a948: Haitian-American Ambassador (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: SBrown8670@aol.com


                     US ambassador: It's time to
                     rewrite the Geneva Conventions
                     Posted on Friday, February 22 @ 10:01:07 EST

                     By Kim Sengupta, London Independent

                     The Geneva Conventions are outdated and need to be
                     rewritten to deal with the threat of international
                     terrorism, the United States ambassador for war crimes
                     said yesterday.

                     The forthright views of Pierre-Richard Prosper, who
                     was personally appointed by President Bush, will fuel
                     the controversy over the treatment of Afghan
                     detainees by America. His remarks, in an interview
                     with The Independent, represent the first time a senior
                     figure in the Bush administration has spoken so
                     unambiguously about an overhaul of the conventions.
                     They reflect Washington's exasperation at criticism by
                     Western allies and international organisations of its
                     treatment ofprisoners at Camp X-Ray on Cuba.

                     The Geneva Conventions have tempered some of the
                     worst excesses of modern warfare, and attempts to
                     tamper with them are bound to lead to opposition.
                     However, there is a growing feeling in the
                     administration that the present form of the
                     conventions, signed in 1949, does not take into account
                     the new type of conflict in which individuals and
                     organisations, such as al-Qa'ida, rather than states,
                     wage war.

                     "We should look at all international documents to see
                     whether they are compatible with this moment in
                     history. We should look at them now, and look at them
                     again in the future, in 20 years' time, in 50 years'
time,"
                     Mr Prosper said.

                     "The war on terror is a new type of war not envisaged
                     when the Geneva Conventions were negotiated and
                     signed. We now have organisations that ... do not
                     conduct their operations in accordance with the laws
                     and customs of war."

                     The ambassador stressed that the Geneva Conventions
                     remained relevant for wars between sovereign states.
                     Difficulties had only arisen when they had been applied
                     to international terrorism.

                     Mr Prosper, the son of Haitian immigrants, is a
                     respected jurist who successfully prosecuted the first
                     case under the 1948 Genocide Convention at the
                     Rwanda war crimes tribunal. He is in Europe to defend
                     American policy towards its Afghan prisoners, and met
                     Foreign Office officials yesterday.

                     Washington's position on the prisoners has been
                     inconsistent. After initially declaring that none was
                     entitled to the protection of the conventions,President
                     Bush said this month that Taliban prisoners fell under
                     Geneva but al-Qa'ida prisoners would not. He later
                     added to the confusion by saying that Taliban prisoners
                     would not have PoW status but would be treated as
                     "unlawful combatants".

                     But Mr Prosper said yesterday: "Analysis of the Geneva
                     Conventions leads us to the conclusion that the Taliban
                     detainees do not meet the legal criteria under Article
4."

                     He stressed that the prisoners, whom he had visited,
                     were being well looked after and some of the privileges
                     of the Geneva Conventions had been extended to them.

                     Reprinted from The London Independent:
                     http://news.independent.co.uk/world/
                     americas/story.jsp?story=139004


Dr. Stephen D. Brown     sbrown8670@aol.com