US hypocrisy over Geneva Conventions

by pv vivekanand


IT IS IRONIC THAT the US is insisting that Iraqi respect the Geneva Convention on prisoners of war in relevance to the American soldiers who were captured by the Iraqi army while it is oblivious to the decades-old demand that Israel apply the same in the case of the Palestinians.
Israel has steadfastly refused to apply any of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, whether related to prisoners of war or civilians under occupation.
Under the principles of the Geneva Convention, the Palestinians are entitled to adopt any means available to them to resist the Israeli occupation of their land as long as their actions do not go beyond the occupied territory.
Attacks against civilian targets of the occupying force does not apply here since the occupying force is not supposed to have such targets in the occupied territory in the first place.
The Arab countries have for long sought to force Israel into accepting that the Geneva Conventions as applicable to the Palestinian territory and its people under is occupation.
But Israel refuses to accept them by citing the paradox that it seized the territory from Jordan in the 1967 war and since Jordan was not entitled to the land -- its annexation of the West Bank in 1951 was not internationally recognised -- the issue concerns a stateless people. Its interpretation is that the Geneva Convention could be applied only between two states (the occupier and occupied) and that since the Palestinians do not have a state the convention has no relevance to the dispute.
Calls for forcing Israel into changing its rejectionist stand are a regular feature at every review conference of the Geneva Conventions, but the US has always supported the Israelis and warded off international pressure on the Jewish state.
The last such conference was to take place in 2000 but any discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian issue was scuttled because the United States warned all others to stay off.
In the US-Iraq context, the issue of Geneva Conventions came up after Iraqi Television as well as Qatar's Al Jazeera Television on Sunday broadcast images of several dead bodies, apparently US soldiers killed in Iraq, along with five prisoners, including two wounded, one of them a woman.
This was interpreted by the US as violation of Article 13 and 14 of the Geneva Convention.
The relevant paragraphs in Article 13 say: "Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated. Any unlawful act or omission by the Detaining Power causing death or seriously endangering the health of a prisoner of war in its custody is prohibited, and will be regarded as a serious breach of the present Convention."
"....Prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity. Measures of reprisal against prisoners of war are prohibited."
Article 14 says:
"Prisoners of war are entitled in all circumstances to respect for their persons and their honour. Women shall be treated with all the regard due to their sex and shall in all cases benefit by treatment as favourable as that granted to men. Prisoners of war shall retain the full civil capacity which they enjoyed at the time of their capture."
Article 129 of the convention says: "Each party to the convention has an
obligation to search for those suspected of having committed such
breaches and bring them to justice before its own courts or hand
them over for trial to another party."
US President George W. Bush warned on Sunday that he expected the Iraqis to treat the PoWs in a "humane" manner and those who do not would be tried as "war criminals."
Even before Bush spoke, Iraq said it would apply the Geneva Conventions in the case of PoWs.
For those who might argue that the US has no right to demand the applicability of the Geneva Conventions in the war with Iraq since the war itself was not authorised by the United Nations and thus has no legitimacy, the convention has the answer in Article Two which says:
"The present Convention shall apply to all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties, even if the state of war is not recognised by one of them."
Indeed, the "embedded" US televison crews travelling with the American-British invading force into Iraq have broadcast footage of Iraqi captives, including civilians as well as soldiers. Wouldn't that constitute a violation of the Geneva Conventions? Wouldn't it be splitting hairs to note that the American captives were forced to speak on camera while captive Iraqis were also shown speaking to American television crew?
One might argue that the US government has no control over the private-run television channels while the Iraqi government controls the state-run channel and thus could be held responsible for what the channel broadcasts. However, the counterpoint is that the American television cameras would not have been able to see the Iraqi civilian and military prisoners had it not been for Washington's permission to have them along as "embedded" in the invading force.