Amnesty International Wants U.S. Officials Arrested

international | rights, freedoms and repression | news report

Sunday May 29, 2005 18:53

by anonymus

- torture and violation of basic human rights -

Amnesty International USA urged foreign governments Wednesday to use international law to investigate Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other alleged American "architects of torture" at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and other prisons where detainees suspected of ties to terrorist groups have been interrogated.

"If those investigations support prosecution, the governments should arrest any official who enters their territory and begin legal proceedings against them," said William Shulz, executive director of the U.S. branch of the international human rights agency.

In its annual report on "The State of the World's Human Rights," Amnesty International said the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, "has become the gulag of our times" and accused U.S. officials of flaunting international law in their treatment of detainees.

There is no statute of limitations on crimes such as torture, Shulz said.

So for years to come, the director warned, "the apparent high-level architects of torture should think twice before planning their next vacation to places like Acapulco or the French Riviera because they may find themselves under arrest as Augusto Pinochet famously did in London in 1998."

Gen. Pinochet, a former dictator of Chile, was arrested on an international warrant issued by a Spanish judge while Pinochet was in England receiving medical treatment.

Charged with torturing Spanish citizens in Chile, he was held under house arrest in England for more than a year but eventually returned to his homeland and escaped an international trial.

If the United States "continues to shirk its responsibility" of investigating allegations of abuse to the top of the chain of command, Shulz said, foreign governments should uphold their obligations under international law by investigating all senior U.S. officials involved.

Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, called the charges "unsupported by the facts."

The well-publicized abuses of detainees have been a "stain on the image of the United States abroad," he conceded, but the exposures only reinforced the administration's commitment to human rights.

"We hold people accountable when there is abuse," he said.

Amnesty International's demand for international action came as a private activist group that spans the ideological spectrum called for President Bush and Congress to appoint an independent, bipartisan panel, modeled after the Sept. 11 commission, to investigate the "various allegations of abuse of terrorist suspects."

The group calling for appointment of such a commission ranged from former Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., American Conservative Union Chairman David Keene and former Rep. Mickey Edwards, R-Okla., on the right to Thomas Pickering, the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and Morton Halperin of the Center for American Progress on the left.

Pickering said his conversations during recent international travels confirmed the damage that prisoner abuse charges have done to the nation, disheartening our allies and giving ammunition to our enemies.

But others on the panel said they were not as concerned about foreign reaction as with domestic values.

"We should be opposed to this (torture) because of who we are -- not what they think," said Keene.

In issuing the Amnesty International report, Shulz specifically named those he regarded as potential "high-level torture architects."

In addition to Rumsfeld and Gonzales, they included former CIA Director George Tenet; Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq; Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, commander of the Joint Task Force Guantanamo; and Douglas Feith, the under secretary of defense for policy.

Shulz said the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhumane or Degrading Treatment legally bind the countries that have signed them to exercise "universal jurisdiction" on people suspected of violations.

Certain crimes, including torture, amount to offenses against all of humanity so all countries have a responsibility to investigate and prosecute people responsible for such crimes, he said.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article8956.htm

save preference

Comments (5 of 5)

about guantanamo:

by z

Mon May 30, 2005 05:24

http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=70033

Uncle Satan's (Bush) Oil For Bombs and Torture Program

by The Devil and George Warmonger Bush

Mon May 30, 2005 15:35

It's one thing to Write a Warrant, and another thing to Serve a Warrant. The People you talk of have no respect for the Law (though they Feign Respect for The Law in Public). There is a BIG Difference between Bush and Pinnochet. Bush is better Protected and harder to get to. And even if you could get to Bush You would face retribution.

Untouchable

by Al

Tue May 31, 2005 03:51

Bush is still in power, not in any old country but in America.
Bush is currently the most powerful man in the world and until something changes hes untouchable.
Even if a warrant was issued America would go to war over their president and who could even challenge them?

Al, - "marked improvement in your use of the service we provide by the way"

by "knowing you're not getting in if you're not on the list" - how can you get in? if you're not on the list?

Tue May 31, 2005 13:18

Bush is not the most powerful man in the world, as you assert in the last comment.
you've been watching too many movies. You've also little understanding of how insecure the 600,000$ a year job of president of the US is, or have conveniently forgotten that the USA has seen more of its presidents assasinated in office than any other "democracy". It has long been taken for granted that the President of the USA is one of "200 most influential persons alive" but the usual incumbent is always rated equally with the living ex-presidents(by authorities as varied as the big magazines, the big thinktanks, the big diplomatic services, and not forgetting the big strategic studies institutes). Bush is thus rated equally with Carter, Clinton and Bush daddy. And it might interest you to know, that his official economic income (including non governmental stock and holdings) puts him in the middle of the group. The 200 most influential people fluctuate from year to year, and it is very difficult to define the "power" that they can, may or might exercise. They range from usual suspect billionaires, (but not all of them) [& tellingly few of their names are well known with the exception of dynastic powerbases] to some surprisingly "very poor" people. The list also changes depending on what exactly you're talking about when you say "power".
to bring you through it briefly:
* is it the capability to launch a nuclear strike?
Putin hand's are less tied by previous executive orders and redtape (pun) than Bush, and he has more nuclear weapons. Thus Putin is more nuke powerful than Bush.
* is it the capability to negotiate with exo-biological life on behalf of the planet?
You've been watching too many movies. But the current encumbent of the White House is not one of the less than 50 suspects for such a program in such an eventuality, the french and swiss are more powerful in this regard, but nationality doesn't come into it, Kissinger and daddy bush do. Daddy bush collects more points on lots of levels than his son btw.
* Is it the capability to make global reach morality statements?
Bush comes in around the yogic flyers on this point, well behind Joe paparatzi Benedict XVI who walks on H2O and for many is up there with the ayatollahs of Iran and Queen of Engurland's xmas day speech.
* is it the ability to harness over 50% of the world's business and information?
Bill Gates comes in there, oddly enough not ahead as most people think - of no less than 15 other individuals whose power is exerted on the technology which allows you to read these words, from code to machine. And on the list are various institutions including whomever sits at the QWERTY of the top ten university supercomputers and whomever directs organisations such as the NSA.
* is it the ability to accurately assess that information, be moral, hack a mainframe, talk to a blue gray alien, and sell records?
the grateful dead and david bowie, share this privelaged niche of power with people you'd probably stop and hassle on the street, coz u know how it is- "you beat up the wrong guy".

:-)
Hope you're enjoying the newswire more.
you should be producing articles soon expressing your thoughts on justice and garda-ing for posterity.

one of the lesser recognised "most powerful and influential persons" on the planet.

Pinochet agus Bush

by Duine

Tue May 31, 2005 18:24

Cuireadh amach barántas coinneála ar Phinochet sa Spáinn cionn is go measadh é a bheith ciontach i marú mídhleathach saoránaigh Spáinnigh.
Molaim do rialtas na hÉireann saoránacht iarbháis a bhronnadh ar dhornán Iaráiceach agus barántas coinneála a chuir amach i leith Bush.

Upcoming Events

New Events

Other Press

User Preferences

Feeds

Blog Feeds

Anti-Empire

The Saker

Lockdown Skeptics

Voltaire Network

Amnesty International Wants U.S. Officials Arrested

Comments (5 of 5)