WAR ON IRAK

Al-Jazeera.net: US remembers Geneva Convention

Are US prisoners of war more equal than the Iraqi prisoners in the custody of US-led forces?

The answer seems to be yes, given the contrasting reactions to images of US prisoners of war captured yesterday.

Just a day earlier, pictures of surrendering Iraqi soldiers being forced to kneel down and being body-searched by US-troops stirred few emotions in the Western world.

But it all changed dramatically the moment Al Jazeera television broadcast on Monday images of five American troops in Iraq’s custody.
“Anyone found ill-treating American prisoners of war would be dealt with as war criminals,” insisted US President George W Bush told newsmen.

British Prime Minister, Tony Blair was more caustic and explained that “the televised parade of the US prisoners of war was yet another instance of excesses committed by Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein.”

Western leaders haven’t stopped spitting fire since then. In between criticising Iraq and condemning Al Jazeera, they have suddenly begun to recite ad verbatim the rights and privileges of prisoners of wars in the Geneva Convention.

“Its illegal to do things to the prisoners of war that are humiliating to the prisoners. It is against the Geneva Convention,” said US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

A US marine arrests an Iraqi soldier, dressed in civilian clothes on the road north of the town of Basra March 24
For the first couple of days of the conflict, western television broadcasts have been replete with images of humiliated and humbled Iraqi prisoners.

Some images had the Iraqi soldiers on their knees while they were frisked by US Marines. In others, they were lined up with their hands tied to their backs. Some of the Iraqi prisoners were also seen to be shivering, possibly in shock and fear.

There is nothing wrong with Article 13 of the Geneva Convention that the world adopted in 1950 for enshrining rights and privileges of a captured prisoner in war. “Prisoners of war must at all time be humanely treated…..POWs must at all time be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insult and public curiosity,” it stated.

The problem is that the US is seeking to take refuge under provisions of the United Nations when the war they are waging does not have UN approval.

There is more to US double-standards.

The US is holding 625 suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda sympathisers in Guantanomo Bay in Cuba where there designation as "unlawful comabatants" has stripped them of even the most basic human rights including the right of habeus corpus.

An application filed by Human Rights groups before the US federal court seeking an end to the arbitrary detention was again thrown out two weeks ago because the “detainees held outside US territory were beyond the jurisdiction of US courts.”