ottawa -
>probably later this year - should he be welcomed? Or
>should he be charged with war crimes?
>
>It's an interesting question. On the face of it, Bush
>seems a perfect candidate for prosecution under
>Canada's Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes Act.
>
>This act was passed in 2000 to bring Canada's
>ineffectual laws in line with the rules of the new
>International Criminal Court. While never tested, it
>lays out sweeping categories under which a foreign
>leader like Bush could face arrest.
>
>In particular, it holds that anyone who commits a war
>crime, even outside Canada, may be prosecuted by our
>courts. What is a war crime? According to the statute,
>it is any conduct defined as such by "customary
>international law" or by conventions that Canada has
>adopted.
>
>War crimes also specifically include any breach of the
>1949 Geneva Conventions, such as torture, degradation,
>wilfully depriving prisoners of war of their rights "to
>a fair and regular trial," launching attacks "in the
>knowledge that such attacks will cause incidental loss
>of life or injury to civilians" and deportation of
>persons from an area under occupation.
>
>Outside of one well-publicized (and quickly squelched)
>attempt in Belgium, no one has tried to formally indict
>Bush. But both Oxfam International and the U.S. group
>Human Rights Watch have warned that some of the actions
>undertaken by the U.S. and its allies, particularly in
>Iraq, may fall under the war crime rubric.
>
>The case for the prosecution looks quite promising.
>First, there is the fact of the Iraq war itself. After
>1945, Allied tribunals in Nuremberg and Tokyo - in an
>astonishing precedent - ruled that states no longer had
>the unfettered right to invade other countries and that
>leaders who started such conflicts could be tried for
>waging illegal war.
>
>Concurrently, the new United Nations outlawed all
>aggressive wars except those authorized by its Security
>Council.
>
>Today, a strong case could be made that Bush violated
>the Nuremberg principles by invading Iraq. Indeed, U.N.
>Secretary-General Kofi Annan has already labelled that
>war illegal in terms of the U.N. Charter.
>
>Second, there is the manner in which the U.S. conducted
>this war.
>
>The mistreatment of prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib
>prison is a clear contravention of the Geneva Accord.
>The U.S. is also deporting selected prisoners to camps
>outside of Iraq (another contravention). U.S. press
>reports also talk of shadowy prisons in Jordan run by
>the CIA, where suspects are routinely tortured. And the
>estimated civilian death toll of 100,000 may well
>contravene the Geneva Accords prohibition against the
>use of excessive force.
>
>Canada's war crimes law specifically permits
>prosecution not only of those who carry out such crimes
>but of the military and political superiors who allow
>them to happen.
>
>What has emerged since Abu Ghraib shows that officials
>at the highest levels of the Bush administration
>permitted and even encouraged the use of torture.
>
>Given that Bush, as he likes to remind everyone, is the
>U.S. military's commander-in-chief, it is hard to argue
>he bears no responsibility.
>
>Then there is Guantanamo Bay. The U.S. says detainees
>there do not fall under the Geneva accords. That's an
>old argument.
>
>In 1946, Japanese defendants explained their
>mistreatment of prisoners of war by noting that their
>country had never signed any of the Geneva Conventions.
>The Japanese were convicted anyway.
>
>Oddly enough, Canada may be one of the few places where
>someone like Bush could be brought to justice.
>Impeachment in the U.S. is most unlikely. And, at
>Bush's insistence, the new international criminal court
>has no jurisdiction over any American.
>
>But a Canadian war crimes charge, too, would face many
>hurdles. Bush was furious last year when Belgians
>launched a war crimes suit in their country against him
>- so furious that Belgium not only backed down under
>U.S. threats but changed its law to prevent further
>recurrences.
>
>As well, according to a foreign affairs spokesperson,
>visiting heads of state are immune from prosecution
>when in Canada on official business. If Ottawa wanted
>to act, it would have to wait until Bush was out of
>office - or hope to catch him when he comes up here to
>fish.
>
>And, of course, Canada's government would have to want
>to act. War crimes prosecutions are political decisions
>that must be authorized by the federal attorney-
>general.
>
>Still, Prime Minister Paul Martin has staked out his
>strong opposition to war crimes. This was his focus in
>a September address to the U.N. General Assembly.
>
>There, Martin was talking specifically about war crimes
>committed by militiamen in far-off Sudan. But as my
>friends on the Star's editorial board noted in one of
>their strong defences of concerted international action
>against war crimes, the rule must be, "One law for
>all."
>
>[Thomas Walkom writes every Tuesday for the Toronto
>Star. twalkom at thestar.ca ]
>
>==========
>
>Red Cross: Guantanamo Tactics 'Tantamount to Torture'
>
>Reuters - Nov. 30, 2004
>http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6951969
>
>WASHINGTON - The International Committee of the Red
>Cross (ICRC) has accused the U.S. military of using
>tactics "tantamount to torture" on prisoners at the
>U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, The New York Times
>reported on Tuesday.
>
>An ICRC inspection team that spent most of June at
>Guantanamo Bay reported the use of psychological and
>sometimes physical coercion on the prisoners, the
>newspaper said.
>
>It said it had recently obtained a memorandum that
>quoted the report in detail and listed its major
>findings.
>
>In Geneva, the ICRC said it would neither confirm nor
>deny the New York Times report -- in which allegations
>of treatment tantamount to torture go further than what
>the neutral intermediary has publicly stated before
>about inmates held at Guantanamo.
>
>But, in a statement, the Geneva-based ICRC said it
>remained concerned that "significant problems regarding
>conditions and treatment at Guantanamo Bay have not yet
>been adequately addressed," and it was pursuing talks
>with U.S. authorities.
>
>More than 500 people are being held at the U.S. base in
>Cuba, detained during the 2001 U.S. war to oust al
>Qaeda and the ruling Taliban from Afghanistan and in
>other operations in the U.S. war against terror. The
>ICRC began visits in early 2002.
>
>The Times said the U.S. government and military
>officials received the ICRC report in July and rejected
>its findings.
>
>Asked by the Times about the report, a Pentagon
>spokesman said in a statement: "The United States
>operates a safe, humane and professional detention
>operation at Guantanamo that is providing valuable
>information in the war on terrorism."
>
>The Times said the Red Cross investigators had found a
>system devised to break the will of prisoners through
>"humiliating acts, solitary confinement, temperature
>extremes, use of forced positions."
>
>"The construction of such a system, whose stated
>purpose is the production of intelligence, cannot be
>considered other than an intentional system of cruel,
>unusual and degrading treatment and a form of torture,"
>the Times quoted the report as saying.
>
>Beatrice Megevand-Roggo, the committee's delegate-
>general for Europe and the Americas, told the newspaper
>the ICRC could not comment on the report submitted to
>the U.S. government.
>
>The ICRC has agreed to keep its findings confidential.
>
>Human rights groups and lawyers have criticized the
>United States for holding prisoners at the base
>indefinitely and most without charges or legal
>representation.
>
>The U.S. government has taken the position that the
>detainees are "enemy combatants" and not entitled to
>the protections normally given to prisoners of war.
>
>It has begun a process of holding individual trials,
>called tribunals, for each prisoner to determine their
>status.
>
>Additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva
>
>© Copyright 2004 Reuters Ltd
>
>===========
>_______________________________________________________
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-- 
Paul Etxeberri

"Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow"   ---Chateaubriand