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Torture cases extend past Abu Ghraib In Iraq

Compiled by John Lapp

Jun. 2 (AGR) — The death certificate issued by the US military indicated that a prominent Iraqi government scientist in US custody for nine months had died of natural causes.

Doubtful, his family ordered an independent autopsy, which concluded that blunt-force injury caused the 65-year-old man’s death.

And Mohammed Abdelmonaem Mahmoud Hamdi Alazmirli’s body bore suspicious marks: He had a bruise on his nose, an abrasion on his cheek, a cut near his eye and a fractured skull.

The Pentagon has named 23 of 37 detainees who died while in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan. Alazmirli was not among those named, and the military declined to say whether he was among the other 14.

The Pentagon’s criminal investigation division declined to comment on Alazmirli’s death. A spokesman for the Army’s Criminal Investigative Division, Christopher Grey, issued a six-word response: “No releasable information at this time.”

Dr. Qaiss Hassan, who performed the autopsy at Iraq’s Forensic Medical Institute, noted in his report that Alazmirli had a massive amount of blood under his scalp.

Flipping through photographs and diagrams of Alazmirli’s head, Hassan said: “It was definitely a blunt-trauma injury. There’s no question. You can get this kind of injury if you are in a car accident or if you fall from a height or if someone hits your head hard.”

Alazmirli’s case raises questions about whether similar ones exist that are not on any official US lists.

Torture at four other sites

Several US guards say they witnessed military intelligence operatives encouraging the abuse of Iraqi inmates at four prisons other than Abu Ghraib, investigative documents indicate.

Court transcripts and Army investigator interviews provide the broadest view of evidence that abuses, from forcing inmates to stand in hoods in 120-degree heat to punching them, occurred at a Marine detention camp and three Army prison sites in Iraq other thab Abu Ghraib.

Abu Ghraib, outside Baghdad, was the site of widely published and televised photographs of abuse of Iraqi detainees by Army troops.

Testimony about tactics used at a Marine prisoner-of-war camp near Nasiriyah also raises the question whether coercive techniques were standard procedure for military intelligence units in different service branches and throughout Iraq.

At the Marines’ Camp Whitehorse, the guards were told to keep enemy prisoners of war ( EPWs) standing for 50 minutes each hour for up to 10 hours. They would then be interrogated by “human exploitation teams,” or HETs, comprising intelligence specialists.

The Army’s intelligence chief told a Senate panel this month that intelligence soldiers are trained to follow Geneva Convention rules strictly. “Our training manuals specifically prohibit the abuse of detainees, and we ensure all of our soldiers trained as interrogators receive this training,” Lieutenant General Keith Alexander told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The Marine Corps’ judge who heard the Camp Whitehorse case wrote that forcing hooded, handcuffed prisoners to stand for 50 minutes every hour in the 120-degree desert could be a Geneva Convention violation. Colonel William V. Gallo wrote that such actions “could easily form the basis of a law of war violation if committed by an enemy combatant.”

Two Marines face charges regarding the June 2003 death of Nagem Sadoon Hatab at Camp Whitehorse, although no one is charged with killing him. Military records say Hatab was asphyxiated when a Marine guard grabbed his throat in an attempt to move him, accidentally breaking a bone that cut off his air supply. Another Marine is charged with kicking Hatab in the chest in the hours before his death.

Most of the seven enlisted soldiers charged in the Abu Ghraib abuses say they were encouraged to ‘’soften up” prisoners for interrogators through humiliation and beatings. Several witnesses also report seeing military intelligence operatives hit Abu Ghraib prisoners, strip them naked, and order them to be kept awake for long periods.

Other accusations against military intelligence troops include: Stuffing a former Iraqi general into a sleeping bag, sitting on his chest, and covering his mouth during an interrogation at a prison camp at Qaim, near the border with Syria. The prisoner died during the interrogation, although he also had been questioned by CIA operatives in the days before his death.

Choking, beating, and pulling the hair of detainees took place at an Army prison camp near Samarra, north of Baghdad. Prisoners were hit and put into painful positions for hours at Camp Cropper, a prison at Baghdad International Airport for prominent former Iraqi officials.

90 percent arrested by mistake

Largely lost amidst the horrors of the graphic torture photographs that continue to emerge out of Abu Ghraib is a leaked report from the International Committee of the Red Cross published a few weeks ago by the Wall Street Journal.

In its report, the ICRC, the only organization besides the United States military that has been allowed to inspect the prison, wrote that “ninety percent of captives were caught by mistake.”

Iraqis taken to military prisons are not given trials where they can prove their innocence, or even where guilt could be established. They are arrested, incarcerated, and interrogated by occupation forces. If their interrogators decide they are innocent, they are released. If prison authorities think they are resistance fighters, they are kept behind bars.

US soldier brain damaged in fake torture scenario

In a scandal that appears to contradict government claims that torture is not the policy of the US military, an American soldier claims he was left brain damaged by a beating he received while posing as an un-cooperative prisoner at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba.

Sean Baker said that military police taking part in an exercise at the notorious Camp Delta slammed his head on the ground repeatedly, causing a seizure disorder that led to him being medically discharged from the National Guard. The claim is bound to raise further concerns over the treatment of detainees at the prison camp.

On May 21, the US army admitted that Baker, 37, was injured in the January 2003 incident, which involved four reservists training with an internal reaction force responsible for subduing unruly detainees.

But it said an inquiry had determined that Baker’s injuries were a “foreseeable consequence” of the exercise and that his discharge was not related to it.

He volunteered to play the role of an un-cooperative inmate for the exercise, and put on a prisoner’s orange jump-suit over his uniform before hiding under a bunk.

He said the reservists in riot gear burst into his cell, pulled him from beneath the bunk, began beating and choking him, and did not stop when he shouted the safe word, “Red.” He said his legs were twisted, and one soldier jumped on his back and grabbed him by the throat, cutting off his airway.

“I kept yelling, I’m a US soldier, I’m a US soldier, but they carried on,” Baker said. He claimed another guard had ordered the team to “ease up” but that the beating stopped only when his jump-suit came apart and revealed his US military trousers underneath.

Baker, from Georgetown, Kentucky, was treated at the camp’s hospital, spent several days at a military hospital in Virginia and was released when an MRI scan revealed no permanent damage.

But he said he remained on medication and suffered increasingly frequent seizures and blackouts, requiring him to spend two months at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC.

Sources: Associated Press, IPS, Los Angeles Times, Scotsman

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Burma’s rebuff of UN rights envoy hints of rift within

By Larry Jagan

Bangkok, Thailand, May 31 (IPS)— The latest refusal by Burma military rulers to allow UN special rapporteur on human rights Paulo Sergio Pinheiro to visit Rangoon seems to reflect a growing division between the country’s top generals over how to proceed with the national reconciliation process.

This development, which occurs two weeks after the revival of the constitution-drafting process in Burma and a year after the May 30, 2003 violent attack on opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s convoy, may also mean that the regime has decided to shun the international community and impose its own form of isolation.

In an interview, Pinheiro was upset about not being given access to update his assessment of the human rights situation there. “The Burmese government is wasting a chance to have their views incorporated into my report,’’ Pinheiro told IPS.

The UN envoy is due to table a new report on Burma to the UN General Assembly in July. He had hoped to meet Prime Minister Gen Khin Nyunt and other government ministers, pro-democracy leaders, including Aung San Suu Kyi and representatives of ethnic minorities.

Pinheiro’s highest priority, according to UN officials in Geneva, is to review the National Convention, which started meeting on May 17 to draw up the guidelines for a new constitution.

“Professor Pinheiro has not been refused entry but requested to wait for a mutually convenient time to make this visit,’’ according to the government’s military spokesman.

This is the second time in three months that he has been refused access to Burma.

He had originally wanted to visit Burma in mid-March to get the government’s point of view and assess any changes that might have occurred since his previous visit in December 2003, before reporting back to the UN human rights committee in Geneva in April.

Then the Burmese authorities told him that a visit was not convenient and it would be possible in late April or May.

At the time, there were delicate secret negotiations taking place between the generals and the detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and the regime did not want anything to get in the way of those discussions.

The military had also begun to allow the other senior members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) party, then also under house arrest, to meet the opposition leader.

The regime’s reluctance to allow Pinheiro into Burma at the moment seems to be closely related to the widening divisions between top generals over how to proceed with their proposed plans for political reform.

Prime Minister Khin Nyunt understands the need for the national reconciliation process to involve the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the pro-democracy parties. But under the orders of Burma’s top general Than Shwe, the National Convention reconvened without the participation of Aung San Suu Kyi’s party. There is no doubt that there are major differences between the top generals over how to deal with the pro-democracy leader and her party, according to Asian diplomats.

Than Shwe has long said the political parties need not be involved in the drafting of the constitution, despite the regime’s previous insistence that the elections of 1990 were actually meant to select the representatives who would draw up the new constitution.

“The political parties will contest the elections after the new constitution is in place,’’ Than Shwe told Razali on earlier visits to Rangoon.

While the hardliners may see no role for the political parties before the new elections, the prime minister and the pragmatists in military intelligence and the government believe that a national reconciliation process that involves Suu Kyi and pro-democracy parties would engage the international community and get it to support the reform process.

In the past few months, Prime Minister Khin Nyunt has candidly told both Razali and the Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai that all final decisions on the national reconciliation process are now firmly in Than Shwe’s hands.

But Than Shwe is not alone in taking a hard line.

Ostensibly he has established a committee — including himself, Gen Khin Nyunt, Gen Maung Aye, the chief of staff Gen Thura Shwe Mann, Lt General Soe Win (Secretary One), and Lt Gen Thein Sein (Secretary Two) — to oversee every aspect of the national reconciliation process. But the reality is that nothing is done without Than Shwe’s specific approval.

Military intelligence personnel are very sensitive about critical comments on the National Convention being aired in the international media.

Participants have been warned not to pass information about the proceedings on to people outside the convention and have been threatened with up to 20 years’ imprisonment if they criticize the National Convention or make anti-government comments.

While the Burmese government-controlled media continue to insist that the convention marks a significant and historic moment in Burmese history, neither Than Shwe or Khin Nyunt were at the ceremonial opening session. It would appear that neither wants to be too closely associated with it — or be seen publicly to own the process.

Given Khin Nyunt’s close participation in the process to date, including in convincing the ceasefire groups to attend, his absence may have been his way of distancing himself from the convention.

“Khin Nyunt does not want to discuss the progress of the National Convention or have the National Convention used to criticize him,’’ said a western diplomat based in Rangoon. ‘’This is something he could not avoid if Pinheiro was allowed to visit at this time.’’

The prime minister is also not keen to answer questions about Aung San Suu Kyi’s continued house arrest at this moment.

“Burma’s military leaders are anxious to keep Aung San Suu Kyi totally isolated at the moment for fear that she would be manipulated by foreign influences and openly condemn the National Convention,’’ said a senior UN official. That is likely to be another reason that Pinheiro has been snubbed.

He is not the only key envoy who has been refused access to Burma recently. The special envoy of the Indonesian president, former foreign minister Ali Alatas, was refused permission to visit Burma in mid-April. The UN envoy Razali, anxious to return to Rangoon before the National Convention reconvened, was also rebuffed.

Until something emerges from the National Convention, nothing is likely to happen in Rangoon.

There is extreme unease and nervousness within the senior ranks of military intelligence,’’ said a UN official who regularly deals with the military. ‘’It seems everyone is running for cover in anticipation of a backlash against them.’’

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Court clears the way for Pinochet to stand trial

By Tim Gaynor

May 29— A Chilean appeals court stripped Augusto Pinochet, the former Chilean dictator, of his longstanding immunity from prosecution May 28, in a move that could pave the way for his trial on human rights charges relating to his 17-year rule.

The Santiago-based court voted by 14-9 to withdraw immunity from General Pinochet, who seized power in a 1973 coup that snuffed out 150 years of democratic rule in the South American nation, and led to the murder and “disappearance” of 3,000 political opponents.

The decision may still be appealed against before the Supreme Court, which has ruled in the past that General Pinochet, now 88, is physically and mentally unfit to stand trial. A report by court-appointed doctors two years ago found the former dictator suffered from diabetes, arthritis, and dementia stemming from strokes, and has to wear a heart pacemaker.

Speaking in the Chilean capital, Santiago, the Supreme Court president Juan Gonzalez Zuniga confirmed that the “withdrawal of legal immunity concerns [a case] of the disappearance of opponents of the military regime.”

The court did not elaborate on the basis for the ruling, which is expected to be disclosed within the next two or three weeks. General Pinochet, who relinquished power in 1990, remained a powerful figure during Chile’s return to democratic rule, and kept immunity from prosecution as a former president.

The general’s mantle of untouchability crumbled in October 1998, when he was arrested in London on an Interpol warrant issued by the Spanish magistrate Baltasar Garzon in connection with the deaths of Spanish citizens during his rule.

For the next 16 months, he was held under house arrest at a villa near Wentworth, Surrey, only escaping extradition to Spain after his lawyers argued that he was mentally unfit to stand trial.

Despite the fact that General Pinochet was freed to return to Chile in March 2000, the case was seen by many throughout Latin America as a landmark victory for the principle of universal justice, which paved the way for rights violators to stand trial in a third country.

Should the decision to strip General Pinochet’s immunity be confirmed by the Supreme Court, he could be prosecuted in connection with the disappearance of nine left-wing activists who were arrested in Argentina in the framework of Operation Condor, a South American spy network that repressed opponents of those countries’ military dictatorships.

Lawyers acting for General Pinochet, who was not required to attend the court, did not comment.

Source: Independent (UK)

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Bush intensifies ‘regime change’ measures for Cuba

By Roberto Jorquera

June 2 — On May 6, US President George W. Bush announced new measures to tighten the 43-year US economic embargo against Cuba, based on recommendations made in a 450-page report to Bush from the presidential Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, headed by US Secretary of State Colin Powell.

The recommendations are explicitly aimed at overthrowing the Cuban government and restoring a US-dominated capitalist economy on the island.

Cubans living in the US are to be severely restricted from visiting and giving financial remittances to family members living in Cuba. The measures prohibit Cuban residents in the US from sending remittances of money and packages to family members in Cuba if the latter are “government officials or members of the Communist Party.”

Visits to Cuba by Cuban residents in the US will be restricted from the current one per year to one every three years. The additional restriction is established by the obligation to seek specific permission from the US government for each trip, instead of the general license that previously existed.

Under the new measures, the granting of permission to travel to Cuba is limited only for visiting immediate family members. To this effect, the US government has decreed that the definition of family member is limited to “grandparents, grandchildren, parents, siblings, spouses and children.”

Commenting on this decision, the Cuban government stated that “from now on, a cousin, aunt, or other close family member is not — according to President Bush — a family member. It also establishes, as well, that Cubans who have recently arrived in the United States will only be able to travel to Cuba three years after having emigrated. While the Cuban government is continually making visits to the country by emigrants more flexible, the US government is increasing the obstacles.”

Other anti-Cuba measures authorized by Bush include:

t A reduction in the quantity of money that Cubans resident in the US can spend to cover their costs during visits to Cuba from $164 to $50 per day.

tFurther restrictions on US citizens undertaking educational visits to Cuba and academic exchanges.

t Authorizing trials in US courts of company executives from third countries who engage in business with Cuba.

tIntensification of campaigns to pressure third country governments to discourage tourism to Cuba.

At least $59 million is to be channeled by US government agencies into subversive activity on the island over the next two years and $18 million is to be spent on US military flights to beam anti-revolutionary propaganda TV and radio broadcasts into Cuban airspace.

An “international fund” is to be created for the development of a “civil society” in Cuba, which would attract “voluntary” personnel from third countries to travel to Cuba and offer aid to the mercenaries in its service in Cuba.

Public campaigns are to be stepped up against Cuba in other countries in the context of alleged violation of human rights in Cuba, the Cuban government’s “subversion of democratically elected governments in Latin America,” and other acts by Cuba defined as a threat to US interests.

International conferences are to be organized by the US government in third countries to “disseminate information” on US policies for promoting a “transition to democracy” in Cuba. What Washington means by this is readily apparent to Cubans when they look at the US-imposed “transition to democracy” in Iraq.

To oversee the new measures, the US government will create the post of a Coordinator for the Transition in Cuba at State Department level. This official will be responsible for checking the application of all the new and existing measures directed at destroying the Cuban Revolution.

In a massive show of opposition to the new measures, at least one million Cubans rallied in front of the US Interest Section in Havana on May 14. In his speech at the rally, Cuban President Fidel Castro directed his concluding remarks to Bush, saying: “In the world that you seek to impose on us today there is not the slightest notion of ethics, credibility, standards of justice, humanitarian feelings, nor of the elementary principles of solidarity and generosity...

“This, Bush, is one of the few countries in this hemisphere where not once in 45 years has there been a single case of torture, a single death squad, a single extra judicial execution, or a single ruler who has become a millionaire through having held power.

“You lack the moral authority to speak of Cuba, a dignified country, which has withstood 45 years of a brutal blockade, economic war, and terrorist attacks that have cost thousands of lives and tens of billions of dollars in economic losses...

“You lack the moral right to speak of terrorism because you are surrounded by a bunch of murderers who have caused the death of thousands of Cubans through terrorist methods...

“You have no right whatsoever, except for that of brute force, to intervene in Cuba’s affairs and, whenever the fancy takes you, to proclaim the transition from one system to another and to take measures to make this happen.

“[The people of Cuba] can be exterminated — it’s as well you know this — or wiped off the face of the Earth, but it cannot be subjugated nor put once again into the humiliating position of a United States neocolony...

“Human beings are not aware of nor can they be aware of freedom in a regime of inequality like the one you represent. No one is born equal in the United States... [where] there is no other equality but that of being poor and excluded.

“Our people, educated in solidarity and internationalism, do not hate the American people nor do they want to see young white, black, Native American, mestizo, or Latin soldiers from that country die, young people driven by unemployment to enlist in the military to be sent to any corner of the world in traitorous, preemptive attacks or in wars of conquest...

“Since you have decided that the die is cast ... my only regret is that I would not even see your face because in that case you would be thousands of miles away while I shall be in the front-line to die fighting in defense of my homeland.”

Source: Green Left Weekly