[Marinir] [SP] Depkeh AS Garap "Petunjuk Interogasi" yang Baru

[Hong Gie]

http://www.suarapembaruan.com/News/2004/06/24/index.html

SUARA PEMBARUAN DAILY
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Last modified: 24/6/04
Depkeh AS Garap "Petunjuk Interogasi" yang Baru

WASHINGTON - Departemen Kehakiman Amerika Serikat saat ini sedang menyusun
advis legal tentang seberapa jauh para interogator AS bisa bertindak untuk
memperoleh informasi dari para tahanan. "Petunjuk interogasi" untuk mengorek
informasi dari para tawanan ini ditulis dalam situasi yang berbeda dengan
saat ditulisnya memo-memo sebelumnya, yang memberikan justifikasi bagi para
interogator untuk menyiksa para tawanan.

Memo-memo pertama, yang dituding jadi alasan penganiayaan para tawanan di
Afghanistan dan Irak, ditulis tidak lama setelah terjadinya Serangan 11
September. Sementara advis legal yang baru ini ditulis dilatarbelakangi
kasus pelecehan tawanan di Irak.

Dokumen itu digarap oleh Depkeh AS, setelah beredarnya dokumen Gedung Putih,
Selasa (22/6). Dalam dokumen itu terungkap bahwa Menteri Pertahanan AS
Donald Rumsfeld memang mengijinkan para sipir penjara untuk menelanjangi
para tawanan dan mengancam mereka memakai anjing. Memo yang ditulis pada
tahun 2002 tersebut dikeluarkan untuk menjustifikasi penggunaan cara-cara
kekerasan dan penyiksaan selama berlangsung perang terhadap terorisme.

Beredarnya dokumen Gedung Putih tampaknya menjadi pembuktian bahwa
pemerintah Bush memang mengijinkan dilakukannya penyiksaan terhadap para
tawanan baik di Afghanistan maupun Irak. Isu penyiksaan tawanan itu sendiri
merebak menyusul beredarnya foto-foto penyiksaan dan pelecehan seksual
tawanan Irak oleh serdadu AS di Penjara Abu Ghraib, Baghdad, Irak, beberapa
waktu lalu. Tudingan bahwa pemerintah Bush memberikan ijin penyiksaan
tawanan di Afghanistan dan Irak sebelumnya dibantah keras oleh Presiden AS
George W Bush. "Saya tidak pernah memerintahkan penyiksaan," kata Bush
beberapa jam sebelum dokumen itu beredar.

Para pengacara di Depkeh AS akan menghabiskan waktu selama beberapa pekan
untuk mengkaji dan merevisi sejumlah dokumen penting tahun 2002, khususnya
memo setebal 50 halaman yang ditujukan kepada Gedung Putih pada 1 Agustus
2002. "Alasan yang dipakai dalam memo yang asli sangat merusak, serta
konsisten dengan pola yang diterapkan dari Afghanistan ke Teluk Guantanamo
dan ke Irak," ujar Jonathan Turley, profesor hukum konstitusional dari
Universitas George Washington, Rabu (23/6).

Satu hari setelah dibeberkannya memo legal tentang perang melawan teror,
sejumlah pejabat pemerintahan Bush bersikeras bahwa, meskipun Presiden AS
George W Bush telah menandatangani deklarasi pada tahun 2002 yang mengatakan
ia punya otoritas untuk mengabaikan peraturan internasional dalam penanganan
para tawanan, namun Bush tidak pernah memberi perintah untuk dilakukannya
penganiayaan dan pelecehan terhadap para tawanan. (AP/E-9)

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3833073.stm

Last Updated: Wednesday, 23 June, 2004, 13:43 GMT 14:43 UK
Papers show US torture debate
By Paul Reynolds
BBC News Online World Affairs correspondent

The release of secret documents about Guantanamo Bay is designed to clear
President George W Bush and his administration of condoning torture.
But the papers also reveal a fierce debate within the US government about
how far interrogation techniques can go.
Interrogation at Guantanamo Bay is the subject of intense controversy
The principles were laid down by President Bush on 7 February 2002, after
the Taleban had been removed from power in Afghanistan.
He declared that Taleban and al-Qaeda prisoners did not qualify as prisoners
of war under Article 4 of the Third Geneva Convention (partly because they
were not regarded as part of recognised forces).

'New thinking'
The new type of war, he said, required "new thinking" but this thinking
"should nevertheless be consistent with the principles of Geneva".
"The United States Armed Forces shall continue to treat detainees humanely,"
his memo states.
Under this presidential umbrella, attention then turned to defining exactly
what was permissible as American interrogators sought to get information
from the suspects.

  The United States Armed Forces shall continue to treat detainees humanely
President Bush
Since the war on terror is not a war of manoeuvre but a war of intelligence,
interrogation assumes a key role.
One US general said in late 2002: "Some detainees have tenaciously resisted
our current interrogation techniques."

August 2002: Astonishing definition
The most astonishing contribution was one from the US justice department in
August 2002. It sought to establish a definition of torture which would have
permitted very severe techniques indeed, amounting, in the traditional view,
to torture itself.
The international Torture Convention of 1985 describes torture as "severe
pain or suffering, whether mental or physical."
Sir Adam Roberts, Professor of International Relations at Oxford University
said: "The definition of torture in the Convention is clear."
However, the August memo (written by the head of the Justice Department's
Office of Legal Counsel Jay S. Bybee, who has since become a federal judge)
says that torture means "physical pain that is difficult to endure. Physical
pain amounting to torture must be equivalent to the pain accompanying
serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily
function or even death".
It is important to state that this memo was never accepted by the
administration, has now been publicly disavowed and is to be rewritten.
But there were other ideas and these are shown in the various documents.

November 2002: Inducing fear
On November 27, 2002, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved a
document from the Pentagon's senior lawyer detailing three categories of
questioning.

Category One included yelling at a prisoner and the use of deception
techniques against him.
Category Two ranged from the use of stress positions, standing for up to
four hours, isolation, light and noise deprivation, 28-hour interrogations,
nakedness, enforced shaving and the use of dogs to induce fear.   I stand
for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?

Donald Rumsfeld
The only technique approved in Category Three was "use of mild,
non-injurious physical contact such as grabbing, poking in the chest with
the finger and light pushing".
Harsher methods in Category Three, including threats of death, exposure to
cold weather or water and use of a wet towel to induce a sense of
suffocation, were rejected.
In a typically acerbic comment, Mr Rumsfeld added in his own writing: "I
stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?"
However, even this document was regarded as too severe after objections from
others lawyers and was not fully implemented, according to American
officials.

April 2003: Milder methods
Which leaves us with the latest of the released documents, one dated 16
April 2003.
It is from Donald Rumsfeld and it gives his approval to a new list of
questioning methods. These are milder than the previous ones but they still
include the following:


Significantly increasing the fear in a detainee.
Attacking or insulting the ego of a detainee.
The "Mutt and Jeff" approach - nice guy and nasty guy.
Changing the diet of a detainee.
Changing his sleep pattern.
Isolation.

Presumably these techniques are currently being employed in Guantanamo.
The senior White House lawyer Alberto R. Gonzales said that approved
techniques did not amount to torture.
The documents do not relate to Abu Ghraib in Iraq or other prisons though
some of what is described has echoes there.
The Northern Ireland parallel
Sir Adam Roberts compared the current controversy to one in the early 1970s
in Northern Ireland when the British army questioned IRA suspects with
"sensory deprivation techniques," including deprivation of sleep, hooding
and subjection to noise.

  The blame for this sorry, sorry story, if blame there be, must lie with
those who, many years ago, decided that we should abandon our legal, well
tried and highly successful wartime interrogation methods

Lord Gardiner in 1972
"There was an official inquiry under Lord Parker which took a very passive
view except for Lord Gerald Gardiner who issued a very critical minority
report. His view was the one accepted by the British government."

This is what Lord Gardiner said in his minority report:
"The blame for this sorry, sorry story, if blame there be, must lie with
those who, many years ago, decided that in emergency conditions in
Colonial-type situations we should abandon our legal, well tried and highly
successful wartime interrogation methods and replace them by procedures
which were secret, illegal, not morally justifiable and alien to the
traditions of what I believe still be to be the greatest democracy in the
world."

The issue, therefore, of how far an interrogation can go in a war which
requires intelligence is not new.