Dana Gabriel

Una trasformazione globale sta manifestanda attraverso le società, i mezzi, l'intrattenimento ed il sistema di istruzione. Gli assistenti tecnici sociali e gli agenti di cambiamento desiderano eliminare l'inceppo la credenza dei nostri bambini, il sistema di valore, la loro indipendenza e la loro individualità. Stanno sostituendi con credenza più globale, valori universali ed interdipendenza. Le loro menti piccole fragili stanno modellande e spostato in gruppo-pensi, mentre l'autorità e l'influenza parentali sta insidianda. Le Nazioni Unite, con le relativi agenzie e trattati numerosi, stanno insidiando la sovranità nazionale ed ulteriore politica dettante della famiglia. Ciò non è di dire che ci non è gente buona di significato che lavora per il NU, ma al relativo nucleo stesso, è stato dirottato da alcuno che desidera usarlo per il loro proprio ordine del giorno. Sotto l'apparenza dei diritti dell'uomo, queste espressi intelligente e dei trattati messi sono anti-famiglia e sono circa controllo e venire a mancare per honor, rispettare, o aderirsi alla nostra propria costituzione. È attraverso il sistema di istruzione che desiderano correggere tutti gli errori percepiti nell'addestramento domestico. Di conseguenza, l'amore dei bambini e la lealtà alla loro famiglia e paese sta distruggendo sistematicamente.

I bambini indoctrinated per osservare tutto da una prospettiva del mondo e stanno condizionandi essere conformi ai valori universali, ai campioni ambientali e ad un nuovo sistema di amministrazione globale intero. Ciò è tutta la parte dei bambini di addestramento da essere buoni schiavi piccoli, io significa i buoni cittadini globali. In scuole, pensare collettivo è consigliato a fortemente ed i bambini sono insegnati che ci deve sempre essere unità e consenso. L'interazione del gruppo è importante, ma non deve sempre concludersi con tutto che accosente. I bambini stanno incitandi per vedersi come gruppo, dove personale degno dipende solamente da servizio alla Comunità ed al dichiarare. Stanno desensibilizzandi ai valori contrari ed insegnare ora di più è messa a fuoco sulle sensibilità e sulle emozioni piuttosto che sui fatti e sulla logica. Stanno insegnandi che le morali ed i valori stanno cambiando costantemente e che devono stabilire un sistema quel vestiti migliori loro. Non ci è stanza per coloro che sostiene le loro morali, compreso i loro genitori. They are all viewed as intolerant and trying to impose their values on others. In this new system, a strong family unit is a threat, and there is no place for nationalism or individuality.

Founded in 1945, the United Nations Educational and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has been described as a propaganda machine for the UN and world government. In 1984, the late President Reagan withdrew from UNESCO and stated., �It has exhibited a hostility toward institutions of free society, especially a free market and a free press.� In 2003, President Bush brought the U.S. back into UNESCO, promising they had reformed for the better. Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, who opposed the decision, said, �UNESCO meddles in the education affairs of its member-countries and has sought to construct a UN-based school curriculum for American schools.� Much of our education system is already UNESCO-orientated and in fact an almost worldwide curriculum has been archived. UNESCO seeks to be the school board of the world and is indoctrinating children for world government. Its first director, Julian Huxley, said of UNESCO, �The task is to help the emergence of a single world culture with its own philosophy and background of ideas and with its own broad purpose.� In order to truly achieve this goal, they will have to destroy any feelings of nationalism and loyalty to one’s country, and undermine any traditional family values, biblical principles, and other influences at home and in the confides of the family structure. To further acclimate itself, the UN has entered into partnership with Marvel Comics, where superheroes will be depicted working side by side with the world body. Millions of American school children will receive these comics for free.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is based on the same principles of the UN charter that rights and freedoms are granted by governments and institutions, and are conditional. In an article from 15 years ago, Phyllis Schlafly states that the convention, �is based on the concept that a child’s rights originate with the UN Treaty itself or with the government. The logical conclusion is that a child would have no rights except those in the Treaty, and what government gives, government also can take away.� The whole UN framework and philosophy runs contrary to the Bill of Rights and to the Constitution. The UNCRC fails to cement a parent’s right to make decisions for their own children. It is an assault on parental authority, and is a blank check for governmental interference in family affairs. It states that the government shall uphold and ensure children’s rights to freedom of thought, religion, conscience, privacy, and rest and leisure. In Article 13 it says that, �The child shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or though any other media of the child’s choice.� This clearly undermines parental authority and seemingly grants children radical new rights. It is meant to further promote a child’s autonomy and freedom from parental guidance. This was never about protecting the children, and has given the UN more power over our lives. It is being selectively enforced in countries where the convention has been signed and ratified.

In Belgian, homeschool parents must sign a document stating that they promise to rear their children in accordance with the UNCRC. Government inspectors decide whether or not families are complying to UN training. Those not following the criteria have their children sent to government schools. It appears as if homeschooling has become a UN-sponsored activity. In Germany, the state views homeschooling as a violation of a child’s well being. The UNCRC gives the government the power to define and determine what is in a child’s best interests. If it does not pertain to abuse or neglect, it has no business otherwise. The UNCRC transfers parental rights and responsibilities to the state and grants children dangerous freedoms. It was signed by the Clinton administration in 1995, but has yet to be ratified. It lies dormant, but when the time is right, it could be dusted off much like the Law of the Sea Treaty was.

Parents need to understand that the moment they send their children to public schools, they are surrendering a certain amount of authority and influence over their children. Values and principles installed by parents are being manipulated and pushed aside. The ideology of globalism and world government is at the very core of the educational system. Many are choosing to homeschool, but they are being demonized and are under attack. In places like Germany, homeschool parents are being fined, jailed, and in some cases are having their children taken away. There is a battle going on for the hearts and minds of our children. The social architects know that if they can shape and mold our children’s minds, they will undoubtedly control the future.

UN representative expresses “grave concern” over CIA torture, Guantánamo hearings

By Naomi Spencer

Following a visit earlier this month to the US military prison at Guantánamo Bay, a United Nations human rights representative reported ongoing abuse, drumhead judicial proceedings, and other violations of international law. The report by the UN official, charging the US government with widespread criminality, has been almost entirely ignored by the US media.

In a report to the UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva December 13, Special Rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism Martin Scheinin said he believed the CIA continues to engage in so-called “extraordinary rendition,” secret detentions and torture. Scheinin suggested that hundreds of detainees held at Guantánamo were not being prosecuted to keep revelations of abuse from emerging. During his visit, he was not allowed to have unmonitored interaction with detainees.

Of the 305 Guantánamo detainees, about 80 have already been put through combatant status review tribunals (CSRT) and declared not to be “enemy combatants,” although they have not been released. The military has announced that it plans to hold these hearings for another 80 detainees, after which they could ostensibly be convicted by military trial. But for 150 so-called “high value” prisoners, Scheinin said, “There is not enough evidence that could be presented, even to a military commission chaired by a military judge. Partly there may not be evidence and partly the risk of issues of torture being raised is too high.”

“Bringing them to court would bring to the court’s attention the method through which the evidence, including the confessions, were obtained,” Scheinin told the press following his report.

In addition to the recent revelations that the CIA had destroyed interrogation tapes, he said the indefinite detention without trial “is one further affirmation of the conclusion that the CIA or others have been involved in methods of interrogation that are incompatible with international law.” The CIA, Scheinin stated, “has been involved and continues to be involved in the use of interrogation techniques that violate the absolute prohibition against torture.”

The destruction of the CIA interrogation tapes showing the torture of at least two prisoners underscores the basic fact that egregious human rights violations by the US are not isolated events. On the contrary, torture and illegal detentions have been the standard operating procedure for the CIA, with the cooperation of military brass and the support of the entire political establishment.

Scheinin said that in a meeting with representatives of the CIA during his visit to the United States, “the CIA refused to engage in any meaningful interaction aimed at clarifying the means of compliance with international standards of methods of interrogation and accountability in respect of possible abuses.” He also said the CIA refused to meet with him a second time. This stonewalling is yet further evidence of the lawlessness of the US government.

Significantly, Scheinin noted that behavior by CIA officials “supports the suspicion that the CIA has been involved and continues to be involved in the extraordinary rendition of terrorism suspects and possibly other persons.”

Moreover, the report concluded, “It is unlikely that the CIA would be able to run a global programme of rendition and detention of terrorist suspects without at least logistical support by the United States military authorities.”

Although the Bush administration declared that it held no other “high value” detainees in secret detention after transferring 14 to Guantánamo Bay from around the world in 2006, it reserved the possibility of resuming the practice whenever it wished, and has rendered at least one other detainee since then. Other suspected detainees remain missing.

It should not be forgotten that, in addition to those detainees being held at Guantánamo, the US continues to hold some 700 detainees in Afghanistan and approximately 18,000 detainees in Iraq. Many of these are classified by the US as “unlawful enemy combatants” in order to deny them fundamental legal rights.

While at the Guantánamo Bay prison, Scheinin observed the pre-trial military proceedings against Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the alleged former driver of Osama bin Laden. Hamdan, captured in Afghanistan in 2001, has been held at Guantánamo since 2002.

The drumhead character Hamdan’s CSRT was evident. “The hearings provided graphic illustrations of the practical difficulties in providing fair trials at a distant military base, and confirmed the difficulties or even impossibility of the defense to provide evidence,” Scheinin told the press. “Neither witnesses from abroad or high-value detainees from the Guantánamo detention facility next door could be heard, at least on this particular occasion.”

The written report is more specific: “These are administrative processes rather than judicial ones. Detainees are not provided with a lawyer during the course of hearings.” Even if all charges are dropped, “the most that a reviewing court may do is to order reconsideration of a decision, not release.” This violates international prohibitions on arbitrary detention, habeas corpus rights, the right to a timely trial, and other fundamental legal protections.

As could be expected, US media coverage of the report and the Hamdan CSRT has been nonexistent. Neither the New York Times, Washington Post, nor Los Angeles Times published an article on the topic, with the main coverage in the US coming from brief wire reports from the AP and Reuters.

Also typical, the response of the US government to the report has consisted largely of the attempt to dismiss and discredit it. Melanie Khanna, a US legal adviser, was quoted in both the AP and Reuters articles at some length. Khanna said that sections of Scheinin’s report dealing with legal violations by the US “simply catalogue well-known criticisms and fail even to acknowledge that there are multiple ways of approaching the difficult issues discussed…”

“We hope that in future the work of the Special Rapporteur proceeds differently,” Khanna said, claiming Scheinin’s description of the combatant status reviews was “in part misleading about the facts of the process, and revisits well-worn, ill-informed criticisms of military commissions hearings. The unfortunate fact is that a large part of the report again repeats unfair and oversimplified criticisms of the United States.”

However, the “well-worn” arguments against the military tribunals have also been made by the US Supreme Court—specifically in regard to the case of Hamdan—before this decision was scuttled by Congress in the 2006 Military Commissions Act. In that case, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the court ruled that President Bush did not have the authority to establish military commissions, and found them to be illegal under military law and the Geneva Conventions.

When Hamdan was subject to another military commission in June 2007, charges of conspiracy and supporting terrorism were thrown out by the military judge, who ruled that the commission lacked jurisdiction because Hamdan had not been officially classified as an “unlawful enemy combatant.”

The government appealed this decision, asking a military court to declare Hamdan an “unlawful enemy combatant” so he can be tried once again. A ruling has not been issued as of this writing. During the hearing, the defense was denied the request to call three “high value” detainees held at Guantánamo for testimony on the spurious grounds that the request was not timely because of the clearance required to access such prisoners. The detainees, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Ramzi Bin al-Shib and Abu Faraj al-Libi, have all been subjected to CIA interrogations and torture.

SLOBODAN LEKIC

With the world facing new security threats, the U.N. is planning for an unprecedented expansion of its police missions. U.N. officials say a shift in the nature of conflicts requires revamped peacekeeping operations.

Traditionally, the U.N. has facilitated peace between warring states by sending its blue-helmeted soldiers to man buffer zones between their armies. But today, interventions are increasingly focused on settling civil wars.

“In recent years the character of conflicts has changed dramatically from mainly state-to-state wars (to) intrastate conflicts which pit various factions within the boundaries of a single state,” U.N. Police Chief Andrew Hughes said.

As a result, there is a greater need than ever for conventional police duties in post-conflict situations.

Nowhere is this highlighted more clearly than in Darfur.

The U.N. is recruiting nearly 7,000 police officers to assist some 20,000 U.N. peacekeeper-soldiers in trying to end the four-year conflict in western Sudan.

Police involvement in peacekeeping dates from the inaugural 1948 mission, when first Secretary-General Trygve Lie urgently dispatched several dozen U.N. security guards from New York to Jerusalem when Jewish extremists assassinated the U.N. peace envoy Folke Bernadotte.

In later interventions, however, the U.N. has come to rely mostly on soldiers to monitor cease-fires or interpose themselves between warring sides, as happened in the Sinai after the 1956 Egypt-Israel war, or later in disputed Kashmir, Cyprus and Lebanon.

The Balkan wars of the 1990s put renewed focus on peacekeeping by police units.

“In such conflicts, once peace is restored the U.N. then has a key role in re-establishing rule of law, which includes police, courts, prisons and the whole justice sector, and to ensure that they rebuild or build up from scratch their police services,” Hughes said.

But Hughes emphasized that police and military missions have critical differences.

Soldiers have different rules of engagement that provide for the use of lethal force and are therefore not suited for such duties such as apprehending criminals, escorting children to schools or calming rioting mobs.

“For us the use of force is absolutely the last option,” Hughes said. “Our police are trained much more extensively to defuse the situation, and negotiations are by far and away the biggest tool we have.”

A new Police Division was set up in October 2000 as part of the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations with a staff of several dozen experienced police officers from contributing countries.

Currently, there are about 70,000 U.N. peacekeeping troops deployed worldwide, with an additional 9,500 police officers, mostly in Africa — such as Liberia, Ivory Coast, Congo, Burundi and Western Sahara — as well as in Haiti, Kosovo and East Timor.

With U.N. missions in Chad and Darfur coming on line in 2008, the ranks of U.N. police are to swell to nearly 17,000 officers from more than 100 countries.

“Our duties included everything a policeman can possibly do, from breaking up domestic disturbances to chasing and arresting armed criminals,” said Irhad Campara, a Bosnian policeman who served in the U.N. mission in East Timor.

“In addition, we recruited, vetted and trained from scratch East Timor’s new national police force.”

Whereas military units are dispatched by governments, police officers are recruited on individual contracts from contributing nations. They continue to collect their home pay but receive an extra daily allowance of $150 and accommodation from the U.N.

Not all operations have gone smoothly, however, and the U.N. police force has suffered several high-profile reverses over the past several years.

In 2004, U.N. police officers failed to stem the violence in Kosovo when thousands of ethnic Albanians rioted in a backlash against the Serb minority, killing 19 people, displacing thousands, and destroying hundreds of Serb homes, churches and monasteries.

And in East Timor, the U.N.-trained police force collapsed last year following an army mutiny, necessitating another mission to rebuild it anew.

To hopefully prevent such calamities, the U.N. is preparing two initiatives to facilitate rapid police deployment to crisis areas and to enable them to function more effectively from the outset.

The first is the introduction of Formed Police Units — 160-strong contingents of officers from a single country — skilled in dealing with a wide spectrum of problems, from riot control to arresting armed criminals.

The initial unit, an all-female company of Indian officers, has recently arrived in Liberia to join the U.N. force there.

The second initiative is to create a standing police detachment of about two dozen officers who can be deployed together with U.N. military units to a trouble spot, thus allowing the police to be present from the start of a U.N. mission.

Previously, the slow and complicated process of recruiting volunteers from participating countries meant police recruits lagged an average of nine months behind the soldiers.

But critics say these measures are insufficient.

William Durch from the Henry L. Stimson Center, a think tank in Washington, proposed creating a ready reserve of about 11,000 police volunteers worldwide who would be paid retainer fees while on standby and who could be quickly mobilized for future U.N. missions.

“The system by which the U.N. recruits its people must be completely revamped to be able to provide security personnel in the critical initial phases of a mission,” said Durch, an expert on peacekeeping operations.

New secretary general is challenged over ’secret appointment’ to replace top tribunal prosecutor

Ed Vulliamy in The Hague
Sunday September 23, 2007
The Observer

The new leadership of the United Nations is facing a defiant challenge from within one of its few recent successes - the war crimes tribunal in The Hague - over who will steer the epic trials towards their close.Prosecution lawyers at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) - trying Europe’s bloodiest war criminals since the Nazis - fear a backstage deal has been struck between new UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon over an appointment of a successor to chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, who leaves in December. Senior Hague lawyers say they are ready to quit over the issue.

Accounts by tribunal and UN sources of how a former Belgian attorney-general petitioned for the job and has reportedly been guaranteed it affords a rare insight into the veiled sanctums of the UN.

Sources at the ICTY, at UN headquarters in New York and across the world of international law and human rights advocacy, say Del Ponte’s succession has been pledged in secret to Serge Brammertz, a Belgian criminologist who became deputy prosecutor at the new International Criminal Court and heads the UN commission into the murder of Lebanese premier Rafiq al-Hariri in 2005, which he wants to leave.

The entire senior prosecution staff at the tribunal have taken the unprecedented step of sending a joint letter to Ki-Moon, contesting a Brammertz appointment by proposing Del Ponte’s current deputy David Tolbert, who has worked for nine years at the tribunal, for the job.

‘The matter is not one of personalities nor Brammertz’s standing’, says one lawyer. ‘It’s the difference between someone who knows the history, understands every case and can deliver a completion strategy, or someone brought in by the Secretary General just to shut the tribunal down, with no experience of the cases, background or region.’

Ki-Moon’s office will not comment, citing confidentiality of the appointments procedure. But the lawyers’ view is backed unanimously by organisations with an interest in the tribunal’s work, including the George Soros Foundation, Human Rights Watch and campaigners within former Yugoslavia itself, all of whom have also petitioned Ki-Moon.

‘Just because people haven’t heard of the names remaining to stand trial doesn’t mean that they are not the most important cases,’ says Kelly Askin, senior legal officer at the Soros Foundation. ‘It’s crucial that there be continuity - and the fact is we have someone available who knows the institution and the people, and has followed every case and every detail for nine years. Several senior staff have told me they will leave the tribunal if David Tolbert is not appointed.’

The ICTY has had a bumpy journey since it was established under pressure from then President Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, in 1994. It was seen at the time as an act of contrition after the UN’s catastrophic failure to intervene as hundreds of thousands died in three years of savage ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Bosnia, culminating with the massacre of 8,000 men and boys at the UN-protected ‘Safe Area’ of Srebrenica in July 1995.

The tribunal lost its biggest catch with the death in prison of former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, and is haunted by the failure to catch the two Bosnian Serb leaders accused of unleashing the genocide in Bosnia - General Ratko Mladic and former President Radovan Karadzic. Their capture would extend the tribunal’s mandate beyond 2010, and make for a climactic end-game; Del Ponte made what could be her final trip to Belgrade this week as a last-ditch attempt to secure, under her watch, the two leaders.

But for all the publicity over Karadzic and Mladic, the tribunal - the first of its kind since the Nuremberg trials - has seen remarkable successes. Even apart from the convictions secured, accounts of the slaughter have been told for the historical record in intimate language from the witness boxes. There have been dramatic moments as killers and leaders have been confronted by victims.

The tribunal won a guilty plea from Karadzic’s co-President Biljana Plavsic, for her role in the overall planning of war crimes. New laws of war have been written: the Serb siege of Sarajevo was deemed a war crime, as was the use of systematic mass rape as a means of persecution at Foca, in Eastern Bosnia.

But crucial trials are outstanding or still in process - the leadership of the Bosnian Croat war machine, which laid murderous siege to East Mostar and set up a gulag for Muslims, is currently standing trial; notorious paramilitary warlord Milan Lukic awaits trial, accused of locking scores of families in houses and burning them alive in Visegrad. Above all, Momcilo Peresic - Milosevic’s most senior general - is also due for trial. It is a critical case, because a conviction would establish Serbia’s direct involvement in the genocide, in stark counterpoint to a ruling by the International Court of Justice, which rejected a case by the Bosnian government against Serbia for its involvement in genocide.

The team that convicted Krstic, Krajsnik and those preparing the cases against Lukic and Peresic all are signatories to the letter to Ki-Moon.

An ICTY statement last week said del Ponte’s mandate had been extended until 31 December. ‘The successor to the current prosecutor has not yet been appointed yet,’ it said.

Mark Ellis, of the London-based International Bar Association, said: ‘It struck me as very odd that the UN would make a decision which would in essence put a newcomer in charge.’

The United Nations is investigating allegations of widespread sexual abuse by hundreds of its peacekeepers serving in the Ivory Coast.

A Moroccan battalion of 800 troops in Bouake, in the north of the country, were confined to their barracks on Friday and all of the contingent’s activities suspended.

The UN said an internal investigation “revealed serious allegations of widespread sexual exploitation and abuse” by the unit which is serving in Bouake.

The soldiers are alleged to have had sex with a large number of underage girls.

Announcing the battalion’s suspension, Hamadoun Toure, a spokesman for the UN mission in Ivory Coast, said: “It means they don’t participate in our operations.”

“Those who are found guilty will be sent back home,” he said.

The Ivory Coast mission numbers just over 9,000 uniformed personnel from more than 40 countries. Moroccans make up the bulk of the force in Bouake, with some Bangladesh police, Pakistani engineers and Ghanaian medical personnel.

The peacekeepers, backed by troops from France, the country’s former colonial ruler, are in Ivory Coast to support a peace agreement between Laurent Gbagbo, the Ivorian president, and Guillaume Soro, a resistance leader.

Sexual violations

In recent years, the UN has been struck by a string of allegations of sexual violations by its forces around the world.

UN officials have said that more than 300 members of UN peacekeeping missions around the world have been investigated for sexual exploitation and abuse over the past three years, including in Cambodia and Haiti.

The body’s operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo have also seen a number of allegations recently, despite a “zero-tolerance” policy.

A 2005 UN report said soldiers should be punished for any sexual abuse, their pay docked and a fund set up to assist any women and girls they impregnated. But member nations have not agreed to this.

Agencies

The UN Security Council has voted to end a programme charged with looking for suspected weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, after no such weapons were found.

Fourteen members of the bloc voted to close the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (Unmovic), with Russia abstaining, Johan Verbeke, council chairman, said.

“It’s a positive moment because it means the international community has now the necessary confidence to go ahead with Iraq on a new path in confidence as regards to its obligations in the field of non-proliferation,” Verbeke said.

The US-British resolution to close Unmovic terminates the mandate of the weapons monitor “immediately”.

The commission was set up in 1999 to verify that Iraq no longer possessed weapons of mass destruction and had complied with obligations not to acquire proscribed armaments.

Inspectors from Unmovic left Iraq in March 2003, just before the US-led invasion started, and have never returned.

Iraq Survey Group

The Iraq Survey Group (ISG), a US-led coalition organisation, was tasked with continuing the hunt for WMDs in Iraq, but none were found.

The failure to discover suspicious weapons in Iraq undermined the main US and British argument for invading Iraq.

The closure of Unmovic comes after two years of US calls for an end to all related UN inspection work there.

Demetrius Perricos, the acting executive chairman of the group, told the council that the resolution “closes a cycle of many years of verification, where the UN showed that it can implement successfully the activities demanded by the international community, despite difficulties and frequently a lack of co-operation from the inspected party.”

Shortly before the Unmovic vote, Perricos warned that fighters in Iraq may try to acquire poisonous agents for use in weapons.

“In the present security environment of Iraq, the possibility should not be discounted that non-state actors may seek to acquire toxic agents or their chemical precursors in small quantities,” he said.

Perricos cited the example of the recent reported use of toxic industrial chemicals, such as chlorine, by fighters in Iraq.

“The possibility of non-state actors [insurgents] getting their hands on other, more toxic, agents is real,” he said.

Agencies

Evelyn Leopold

The United States apparently violated international law in its military tribunals by using coercion to extract confessions and writing counter-terrorism laws that restrict immigration on questionable grounds, a U.N. investigator said on Friday.

But Martin Scheinin of Finland, a U.N. rapporteur on rights in countering terrorism, said his findings for the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council did not mean the “the United States has become an enemy of human rights.”

“It is a country which still has a great deal to be proud of,” especially in exercising freedom of the press, Scheinin said in a 12-page preliminary report on a 10-day visit to the United States. His full report will be presented to the Council later in the year.

But U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad rejected the allegations, saying, “We have a different point of view.”

“We are doing this under U.S. laws and procedures and legitimate decision-making authorities that exist in the United States,” he said. “We are a rule of law country and our decisions are based on the rule of law.”

Scheinin spoke to officials from departments of Homeland Security, Defense and Justice, members of Congress, academics and nongovernmental groups. But he did not go to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, because he was not allowed to interview prisoners in privacy.

Still, he said reports that information was obtained from terror suspects using “enhanced interrogation techniques” amounted to a form of torture or inhumane treatment that is illegal under international law, particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights treaty the United States signed.

His report said the prisoners detained by the military at Guantanamo had been categorized by the United States as alien “unlawful enemy combatants,” which Scheinin called a “description of convenience” since there is no such category under international law.

They are either combatants to be released at the end of a conflict as prisoners of war, or people who have to be charged with war crimes and prosecuted accordingly, usually in civilian courts, he said.

In Guantanamo, he said, even an acquittal by a military commission “does not result in a right of release.”

“This further undermines the principles of fair trial and would, if immediate release was not provided in an individual case, involve an arbitrary detention in contravention” of the treaty, he said.

Scheinin also criticized several U.S. laws, including the 2001 Patriot Act, enacted by Congress after the September 11 attacks on the United States, for expanding the definition of terrorist acts “beyond the bounds of conduct which is truly terrorist,” and tightening immigration restrictions based on the expanded definitions.

Scheinin said his visit supported suspicions that the CIA has flown terrorism suspects from Afghanistan or Iraq to countries where they could face abuse and torture under “extraordinary rendition.”

The Associated Press

A U.N. expert on Friday criticized U.S. counterterrorism laws, expressed concern over the use of military commissions to try civilians, and said there was evidence the CIA had violated international human rights law.

But Martin Scheinin, the U.N.’s investigator on human rights in the fight against terrorism, dismissed “the perception that the United States has become an enemy of human rights.”

A spokesperson at the U.S. mission in Geneva, who would only speak on condition of anonymity, expressed disappointment at the report and said Scheinin had reiterated unfair and oversimplified criticisms of the United States.

The spokesperson said the 6,000-word preliminary report had missed the opportunity to deepen discussion among democratic nations of how best to deal with the threat posed by armed terrorist groups, and expressed hope that a final report would be more balanced.

Scheinin, an independent legal expert from Finland appointed by the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council, has previously criticized the U.S. for terrorist profiling based on national or ethnic origin, or religion as “unfounded stereotyping.”

In his latest report, which was written after meetings with U.S. diplomats and justice and security officials, he said it was “regretful that a number of important mechanisms for the protection of rights have been removed or obfuscated under law and practice since the events of September 11.”

Scheinin singled out the USA PATRIOT Act, the Detainee Treatment Act, the Military Commissions Act, as well as presidential Executive Orders and classified programs for criticism.

“Various aspects relating to the jurisdiction and operation of military commissions raise significant human rights concerns, including the jurisdiction and composition of military commissions, the potential use of evidence obtained by coercion, and the potential for the imposition of the death penalty,” he said.

But the U.S. spokesperson in Geneva said military commissions were structured in a way that provides for fair trials.

At U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad also said the United States took a very different view.

“We are doing this under U.S. laws and procedures and legitimate decision-making authorities that exist in the United States. We are a rule of law country and our decisions are based on rule of law,” Khalilzad said.

Scheinin expressed concern that obtaining information from terrorism suspects using “enhanced interrogation techniques” amounted to a form of torture, or inhuman or degrading treatment, which is illegal under international law.

He said evidence from multiple sources and a lack of cooperation from CIA officials he met led him to conclude that the intelligence agency had used and continued to use such practices, including exposing prisoners to stress positions, extreme temperature changes, sleep deprivation, and “waterboarding,” in which a detainee is made to believe he is drowning.

U.S. government officials say the questioning has provided critical intelligence information about terrorist activities that has prevented attacks, including with airplanes, within the United States.

Scheinin said his visit also supported the suspicion that the CIA has flown terrorism suspects to countries where they could face abuse and torture under a practice known as “extraordinary rendition.”

The U.S. official in Geneva denied this allegation.

Scheinin said he saw his visit as “one step in the process of restoring the role of the United States as a positive example for respecting human rights, including in the context of the fight against terrorism.”

“It is a country which still has a great deal to be proud of,” he said.

Scheinin will present a final report outlining his findings to the 47-nation Human Rights Council at a later date, possibly at its 6th session in September.

The Geneva-based body replaced the discredited U.N. Human Rights Commission last year, but has itself been accused by some countries — including the United States — of being biased and politicized in its work.

Copyright © 2007 the International Herald Tribune

AFP

Despite projections of a bumper grain crop this year, 33 countries will not have enough food, with Iraq and Zimbabwe among the hardest hit, the UN food agency said Tuesday.

Countries with “widespread lack of access to food” include Afghanistan, North Korea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Haiti, Liberia, Mauritania, Nepal, Niger and Sierra Leone, according to the April issue of the Food and Agriculture Organisations “Crop Prospects and Food Situation” report.

Hardest hit, with an “exceptional shortfall” in food production and supplies, are Iraq, Lesotho, the Philippines, Swaziland and Zimbabwe, the FAO said.

In eastern Africa, millions “still depend on food assistance … due to a combination of factors including conflict and adverse weather conditions,” it said.

In southern Africa, preliminary forecasts suggest a below-average maize yield similar to that of 2006, the statement said, although prospects vary from country to country.

Prospects are good overall in Latin America and the Caribbean, except for in Bolivia, where severe weather, ranging from torrential rains to drought, has caused extensive losses to agriculture, livestock and other assets.

World cereal production is forecast to increase by 4.3 percent to a record two billion tonnes, the Rome-based agency said.

“The bulk of the increase is expected in maize, (and) a significant rise in wheat output is also foreseen, with a recovery in some major exporting countries after weather problems last year,” it said.

About half of the increase — some 41 million tonnes — will come from the production of “coarse grains,” mainly maize, in North and South America to meet surging demand for ethanol fuel, the FAO study found.