Red Cross Faults Bush on Detainees

By NAOMI KOPPEL
Associated Press Writer

February 8, 2002, 11:16 AM EST

GENEVA -- The international Red Cross said Friday that President Bush's promise that Taliban fighters in U.S. detention will be covered by the Geneva Conventions still falls short of the requirements of international law.

Red Cross officials said Taliban and al-Qaida fighters must be considered prisoners of war -- something the Bush administration said it would not do. The White House also said that while members of the former ruling Afghan militia would be covered by the Geneva Convention, fighters for Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida would not.

"The ICRC stands by its position that people in a situation of international conflict are considered to be prisoners of war unless a competent tribunal decides otherwise," said Kim Gordon-Bates, spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The comment by the ICRC -- the official guardians of the Geneva Conventions -- came as Britain and Germany welcomed the U.S. announcement.

The office of U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson said it was waiting for an expert opinion on Bush statement, but UNHCR spokesman Jose Luis Diaz said, "It looks like a step forward on the issue of the treatment of the prisoners."

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Gordon-Bates said ICRC lawyers are studying Bush's declaration in detail before they make any further comment.

The neutral, Swiss-run ICRC is mandated by the 1949 Geneva Conventions on warfare to oversee protection of POWs and other victims of war. The ICRC, however, lacks enforcement powers.

The Geneva Conventions, four treaties drawn up to avoid recurrences of World War II atrocities, were intended to regulate wars between nations and rebellions or insurgencies within a nation.

Gordon-Bates said a "competent tribunal" -- one that understands the workings of the Geneva Conventions -- should determine whether a detainee was considered a prisoner of war. He said it was too early to say whether Bush's proposed "administrative tribunals" would be satisfactory.

The International Commission of Jurists backed the ICRC. Bush's decision "is incorrect in law," it said.

The Geneva-based organization, made up of 45 legal experts from different countries, works to uphold the rule of law and freedom of courts around the world.

"The convention requires the conferral of prisoner of war status unless a competent tribunal decides otherwise," the jurists commission said. "Only a U.S. court and not the administration has the legal authority to make such a determination."

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