In limbo: Caged detainees await decisions

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba -- They are men without countries from a war that has never been declared. They are prisoners defined as ``detainees,'' caged up by the U.S. military on a slice of territory that is technically not American soil.

The 80 al Qaeda and Taliban captives being housed in six-by-eight-foot chain-link cells at this terrorist detention center are in a legal netherworld -- so far denied lawyers and awaiting the first visit by the Red Cross, expected today.

``We are determining their status. Their status is being determined by Washington, D.C.,'' said Marine Brig. Gen. Michael Lehnert, commander of the prison project.

The detainees' incarceration is being guided, though not dictated, by the Geneva Convention rules that govern prisoners of war, Lehnert said.

Yet, while U.S. officials decide whether to charge them in specially designed military tribunals, the circumstances of their detention are becoming a concern to human rights activists.

``It is not the prerogative of the Secretary of Defense or any other U.S. administration official to determine whether those held in Guantanamo are POWs,'' Amnesty International said in a statement. ``An independent U.S. court, following due process, is the appropriate organ.''

Human Rights Watch, meanwhile, issued a statement of concern that their open-air, cage-like cells and other details of their incarceration are not in keeping with international norms.

An example: The camp warden, Army Col. Terry Carrico, said last week that given the chain-fenced nature of their incarceration, captives could get wet by the rainstorms that sometimes roll through this corner of the Caribbean. But the Geneva Convention specifically spells out that POWs not be held in damp conditions.

The cells have concrete floors and are roofed with pressure-treated wood and corrugated metal. Based on a site tour before the prisoners' arrival, the cells are adjoining and prisoners will likely be in sight of each other. It was unclear Wednesday whether they were kept in adjoining cells but officers reported last week that the first arrivals, numbering 20, were chatting among themselves.

Moreover, complications for their legal status are plentiful, given the extraterritorial nature of this U.S. Navy base on Cuba's southeastern tip.

Miami immigration attorney Ira Kurzban recalled an earlier 11th Circuit Court ruling that placed Haitian and Cuban refugees outside the district. Its ruling said that the base ``is just foreign territory, and the U.S. is free to do what they want, even when it comes to refugees.''

No legal counsel has been available to the men, described by Lehnert as Arabic and English speakers representing ``an international community of suspected terrorists from all over the world.'' He would not provide prisoners' names, ages or their countries of origin but said they were ``a very broad representation from nations throughout the world.''

Representatives of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent were expected to arrive on the base Friday, military commanders said, and would likely get to meet with the prisoners face-to-face, one at a time. Lehnert said the Red Cross role would be ``to act as an independent observer,'' of conditions which he described as ``humane . . . but not comfortable.''

``It is a war of ideologies. It is a fight between free and civilized society and those who would control their societies and make them afraid,'' the general said Wednesday in his first political remarks in a series of straightforward clipped, Marine-style briefings to the media that began a week ago.

In Geneva, spokeswoman Macarena Rodríguez Aguilar said the International Red Cross team would be headed by Urs Boegli, the organization's representative in Washington, and would include ``around five persons.''

There had been no urgency to visit earlier, she said, because the team wanted to observe as many prisoners as possible to check out their conditions.

``I guess there is a bit of everything in there in that sense that they could be foreigners, not all Afghan citizens,'' she said. ``We don't have any exact list of where they come from.''

Whatever the United States decides to do, said Michael Posner of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, it should ``use the law to the full extent'' and be ``as aggressive as we can'' to prosecute people directly tied to the atrocities of Sept. 11. But, he warned, the world is watching and the United States must establish a clear formula to process, charge, and eventually try suspects on specific crimes.

Finding them lawyers, however, may be difficult to do. ``They are unpopular cases,'' said Cheryl Little of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, who was uninterested in extending the nonprofit's portfolio into the potential criminal cases. But she added: ``They are entitled to due process.''

While many Cuban exiles in Miami have expressed support for the operation in the prison framework of Washington's worldwide war on terrorism, refugee activist Ramón Saúl Sánchez said he disapproved of Cuba being put to such use.

``We refuse to be considered the Dumpster of the world, where they are going to bring all the undesirables of the world,'' Sánchez said. ``If the United States is not willing to open a single cell that Castro has built, why should they build another prison in Cuba?''

By saying that the status of the prisoners at Gitmo are "in limbo," this article is repeating the legal lie put out yesterday by Amnesty International and days before by the International Red Cross. There is clear law about the status of these prisoners, and the government's use of the phrase "illegal detainees" reveals that status.
There is a 20-page, unanimous Supreme Court decision, written in plain English, that makes crystal clear the status of these prisoners and the trials that await them.
Ex Parte Quirin, 1942, upheld the trial of eight German saboteurs who entered Florida and Long Island from German submarines with money, maps, and plans for bombing. One of them turned state's evidence, so the plan unraveled before any targets were hit. All eight were convicted; six were executed.
The Baltimore Sun ran on 16 December a politically biased and factually false article on this case. The Washington Post ran on 15 January an article which was more accurate about the facts of the case, but still lied about its legal meaning. Neither article quoted from the case. And the article on this thread is a step backwards, in not even mentioning the case.
The Geneva Convention has zero application to these prisoners. The Convention states four conditions for it to apply. The Al Qaeda prisoners fail all four of thoese conditions.
I urge all FReepers to use the link provided, and actually read the Quirin case, right now. If you do, you will know more about the status of these prisoners and the trials they will shortly face, than 99.44% of the American press who are daily spewing false reports in abject ignorance of the situation. Because Quirin is written in plain English, I recommend it to laymen as well as lawyers. It is very "accessible."
Click here, go to "Court Decisions," go to "Supreme Court," search for "Quirin." There is a one-page decision issued as an Emergency Order while the trial was going on. Then there is a syllabus on the case, then there is the 20-page Opinion issued later as the reasons for the decision.
As FReepers well know, the best way to combat the bias of the media is to get the facts, and then smack the media upside the head with the facts. The unanimous Quirin case, and the "law of war" which it thoroughly discusses, are the central facts on this subject.
I urge everyone who sees this post to take time to click up and read the Quirin case, and then spread the word. As Thomas Jefferson wrote, "in the markketplace of ideas, truth must be free to combat falsehood." There are a lot of falsehoods out there on this subject. Please join the battle.

Congressman Billybob

Click and listen to Phil and Billybob in the morning. As this is posted, Billybob's segment is over, but Phil is still on the air.

Perhaps I'm missing something here.

You are correct. al Qaeda terrorists are not POWs - because they belong to no nation state, do not adhere to any international convention of war, are not known to have a formal leadership heirarchy, and do not wear identifiable uniforms.

Thus they are not by any stretch of the imagination subject to Article 4 of the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, 12 August 1949.

The Red Cross and Amenesty International are liars and would be easily defeated in any appropriate legal forum on this point.

It is interesting that AI and ICRC are the only organizations making these halfwitted assertions on behalf of al Qaeda.

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