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27 sentenced for protesting army ‘torture’
training
By Marty Logan
Montreal, Jan. 29 (IPS) — A nun, six clergy, a former New
York City firefighter, and several human rights activists were among
27 people sentenced to jail or probation this week for protesting a
US military training school whose students included Latin American soldiers
who later violated human rights.
Twenty-two of the demonstrators will serve from three to six months
in federal prison after last November’s protest at the Western
Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly called the School
of the Americas (SOA).
“People in the government of the United States are saying that
they’re fighting a war on terrorism and at the exact same time,
as far as I’m concerned, they’re running a terrorist training
camp in Columbus, Georgia with US tax dollars,” said Josh Raisler
Cohn, a volunteer with an organization called School of the Americas
Watch.
“People there have been trained in torture techniques, counter-insurgency
warfare techniques,” he added in an interview.
In the 1980s the SOA became infamous for providing training to thousands
of Latin American military officers, including dozens of notorious human
rights abusers.
Congress shut it down in December 2000, but it reopened under the new
name in January 2001 — with the same curriculum and instructors,
according to Raisler Cohn.
A Nov. 16 annual protest in Columbus near the army’s Fort Benning
was organized to coincide with the anniversary of the 1989 murder of
six Jesuit priests and two women.
The assassins were Salvadoran officers trained at the school, according
to a 1990 congressional task force and a 1995 United Nations truth commission
report.
One expert says he is sure the school no longer teaches its more notorious
combat courses but that it remains a symbol of US cooperation with notorious
institutions in Latin America.
“What’s happened is they’ve moved a lot of that really
objectionable training overseas,” said Adam Isacson, director of
programs at the Center for International Policy in Washington.
Last year the center and three other non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) released a report that said military aid to Latin America has
more than tripled over the last five years.
Total US military aid to Latin America now almost equals the amount
of money Washington devotes to social or economic development in the
region, it added.
It also charged the administration of President George W. Bush with
trying systematically to repeal a number of congressional mandates to
report on military training, joint exercises and equipment Washington
provides to Latin American countries, calling such requirements “overly
burdensome” or of “minimal utility.”
Isacson says the former SOA receives only five to 10 percent of the
money the military spends to train Latin American armies. Its officials,
he adds, incorrectly still view that region’s fighting forces as
smaller versions of themselves.
“The armies in that region have always played an incredibly different
role than they do in our part of the world — basically to provide
muscle for a small part of society. Their doctrine and mission have
always been internal, against the local population, and the SOA —
even today — doesn’t really take that into account.”
“We train people who are part of institutions that are killing,
torturing, and stealing,” he added.
The army did not respond to requests for an interview.
In a 1990 press release announcing the institute, the army said its
courses would include disaster relief, transnational security threats
and advanced anti-drug operations.
“The institute will foster mutual respect, confidence, and cooperation
among the participating nations and will promote democratic values,
respect for human rights, and knowledge and understanding of US customs
and traditions among the students,” it said.
Isacson told IPS the SOA provided some training in human rights, such
as international human rights law.
“Whether that has any real impact when the soldier goes back is
an open question. There’s no real tracking of how the trainees
turn out,” he continued.
According to School of Americas Watch, nearly 175 people have served
a total of over 75 years in prison, and 17 people have served a total
of 22 years of probation for non-violent resistance against the school.
Sentences handed down this week ranged from 12 months probation to six
months in federal prison, with fines from $500 to $1,500.
Raisler Cohn says the 10,000 protesters who gathered at Fort Benning
last November was the highest number to date. Most of those arrested
entered military property to pray against the school. All, he said,
were reacting to a “culture of fear” that has enshrouded the
United States since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
“The president has said, ‘if you don’t support the government,
then you support terrorism.’ That’s a scary threat at a time
when people are being detained without lawyers, when people are being
tried without any public review,” said Raisler Cohn.
“The School of the Americas is a symbol of US militarism around
the world; it’s a symbol of US foreign policy. It’s a symbol
of the things that are wrong with that policy. People understand that
the School of the Americas, as a flagship, is a real important focus.”
Complaint filed on behalf of 9/11’s
other victims
By Gustavo Capdevila
Geneva, Jan. 27 (IPS) — Pakistani Khurram Altaf longs to
be reunited with Anza, his nine-year-old, US-born daughter, who remained
in New York after the US government arrested and deported her father,
like hundreds of other Muslim and Arab immigrants in the wake of the
Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
Khurram now is forced to live in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. The rest of his
family has joined him: his wife Alia and their two children, Fiza, a
10-year-old girl, and Hamza, a five-year-old boy — like Anza, they
also are US citizens.
Anza stayed behind in New York to undergo treatment for deafness and
is in the care of relatives.
The case of Khurram and 11 other people arrested by the US authorities
and never charged with crimes was presented Jan. 27 by attorneys of
the American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU] before a human rights panel
of the United Nations.
The ACLU’s official complaint to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary
Detention calls on the US government “to maintain its high standards
of justice for all despite the threat of terrorism.”
The arrests being challenged by the US-based human rights group occurred
in relation to the terrorist attacks in New York (against the World
Trade Center) and Washington (against the US Defense Department) on
Sept. 11, 2001.
In the weeks following, the US authorities detained 764 immigrants of
Arab or Muslim origin, without charges, with no access to defense lawyers,
and in many cases denied contact with their families.
The government acknowledged deporting 478 of those detainees, ACLU executive
director Anthony Romero said in a press conference in Geneva, where
the five independent experts of the specialized UN human rights working
group are in session.
Khurram himself told journalists that he will try to obtain authorization
to return to the United States, where he was a resident for 18 years.
He became emotional in speaking to the press, saying he misses Anza,
who is living with her grandmother and an uncle.
The Pakistani had entered the United States in 1985, at age 18, with
a tourist visa. When he was arrested, Apr. 13, 2002, he was working
as a manager at large truck stop in the northeastern state of New Jersey.
He was deported in mid-2002. His wife and two other children joined
him a year later.
ACLU attorney Jameel Jaffer said that Khurram and the other detainees
who are the petitioners in the complaint “were denied fundamental
procedural rights recognized under international law.”
“In many cases the government failed to notify detainees of the
charges they faced, it refused them access to counsel. Furthermore,
the government denied them meaningful judicial review of their confinement,”
said Jaffer.
The US government also “categorically opposed detainees’ release
on bond and, under a policy known as ‘hold until cleared,’”
their detention was prolonged until they were cleared of all connections
to terrorism.
In other words, Jaffer said, “the government presumed immigrants
guilty and jailed them until it determined that they were innocent.”
Romero accused the George W. Bush administration of seriously undermining
the immigrants’ civil liberties in the name of the war against
terrorism.
The ACLU filed the complaint with the UN body “to ensure that US
policies and practices reflect not just domestic constitutional standards,
but accepted international human rights principles regarding liberty
and its deprivations,” said Romero.
The civil rights organization wants the Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions
to issue an opinion that the United States has violated those principles
in arresting the immigrants.
The reports drawn up by the working group are not binding, but usually
obligate the countries involved to provide explanations and, in most
cases, to review their policies, Jaffer told IPS.
Three of the people named in the ACLU complaint remain under detention
in the United States: Sadek Awaed, Egyptian, in prison for the past
20 months; Benamar Benatta, Algerian, 28 months; and Anser Mehmood,
Pakistani, 23 months.
But the three are not the only ones in the United States who remain
behind bars in relation to the events of Sept. 11, said the ACLU attorney.
“The US government has repeatedly refused to disclose the names
of people it detained after Sept. 11 and as a result we don’t know
who was arrested, and we don’t know who’s still in jail,”
he said.
The government “has used secrecy from the beginning, as a way of
insulating its actions from public scrutiny.” The immigrants were
arrested in secret and deported in secret, he added.
The document filed with the UN states that the immigrant arrests were
arbitrary because they were inconsistent with due process and because
they were indiscriminate and disproportionately affected Muslims.
“There is evidence that the disproportionate impact of the government’s
policies on Muslim men from the Middle East and South Asia was in part
a consequence of intentional discrimination,” says the petition.
The ACLU-sponsored complaint is signed by: Ahmad H. Abualeinen (Jordanian,
58 years old), Khaled Raji Said Albitar (Jordanian, 34), Zulfigar Ali
(Pakistani, 34), the above-mentioned Khurram Altaf (Pakistani, 36),
Sadek Awaed (Egyptian, 32), Benamar Banatta (Algerian, 28), Mohamed
Elzaher (Egyptian, 31), Ansar Mahmood (Pakistani, 44), Noor Hussain
Raza (Pakistani, 63), Khaled K. Abu-Shabayek (Jordanian, 40) and Naeem
Sheikh (Pakistani, 32).
No room for ailing aliens?
By Haider Rizvi
New York, Jan. 30 (IPS) — If certain lawmakers in the US
Congress succeed in passing a proposed bill, a visit to the emergency
room will become much riskier for millions of undocumented immigrants.
The draft bill requires that undocumented immigrants must disclose their
national identity and legal status before receiving emergency medical
treatment at any hospital in the United States.
“The hospitals need to ask patients if they are citizens of the
United States. How about that?” said Republican Congressman Dana
Rohrabacher while introducing his draft bill in the House of Representatives
on Jan. 7.
“If the patient says ‘yes,’ no further action is required,”
he added. But if the patient says “no,” the hospital will
be required to ask what country he or she is from and the patient’s
immigration status, according to Rohrabacher.
The proposed law also requires hospitals to finger-print and photograph
all undocumented immigrants who seek emergency medical help, and to
hand them over to immigration authorities within two hours of treatment.
“America has now become the HMO [health maintenance organization,
a medical services provider] to the world,” said Rohrabacher in
a statement. “Our healthcare system, our emergency rooms, are breaking
down under the pressure and the strains of illegal immigrants.”
Currently, about 8 to 12 million illegal immigrants live and work in
the United States, almost one-half of them from neighboring Mexico.
They are an essential cog in the country’s economic wheel.
A Republican Medicare bill allocates about one billion dollars over
10 years to reimburse hospitals that treat undocumented immigrants.
But Rohrabacher would allow hospitals to receive the federal money only
if they comply with his bill.
“A hospital that does not want to receive federal funding under
the program in that Medicare bill does not have to participate in this,”
he said.
The politician’s remarks have created waves of anger and resentment
among medical professionals and immigrant support groups.
“Hospitals have a mission to treat everyone who walks through their
doors,” says Tom Nickels, senior vice president of the American
Hospital Association, which represents 5,000 US hospitals.
“Hospitals are not the border patrol. They care for the patient
first and ask other questions later,” he added in an interview.
Doctors at Bellevue Hospital agree with Nickels.
“We strongly oppose this legislation,” Spokeswoman Pam McDonnell
told IPS. “It makes no sense.”
She says Bellevue, which is staffed by the New York University Medical
School, cares for patients, “regardless of their income or immigration
status.”
Critics say the proposed legislation would force illegal immigrants
to avoid seeking emergency treatment, even if they found themselves
in a desperate situation.
“The impact of such a policy would be disastrous,” says Partha
Banerjee of New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE), a rights group
based in New York.
“Immigrants who are already disproportionately represented among
the nation’s uninsured will avoid hospitals when they hear about
the policy,” he added in an interview.
Banerjee fears Rohrabacher’s bill would lead to “unnecessary
deaths,” and eventually increase hospital costs by forcing people
to put off medical care until they are deathly ill.
Others warn that closing doors on illegal immigrants could cause an
increase in the cases of communicable diseases.
The law would “put all members of local communities at risk as
well as the affected individual,” Rev. Michael Place, president
of the Catholic Health Association (CHA), warned Rohrabacher in a recent
letter.
But despite strong opposition from medical organizations and rights
group, observers do not rule out the possibility of Rohrabacher’s
bill becoming legal reality.
“It’s likely that his bill will get through,” says a
member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, which closely
monitors legislative business. “Rohrabacher often influences other
conservative congressmen.”
“An emergency is if someone is in immediate danger of dying,”
says Rohrabacher, who thinks that many illegal immigrants receive “advanced
treatment” financed by U.S. taxpayers’ money.
Garcia, a flower-man who works outside a Manhattan grocery store for
four dollars an hour, says he fell sick because of cold weather. His
job requires standing outside the store all night, sprinkling water
on flowers and making bouquets.
He says he is unaware of the debate on emergency treatment for immigrants
like him.
“There is no health insurance for me,” Garcia says. “I
have an ID, but that is not real. If they really passed this law, then,
no, I am not coming here [the hospital] again.”
ACLU and Fresno residents seek FBI records regarding
infiltration of local peace group
Fresno, CA, Jan. 29 – The American Civil
Liberties Union (ACLU) of Northern California and members of a Fresno
peace group today filed requests under the Freedom of Information
Act and the Privacy Act seeking information about the government’s
infiltration of a local peace group.
The requests were filed with the offices of the FBI and US Attorney,
who maintain a Joint Terrorism Task Force with local law enforcement
agencies in the Fresno area. The action was prompted in part by the
New York Times’ disclosure last November of an internal FBI bulletin
advising local law enforcement agencies around the country to monitor
anti-war activists and to report to the local FBI Joint Terrorism
Task Force.
“The FBI memo confirms that the federal government is targeting
innocent Americans engaged in nothing more than lawful dissent,”
said Julia Harumi Mass, staff attorney with the ACLU of Northern California.
“We are filing these information demands because the public has
a right to know how Aaron Kilner, a member of the Fresno County Sheriff’s
Department’s ‘anti-terrorism team,’ came to infiltrate
Peace Fresno, and what policies and procedures are in place to authorize
similar spying on other community groups.”
The group has already filed requests for information under the California
Public Records Act with the Fresno County Sheriff’s Department
and the Fresno Police Department. Those agencies denied having any
records regarding Peace Fresno or its members and refused to turn
over requested manuals, pamphlets, and procedures related to intelligence
and surveillance.
Peace Fresno members discovered one of its members had actually been
a government agent when the Fresno Bee published an obituary on Sept.
1, 2003, about Aaron Kilner’s death in a motorcycle accident.
In his obituary, Kilner -- known to Peace Fresno as Aaron Stokes —
was identified as a member of the Fresno County Sheriff’s Department’s
“anti-terrorist team.” When members of Peace Fresno saw
the picture and read the obituary they began piecing the story together.
“We were shocked and deeply disturbed to discover that one of
our members — who had quietly participated in meetings, vigils
and demonstrations for several months — turned out to be a government
spy,” said Camille Russell, who was president of Peace Fresno
at the time of the infiltration. “We believe we were targeted
because we are outspoken critics of the Bush administration’s
policies and we fear that the government has secret, potentially inaccurate
records on Peace Fresno and its individual members.”
Catherine Campbell, a local attorney representing Peace Fresno added:
“the California Constitution prohibits this kind of infiltration
without some specific suspicion of criminal activity. Even if local
law enforcement officers are acting under the direction of the FBI
or other federal authorities, they are still bound by the privacy
guarantees embodied in this state’s constitution.”
Source: American Civil Liberties Union
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