[sangkancil] The Independent: US losing right to lead the free world (fw

[M G G Pillai <pillai@mgg.pc.my>]

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The Independent, London

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: The United States is losing the right to
lead the free world

'Human rights are easily crushed unless we are prepared to ensure
them for the people we hate'

14 January 2002

This week the International Herald Tribune claimed that President
Bush had once more asked world citizens to choose whether they
are with the US or against it, four months into the "war on
terrorism". In the head of this simple man that's all there is to
decide in this unpredictable world.

Well, Mr President, on this day in January 2001, I am against the
US regime, although I may well change my mind if you change your
repellent treatment of the 20 men you have just flown over to the
US base in Guantamano, in Cuba. The men, you say, are members of
the Taliban or al-Qa'ida and therefore must ( before they are
tried by impartial courts) be forcibly drugged, bound, shaved,
hooded, chained, and kept in cages which are open to the elements
and where they can just about lie down.

To make sure no softie bleeding hearts can interfere with these
masculine, tough-guy matters, these captives have been re-branded
so that they are no longer "prisoners of war" but "battlefield
detainees".

This means that the Geneva conventions and other protocols can be
flouted by the land that so loves to proclaim itself as the
leader of the free and fair world. Amnesty, the Red Cross and
other human rights agencies are alarmed but their squeaks will be
disregarded by the most powerful and arrogant nation in the
world, which has now found a new kind of moral righteousness
since so many of its citizens were murdered on 11 September.

Worse will follow. These prisoners of war (as I insist on calling
them) are to face interrogation without the presence of
observers, and then they will be tried by emergency military
tribunals. If found guilty they will be killed by the US state.
Lawyers are to be provided, but their power is limited by the
fact that the men are held outside US jurisdiction. The
Attorney-General, John Ashcroft, believes that war criminals do
not "deserve" basic constitutional protections. The first 20 are
to be followed soon by hundreds more, and the bloodlust of the US
may then be temporarily satisfied. This level of shocking
disregard for humane values must arise from furious frustration.
The US and allies toppled the Taliban fast and efficiently but
they were not able to deliver to American thanksgiving tables the
plucked and trussed body of either bin Laden or Mullah Omar.

Those of us who supported the action against the Taliban have
been appalled at the treatment of prisoners in Afghanistan. And
now we have this new violation to witness. I have just returned
from Geneva after an international seminar on human rights. (The
priceless Mary Robinson, the UN High Commissioner, popped in. How
does she do her job in such times, you wonder.) and many of us
were speechless with incomprehension as to why the US is failing
so spectacularly to understand the damage it is inflicting on the
new world order through these latest follies.

Is this how the "civilised" world now behaves? Gladstone said in
1879: "Remember the rights of the savage, as we call him.
Remember that the sanctity of life in the hill villages of
Afghanistan, among the wintry snows, is as inviolable in the eye
of Almighty God as can be your own".

Individuals charged with genocide in former Yugoslavia and Rwanda
are not demeaned as they go through due process in the Hague.
Eichmann and other Nazis were humanely treated during their
trials. Many of the prisoners in Cuba may indeed be the lowest
and vilest men on earth, which is why they must be guaranteed
scrupulously fair treatment. Human rights are fragile and easily
crushed unless we are prepared to ensure them for the people we
hate and demand their implementation from people we support and
admire.

I speak not as a dreamer but as one of the millions around the
world who are terrified that this latest Western deceit will
massively increase support for terrorism. Dictators and cruel,
charismatic leaders will now tell gullible people – quite rightly
– that the Western allies kill human rights when it suits them.
Such hypocrisy has also been shown up in this country as news
emerges of Zimbabwean asylum-seekers being summarily deported to
face imprisonment and torture that is real and proven.

In its interesting new book, The Moral Universe, the think tank
Demos brings together writers to examine how a shared global
morality could replace ideology in the post 11 September world.
Fat chance with the captains of cant in charge.

The situation is unbearably serious; citizens of conscience in
the UK and the US must speak up, even though they will face
accusations of treachery. In Geneva, several Americans accepted
the challenge. One was the Sudan- born Dr Abdullahi An-Na'am, a
professor of law in Atlanta, who said: "I am a naturalised
American but this does not mean that it is my patriotic duty to
defend all US policies and actions. The standards I am seeking to
apply are enshrined in the universal standards of human rights."
Me too.

y.alibhai- brown@independent.co.uk