The quarter of a million Sri Lankans locked up in military-run internment camps are facing a humanitarian disaster with the arrival of monsoon rains. Living situations in the overcrowded camps are likely to further deteriorate in the following weeks. The camps lack even basic sanitation facilities. During previous heavy rains, water flooded the camps and forced residents to wade through overflowing sewage.
We had heavy rains about a month ago. It was hell. The ground here cannot absorb water so it just gathers. We couldn’t even walk around. The authorities have done some work to improve drainage, but I doubt it will help much.
A recent escapee from Chettikulam camp reported to Amnesty International that some women had been forced to give birth in front of strangers without privacy:
Medical staff are only available in the camps 9 to 5. People start waiting in line for medical assistance from early morning…how can you expect a lady who is pregnant to stand in a line for hours? If the war has ended, why doesn’t the government let these people out?
The situation worsened on October 5, when a main water pipeline was turned off in Menik Farm camp. The escalation of the humanitarian situation also leads to violent tensions, both within the camp residents and between residents and the military.
Overheard
I remain particularly concerned about the slow pace of identifying those in the camps who do not pose a threat to security and the lack of transparent criteria in this regard. (..) Immediate and substantial progress in restoring freedom of movement for the displaced is an imperative, if Sri Lanka is to respect the rights of its citizens and comply with its commitments and obligations under international law – Walter Kaelin, Representative of the Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons
The situation in Pakistan has escalated with the fourth militant attack in the last week occurring yesterday in Peshawar. A Punjabi faction of the Taliban has claimed responsibility for the attack, signaling a disturbing level of increased cooperation between militant groups to the Pakistani government and its Western allies. Other attacks included a 22 hour assault on Pakistan’s army headquarters and began with the suicide bombing of a UN aid agency. In total 119 have been killed and several injured. The group has threatened more strikes across the country in advance of the army’s plans to launch a ground offensive of the Taliban’s major base in South Waziristan.
In response to the deadly attacks, Pakistani jets have bombed the Taliban’s major base in South Waziristan and Bajaur, another tribal agency in northwest Pakistan.
The renewed escalation of violence has increased concerns for the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. The surge in attacks has come as the Pakistani government is trying to respond to U.S. aid package conditions requiring the government to do more to control its armed forces and extremists operating within the country.
Overheard
Such attacks cannot deter us from the offensive against the militants. We will continue our fight till the death of the last terrorist – Mian Iftikhar Hussain, provincial Information Minister
October 12: How to Feed the World in 2050, FAO High-Level Expert Forum
October 13: Turkish and Armenian governments are due to complete protocols on normalizing ties between the two countries
October 13: Trial of Roy Bennett, a senior official in Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change, on terrorism charges
October 14: Open debate in the Security Council on the situation in the Middle East, including the recent Gaza conflict
Human Rights Flashpoints is a weekly column about countries at risk of escalating human rights violations and is brought to you by AIUSA’s Crisis Prevention and Response team
In the last month, a spotlight has fallen on two sharply different terrorism cases that illuminate thebest and worse of America’s efforts to defeat Al Qaeda:
The case of Mohammed Jawad, conducted with the gloves off, is a disaster.
The case of Bryant Vinas, conducted within the law, appears to be triumph.
Mohammed Jawad was detained in Kabul in December 2002 after a grenade was thrown at US soldiers, injuring three members of a patrol. Jawad’s age has not been established with any degree of certainty but it is not disputed that he was a minor at the time of the attack. According to Afghan government, he may have been as young as twelve.
Jawad was subjected to a range of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques including forced sleep deprivation and physical abuse. Judge Huvelle, who eventually heard Jawad’s habeas corpus petition, threw out every statement he made in US custody as “a product of torture”. On July 30, she ordered that Jawad be released by August 21.
Jawad has been illegally detained for more than six and a half years. Worse still – the United States tortured a child. And for what? Jawad could offer no actionable intelligence. The government can’t even prove he committed a crime. His detention has cost the American taxpayer hundreds of thousands of dollars. It is a lose-lose scenario emblematic of the dark side approach promoted by Dick Cheney.
Bryant Neal Vinas, alias Bashir al-Ameriki, a twenty-six year old Hispanic man from Long Island, converted to Islam in 2004 and travelled to Pakistan to make contact with Al Qaeda in late 2007 or early 2008.
Vinas received weapons training from Al Qaeda with a particular concentration on explosives. In September 2008, he took part in a rocket attack on a US military base in Afghanistan.
Vinas even agreed to undertake a suicide bombing, although his handlers let him off the hook. He was, in short, a terroristwho engaged in hostile acts against the United States.
In November 2008, he was arrested in Peshwar by the Pakistani authorities. Because Vinas was an American citizen he was not shipped to Guantanamo or Bagram but instead treated like an ordinary criminal and transferred to the custody of the FBI.
Vinas’ case was handled entirely within the American criminal justice system. He was interviewed by FBI investigators within the constraints of domestic US law and with all the protections that the US constitution affords US citizens.
Operating within these constraints experienced FBI agents were able to persuade Vinas to cooperate with the US authorities and provide valuable and timely intelligence regarding potential terrorist plot.
Federal prosecutors were able to build a strong case against Vinas successfully charging him with conspiracy to murder U.S. citizens, providing information to a terrorist organization, and receiving “military-type training” from a Al-Qaeda.
Vinas eventually pled guilty to these charges. He has agreed to appear as a key witness in a number of other terrorist trials and is currently a protected witness in the federal witness protection program living inside the United States.
What a contrast exists between these two cases – one effectively and efficiently handled within the law and the other, a Kafkaesque nightmare in which a minor has been abused and incarcerated for more than six years to no purpose whatsoever.
These two cases could not make it any plainer. Our criminal justice system not only can handle complex terrorism cases, it actually does a substantially better job of it than the cack-handed shadow warriors unleashed by the Bush administration.
The real tragedy is that this lesson seems to be lost on the Obama White House. Jeh Johnson’s admission before Congress that the administration may consider detaining individuals acquitted by the Military Commissions seems to set the stage for further miscarriages of justice and for yet further damage to America’s battered international reputation.
We don’t need to keep going down this path. There is a better way. We know how to do this smarter and we know how do this right. Just ask Bryant Vinas.
Remember two years ago when then President Musharraf removed the Chief Justice of Pakistan’s Supreme Court, setting off howls of protest from the Pakistani legal community? Many people, including Musharraf, seemed surprised that lawyers had it in them to take to the streets and demand respect for the rule of law. But if any of you have ever been to a “bar review” (read booze fest) hosted any given Thursday evening by one of our nation’s law schools, or been to a patent bar continuing legal education course (I’ve heard those patent lawyers get rowdy), you nodded your head wisely as the Pakistani lawyers protested continuously for two years until the Chief Justice was reinstated.
Until recently, lawyers in Zimbabwe, despite being one of the most active civil society groups in the country, had for the most part avoided being swept up in the political machinations and repression experienced in recent years. In the last few months, though, this seems to be changing. In February, two lawyers were arrested while observing a Valentine’s Day protest in Harare. Then in March, the magistrate who granted bail to arrested prospective Minister of Agriculture Roy Bennett was arrested. Last week, respected human rights lawyer Alec Muchadehama was arrested in court for allegedly attempting to circumnavigate proper legal channels in securing the release of his clients on bail. Now it was announced today that the two lawyers detained in February will go to trial on charges of “participating in a gathering with intent to promote public violence, breaches of the peace or bigotry.”
In response, lawyers and journalists promptly took to the streets in Harare today to protest government harassment. Now, I’m not just saying this because I am a lawyer, but perhaps those pulling the strings in Zimbabwe might want to heed the lesson painfully learned by Musharraf, whose relatively rapid downfall is widely attributed to have commenced when he began messing around with lawyers. To misappropriate Adam Sandler’s Zohan movie title, “You don’t mess with the lawyers.”
It is Monday, March 16, 2009. These two lawyers are dancing in celebration outside the home of Iftikhar Chaudhry , Chief Justice of the Pakistani Supreme Court. Why? Because Chaudhry, who had been suspended in March 2007 by then president Pervez Musharraf, has finally been reinstated by the government.
Chaudhry had become an embarrassment to Musharraf’s government. Among his inconvenient rulings: he ordered the country’s Intelligence agency to admit that it was holding secret prisoners. Musharraf finally had had enough. He dismissed the Supreme Court and placed the judges under house arrest.
Luckily our president can’t dismiss the Supreme Court. The powers claimed by President Bush in the war on terror didn’t go that far, but they went far out in that direction. In Pakistan, the firing of the judges led to the unprecedented Lawyers’ Movement. In the U.S., President Bush’s claim that he could hold people indefinitely outside of any system of justice — be it U.S. military or civilian law or international law governing the treatment of prisoners of war — led to a lawyers’ movement here in the U.S. By claiming the right to act outside of the law, the Bush Administration unleashed a storm of litigation.
It took a couple of years, but American lawyers, using the painstaking processes available under U.S. law, finally gained access to Guantanamo. Three times, their cases have reached the Supreme Court.
1. Rasul v. Bush (2004) — The Court ruled that American courts have jurisdiction to consider legal appeals filed on behalf of foreign citizens held by the U.S. military at Guantanamo.
2. Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006) — The Court ruled that the tribunals being used to try prisoners at Guantanamo were unconstitutional, and that the Geneva Conventions and Uniform Code of Military Justice could be enforced by the Supreme Court.
3. Boumediene v. Bush (2008) — The Court ruled that prisoners at Guantanamo had the right to habeas corpus under the U.S. Constitution, and that the military commissions established by Congress in 2006 (following Hamdan) were an unconstitutional suspension of that right.
Each time, the Court has ruled against the Administration. But the gains have been slow and incremental. Congress has pushed back with legislation that President Bush signed into law. And each ruling has opened up new avenues of litigation.
This summer the Supreme Court will decide whether or not to hear yet another Guantanamo case. This time the case is brought by the Chinese Uyghurs, who have been detained for over seven years despite long ago being found to harbor no enmity whatsoever towards the U.S, having been found to be “not enemy combatants” by a federal court, and, last fall, having been ordered released into the U.S. by a federal judge.
Guantanamo is Obama’s problem now. He has pledged to close Guantanamo by January 2010. But how he will do that, and what will happen to the detainees, is still an open question. Of special concern is the fate of the detainees who, like the Uyghurs, are cleared for release but have nowhere to go. If this Supreme Court case goes forward, it could force the government’s hand. According to Lyle Denniston, founder of the Scotus blog which follows and discusses Supreme Court cases:
“What is at stake, ultimately, could be the fate of many if not most of the more than 240 prisoners still at Guantanamo, who might have to remain confined there or somewhere else even if the government decides that they are not dangerous enemies.”
The lawyers representing the Uyghurs have worked long and hard for these innocent men who need a home. And they just don’t stop fighting. If they win this one, if the Guantanamo Uyghurs finally come to live in the U.S. under the care of the Uyghur American families who are waiting to take them in, you will see dancing in the streets.
Amnesty International works to protect human rights worldwide. We have more than 2.2 million supporters, activists and volunteers in over 150 countries, and are completely independent from government, corporate or national interests.
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Sameer Dossani is the Director of Amnesty International's Demand Dignity Campaign. See all »
