Fwd: Close Guantanamo now, UN tells White House

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Close Guantanamo now, UN tells White House

By David Usborne in New York and Ben Russell

Published: 14 February 2006

 

A UN report is expected to call on the United States to close its Guantanamo

Bay detention centre in Cuba without delay and transfer the near-500

supposed " enemy combatants " held there to American soil to guarantee them

access to fair trials.

 

A leaked draft of the document, written over 18 months by five independent

experts in international law appointed by the UN Commission on Human Rights,

says the inmates at Guantanamo are being denied their rights to mental and

physical health to a degree that sometimes amounts to torture.

 

The draft, reported by the Los Angeles Times, raises particular concern

about the treatment of inmates on hunger strike, which involves forcible

insertion of feeding tubes through the nasal cavity and into the stomach,

excessive violence during transportation and interrogation techniques that

" must be assessed as amounting to torture " .

 

Yesterday, the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, arrived in Washington DC

for a long-scheduled meeting with President George Bush at the White House.

The report's findings are likely to worsen tensions between Mr Annan and Mr

Bush.

 

The final version of the report will be released in Geneva tomorrow or

Thursday, one of the authors, Manfred Nowak, confirmed. The delay is allow

for formal responses by the US government to its many criticisms.

 

The US has come under a barrage of international criticism over its

operations at Guantanamo Bay. More than 750 people have been detained there

since 2002. They are designated by the US as " enemy combatants " and denied

all legal rights, including access to lawyers.

 

The International Red Cross is the only organisation given access to them,

but it is forbidden to report publicly on their condition. Last November,

the US administration offered the five UN experts a tour of the centre

similar to those periodically organised for reporters and members of the US

Congress. They declined after they were told they would not be able to

interview prisoners.

 

The US continues to assert that it is acting within international law to

hold the prisoners at Guantanamo. The formal statement read: " The law of war

allows the United States - and any other country engaged in combat - to hold

enemy combatants without charges or access to counsel for the duration of

hostilities.

 

" Detention is not an act of punishment, but of security and military

necessity. It serves the purpose of preventing combatants from continuing to

take up arms against the United States. "

 

But the UN experts believe the primary reason for the US to keep the

prisoners at Guantanamo is for interrogation. Techniques employed by the US

that are seen by the experts as crossing the line into torture include long

periods of solitary confinement for prisoners, exposure to extremes of

temperature and forced shaving and other humiliations that contravene

captives' religious beliefs.

 

The British Government is facing pressure to secure the release of nine

British residents who are still being held in Guantanamo Bay. The men, many

of whom have been granted political asylum, have lived in Britain for many

years, but have not been granted citizenship even though some have British

wives and children.

 

Twenty MPs, including a dozen Labour backbenchers, have signed a

Parliamentary motion demanding the closure of Guantanamo Bay, and denouncing

the detention of its 520 inmates as " a symbol of injustice and abuse in the

US administration's war on terror " .

 

A UN report is expected to call on the United States to close its Guantanamo

Bay detention centre in Cuba without delay and transfer the near-500

supposed " enemy combatants " held there to American soil to guarantee them

access to fair trials.

 

A leaked draft of the document, written over 18 months by five independent

experts in international law appointed by the UN Commission on Human Rights,

says the inmates at Guantanamo are being denied their rights to mental and

physical health to a degree that sometimes amounts to torture.

 

The draft, reported by the Los Angeles Times, raises particular concern

about the treatment of inmates on hunger strike, which involves forcible

insertion of feeding tubes through the nasal cavity and into the stomach,

excessive violence during transportation and interrogation techniques that

" must be assessed as amounting to torture " .

 

Yesterday, the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, arrived in Washington DC

for a long-scheduled meeting with President George Bush at the White House.

The report's findings are likely to worsen tensions between Mr Annan and Mr

Bush.

 

The final version of the report will be released in Geneva tomorrow or

Thursday, one of the authors, Manfred Nowak, confirmed. The delay is allow

for formal responses by the US government to its many criticisms.

 

The US has come under a barrage of international criticism over its

operations at Guantanamo Bay. More than 750 people have been detained there

since 2002. They are designated by the US as " enemy combatants " and denied

all legal rights, including access to lawyers.

 

The International Red Cross is the only organisation given access to them,

but it is forbidden to report publicly on their condition. Last November,

the US administration offered the five UN experts a tour of the centre

similar to those periodically organised for reporters and members of the US

Congress. They declined after they were told they would not be able to

interview prisoners.

 

The US continues to assert that it is acting within international law to

hold the prisoners at Guantanamo. The formal statement read: " The law of war

allows the United States - and any other country engaged in combat - to hold

enemy combatants without charges or access to counsel for the duration of

hostilities.

 

" Detention is not an act of punishment, but of security and military

necessity. It serves the purpose of preventing combatants from continuing to

take up arms against the United States. "

 

But the UN experts believe the primary reason for the US to keep the

prisoners at Guantanamo is for interrogation. Techniques employed by the US

that are seen by the experts as crossing the line into torture include long

periods of solitary confinement for prisoners, exposure to extremes of

temperature and forced shaving and other humiliations that contravene

captives' religious beliefs.

 

The British Government is facing pressure to secure the release of nine

British residents who are still being held in Guantanamo Bay. The men, many

of whom have been granted political asylum, have lived in Britain for many

years, but have not been granted citizenship even though some have British

wives and children.

 

Twenty MPs, including a dozen Labour backbenchers, have signed a

Parliamentary motion demanding the closure of Guantanamo Bay, and denouncing

the detention of its 520 inmates as " a symbol of injustice and abuse in the

US administration's war on terror " .