Detainees participate in an early morning prayer session at Camp IV at the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base on August 5, 2009. Photo/REUTERS
By LUCAS BARASA lbarassa@ke.nationmedia.com and CHRISTINE MAEMA cmaema@yahoo.co.uk
Posted Tuesday, July 12 2011 at 12:56
Posted Tuesday, July 12 2011 at 12:56
A human rights lobby wants former US President and other officials of his administration investigated for torture of detainees.
The Human Rights Watch (HRW) said there is overwhelming evidence of detainee abuse authorised by Bush and other senior officials which President Barack Obama should order criminal investigation.
“The Obama administration has failed to meet US obligations under the Convention Against Torture to investigate acts of torture and other ill-treatment of detainees,” HRW said while releasing a statement in Nairobi on Tuesday.
It said if the US does not pursue credible criminal investigations, other countries should prosecute US officials involved in crimes against detainees in accordance with international law.
“The US has a legal obligation to investigate these crimes,” Roth said. “If the US doesn’t act on them, other countries should.”
In a report, “Getting Away with Torture: The Bush Administration and Mistreatment of Detainees,” HRW says Mr Bush, former Vice-President Dick Cheney, Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and CIA director ordered practices such as “waterboarding,” the use of Criminal Investigation Agency prisons, and the transfer of detainees to countries where the were tortured.
Waterboarding is mock execution where victims endure sensations of drowning.
“There are solid grounds to investigate Mr Bush, Mr Cheney, Mr Rumsfeld, and Mr Tenet for authorising torture and war crimes,” said Mr Kenneth Roth, HRW’s executive director.
He added: “President Obama has treated torture as an unfortunate policy choice rather than a crime. His decision to end abusive interrogation practices will remain easily reversible unless the legal prohibition against torture is clearly reestablished.”
HRW said President Bush publicly admitted that in two cases he approved the use of waterboarding, a form of mock execution involving near-drowning that the United States has long prosecuted as a type of torture.
Mr Bush, it said, also authorised the illegal CIA secret detention and renditions programs, under which detainees were held incommunicado and frequently transferred to countries such as Egypt and Syria where they were likely to be tortured.
HRW said Cheney was the driving force behind the establishment of illegal detention and interrogation policies, chairing key meetings at which specific CIA operations were discussed, including the waterboarding of one detainee, Abu Zubaydah in 2002.
Mr Rumsfeld, HRW claimed, approved illegal interrogation methods and closely followed the interrogation of Mohamed al-Qahtani, who was subjected to a six week regime of coercive interrogation at Guantamano “that cumulatively appears to have amounted to torture.”
Tenet is accused of authorising and overseeing the CIA’s use of waterboarding, stress positions, light and noise bombardment, sleep deprivation, and other abusive interrogation methods, as well as the CIA rendition program.
In past media interviews, Mr Bush said Justice Department lawyers said waterboarding was legal.
“Senior Bush officials shouldn’t be able to shape and hand-pick legal advice and then hide behind it as if it were autonomously delivered,” Mr Roth said.
HRW also said the victims of torture should receive fair and adequate compensation as required by the Convention Against Torture.
HRW wants an independent, non-partisan commission established to examine the actions of the executive branch, the CIA, the military, and Congress, with regard to Bush administration policies and practices that led to detainee abuse.
HRW said the US government’s failure to investigate US officials for the torture and ill-treatment of detainees undermines US efforts to press for accountability for human rights violations abroad.
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