For the White House, Lack of Transparency Still the Rule
According to this article from France's Liberation, the Bush Administration isn't showing much openness on the subject of the Guantanamo prison camp - neither with the U.N. nor the press.
From Our Correspondant in New York, Laurent Mauriac
Translated By Pascaline Jay
February 20, 2005
Liberation
- Original Article (French) 
"You're
welcome in Guantanamo, but you won't see anything." In
substance, that was real meaning of the American Government's invitation to a
team of independent investigators appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Commission
... which they politely declined.
According
to the investigators, the offer [to visit Guantanamo]
was accompanied with an unacceptable condition: talking to inmates would be
impossible.
"We
would undermine the U.N.'s fact-finding capacities if we were to accept an
invitation that we are not accepting from any other state in the world,"
explained one of its spokesman [Manfred Nowak], quoted by the CNN Web site [
].
TUBES
The five
authors of the report published on Thursday was based
solely on the testimonies of the families, prisoners' lawyers and former prisoners.
They view parts of the treatment meted out to prisoners amounts to torture. Among other things, they cite the forced feeding of hunger
strikers using tubes stuck into their noses (Libération February 16). The Bush Administration quickly denounced the absence of direct
information. Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, only sees "a
rehash of allegations made by lawyers representing inmates."
He also
added: "We know that al-Qaeda inmates are
trained to spread false allegations."
The Bush Administration
doesn't explain how a visit by investigators, without the authorization to
speak to inmates, would have helped them in their mission. The Guantanamo camp is of course an exception, by both its method
of operation and its existence outside all international legal rules, but also
by the lack of transparency surrounding it. Only the international Red Cross is
permitted contact with prisoners, both to monitor their physical and
psychological well being, but their conclusions remain confidential. Visits of
journalists are closely supervised.
Donald Rumsfeld, the American Defense Secretary, indicated on
Friday that he didn't intend to talk more about this lack of transparancy. "There is no torture. There are no
abuses." And if there were, the American army would do something about
it. "If someone commits a mistake, a report is compiled and he is
punished according to the code of military justice. And, by God, that's how it's
got to be." Therefore, there is no need for independent investigators.
"I don't believe having another investigation, the 15th one after the
14th one, and restating this all over again, would serve our interests. I
believe it would be prejudicial to our country."
On
February 12th, an editorial from The New York Times connected the lack of openness
surrounding Guantanamo with the program to spy on the
communications of Americans (kept secret by Bush), and the effort of the Administration
to stop a Congressional investigation into what triggered the war in Iraq. Many examples in which the President asks his people "to
forget about things like democracy, judicial process and the balance of powers -
and just trust him." [].
"ANOMALY"
'More from Abu Gharib' [Alquds Arabia, U.K.]
Last May,
the Koran story showed the limits of America's approach. Newsweek had revealed
that a Guantanamo guard had thrown a Koran into a
toilet bowl. Then, the source retracted his story, and the weekly magazine pulled
the article. But the story highlighted the contradiction of the American Administration,
which denounces "allegations," while refusing to allow information on the practices inside the camp to flow freely.
The Newsweek article created a wave
of protest in every Arab country, just as the U.N. report is doing today.
This
report has given rise to the unanimous condemnation of the United States. On
Friday, the Secretary General of the U.N., Kofi Annan, repeated the reports main conclusion, and asked Bush
to close the Guantanamo camp "as soon as
possible." Even Tony Blair didn't defend his ally. Friday, the British
Prime Minister declared: "I always said it was an anomaly and that a
decision would have to be made at some point."
VIDEO FROM QATAR: MOCK TRIAL OF BUSH, BLAIR AND SHARON
Al Jazeera TV, Qatar: Excerpts From a Mock Trial of U.S. President Bush, British Prime Minister Blair, and Israeli Prime Minister Sharon, Staged By the Union of Arab Lawyers, Feb. 5, 00:08:49, MEMRI
"This philosophy is based on the belief in superiority over the rest of mankind, on America's right to subjugate humanity, and to plunder its natural resources, and is based on America's opportunity to sit on [the throne] of the world, as an absolute dictator that has the right to annihilate whoever strives for freedom and dignity, and refuses to be a slave."
Bush, Blair and Sharon Go On 'Public Trial'
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