Center for International Policy

January 30, 2008

Red Cross seeks detainee safeguards
By Bradley S. Klapper, Associated Press
Published in the Miami Herald

GENEVA --The international Red Cross said Wednesday it has seen progress in issues related to the U.S. detention of terrorism suspects, but said more needed to be done to ensure the legal protection of detainees.

ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger recently completed two days of meetings with senior U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, national security advisor Stephen Hadley, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden and national intelligence director Mike McConnell.

''My meetings confirmed that the relationship between the ICRC and the U.S. has intensified and expanded in recent years,'' Kellenberger said. ``This has resulted in tangible progress on key issues, including detention-related matters.''

The talks focused on the International Committee of the Red Cross' visits to U.S.-held detainees and on the humanitarian situation in some of the neutral body's main areas of operations, including Afghanistan, Iraq, the Palestinian territories and Sudan's Darfur region.

Kellenberger said he reiterated the ICRC's view in the meetings that people captured or arrested in the war on terror must be held within an appropriate legal framework.

The ICRC, the guardian of the Geneva Conventions on the law of warfare, feels that ''more robust procedural safeguards are needed, especially in Guantánamo Bay,'' Kellenberger said.

The Geneva-based body began visiting Guantánamo in 2002 and is the only neutral agency with full access to the camp's detainees. It keeps its findings confidential, reporting them solely to the detaining power, and denies any role in the leaking to the news media of its reports.

In meetings with McConnell and Hayden, Kellenberger said he sought greater cooperation with the U.S. intelligence community, which has previously been concerned about terror detainees held in clandestine detention centers that was off-limits to the Red Cross.

President Bush acknowledged in September 2006 that the United States maintained a secret prison program abroad. While Bush said 14 ''high-value detainees'' had been transferred from the CIA centers to Guantánamo, he left open the possibility that the program could be used again.

Human rights groups have argued for years that the CIA's detention and interrogation techniques amount to torture.

''The CIA has been active in situations of armed conflict and, as confirmed by President Bush in 2006, it has been involved in holding detainees,'' Kellenberger said. ``This is a subject of particular relevance to the ICRC.''

The Red Cross visits about 500,000 detainees in 80 countries each year.

For the Statement from Geneva, click here.