Defense Secretary refuses human rights observation of detainees trials

February 24, 2004 Off By leigh

In keeping with the new role of the U.S. to be just as corrupt and dictatorial as any country it has in the past criticised, the Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld has refused human rights monitors of it’s military trials of Guantanamo Bay detainees. It speciously argues there won’t be enough room for them! This is a fine example of Kafkaesque bureaucratic thinking at play, completely missing the U.S. obligation as a signatory to the Geneva conventions and the U.N. Human Rights charter to allow scrutiny of justice.

In keeping with the new role of the U.S. to be just as corrupt and dictatorial as any country it has in the past criticised, the Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld has refused human rights monitors of it’s military trials of Guantanamo Bay detainees. It speciously argues there won’t be enough room for them! This is a fine example of Kafkaesque bureaucratic thinking at play, completely missing the U.S. obligation as a signatory to the Geneva conventions and the U.N. Human Rights charter to allow scrutiny of justice.

Denial of human rights observers was rightly criticised by the U.S. in trials of dissidents in China and Cuba, but now the Bush Administration is exposing it’s continuing hypocrisy by adopting the same callous disregard of human rights.