From Mr M. Megawer

The latest revelations about the sexual abuse and torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay was a damaging blow to a White House still struggling to recover from the scandalous abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Former US President Jimmy Carter, together with lawmakers, human rights groups and various American politicians has pressurised Mr Bush and his administration to state that the US would apply principles consistent with the Geneva Conventions to “unlawful combatants” subject to military needs. In the Geneva Convention one reads that “outrage on personal dignity” is forbidden, but has America respected this principle? It is alleged that the desecration of Islam’s Holy Book occurred not only at Guantanamo Bay but also at American-run detention facilities in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Abu Ghraib scandal in which US soldiers physically abused and sexually humiliated the Iraqi civilian prisoners cannot be understood or accepted by civilised society.

Since the opening of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp four years ago, fire has been added to the heated debate on the use of American power in the age of terrorism. The US has been criticised for mistreating Guantanamo Bay prisoners and denying them their rights. Hundreds of people have been held in Guantanamo Bay and at the US airbase at Bagram in Afghanistan, some more than three years without either charge or trial and with no access to legal aid. Many of them were either simple foot soldiers caught up in the war in Afghanistan or elsewhere, or just innocent men sold to the Americans by local enemies to collect the reward money. There is great evidence by human rights watchdogs that prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have suffered torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments. Nineteen detainees have died in US custody in Afghanistan, while the whereabouts of another 24 prisoners also in US custody are unknown.

American President Bush has often stated

that his country was founded on freedom and dedicated to the cause of human dignity, but at the same time Mr Bush, his administration and US forces continue to disrespect and to breach human rights. There is a gulf between rhetoric and reality! Perhaps the greatest threat to humanity today is not terrorism or Aids, but the blindness of humans in failing to see and respect one another as humans. It is ironic that the US runs a camp like that the Guantanamo Bay and at the same time tries to promote democracy worldwide. Human rights are under threat all over the world, and the US bears the most responsibility.

In is nonsense to say that the terrorists responsible for the events of 11 September, attacked America because they came from poor and non-democratic countries. In reality, it is the lies and double standards of the US especially in its dealings with the Middle East. The anti-American and anti-Israeli sentiment in this part of the world will not simply go away with the appearance of the ballot box as some would like to imagine.

This will only happen if there is a radical change in America’s foreign policies in the Middle East, especially when dealing with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The lack of respect for human life by the uncaring dictators in the Arab world towards their people makes it even easier for a country like American to freely mistreat these prisoners. According to Amnesty International’s Secretary General Irene Khan, “When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grant a licence to others to commit abuse with impunity.”

Moustafa Megawer

QAWRA