RIGHTS: Red Cross, Amnesty Demand POW Status for AlQaeda Captives

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Feb 8 2002 (IPS) - Two leading international human rights organisations issued objections Friday to Washington’s refusal to grant prisoner-of-war status to the militants of the Islamic Al Qaeda network who the United States captured in Afghanistan.

All those detained during the military campaign led by the United States last October through December in Afghanistan are prisoners of war, and are therefore protected by the Geneva Conventions, says the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Under pressure from allies and from human rights groups, President George W. Bush announced Thursday that the U.S. government will uphold the Geneva Conventions for all Taliban combatants, but he excluded members of the Al Qaeda network from such benefits.

Al Qaeda is a terrorist organisation and therefore cannot be considered a state party to the Geneva Conventions, said U.S. government spokesman Ari Fleischer.

But Kim Gordon-Bates, ICRC representative, rejected the distinction between the Taliban and Al Qaeda, saying it contradicts the fifth article of the Third Geneva Convention about due treatment of prisoners of war.

The article establishes that human rights protection will apply to prisoners of war from the moment they fall into the enemy’s power until their release and definitive repatriation.

When doubts exist about whether the captives belong to the categories of prisoner of war established by the Convention, these persons shall benefit from the protections until a competent tribunal determines their status.

This aspect of the fifth article was also taken up by the human rights organisation Amnesty International, which says that all captured persons should be considered prisoners of war until evidence is presented to the contrary.

That determination is the task of justice authorities, not the U.S. president, said Amnesty in a statement issued by its office in Geneva.

For his part, Gordon-Bates stated that the position of the Red Cross on the matter has not changed.

All people captured in Afghanistan should be considered prisoners of war under the Third Geneva Convention until their status is determined by a competent court, said the ICRC spokesman.

It is not up to a government to decide whether it applies to one person and not to another. It is a legal matter to be settled by a court, he said.

Gordon-Bates also refuted the idea that the prisoners being held at the U.S. naval base in Guantánamo, Cuba, are mercenaries.

A mercenary fights for pay, and his compensation would be much higher than the average wages of the rest of the soldiers in the country where he is fighting. That pay-scale difference must be proved before one can speak of mercenaries, he said.

The situation of the prisoners that the United States has transferred to Guantánamo since Jan 11 has sparked criticisms from inter-governmental and civil society organisations.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, expressed concern Jan 16, referring to “allegations about the manner in which the prisoners were transported and the conditions in which they are being detained.”

In reference to Washington’s decision, her spokesman, José Luis Díaz, said Friday that “it looks like a step forward on the issue of the treatment of the prisoners.”

However, Díaz said, the Office of the High Commissioner is seeking opinions from legal experts with regard to the announcement by President Bush.

The Red Cross said that so far its representatives have been able to visit 120 of the 186 people being held at the naval base.

The visits are taking place under good conditions and the Red Cross personnel have a good relationship with the U.S. authorities in Guantánamo, said the spokesman.

The International Committee of the Red Cross is an impartial, neutral and independent organisation whose exclusively humanitarian mission is to protect the lives and dignity of the victims of war and internal conflict, as well as providing them with assistance.

The Red Cross, based in Geneva, was founded in 1863. Under its auspices, the following year the “founding” Geneva Convention was born, covering the treatment of the injured and the ill in war.

After several reforms and updates, in 1949 the four treaties now in force were drafted. The first covers the fate of the injured and ill members of the armed forces on the battlefield.

The second protects the injured, ill and shipwrecked of military forces at sea. The third, which is mentioned in the case of the captives at Guantánamo, establishes the treatment due prisoners of war. The fourth determines the due protection of civilians in times of war.