Winston won’t condemn Guantanamo Bay
The issue of human rights abuses at Guantanamo Bay is still very much a live one following the release of the UN Human Rights Commission Report into the detention centre highlighting widespread torture practices. Yesterday Keith asked Foreign Minister Winston Peters during Question Time whether New Zealand would step up to the plate and call for the closure of the detention centre following the release of the report.
It is interesting that the Foreign Affairs Minister is reticent about standing up to the United States on this issue, given his recent comments about their recognition of our role in the Pacific!
Here is some of the transcript from the House:
KEITH LOCKE (Green) to the Minister of Foreign Affairs: Will he be calling for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention centre following the recent United Nations Commission on Human Rights’ report, issued 15 February 2006, which highlights the systematic practice of torture and the indefinite detention without trial of detainees; if not, why not?
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Minister of Foreign Affairs): For many years now New Zealand has condemned human rights abuses where they have been proven to have occurred. The issue, therefore, is not the existence of the Guantanamo Bay detention centre, but rather the treatment of detainees there or elsewhere. The Government’s position is that all persons detained at Guantanamo Bay or elsewhere should be treated in accordance with international humanitarian law and human rights law.
Keith Locke: Why is the Government lacking such fortitude as to not call for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay facility, when the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, did so last week, and when the European Parliament voted 80 to 1 last week for closure, insisting to the US administration that: “Every prisoner should be treated in accordance with international humanitarian law, and tried without delay in a fair and public hearing by a competent, independent tribunal.”?
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I think I answered that question substantially in the primary answer, but I will say that we have taken several opportunities to publicly underline the fundamental importance of respecting all human rights and fundamental freedoms, including in the context of countering terrorism. I note also that the United States Government has provided an interim response to the Special Rapporteur on Mercenaries group on Guantanamo Bay, and we would encourage it to carry on the dialogue. It is a fact that for years we have railed against human rights abuses, particularly against events during the regime of Pol Pot.
Keith Locke: How can the Minister say that the question of closing Guantanamo Bay is separate from what goes on within it, when the Dominion Post stated on Monday: “It has been clear to most since the camp was set up that it was nothing more than an attempt to get around applying to others the protections against the power of the state that American citizens demand for themselves.”; and, when the Government does, as the Minister says, speak out human rights abuses, torture, and detention in Zimbabwe, Burma, and elsewhere, why will he not stand up to the United States as the world’s superpower when it sets such a bad example?
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: There is an interim report to the Special Rapporteur on Mercenaries group from the United States. There is a dialogue going on, which we encourage. But I want to say this very clearly. The day I set my guidelines based on the views of the Dominion Post, I will be giving up politics.
Oh for that day to come! But seriously, it’s shocking and very disappointing that the New Zealand Government - swift to condemn human rights abuses elsewhere in the world, are so reticent about doing so when it concerns the United States. What a double-standard.
February 24th, 2006 at 10:33 am
Well, we mustn’t upset the wonderful US of A, must we
February 24th, 2006 at 10:38 am
I notice that Keith now has a motion calling on Parliment to condemn Guantanamo. Which will at least force the weasels to put up or shut up, and either vote for human rights or for arbitrary detention and torture. I wonder which they’ll choose?
I’m urging people to lobby politicians on this, and I’ve created a pledgebank pledge for those who want to commit to doing so. You can sign up here.
February 24th, 2006 at 10:47 am
I notice Winston still manages to drag Pol Pot into his replies!
February 24th, 2006 at 11:05 am
Well, we can now refer to him as the MP who supported torture at Guantanamo in retaliation.
February 24th, 2006 at 11:24 am
Winston is only in error because Gitmo is unique. It is a military armed camp which only incidentally houses a prison, and the prison and prisoners at Gitmo are inaccessible to ANYONE without the permission of the military.
In other words, it is not like prisons elsewhere, unless they are the sole occupants of islands (like Alcatraz used to be) AND completely under control of the government via the military AND remote.
It is a damned inconvenient place to keep people too, one which begs the question, why pay the support costs for a prison there when it would be so much cheaper and more convenient to have the prison somewhere in Nebraska or (for that matter) Alcatraz? Why must it be so isolated?
The unique status and situation of Gitmo makes it needful that the prison facility there be closed if we wish to have any assurance that prisoners there will not be abused. Most other places on the planet do not have these characteristics.
Just my $0.02
respectfully
BJ
— Who spent several weeks at Gitmo one day
February 24th, 2006 at 11:11 pm
Guantanamo, with it’s illegal imprisonment of innocent people, torture, forced feeding, shaming, lack of trials, should be closed. For New Zealand’s own good, for Americans, and for people everywhere who believe in freedom, democracy and human rights, we should stand up to the Bush Administration, and officially protest it’s criminal policies.
It is not anti-American to bear witness to how the Bush Administration is violating the U.S. Constitution and International Law.
Larry Ross
February 25th, 2006 at 9:17 am
Absolutely Larry.
February 25th, 2006 at 10:33 am
And so say I!
February 27th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
There was a poem on the blog of Rebecca Borgstrom, a fiction writer and poet. Here’s a link. I’m republishing it here without her permission, and I do not know her political affiliations so I can’t say that she’d approve. On the other hand, it’s a really good poem.
http://rebecca.hitherby.com/archives/000124.php
If I Ran The Bay
“It’s a pretty good Bay,” says young Ellen the Grey,
“And the fellows who run it are righteous, I’d say.
But if I ran the Bay, the New Bay, the Grey Bay,
I’d see that it changed in a few little ways.
I’d open the cages. I’d let these folks out;
No underage kids with their scabies and pouts;
No octogenarians, no nonagenarians,
And none of the rest of the camp’s human carrion.
I’d like to keep him, but I’m egalitarian.
So all of you, jump! With a cry of ‘Geronimo!’
You’re free as a bird! You’re free from Guantanamo!
“Then,” says Ellen the Grey, “on the very next day,
When I’ve rinsed the place clean of the smell of decay,
I’d go hunting the mountains of Zomba-ma-tant,
And in no time at all find the one that I want,
The bloody, the awful, the Grand Hierophant.
He stands on one mountain, tall, crimson, and gaunt,
With his long stick-like arms and the hate that he flaunts,
And his long fingers plucking and mucking and shucking
The people who live there, whose lives are just sucking,
And I’d put him in chains and I’d lead him away
And I’d take him back home to Guantanamo Bay.
“But I wouldn’t stop there! No, that just wouldn’t do.
I’d travel to far Insk-An-Abalaroo
Where beef falls from the sky and so hunting is sieving,
And the airport’s offshore lest the plane be Thanksgiving,
And the haughty Grand Poobah makes folks scared of living
With the long speaking tubes that relay his misgivings
And his humbling mumbling that answers their grumbling
And extensible hands to send weak rebels tumbling
And I’d say to the Poobah ‘It’s time that you paid,’
And I’d take him back home to Guantanamo Bay.
“I could do what I want! I could steal Britney Spears!
And Leo, and Russell, and of course Richard Gere,
I’d keep them in cages, ‘neath the glare of mad sages,
With no kind of oversight save for my aegis,
But they’d just be sideshows. They’d just be the meat!
I shouldn’t waste time catching folks so discreet.
Guantanamo’s not for the genteel elite.
So it’s back to my job! It’s another work day:
Capturing horrors for Guantanamo Bay.
“I’d hunt down the Beast of Ma-Ah-Li-Ha-Kated—
There’s no better match for the objective stated!
The man can’t be sated, no matter how mated,
And he shakes’n'bakes wives once they’ve been conjugated.
He takes and he breaks and he shakes and he bakes
And he often partakes while the victim’s awake
But I’d open his eyes, in Guantanamo Bay,
And I’d cook him by inches for six solid days
I’d cook him by inches! For six solid days!
In an Easy-Bake Oven with a white chocolate glaze.
And once in a while I’d quietly pray
That my choices are right,” admits Ellen the Grey.
“When I’d caught the worst few, I’d again have some leisure,
So I’d travel to Duluth, the City of Measures,
And hunt down the monster engaged in his pleasures,
With the two golden spheres that he claims as his treasures,
His tongue’s like a whip and his claws are quite keen,
And he kills those who don’t think his spheres are worth beans.
Yes, the monster’s uncouth and he’s ruthless to boot
But I think that it’s sooth that he’s toothless in truth
So I’ll drug his vermouth, shanghai him from Duluth,
And I’d put him in chains and I’d lead him away
And I’d take him back home to Guantanamo Bay.”
February 27th, 2006 at 3:33 pm
See I read that quite another way. For a Foreign Minister to condem these abuses at Guantanimo or elsewherre *is* pretty strong language. Thing is, most diplomats don’t require megaphones to send or receive a message.
March 8th, 2006 at 3:19 pm
Close it, close it I say! Or I’ll, I’ll… be forced to wave my finger threateningly at you
Naughty America