U.S. President Barack Obama (Reuters/Kevin
Lamarque)
tiaraVillaRuby - White House yg dilaporkan bergelut bagaimanakah
menafsirkan larangan "zalim, tidak berperikemanusiaan atau menghina"
menjelang pertemuan di Geneva bulan depan mengenai piagam PBB mengenai
penyeksaan.
Menurut New York Times, pentadbiran Obama masih
terbagi atas apa sikap dele-gasi Washington secara rasmi akan mengambil masa
sekurang-panel Jawatan-kuasa Menentang Penyiksaan PBB yg ditaja awal bln
depan di bandar Switzerland.
Walaupun Barack Obama mengatakan sebelum dan selepas
dipilih ke White House bahawa pegawai-pegawai Amerika Syarikat tidak boleh
melibatkan diri dalam aktiviti menyiksa, wartawan keselamatan negara Times Charlie Savage melaporkan pada hari Ahad minggu ini bahawa pegawai pentadbiran
secara rasmi akan mengambil sikap lain - satu setara dengan dasar-dasar
pendahulunya Obama, George W. Bush - ketika panel bersidang dalam beberapa
minggu.
Times melaporkan bahawa peguam yg menjawab kepada
presiden yg bercanggah sama ada atau tdk White House harus melihat semula
tafsiran peme-rintahan Bush dari perjanjian PBB, orang-orang seperti yang resmi
penggunaan taktik soal siasat yang dipertingkatkan, seperti Waterboarding dan
kurang tidur, pada orang yang ditahan oleh agensi-agensi tentera dan risikan
selepas kejadian 11 September 2001 serangan pengganas di kemudahan seperti
pusat tahanan Guantanamo Bay dan CIA yang dipanggil "tapak hitam."
Mesyuarat yang akan datang akan menjadi salah satu
yang pertama dari jawatan presiden Obama, Savage mengakui, menyampaikan
komander-in-chief dgn peluang yang jarang utk bercakap tentang PBB
Konvensyen Menentang Penyik-saan, sebuah perjanjian yang sejak 1980-an bertujuan
untuk memastikan tahanan di seluruh DUNIA tidak tertakluk kepada syarat-syarat
yang tidak manusiawi.
Dalam laporan hari Minggu, Savage menulis bahawa
Obama, kemudian menjadi senator Amerika Syarikat, berbicara tegas terhadap
Pres. Bush ketika terungkap pada tahun 2005 bahawa pentadbiran beliau telah
menafsirkan perjanjian PBB dengan cara yang bahawa mereka berargumen membuatnya
dapat diterima untuk CIA dan Pentagon pegawai yang tidak menghiraukan larangan
terhadap penyek-saan jika mereka tidak berada di tanah Amerika.
Presiden Obama kemudian mengutuk hujah bahawa dengan
perintah eksekutif "memastikan soal siasat yang sah," Savage menambah,
walaupun mesyuarat bulan depan mungkin akan mengubahnya.
"Tetapi pentadbiran Obama tidak pernah secara
rasmi diisytiharkan kedudukan-nya pada perjanjian itu, & sekarang, pasukan
undang2 Presiden Obama berdebat sama ada untuk kembali dari pandangan
yang lebih awal," Savage menulis. "Ia sedang mempertimbangkan
mengesahkan kedudukan pentadbiran Bush baha-wa perjanjian tersebut tidak
mengenakan obligasi undang2 di Amerika Syarikat bagi menghalang kekejaman
di luar sempadannya, menurut pegawai2 yang membin-cangkan perbincangan
dengan syarat tidak mahu namanya disiarkan."
"Peguam Jabatan Negeri dikatakan menolak secara
rasmi meninggalkan tafsiran-era Bush," Savage menambah, yg hanya akan
terus membiarkan perintah eksekutif 2009 Obama menandatangani berdiri sebagai
perkataan rasmi Washington dan seterusnya memastikan bahawa pegawai-pegawai
Amerika diwajibkan utk mema-tuhi perjanjian penyiksaan tidak kira di mana di DUNIA
mereka berada.
Peguam lain, tambahnya, mempunyai idea yang berbeza
dari apa yang perlu dila-kukan pada mesyuarat bulan depan, namun. "Tetapi
peguam tentera dan peri-sikan dikatakan menentang menerima bahawa perjanjian itu
mengenakan kewajipan undang-undang terhadap tindakan Amerika Syarikat di luar
negara," Savage menulis. "Mereka mengatakan bahawa mereka memerlukan
lebih banyak masa utk mengkaji sama ada ia akan memberi kesan operasi. Mereka
juga tlh menimbulkan kebimbangan bahawa tahanan-tahanan perang yang sedang
atau akan di luar negara mungkin memohon perjanjian itu untuk mendakwa pegawai
Amerika dgn siksaan, walaupun mahkamah telah berulang kali dibuang tindakan
undang2 yg dibawa oleh tahanan yg ditahan sebagai suspek keganasan."
Sekiranya orang-orang berdebat di memprovokasi sisi
yg terakhir, maka pen-tadbiran sekarang tidak lama lagi mendapati dirinya
bersetuju dengan dasar-dasar masa lalu yang terus menjadi kontroversi hampir
sedekad selepas penggunaan Bush White House penyiksaan mula timbul.
"Banyak pemimpin politik luar negeri &
pertubuhan bukan kerajaan tlh menye-rukan anggota pentadbiran Bush, termasuk
Bush sendiri, untuk menghadapi pen-dakwaan kerana membenarkan penyalahgunaan
tahanan dalam tahanan Amerika Syarikat selama kempen Amerika Syarikat
berbanding kumpulan-kumpulan militan Islam dipacu oleh serangan 9/11,
"Mark Hanrahan menulis untuk Business Times Antarabangsa pd hari Ahad.
"Pentadbiran Bush, yang melancarkan perang di Iraq & Afghanistan,
terpaksa berhadapan dengan sejumlah tuduhan itu memungkinkan pegawai Amerika Syarikat
menggunakan penyiksaan terhadap para tahanan semasa kempen ini," termasuk
terkenal skandal Abu Ghraib di Iraq.
Jika Pentagon dan CIA peguam menang, maka Washington
sekali lagi boleh men-tafsir perjanjian PBB dengan cara yang membolehkan mereka
amalan menyiksa sama yang akan dilakukan ke atas tahanan sekali terhadap,
selama apa-apa kejadian sedemikian berlaku di luar negara.
Minggu lepas, McClatchy perkhidmatan berita
melaporkan bahwa seorang diklasi-fikasikan penyelidikan $ 40.000.000
dilancarkan oleh Senat untuk menyiasat Bush-era penahanan dan soal siasat
program CIA cik tanpa memegang apa2 pejabat pentadbiran yg bertanggungjawab
ke atas skandal di Abu Ghraib & kemudahan lain yg sampai hari ini tetap
menjadi parut besar pd jawatan presiden.
"Laporan ini bukan tentang White House. Ini
bukan soal presiden. Ini bukan soal liabiliti jenayah. Ia mengenai tindakan
atau ketiadaan tindakan CIA, "seseorang yang akrab dengan laporan yg
memberitahu McClatchy. "Ia tidak melihat peguam pentadbiran Bush utk
melihat apakah mereka cuba utk benar2 melakukan sesuatu jangka akhir di
seluruh keadilan dan undang-undang."
OBAMA Considers ALLOWING torture OVERSEAS . . .
The White House is reportedly wrestling over how to
interpret a ban on "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” ahead of a
meeting in Geneva next month concerning the United Nations charter on torture.
According to the New York Times, the Obama
administration remains divided over what stance a Washington delegation will
officially take at the UN-sponsored Committee Against Torture panel early next
month in the Swiss city.
Although Barack Obama said before and after being elected
to the White House that United States officials should never engage in
torturous activity, Times national security journalist Charlie Savage reported
on Sunday this week that administration officials might formally adopt another
stance — one on par with the policies of Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush —
when the panel convenes in a couple of weeks.
The Times reported that the attorneys who answer to
the president are conflicted over whether or not the White House should revisit
the Bush administration’s interpretation of a UN treaty, the likes of which
authorized the use of enhanced interrogation tactics, like waterboarding and
sleep deprivation, on individuals detained by military and intelligence
agencies in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks at
facilities such as the Guantanamo Bay detention center and CIA so-called “black
sites.”
The upcoming meeting will be the first one of
Obama’s presidency, Savage acknowledged, presenting the commander-in-chief with
a rare opportunity to speak of the UN Convention Against Torture, a treaty that
since the 1980s has aimed to ensure prisoners the world over aren’t subjected
to inhumane conditions.
In Sunday’s report, Savage wrote that Obama, then a
US senator, spoke out adamantly against Pres. Bush when it was revealed in 2005
that his administration had been interpreting the UN treaty in a manner that
they argued made it acceptable for CIA and Pentagon officials to disregard the
prohibitions against torture if they weren’t on American soil.
Obama the president later condemned that reasoning
with an executive order “ensuring lawful interrogations,” Savage added,
although next month’s meeting may change that.
“But the Obama administration has never officially
declared its position on the treaty, and now, President Obama’s legal team is
debating whether to back away from his earlier view,” Savage wrote. “It is
considering reaffirming the Bush administration’s position that the treaty
imposes no legal obligation on the United States to bar cruelty outside its
borders, according to officials who discussed the deliberations on the
condition of anonymity.”
“State Department lawyers are said to be pushing to
officially abandon the Bush-era interpretation,” Savage added, which would
simply continue to let the 2009 Obama-signed executive order stand as
Washington’s official word and further ensure that American officials are
obligated to adhere to the torture treaty regardless of where in the world they
are located.
Other attorneys, he added, have a different idea of
what to do at next month’s meeting, however. “But military and intelligence
lawyers are said to oppose accepting that the treaty imposes legal obligations on
the United States’ actions abroad,” Savage wrote. “They say they need more time
to study whether it would have operational impacts. They have also raised
concerns that current or future wartime detainees abroad might invoke the
treaty to sue American officials with claims of torture, although courts have
repeatedly thrown out lawsuits brought by detainees held as terrorism
suspects.”
Should those arguing on the latter side provoke,
then the current administration could soon find itself agreeing with past
policies that continue to be controversial nearly a decade after the Bush White
House’s use of torture started to surface.
“Many foreign political leaders and non-governmental
organizations have called for members of the Bush administration, including Bush
himself, to face prosecution for allowing the abuse of detainees in US custody
during the course of the US campaign against Islamic militant groups spurred by
the 9/11 attacks,” Mark Hanrahan wrote for the International Business Times on
Sunday. “The Bush administration, which launched the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, had to contend with a number of allegations it allowed US
officials to use torture against detainees during the course of its campaigns,”
including the infamous Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq.
If the Pentagon and CIA attorneys prevail, then
Washington could once again interpret the UN treaty in a manner that allows
those same torturous practices to be performed on detainees once against, as
long as any such instances occur abroad.
Last week, McClatchy news service reported that a
classified $40 million probe launched by the Senate to investigate the CIA’s
Bush-era detention and interrogation program concludes without holding any
administration officials responsible for the scandals at Abu Ghraib and other
facilities that to this day remain a major scar on the presidency.
“This report is not about the White House. It’s not
about the president. It’s not about criminal liability. It’s about the CIA’s
actions or inactions,” a person familiar with the report told McClatchy. “It
does not look at the Bush administration’s lawyers to see if they were trying
to literally do an end run around justice and the law.”
READ MORE: http://on.rt.com/10dftv
