Guantanamo Bay Trials Begin

The New York Times reports the beginning of the Guantanamo Bay trails. The report concludes that this is not only a trial for Salim Hamdan but also a trial for these tribunals:

Mr. Hamdan’s trial is, in a sense, two trials. Mr. Hamdan is being tried on accusations of conspiracy and material support of terrorism. And the Bush administration’s military commission system itself is on trial. After years of debate, protest and litigation, the legal standing of the tribunal system at Guantánamo remains a question for American courts and officials around the world.

The chief Guantánamo prosecutor, Col. Lawrence J. Morris of the Army, said this first Guantánamo tribunal was “the most just war crimes trial that anybody has ever seen.”

Matt Pollard, a legal adviser for Amnesty International who is an observer here, sees it differently. He said he was struck by a sense that the proceedings were more of a replica of a trial than a real one.

“We are within a frame of a beautiful picture,” created by the Pentagon, Mr. Pollard said. “When you’re inside that frame, everything looks nice.”

The Guantánamo legal system was intended to try “unlawful enemy combatants” caught on the post-Sept. 11 battlefield. Prosecutors say there is little room for the usual legal restrictions in interrogations intended to prevent a terrorist attack. The administration’s strategy in using the Guantánamo naval station was based on its belief that the Constitution would not apply here.

Legal challenges to that assertion are among a number of factors that have delayed the government’s efforts to conduct trials here for years.

Read the whole report.

Radovan Karadzic Captured

Bosnian Serb war criminal Radovan Karadzic was captured this week in Belgrade. The BBC has created an intense and thorough report on the rise and fall of Karadzic:

The former Bosnian Serb leader was arrested on Monday near Belgrade after more than a decade on the run.

He has been indicted by the UN tribunal for war crimes and genocide relating to the war in Bosnia in the mid-1990s.

The UN says Mr Karadzic's forces killed up to 8,000 Bosniak men and boys from Srebrenica in July 1995 as part of a campaign to "terrorise and demoralise the Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat population".

He has also been charged over the shelling of Sarajevo, and the use of 284 UN peacekeepers as human shields in May and June 1995.

Go here to read the full report.

Is Waterboarding Torture?

The discussion continues as Gasper Tringale reports on his experience in Vanity Fair:

What more can be added to the debate over U.S. interrogation methods, and whether waterboarding is torture? Try firsthand experience. The author undergoes the controversial drowning technique, at the hands of men who once trained American soldiers to resist—not inflict—it.

Tringale voluntarily underwent waterboarding. He describes the effect of waterboarding:

Also, in case it’s of interest, I have since woken up trying to push the bedcovers off my face, and if I do anything that makes me short of breath I find myself clawing at the air with a horrible sensation of smothering and claustrophobia.

Read about his experience.

"Dirty War" suspect arrested

The JURIST reports that a former police chief and mayor Luis Aberlardo Patti, wanted for torturing and killing several people during Argentina's "Dirty War", has been arrested:

Argentina has recently stepped up investigations into hundreds of human rights cases stemming from the "Dirty War," during which at least 9,000 Argentinians were tortured and "disappeared" by the Argentinean military government in an attempt to silence leftist criticism of the military regime. Some human rights groups say the death toll was closer to 30,000. In 2006, a key witness testifying against "Dirty War" suspects disappeared [IPS/GIN report] after implicating Patti with torturing him in the 70's. The testimony by Luis Gerez contributed to the delay to Patti taking up his Congressional seat. Gerez was the second of two "Dirty War" witnesses to disappear around the end of 2006, but he reappeared [BBC report] three days after his disappearance.

Read the story here.

International Coalition urges for Sudanese arrest

The BBC reports that an international coalition of 29 human rights group is calling for the arrest of 2 suspects for alleged war crimes. The coalition is asking for U.N. and E.U. pressure to bring a Sudanese government minister and a Janjaweed militia leader to trial:

Justice for Darfur, which includes groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, called on the UN Security Council to pass a resolution calling on Sudan to co-operate fully with the ICC.

Some 300,000 people are thought to have died in Darfur's five-year conflict, the UN says.

Mr Haroun was a minister responsible for the Darfur portfolio in 2003 and 2004.

According to the ICC he was responsible for organising and funding the Arab militia known as the Janjaweed.

Ali Kushayb is accused of ordering the murder, torture and mass rape of innocent civilians during attacks on villages near Kodoom, Bindisi Mukjar and Arawala in west Darfur.

In February 2007, the two men were named by the ICC as suspects in a total of 51 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity including the murder, rape, torture and persecution of civilians in Darfur.

Read more.