Impunity Watch: North America

Human Rights Groups call for political action in Oaxaca

New York based Human Rights Watch is calling for investigation into the alleged incident of police brutality in the Mexican state of Oaxaca according to the Washington Post. HRW is urging officials to give a thorough investigation of the allegations that police officials used excessive force to calm a "violent anti-government protest" on July 16, 2007. According to Amnesty International human rights violations have been plaguing Oaxaca since 2006. In a report released by Amnesty International titled "Oaxaca-clamour for justice" the pattern of violence against protesters began in June of 2006. During that time "widespread protests demanding the resignation of the State Governor erupted in Oaxaca State according to the AI article." The political turmoil surrounding Governor Ruiz first erupted when the National Teachers Union went on strike and marched in central Oaxaca city to gain support for yearly negotiations for pay and work conditions. AI says June 14, 2006 after the pressure for the teachers to return to work had increased to a volatile level, over 700 Oaxaca State police officers attempted to make the protesters leave the square. "During the operation there were widespread reports of use of excessive force and several arbitrary detentions of union leaders." After this incident the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO) formed to support the teachers in protecting their rights. The APPO and the teachers called for Governor Ruiz to resign. Tensions between the governor and the APPO have continued to be incredibly strained. This strain is most evident in the events of July 16, 2007.

According to Associated Press Writer, Julie Watson, and reported by the Washington Post, July 16th was all too similar to the events of June 2006. Apparently demonstrators were marching toward the venue of an international folk festival again calling for the governor's resignation when police "clashed" with the protestors. According to HRW and the AP film crews for the Televisa network caught images of police and protestors hurling rocks and state police officers kicking and clubbing some of those who were detained. In all about 40 people were arrested. One man's testimonial was reported by HRW on their website. Emeterio Merino Cruz, reported HRW, he "was taken off a bus arrested, reportedly because he had dirt on his hands, which police attributed to his having thrown stones. After several hours in police custody, he was transferred to a hospital with injuries that required surgery. He remains hospitalized in critical condition a week later." HRW also reports that Rosario Villalobos, the undersecretary for the human rights sector of the state government of Oaxaca made a public statement that said there had been "excessive use of force" and "the government will have to take responsibility for" these actions." To try and insure that the government holds to their word Amnesty International will be visiting Mexico City and the state of Oaxaca starting today. Part of their journey will be to get more testimonies from the victims that have suffered since 2006. Both Amnesty International and HRW call for the government to really make an effort to hold the appropriate state officials accountable for their actions. Amnesty International says, "Mexico has long standing human rights problems. Many of the human rights violations in Mexico are a symptom of the failures of the judicial system and the lack of political will to recognize deep-rooted systematic flaws and weaknesses which perpetuate these violations."

To view the Amnesty International Article see:

http://web.amnesty.org/aidoc/aidoc_pdf.nsf/index/AMR410312007ENGLISH/$File/AMR4103107.pdf "Oaxaca - clamour for justice" July 31, 2007

For more sources about this topic see:

http://web.amnesty.org/pages/mex-310707-feature-eng

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/07/24/mexico16464.htm "Mexico:  Probe Charges of Police Brutality in Oaxaca" July 24, 2007

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/24/AR2007072401070.html Julie Watson, "Human Rights Wach Demands Mexico Probe", July 24, 2007

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0646,ferguson,75024,2.hml Sarah Ferguson, "The Inconvenient Death of Brad Will:  Mexican police gun down a counterculture hero", November 14, 2006

Interpretation of Common Article 3 in Executive Order

In a recent executive order, Interpretation of the Geneva Conventions Common Article 3 as Applied to a Program of Detention and Interrogation Operated by the Central Intelligence Agency, released on July 20th, the Bush Administration has interpreted Common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions in such a way that the controversial "enhanced interrogation techniques" program championed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) now "fully comp[y] with the obligations of the United States" to international law. Common Article 3 prohibits interrogation of prisoners of war that amounts to “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.” The contentious interpretation of Common Article 3 permits the CIA to resume their “harsh interrogation of terrorism suspects.” The program had been suspended last year following widespread criticism that it violated US domestic law and international humanitarian law. The executive order did not include any specific facts on the CIA’s interrogation techniques. Human rights activists have disapproved of the administration’s reluctance to identify specific techniques that are legal and those that are prohibited. The guideline to the CIA interrogation techniques is sealed in a strictly classified document. Intelligence officials have consistently declined to discuss specific techniques, including but not limited to simulated drowning (e.g. “waterboarding”), sensory and sleep deprivation, sexual taunts, extreme isolation, hypothermia and other methods of humiliation and fear.

The US Supreme Court in Hamdan held that Common Article 3 governed the conduct of US interrogators involved in the War on Terror. Therefore, US agents are barred from the use of “cruel treatment and torture.”

Human Rights Watch representative, Tom Malinowski, said, “All the order really does is to have the president say, ‘Everything in that other document that I’m not showing you is legal – trust me.”

CIA director Michael V. Hayden announced in a declaration to agency employees following the issuance of the executive order, “We can now focus on our vital work, confident that our mission and authorities are clearly defined.” Human rights groups have consistently argued that the CIA interrogation methods are torturous, thus illegal under US and international law.

For more on this topic, see:

Washington Post - War Crimes and the White House - July 26, 2007

Washington Post - Bush Approves New CIA Methods - July 21, 2007

ABC News - CIA's Harsh Interrogation Techniques Described - Nov. 18, 2005

The White House - Executive Order: Interpretation of the Geneva Conventions Common Article 3 as Applied to a Program of Detention and Interrogation Operated by the Central Intelligence Agency - July 20, 2007

Explore.Georgetown.edu - General Kelley and Professor Turner on the Executive Order and Common Article 3 - July 26, 2007

Balkanization - The CIA Interrogation Executive Order: Well, Did You Really Expect Anything Better? - July 20, 2007

ICRC – International Humanitarian Law – Treaties & Documents – Convention (III) Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War – Aug. 12, 1949

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AND ACTIVISTS CALL FOR THE RE-OPENING OF CIVIL RIGHTS ERA COLD CASES

One night in 1946, Roger Malcolm, a black farm worker who had recently been jailed for stabbing his white employer who he suspected had slept with his wife, was pulled from his car by an angry mob. Malcolm was also riding with his wife Dorothy, her brother, and his wife when the mob stopped the car in order to severely beat and then repeatedly shoot the foursome. The unborn child of Malcolm's wife, Dorothy, was also cut from its womb by the more than dozen angry white Georgians. According to CNN news, no one in the town of Monroe, Georgia would speak on the incident at the time of the murders and it seems that years later not much has changed. A local activist group re-enacted the scene this past weekend in order to draw attention to, not only the Malcolm deaths, but the numerous civil rights era murders that remain unsolved. Many Southern citizens do not share the groups same enthusiasm. CNN said "refrain echoes throughout the South- towns too scared or too complicit to come clean about what they know about their racist and often violent pasts." Although some may shy away from dredging up the path, many in Congress hope to create greater initiative in order to re-open and hopefully solve many of these cold cases. The bill has already passed in the House of Representatives and is currently stalled in the Senate. The Detroit Free Press quoted U.S. Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) as saying "we must act, not only to bring these criminals to justice but also to cleanse our nation of this stain." Representative Nadler is chairman of the House Judiciary subcommittee on the constitution, civil rights, and civil liberties.

While many would agree that trying to solve these past crimes is important, especially to the black community, there are numerous valid concerns that must be acknowledged. First, CNN writes, it is important to understand the limitations to re-opening these cold cases. Getting people to talk about these historic events is problematic because no one wants to remember such gruesome events. Most of all, for "many of the crimes, which occurred in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, the suspects and witnesses have died. In other cases, all-white juries acquitted the suspects and there is no federal jurisdiction to reopen those investigations." There is one positive change of events, however, that has made the possibility of solving some of these cold cases possible. NPR posted a statement by former U.S. Attorney Doug Jones, who successfully prosecuted the two former KKK members in the infamous Birmingham church bombing that left four young black girls dead. Jones said, "for decades the FBI was reluctant to share its information with state and local prosecutors. Sometimes it was for a good reason - when the Klan had infiltrated local law enforcement, for example. Now federal law has made this kind of cooperation easier. And in many cases, the FBI files are the only investigative records that exist." CNN concluded, despite the many obstacles, many people and organizations including the Southern Poverty Law Center, view revisiting the civil rights era cases as "one of the unfinished chapters of the civil rights movement...to simply let them lie because it has been a long time is the worst kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.

For more information please see:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/07/26/moores.ford/index.html?eref=rss_topstories "Elliott C. McLaughlin, "Activists re-enact grisly lynching in search for justice" CNN, July 27, 2007

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/27/national/main2521410.shtml

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7708264 Debbie Elliott, "Civil-Rights Cold Case Investigations Stir Skepticism" NPR, July 29, 2007

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070613/NEWS07/706130404 Ana Radelat, "Civil rights cold-case bill moves ahead:  Lawmakers want old crimes solved" Detroit Free Press, June 13, 2007

MANDATORY DEPORTATION LAWS FORCE FAMILIES APART

Every year, tens of thousands of legal immigrants, many of which are long-term approved residents of the United States, are automatically deported from the country for breaking US laws—no matter how minor of an infraction the legal immigrant commits. Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a governmental research group operated out of Syracuse University, analyzed federal data and found that approximately 26,000 immigrants in 2005 were deported as a result of “aggravated felony” charges. Traditionally, aggravated felony status was relegated to only major crimes, i.e. murder and weapons smuggling. Presently, the category has been expanded to include violent crimes that carry a sentence of more than a year, types of fraud, smuggling, and other non-violent crimes. Legal immigrants have been deported for forging a single check and stealing stamps from the post office. TRAC found that the average time of residency for those found to have committed an “aggravated felony” was approximately 15 years.

Human Rights Watch recently released a report that argues that the .US’s fast-track deportation laws are forcing American families apart. In the report, Human Rights Watch notes, US mandatory deportation laws of legal immigrants “has separated an estimated 1.6 million children and adults, including US citizens and lawful permanent residents, from their non-citizen family members. Since 1997, US immigration officials have permanently banished 672,593 immigrants because of criminal convictions following legislation passed by Congress that made deportation mandatory for a list of crimes that included minor, non-violent offenses. Allison Parker, senior researcher with the US Program at Human Rights Watch stated, “The [mandatory deportation] laws are not only cruel in their rigidity, they are senseless. How do you explain to a child that her father has been sent thousands of miles away and can never come home simply because he forged a check?”

Stanford Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic has recently filed an amicus brief for Human Rights Watch that argues that the US immigration policy of mandatory deportation violate international human rights standards. “The mandatory deportation provisions of the 1996 immigration laws are inhumane and completely out of line with international standards,” said Jayashri Srikantiah, an associate professor at Stanford Law School and director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic. The amicus brief further argues that the mandatory deportation laws violate Articles V, VI, VII, XVIII, XXVI, and XXVII of the American Declaration as well as the guarantees of due process and the protections afforded by the Refugee Convention.

For more on this info, see:

Human Rights Watch – US Mandatory Deportation Laws Harm American Families - 7/18/07

Standford Law School - Stanford Law School’s Immigrants' Rights Clinic Argues U.S. Immigration Policy Violates International Human Rights Standards – 7/18/07

BBC - US Law Denounced as Cruel – 7/20/07

The New Standard – Immigrants’ Stories Expose Murkiness of Deportation Laws

Human Rights Watch – REPORT – Forced Apart

Tehran says American "confessions" point to U.S.-backed Plot to Overthrow Regime

Yahoo News reported that Sunday Iran's Foreign Ministry televised a program called "In the Name of Democracy" that contained supposed confessions of two Iranian-American detainees. Haleh Esfandiari, director of Middle East programs at the Smithsonian's Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and Kian Tajbakhsh, a New York based social scientists were the two Americans that Iranian officials say confess to being part of a U.S.-sponsored plot to overthrow the Iranian regime and "their work is designed to undermine Iran's security and foment nonviolent revolution" according to the Washington Post. Impunity Watch addressed the imprisonment of Esfandiari in an earlier posting and reported that she was being held in solitary confinement at the notorious Evin Prison. Esfandiari's daughter and husband say that the impact of being imprisoned was evident in Esfandiari's appearance. In the footage, the Washington Post reports, Esfandiari was shown wearing a black head scarf and appeared surprisingly thin and like she had aged considerably. Shaul Bakhash, Esfandiari's husband, was quoted by the Washington Post as accusing the Iranian government of completely fabricating the confessions. The two dual nationals appear to be in a residential setting but the Open Society Institute released a statement that it "was an attempt to disguise the conditions under which they are being held in one of the Middle East's most notorious prisons."

Spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry, Mohammad Ali, reportedly said "the confessions of the two detained people uncovers a long-term plan which America has invested in and allocated a great budget for" according to Yahoo News. Washington has responded by calling for Esfandiari and Tajbakhsh's immediate release and say the U.S. has requested "through the Swiss and other embassies in Tehran to have consular access to the pair" and that request has been refused. Diplomatic relations between Iran and the United States have been non-existent since the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979. Esfandiari's attorney, Shirin Ebadi and her civil rights group called the Defenders of Human Rights Center told the Agence France Presse yesterday that "the unprecedented airing of statements by Haleh Esfandiari and Kian Tajbakhsh are against [the] law and violate the rights of the accused" and under Iran's penal code "it is forbidden and an offense to reveal the statements of the accused or the content of the case through the mass media before a final verdict." Lee Hamilton, president of the Wilson Center and former Democratic congressman from Indiana, said that "any statements Esfandiari has made without access to her lawyer would be coerced and has no legitimacy" according to the Washington Post. The LA Times article says the clips are eerily similar to the confessions televised of opponents to the Islamic regime during the 1979 revolution.

To view more sources on this subject please see:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/16/AR2007071600848.html "Showing Jailed Americans, Iran TV Cites Confessions:  Relative & Employer See Coercion by Robin Wright, July 17, 2007

http://www.freehaleh.org/ 

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-confess17jul17,1,2589564.story?track=rss "Iran to Televise Americans' confessions" July 17, 2007.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070718/wl_mideast_afp/iranusjusticerights_070718165603  "

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070722/ts_nm/iran_usa_detained_dc_2 "Iran says "confessions" unveil U.S. plot" by Hassein Jaseb, July 22, 2007

Court Permits Detainee Access to Evidence

In another crucial decision for detainees in the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the US Court of Appeals in Washington—responsible for determining the status of those held at that facility—ruled that lawyers should have access to the evidence of the US government. This decision has the potential to allow lawyers representing those suspected of terrorism to refute the detainee’s designation as an “unlawful enemy combatant”. The recent decision comes in a line of court rulings that have limited policies of the Bush administration, which include limiting detainees’s access to legal counsel and evidence. On the same day of the federal appeals court decision, the President Bush ordered the CIA to comply with the Geneva Conventions prohibitions against torture while interrogating detainee’s at Guantanamo Bay. There are still approximately 385 detainees held at the Guantanamo facility.

Lawyers representing the US government argued unsuccessfully that detainee lawyers should only have access to the official record of the military’s Combatant Status Review Tribunals. The court reasoned that satisfactory review of the tribunals’ judgments—a requirement of the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act [DTA]—could not be occur “without seeing all the evidence, any more than one can tell whether a fraction is more or less than one-half by looking only at the numerator and not at the denominator.” The court of appeals also struck down the government’s contention that detainee lawyers could only be permitted a single eight-hour visit to the military prison to arrange legal representation for a detainee.

Defense lawyers for the Guantanamo detainees maintain that the DTA still puts too much power in the hands of the government to control the course of the status review hearings. They contend the review process provided by the DTA falls short of habeas corpus review.

To further curtail Bush administration policies concerning the detention and interrogation of combatants of the War on Terror, congressional Democrats are on the verge of introducing legislation that would call for the closure of the Guantanamo military prison.

For more on this topic, see:

Yahoo! News - Court Grants Evidence to Guantanamo Lawyers - 7/21/07

Washington Post - Government Must Share All Evidence on Detainees - 7/21/07

ABC News - Guantanamo Lawyers Get Access to Evidence - 7/21/07

Human Rights First – Guantanamo Bay

2005 Detainee Treatment Act

Bush's New CIA Interrogation Guidelines : Trust us...we know what we're doing

Yesterday, Friday July 20, 2007, President Bush issued an executive order that would create more guidelines for the interrogation methods used by the CIA on suspected terrorist detainees. The details of the actual interrogation techniques that will be allowed to continue were not made public. The Washington Post reported that Republican Senators John McCain (AZ), Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) and John Warner (VA) issued a statement that they needed more information from the president on what would and would not be allowed. These Senators had helped draft the legislation last year that required the executive order. The executive order said that "CIA interrogators cannot undertake prohibited acts such as torture and murder, and it barred religious denigration and humiliating or degrading treatment so serious that any reasonable person considering the circumstances, would deem it 'beyond the bounds of human decency.'"

Many human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch (HRW) say the secretive nature of the executive order asks the public to trust the Bush administration more than its past acts warrant. In January of 2002, says the Washington Post article, the Bush Administration declared that members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban and other terrorist suspects were not prisoners of war but "enemy combatants." At the time the 1949 Geneva Conventions only applied to POWs. Then last summer after much criticism about the treatment of the detainees, the Supreme Court decided Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that said "all U.S. prisoners - of any nationality, being held in any country-were covered by the Geneva Conventions against degrading treatment. Despite all of the criticism, the Bush administration has repeatedly endorsed the usefulness of interrogation for the war on terror. CNN reported that "the Bush administration has portrayed interrogation as one of its most successful tools in the war on terror, while opponents have said the agency's techniques have left a black mark on the United States' reputation around the world." Alleged CIA techniques included detainees being left naked in cells for prolonged periods of time, being subjected to sensory and sleep deprivation and extreme heat and cold, and sexually taunted. The Washington Post stated senior administration officials told reporters during a briefing on July 20th "that any further use of 'extremes of heat and cold' would be subject to a 'reasonable interpretation...'[but] we're not talking about forcibly induced hypothermia.'"

To view the executive order:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070720-4.html

Karen DeYoung, “Bush Approves New CIA Methods:  Interrogation of Detainees to Resume”  Washington Post:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/20/AR2007072001264.html , July 21, 2007

Information about 1949

Geneva

Treatment and Treatment of Prisoner's of War:

http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/91.htm

http://www.hamdanvrumsfeld.com/

“Bush bars torture of CIA detainees but what’s allowed stays secret” CNN:  http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/07/20/bush.terrorism.ap/index.html, July 20, 2007

http://www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/30907prs20070720.html

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/07/20/america/NA-GEN-US-Terror-Suspects.php

BUSH REJECTS CHILD HEALTH PLAN FOR LOW-INCOME KIDS

The Washington Post reported on Thursday, July 19th, that President Bush rejected bi-partisan support for the renewal of a popular program that would provide subsidized health coverage to low-income children. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucaus (D-Mont.) and Rpublican Sens. Charles E, Grassley (Iowa) and Orrin G. Hatch (Utah) had designed an enhanced program that would cover 3.3 million additional children. Baucaus said, “The State Children’s Health Insurance Program has helped millions upon millions of low-income, uninsured American kids see doctors when they’re sick, and this agreement will make sure that even more children get the health care they need.” The president claimed he disagreed with the plan on “philosophical grounds,” and voiced concerns about the enlarging of federal power at the expense of the private sector, including insurance companies. He threatened to veto various versions of the expanded health program. President Bush said in reference to the child health care program, “I support the initial intent of the program. My concern is that when you expand eligibility…you’re really beginning to open up an avenue for people to switch from private insurance to the government.”

The health program for low-income children has been in operation for 10 years and was scheduled to end on September 20th. The program costs the federal government $5 billion a year and provides for 6.6 million low-income children. The parents of the children that qualify are not eligible for Medicaid and are unable to pay for private insurance. The enhanced plan that was rejected by the president would require a 61-cent increase in the federal portion of the tax on cigarettes—amounting to an increase of $1 a pack. The president opposed this addition of taxes on cigarettes. President Bush has also voiced his disapproval of bipartisan attempts to allow the Food and Drug Administration to police the production, promotion and sale of tobacco products. FDA control over tobacco products could result in stronger warning labels and restrictions on nicotine and other ingredients. The president claimed, “nicotine is not a drug to be regulated by the FDA.”

Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) stated that he was “bewildered” by the president’s opposition to the popular program. Both Republicans and Democrats alike supported the enhanced child health care initiative. Emanuel argued that, “This is the chance for him [President Bush] to be a uniter and not a divider. You have consensus across party and ideology, and a unity on the most important domestic issue, health care—except for one person.”

For more info. on this topic, see:

The Washington Post - Bush: No Deal on Children’s Health Plan – July, 19, 2007

The New York Times - Senators Back Expansion of Child Health – July 19, 2007

USA Today - Senate Panel OKs $35B Increase for Kids’ Health Care – July 19, 2007

The Washington Post - Congress, Bush Clash Over Children’s Health Insurance – July 15, 2007

Yahoo News – Key Senators Agree on Kids’ Health Plan – July 13, 2007

Bush Administration Legal Advisor addresses the U.S. position on the International Criminal Court

Human rights organizations like Human RightsWatch (HRW) have been calling for the Bush Administration to accept the International Criminal Court (ICC). HRW says, "anti-ICC laws and impunity agreements only serve to align the U.S. with pariah states of the international criminal justice system (for example, Libya)." HRW sees the Bush Administration as only further diminishing the "credibility of U.S. efforts to forge coalitions against human rights abusers and to undermine future U.S. efforts to advance international justice in discrete cases, such as leading NATO in arrests of war criminals in the Balkans, or bringing war crimes charges against Saddam Hussein. Recently Deputy Editor, Rober McMahon, interviewed John Bellinger, Legal Advisor to the Secretary of State for the Council on Foreign Relations. Bellinger did not deny that the United State's image both domestically and internationally is less than ideal, especially in light of the detainess being held in Guantanamo Bay. Belligner says, however, that the United States and the Bush administration does support the principle behind the ICC but "at the same time we have the restrictions in U.S. law and the American Service Members Protection Act, which prohibit as a general matter any U.S. assistance to the ICC." In addition it is the continued concern about the ICC's supposed jurisdiction over the United States that is and has been a concern of the U.S. government. Amnesty International, however, "believes that the US concerns that the ICC will be used to bring politically motivated prosecutions against US nationals are wholly unfounded. The substantial safeguards and fair trial guarantees in the Rome Statute will ensure that such a situation would never arise."

Specifically, Belligner says the U.S. government is more than willing to lend general support to the ICC in matters such as Darfur. ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo recently spoke to the United Nations Security Council and asked for help with the Darfur situation but the United States said it could not respond in a specific way. Bellinger clarfied the U.S. position on Darfur and the prosecutor's request by saying, "we have responded generally by saying that we would be prepared to assist within the bounds of U.S. law and in response to specific request, but it would depend whether the type of assistance was something we had and could appropriately provide." In U.S. law there seems to be an exception that allows assistance to the ICC "to bring to justice certain individuals aws well as other foreing nationals who have committed war crimes, genocide, or crimes against humanity." Bellinger emphasized that the United States has provided support in other ways, including ad hoc tribunals. Some examples of the ad hoc tribunals supported in the past by the United States are the ICTY (for former Yugoslavia), the ICTR (for Rwanda), and the Special Corut for Sierra Leone. Belligner said he and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice have been trying to show the world that the U.S. has been the largest political and financial supporter of these tribunals and the tribunals "continue to send a signal to perpetrators of human rights violators in teh countries involved in these cases, but also to other human rights violators around the world, they will be brought to justice." With cases like Darfur, where there seems to be no other way to hold the criminals accountable besides the ICC, the United States could possibly help within the U.S. law.

Guantanamo Bay is often mentioned in the same breath as the U.S.'s lack of involvement in the ICC. In addition, the Supreme Court has agreed to reassess whether Guantanamo detainees have the right to question their detention in the U.S. court system. Bellinger wanted to emphasize through his interview with McMahon that "the premise of every critic who says Guantanamo must be closed immediately is that we could simply snap our fingers and everyone [the detainees] go back to the countries where they came from and that is just not really possible." Bellinger said the U.S. government and President Bush have been tring to show the public that while their objective is to hopefully close Guantanamo Bay soon the situation is complicated. Al-Quaeda suspects don't fit easily into criminal laws or the Geneva Convention so the U.S. government has been trying to work with the courts and Congress to try and develop new laws and policies to handle the Guantanamo Bay detainees because the reality is that many of them are dangerous to the international community and need to be held somewhere.

The crutch of Bellinger's message was "the U.S. has the same goals of the ICC supporters, which is to bring to justice and end impunity to those who have committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, and therefore the United States has been clarifiying in the last couple of years is not just that the ICC and its prosecutors have behaved unobjectionably, but there can be specific cases, like Darfur where U.S. sees a role for the ICC."

American Service Members Protection Act

http://www.state.gov/t/pm/rls/othr/misc/23425.htm

Darfur Information

http://www.darfurgenocide.org/

http://www.savedarfur.org/content?splash=yes

http://www.icc-cpi.int/press/pressreleases/251.html

http://www.cfr.org/bios/11891/robert_mcmahon.html

http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/icc/us.htm

http://www.usaforicc.org/

http://www.state.gov/t/us/rm/15158.htm

http://web.amnesty.org/pages/icc-US_threats-eng

Court-Martial examines the death of an Iraqi civilian at the hands of U.S. Marines

July 9, 2007 military prosecutor Lt. Col. John Baker called for the conviction of Marine Corporal Trent D. Thomas for his key role in the kidnapping and shooting murder of a 52 year old Iraqi man according to the Navy Times. The court-martial of Thomas, 25 years old from Madison, Ill., has entailed numerous witness testimony giving different accounts of the events of April 25, 2006. The trial for Thomas is the first among the seven Marines and one Navy corpsman for the death of Hashim Ibrahim Awad in the village of Hamdaniya near the infamous Abu Ghraib prison. Some troops, says the Navy Times, testified that a group of squad members led by Thomas took Awad to a ditch, shot him to death and then attempted to cover the murder by placing a shovel next to his body so it would look as if he had been caught digging a hole for a bomb. The prosecutor says the night started when a quest to find a suspected insurgent turned into Awad's kidnapping when the original suspect could not be found. Defense attorney Major Haytham Fraji argued in return that Thomas was merely following orders and his judgment has been negatively affected since he had suffered brain injuries in explosions near Falluja during an earlier tour.

CNN captured testimony by Corporal Saul H. Lopezromo who supported the statement that Thomas was acting in response to orders when he killed Awad, who is a father of eleven children. Lopezromo's testified that "his unit began routinely beating Iraqis after officers ordered them to 'crank up the violence level'" back in 2006. Lopezromo also said that in his opinion he "saw nothing wrong with what Thomas did" and told the judge "he saw it as a killing [of] the enemy and Marines consider all Iraqi men part of the insurgency." When Lopezromo was reminded of what prosecution's witnesses had testified to, that Thomas shot Awad point blank after already being shot by one of the other marines and lying on the ground, he stated this action was consistent with their routine of "dead checking." "If Marines entered a house where a man was wounded, instead of checking to see whether he needed medical aid, they shot him to make sure he was dead...if somebody is worth shooting once, they're worth shooting twice." If Thomas is convicted he is facing a mandatory life sentence. Yahoo News says the killing Awad is just one of many ongoing investigations involving the death of civilians in Iraq at the hands of U.S. soldiers. The article says these killings of badly damaged the image of the United States and U.S. troops. Other incidents currently under investigation are seven marines charged in November 2005 for the killings of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha and "the Naval Criminal Investigative Service is probing the shootings of eight insurgents who had surrendered to Marines during the 2004 battle for Fallujah."

For more information from these sources please see:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/07/15/marines.iraq.ap/index.html

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/03/20/news/top_stories/3190711303.txt

http://www.navytimes.com/news/2007/07/ap_hamdaniya_070709/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5105284.stm

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20070710/tpl-uk-usa-iraq-marine-43a8d4f.html