The U.S. placed itself above international law

[sonz]

It was a huge mistake by the United States to deny Geneva Convention rights to foreign suspects it holds at its detention facilities. This decision four years ago led to all the prisoner abuses at the hands of American forces in IRAQ, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. This shame has now been doubled by Washington’s refusal to allow UN Human Rights monitors free access to Guantanamo, provoking widespread criticism and enforcing the view that the U.S. placed itself above international law.

According to an ediotrial on The Daily Star, the U.S. army claims that its rejection of the UN visits stems from the fact it allows regular access to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). But UN Human Rights experts say that the ICRC’s monitoring is very different, as it reports its findings to the detaining authorities. In contrast, the UN monitors investigate allegations of human rights violations and report publicly to the UN General Assembly and the world body's top watchdog, the Human Rights Commission.

The UN rights commission has been trying to visit Guantanamo since it opened in January 2002. It repeated its request earlier this year because it had “reliable” reports that the detainees had been tortured. The United States reluctantly agreed to allow only three monitors, instead of five, to visit the camp for just one day. Moreover, U.S. officials refused to let the investigators speak to the detainees in private, a condition rejected by the commission, which said that free access was needed to make a "credible, objective and fair assessment of the situation of the detainees".

The United States is holding more than 500 foreign suspects at Guantanamo. Only nine have been charged. The Pentagon’s rejection to allow free access to those detainees only raises more concerns about the U.S.’s treatment of the detainees it arrests in its “war on terrorism”. It would also undermine Washington’s credibility when it tries to criticize other nations’ human rights record. It is frustrating to see that the United States, which has consistently declated its commitment to the principles of independence and democracy, doesn’t follow these terms when it is involved.

* "Black sites"

UN monitors also wanted to have access to the U.S.'s secret detention centers around the world, known as “black sites”. Critics say that it is unlikely that the Red Cross visited detainees in these prisons, since Washington doesn’t admit that they exist. Reports of secret CIA prisons in eastern Europe provoked outrage in the international community when it surfaced last month. The European Union's top human rights organization, the Council of Europe, recently said that it has “credible” information that the CIA ran secret prisons in some European countries.

The EU is also investigating reports that the CIA transfers detainees through European airports to secret detention centers without any judicial involvement, a process that violates the international law, known as “extraordinary rendition”. Human right groups say that the detainees often end up being tortured in third countries.

The United States says that it is difficult to apply Geneva Convention rights on “terror suspects”, as the laws mainly govern prisoners of war. But this doesn’t justify illegal and groundless detentions, because the international covenants on human rights ban arbitrary arrests and state that every individual is entitled to be accorded basic human rights. There is simply no excuse for denying the very existence of the detainees.

After months of resistance, the White House recently approved a measure that would ban torture of foreign suspects in U.S. custody. There is also a move towards investigating reports of secret CIA prisons and flights. However, the BUSH administration has to decide quickly how it plans to treat the detainees legally. More scandals will seriously damage the principles of democracy that the Americans have claimed to be promoting.