The Execution of the Third Geneva Convention
Mahmoud Mubarak Al-Hayat - 09/01/07//
A few days ago, the era of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein ended. He kept people busy while he was alive, and he is still doing so dead. Other eras will draw to an end, before the curtain falls completely over this leader, who has been famous for being either an inspiring Arab leader or a traitor of his nation and his country.
The trial and execution of the former Iraqi president have been very much followed by politicians, media workers and common people. It is clear that this issue, which has drawn the attention of the entire world, has made history at the political, legal, social, religious and media level. Perhaps the best evidence of this is that the execution is still a top story in Arab and world news bulletins, although it has been ten days since it was carried out. However, despite all that has been written, published and said about the trial and the execution of the 'tyrant' who has become a 'martyr', it seems that an aspect related to international law has not received the same share of attention. This is what this article wants to point out.
The question about the legality of the arrest and the trial of the former Iraqi president, which were carried out by US occupation forces, was raised since the very moment in which these troops entered Iraq. The Bush administration's insistence on arresting a legitimate President of a legitimate government was a violation of international laws, and represents a dark page in US history, as far as such laws are concerned. Although he had not been elected - like the rest of the Arab leaders - Saddam Hussein was a legitimate president, as he had been recognized by all the countries of the world. Shortly before the US-British invasion, the Iraqi capital was full of embassies, and Iraqi flags rose in different world capitals and on the roofs of international organizations. And this is enough to prove the international legitimacy of this leader. The US failed to bring the Security Council to pass a resolution that would allow the former to use military force against Iraq. Therefore, it did not have any international legal means to arrest the deposed president, and when it did so, it contravened international laws and norms. And as it is known, the international rule states that 'what is built on illegitimacy is illegitimate'.
What is more, the way in which the former president was arrested violated the 1949 Third Geneva Convention (GCIII). The US announced, through its former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, that it intended to treat the deposed President as a 'prisoner of war', in conformity with what the Convention states.
However, the extent of US understanding of the above-mentioned Convention and, in general, of international law became evident when US global TV networks broadcasted images of the former Iraqi president in his worst and most humiliating conditions. This is a transgression of Article 14 of the aforementioned Convention, which states: 'Prisoners of war are entitled in all circumstances to respect for their persons and their honour'. Likewise, Article 13 states that 'prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated. Any unlawful act or omission by the Detaining Power causing death or seriously endangering the health of a prisoner of war in its custody is prohibited, and will be regarded as a serious breach of the present Convention'. The pictures broadcasted shortly after the arrest of the deposed president showed him with bruises and marks of blows on his face. It goes without saying that this psychological and physical offense carried out against him by US forces contravenes the text and the spirit of this international convention. However, after Saddam Hussein was condemned by an Iraqi court for the crimes perpetrated in Dujail in 1991, the most important question about his destiny was: how much is the US legally responsible for this procedure?
The US says that the former president was officially delivered to the Iraqi government after US occupation forces in Iraq had handed over power to it in June 2004. Therefore, the US claims it is not responsible at all for what happened, neither directly nor indirectly. Nevertheless, this is confuted by the reality on the ground. Despite having handed over symbolically political responsibility to the Iraqi authorities, it is still the US that controls the situation in Iraq, generally and specifically. The trial of the deposed president was held in the Green Zone, which is directly controlled by US forces. Additionally, when he was in jail, Saddam was guarded by American soldiers; they took him to the door of the court to attend the trial sessions, and then took him back to his cell. Hence, the claim made by the US that it had not been responsible for the former Iraqi president since it had officially handed him over to the Iraqi government is clearly a lie.
Iraq is still under US-British occupation by virtue of Security Council Resolution 1483 of 2003, which states that American and British troops must bear legal responsibility as Iraq's occupation forces.
To confirm this legal responsibility, former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, in a speech addressed to the President of the Security Council in June 2004, pledged that 'the forces that make up the MNF [multinational forces] are and will remain committed at all times to act consistently with their obligations under the law of armed conflict, including the Geneva Conventions'. Later, his successor, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, wrote a similar letter in October, where she vowed that 'the forces that make up the MNF will remain committed to acting consistently with their obligations under international law, including the law of armed conflict'.
According to this, the US is directly responsible not only for the death sentence passed on Saddam Hussein, but also for the entire farce of his trial, of which the US itself was an honorary sponsor. This farce included the murder of three defense attorneys, the acceptance of testimonies against the former president from unidentified witnesses, the dismissal of the first judge simply because he had not been strict with the deposed president, and so on. The fact that the US is now denying its international legal responsibility for the execution of the former Iraqi president is unacceptable in terms of laws and norms.
And yet, this is not the only violation to the 1949 GCIII committed by the Bush administration. The US Department of Defense has used methods of torture forbidden by internal and international laws against the prisoners it has arrested in Afghanistan and put into the Guantanamo prison. The US administration has refused to grant these fighters the legal international rights stated between Articles 4 and 20 of the 1949 GCIII on Prisoners of War (POWs), under the claim that these prisoners were not officially fighting for the Afghan army, therefore are not entitled to POWs' rights, as the abovementioned GCIII stipulates.
This, of course, is a legal sophism reflecting how relevant international law is for the mentality of the current administration. Indeed, these prisoners were volunteer fighters for the Afghan government. Therefore, what applies to POWs applies to them, as well, as demonstrated by Article 24 of the previously mentioned GCIII.
Therefore, this claim does not excuse the US from its legal international responsibility, since it has taken these prisoners from their countries, and has made them suffer different kinds of torture, according to declarations by US officials themselves. According to these reliable testimonies, torture in Guantanamo included removing the prisoners' clothes, binding their hands and feet with nails stuck into the ground, and forcing them to be exposed to blinding light and noise, with air-conditioning at the highest level for as long as 14 hours. Additionally, prisoners were systematically exposed to mistreatment and sexual abuse.
Statements made by those who have been released, and the confessions of some of the soldiers that took part in the torture of prisoners in Guantanamo unanimously judge these acts as barbaric and inhuman, and Amnesty International likened Guantanamo prison to Soviet hard labor camps. Similarly, an international official described former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as 'a high-level torture architect', while the CIA described the acts of torture as 'war crimes'.
Nonetheless, the current US administration has dealt with all this with indifference, as torture has continued, and there is no evidence of it having stopped.
All this is a clear violation of the 1949 GCIII, which sets forth in Article 130 that torture and inhumane treatment of people protected by special conventions are 'grave breaches' to such conventions. In addition to that, Common Article 3 forbids, among several things, all forms of torture, physical or mental, at any time and in any place whatsoever, perpetrated either by authorized civilians or authorized soldiers'.
To this end, several US and international figures have demanded that this prison be closed. Two former Presidents, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, demanded that it be shut down immediately, and so did the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, UN former Secretary General, Amnesty International and also a report prepared by human rights experts. The list of those demanding the closure of this prison also included several members of US Congress, both from the House of Representatives and the Senate, and from both parties. Nevertheless, the Bush administration still believes this prison should remain open, despite the flagrant violations to the 1949 GCIII happening there.
Today, it seems clear that the Bush administration - as it did with many international laws - has sentenced to death the Third Geneva Convention on the treatment of POWs while dealing with detainees in Guantanamo. Eventually, it endorsed this sentence the day former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was executed.
* Dr. Mahmoud Mubarak is an activist in international rights
Mahmoud Mubarak Al-Hayat - 09/01/07//
A few days ago, the era of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein ended. He kept people busy while he was alive, and he is still doing so dead. Other eras will draw to an end, before the curtain falls completely over this leader, who has been famous for being either an inspiring Arab leader or a traitor of his nation and his country.
The trial and execution of the former Iraqi president have been very much followed by politicians, media workers and common people. It is clear that this issue, which has drawn the attention of the entire world, has made history at the political, legal, social, religious and media level. Perhaps the best evidence of this is that the execution is still a top story in Arab and world news bulletins, although it has been ten days since it was carried out. However, despite all that has been written, published and said about the trial and the execution of the 'tyrant' who has become a 'martyr', it seems that an aspect related to international law has not received the same share of attention. This is what this article wants to point out.
The question about the legality of the arrest and the trial of the former Iraqi president, which were carried out by US occupation forces, was raised since the very moment in which these troops entered Iraq. The Bush administration's insistence on arresting a legitimate President of a legitimate government was a violation of international laws, and represents a dark page in US history, as far as such laws are concerned. Although he had not been elected - like the rest of the Arab leaders - Saddam Hussein was a legitimate president, as he had been recognized by all the countries of the world. Shortly before the US-British invasion, the Iraqi capital was full of embassies, and Iraqi flags rose in different world capitals and on the roofs of international organizations. And this is enough to prove the international legitimacy of this leader. The US failed to bring the Security Council to pass a resolution that would allow the former to use military force against Iraq. Therefore, it did not have any international legal means to arrest the deposed president, and when it did so, it contravened international laws and norms. And as it is known, the international rule states that 'what is built on illegitimacy is illegitimate'.
What is more, the way in which the former president was arrested violated the 1949 Third Geneva Convention (GCIII). The US announced, through its former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, that it intended to treat the deposed President as a 'prisoner of war', in conformity with what the Convention states.
However, the extent of US understanding of the above-mentioned Convention and, in general, of international law became evident when US global TV networks broadcasted images of the former Iraqi president in his worst and most humiliating conditions. This is a transgression of Article 14 of the aforementioned Convention, which states: 'Prisoners of war are entitled in all circumstances to respect for their persons and their honour'. Likewise, Article 13 states that 'prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated. Any unlawful act or omission by the Detaining Power causing death or seriously endangering the health of a prisoner of war in its custody is prohibited, and will be regarded as a serious breach of the present Convention'. The pictures broadcasted shortly after the arrest of the deposed president showed him with bruises and marks of blows on his face. It goes without saying that this psychological and physical offense carried out against him by US forces contravenes the text and the spirit of this international convention. However, after Saddam Hussein was condemned by an Iraqi court for the crimes perpetrated in Dujail in 1991, the most important question about his destiny was: how much is the US legally responsible for this procedure?
The US says that the former president was officially delivered to the Iraqi government after US occupation forces in Iraq had handed over power to it in June 2004. Therefore, the US claims it is not responsible at all for what happened, neither directly nor indirectly. Nevertheless, this is confuted by the reality on the ground. Despite having handed over symbolically political responsibility to the Iraqi authorities, it is still the US that controls the situation in Iraq, generally and specifically. The trial of the deposed president was held in the Green Zone, which is directly controlled by US forces. Additionally, when he was in jail, Saddam was guarded by American soldiers; they took him to the door of the court to attend the trial sessions, and then took him back to his cell. Hence, the claim made by the US that it had not been responsible for the former Iraqi president since it had officially handed him over to the Iraqi government is clearly a lie.
Iraq is still under US-British occupation by virtue of Security Council Resolution 1483 of 2003, which states that American and British troops must bear legal responsibility as Iraq's occupation forces.
To confirm this legal responsibility, former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, in a speech addressed to the President of the Security Council in June 2004, pledged that 'the forces that make up the MNF [multinational forces] are and will remain committed at all times to act consistently with their obligations under the law of armed conflict, including the Geneva Conventions'. Later, his successor, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, wrote a similar letter in October, where she vowed that 'the forces that make up the MNF will remain committed to acting consistently with their obligations under international law, including the law of armed conflict'.
According to this, the US is directly responsible not only for the death sentence passed on Saddam Hussein, but also for the entire farce of his trial, of which the US itself was an honorary sponsor. This farce included the murder of three defense attorneys, the acceptance of testimonies against the former president from unidentified witnesses, the dismissal of the first judge simply because he had not been strict with the deposed president, and so on. The fact that the US is now denying its international legal responsibility for the execution of the former Iraqi president is unacceptable in terms of laws and norms.
And yet, this is not the only violation to the 1949 GCIII committed by the Bush administration. The US Department of Defense has used methods of torture forbidden by internal and international laws against the prisoners it has arrested in Afghanistan and put into the Guantanamo prison. The US administration has refused to grant these fighters the legal international rights stated between Articles 4 and 20 of the 1949 GCIII on Prisoners of War (POWs), under the claim that these prisoners were not officially fighting for the Afghan army, therefore are not entitled to POWs' rights, as the abovementioned GCIII stipulates.
This, of course, is a legal sophism reflecting how relevant international law is for the mentality of the current administration. Indeed, these prisoners were volunteer fighters for the Afghan government. Therefore, what applies to POWs applies to them, as well, as demonstrated by Article 24 of the previously mentioned GCIII.
Therefore, this claim does not excuse the US from its legal international responsibility, since it has taken these prisoners from their countries, and has made them suffer different kinds of torture, according to declarations by US officials themselves. According to these reliable testimonies, torture in Guantanamo included removing the prisoners' clothes, binding their hands and feet with nails stuck into the ground, and forcing them to be exposed to blinding light and noise, with air-conditioning at the highest level for as long as 14 hours. Additionally, prisoners were systematically exposed to mistreatment and sexual abuse.
Statements made by those who have been released, and the confessions of some of the soldiers that took part in the torture of prisoners in Guantanamo unanimously judge these acts as barbaric and inhuman, and Amnesty International likened Guantanamo prison to Soviet hard labor camps. Similarly, an international official described former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as 'a high-level torture architect', while the CIA described the acts of torture as 'war crimes'.
Nonetheless, the current US administration has dealt with all this with indifference, as torture has continued, and there is no evidence of it having stopped.
All this is a clear violation of the 1949 GCIII, which sets forth in Article 130 that torture and inhumane treatment of people protected by special conventions are 'grave breaches' to such conventions. In addition to that, Common Article 3 forbids, among several things, all forms of torture, physical or mental, at any time and in any place whatsoever, perpetrated either by authorized civilians or authorized soldiers'.
To this end, several US and international figures have demanded that this prison be closed. Two former Presidents, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, demanded that it be shut down immediately, and so did the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, UN former Secretary General, Amnesty International and also a report prepared by human rights experts. The list of those demanding the closure of this prison also included several members of US Congress, both from the House of Representatives and the Senate, and from both parties. Nevertheless, the Bush administration still believes this prison should remain open, despite the flagrant violations to the 1949 GCIII happening there.
Today, it seems clear that the Bush administration - as it did with many international laws - has sentenced to death the Third Geneva Convention on the treatment of POWs while dealing with detainees in Guantanamo. Eventually, it endorsed this sentence the day former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was executed.
* Dr. Mahmoud Mubarak is an activist in international rights
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