False justice
By
Salama A Salama
President Bush's decision to try suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay before military tribunals has angered human rights organisations everywhere. Britain and Australia, which had initially supported Washington's efforts to procure immunity for its citizens from prosecution for war crimes, have begun to understand the dangers inherent of making light of international law by making exceptions for the subjects of one country.
The moral and judicial problem that faces Washington is that, while it protects those of its subjects who committed war crimes from being tried before international courts it gives itself the right to try prisoners of war before its own specially convened military tribunals rather than international, civilian or even ordinary military courts.
These military tribunals embody a contempt for due process; they do not abide by any accepted judicial criteria, depending as they do on documents and forced confessions; suspects are not allowed to have lawyers or summon witnesses. The judges are military personnel. The court has the right to issue death sentences, even though capital punishment has been abolished by most European states.
The British Foreign Office has opposed the procedure, expressing the UK government's reservations about its subjects being tried before tribunals in which, said one minister, the American army acts as both prosecutor and jury.
A few days ago a New York Times' editorial warned the American government against going ahead with procedures it might subsequently regret. Examples of such procedures include depriving arrested subjects of the right to a just trial as well as psychologically and physically mistreating them. The newspaper expressed regrets that the US justice department observers' report indicated that such was the case. The evidence against many of those arrested is no more substantial than their having entered the country without a visa or overstaying their legal stay. Congress was called on to intervene.
In recent years the American administration has been assiduous in issuing annual reports on human rights, as well as religious and civil freedoms, in other countries, frequently -- and justifiably -- criticising exceptional legal practices in Egypt, particularly trial before state security, military and emergency law courts. Washington still refuses to accept the sentences of such courts, which has allowed many suspects to flee, seeking refuge in America or Europe.
There are now some 700 suspects held at Guantanamo, from 40 countries. Investigations have been inordinately long yet only very few have been released. Nor is there sufficient information about the rest of them.
The UN Human Rights Commission has condemned such arbitrary detention. And the issue has emerged once more following President Bush's decision to try six of them before tribunals set up by Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld's deputy.
No one can deny Washington's right to combat terrorism and protect its citizens. But nor can Washington ask other countries for a just legal system and trials that respect human rights and the accepted requirements of justice and freedom while at the same time excluding itself and its subjects from such commitmen ts, sparing them those measures to which everyone in the world is subject.
