Rights groups appeal to Americas for support in Bush torture probes Rachel Oswald

Published: Friday March 20, 2009





Print This Email This Update at bottom: OAS panel receptive to rights groups Without sufficient domestic political support in their calls for criminal investigations into the Bush administration, rights groups are taking their message to a much bigger audience - all 35 member states of the Americas - who they hope will pressure President Obama and Congress into action.



A subcommittee of the Organization of American States called the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights will hold a hearing on Friday on calls for accountability for torture and other human rights abuses committed by the U.S. government. The hearing is part of a series of meetings that OAS will hold in Washington, DC over the next two-weeks



In a conference call with reporters Friday morning, the American Civil Liberties Union, The Center for Constitutional Rights and Human Rights USA, groups that will be testifying at the hearing, made the case for the need for criminal prosecutions specifically.



Colleen Costello, an anti-terrorism attorney for Human Rights USA, said there is a legal obligation that the United States owes under international and domestic law to investigate and prosecute those that approved interrogation tactics of enemy combatants such as water boarding and prolonged stress standing, which the International Red Cross concluded constitute torture and inhumane or degrading treatment.



Investigations are needed at the highest levels, Costello said, because both former President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have gone on the record as approving water boarding.



Recently in January, former President Bush admitted that he authorized the use of water boarding on Khalid Sheikh Muhammad and Dick Cheney admitted that he approved water boarding for three detainees, Costello said.



Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a human rights attorney, said one of the main obstacles that needs to be overcome, if there are to be any criminal investigations, is a lack of political will.



Statements by President Obama that he wants to look forward and not backward are disingenuous, Ratner said.



Accountability for torture is looking forward, he said, adding that it will ensure that it is less likely to happen again in the U.S.



Another chief obstacle to criminal prosecutions is the 2006 Military Commissions Act, says Ratner.



Major issues with the Military Commissions Are that it prohibits aliens who were one time classified as enemy combatants from suing civilly for damages for anything that happened to them while they were detained, he said.



Ratner says the act essentially immunized those officials in the government who authorized the questionable interrogation tactics.



It is a big weight around the neck of people, Ratner said, adding it is very clearly a legal obstacle that will need to be repealed by Congress if criminal prosecutions are to ever go forward.



Jamil Dakwar, director of the American Civil Liberties Union Human Rights Program, said his organization also wants to see investigations into Bush practices, that while not rising to the level of criminal under U.S. law, are still ethically questionable such as ethnic and racial profiling, warrantless wiretapping, the spying on of domestic anti-war groups and the holding of enemy combatants without charges.



Any recommendations offered by OAS on requests for criminal prosecutions are not legally binding to the U.S. government.



We are hopeful that with the statements the Obama administration has made, that they want to be more engaged with the international community that they will be much more respectful of the recommendations that the commission makes, Costello said.



Rights groups are asking OAS to issue specific recommendations to the U.S. on criminal investigations, the reforming of certain laws that would preclude any kind of criminal prosecutions or other legal accountability measures from going forward and the putting in place of measures that would allow detainees to pursue reparations (including financial) for their alleged abuse at the hands of the government.

Obstacles in Military Commissions Act outlined Members of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States appeared to be receptive to the message of rights groups on the need for criminal prosecutions at Fridays hearing.



I think what the United States will do about its recent past will be a very strong message, not only for the Americas, but I think for all of the world, said IACHR member Paulo Sergio Pinheiro. I think its very meaningful, this hearing, not only because of what we have heard from the petitions, but also from the new kind of commitment from the government of the United States to deal with these disastrous practices.



Lewis Amselem, U.S. deputy permanent representative to OAS, did not address the calls for criminal prosecution made at the hearing by rights groups but highlighted steps taken by President Obama to correct past wrongs of the Bush administration, such as ordering the closure of Guantanamo Bay and requiring that all interrogation tactics be in compliance with the Army Field Manuel.



Were here primarily today to listen to the presentations and your comments, Amselem told the IACHR panel, adding that he would be sharing the afternoons proceedings with various relative authorities for their review.



When asked by the panel, Amselem also promised he would provide them with the Obama administration's official position on Sen. Patrick Leahy's proposed fact-finding Truth Commission.



In his testimony to the panel, Ratner talked at length of the five legal challenges to criminal prosecutions posed by the Military Commissions Act, which he called the self-immunity act.



Ratner said under the act, no person may invoke the Geneva Conventions as a source of rights, enemy combatants are denied the right of habeas corpus and non-citizens are not allowed to bring reparations cases forward, even if they were tortured. That provision was made retroactive to 2001.



The Military Commissions Act also narrows the scope of criminal liability, retroactively to 1997, to take away many criminal violations that would normally fall under Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, Ratner said. Finally the act makes an affirmative defense of legal advice provided by the now widely discarded and discredited Office of Legal Counsel memos.



While noting that he was glad to see President Obama order the closure of Guantanamo, Ratner noted that it was done with an executive order and was something that could be reversed by a later president.



What Obama did can be undone by the next president in the next crisis, he said, adding that criminal prosecutions are the only true deterrent the U.S. has in making sure that torture never happens again.





Get Raw exclusives as they break -- Email & mobile Email - Never spam:



