US allies fail David Hicks
Even Afghanistan insisted its citizens be released from Guantánamo. Why is David Hicks, with dual British and Australian citizenship, still there after nearly five years? Why is anyone still there after the decision of the US Supreme Court that the proposed military tribunals are unlawful? Why is Australia still supporting the continued detention and attempts at prosecution when both have been so widely recognised and condemned as abuses of some of our most cherished human rights?
The UK too has brought shame upon itself by refusing to take action on behalf of David Hicks now that his British citizenship has been established. The Blair Government's laughable excuse is that Hicks has already received 'consular assistance' from Australia. Whatever assistance Hicks may have received from Australia, the Howard Government has effectively washed its hands of him and supported the US to the hilt, even when other allies pressed successfully for the release of their citizens. The UK has previously secured the release of nine British citizens from Guantánamo and ought now, at least for the sake of consistency, if not for the sake of human decency and honour, to get Hicks out of there pronto. Why the reticence? (Hicks has admitted to supporting England in the cricket.) It's hard to believe the UK could be concerned with offending Australia when it has been willing to stand up to its far more powerful ally, the United States.
Meanwhile, the US Congress is deciding what it will do with Hicks and his fellow inmates, now that the US is obliged to respect their rights under the third Geneva Convention. Australian Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, says that Hicks' case will either go to "a newly constituted military commission or it will go to a court martial, or it will go to a civil court." The Australian Broadcasting Corporation's National security correspondent, Leigh Sales, predicts that whatever decision is made is likely to be contested in court, extending David Hicks's detention indefinitely. This is utterly unacceptable. Australia should end its support for any kind of US trial and bring Hicks home. On this 230th anniversary of American Independence, can the rest of us not demonstrate a little independence?
David Hicks was caught training with the enemy and as such should be considered an enemy of Australia. In any other war he would have been shot or hung and no one would have cared in the slightest.
David Hicks can stay where is, Australia does not need his kind and if the US soldiers would like to arrange a “shot while attempting to escape” no one will mourn the loss of a traitor.
I regret you are mistaken on a number of fronts.
David Hicks was not caught training with the enemy. He was abducted by the Northern Alliance while waiting at a taxi stand trying to leave Afghanistan. He was then sold to the US, like spoils of war, for $1,000.
True, he has admitted to training with Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), a militant Islamic organisation with close links to the Pakistani army (a Western ally, remember), but LET was not then an enemy of Australia’s in any sense. US State Department reports of the time make no mention of LET. They were on no-one’s list of banned organisations. They are banned now, but Hicks cannot be tried for something that wasn’t a crime when he did it (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 11(2)).
Indeed, before Pakistan, Hicks trained with the Kosovo Liberation Army in Albania, who were supported by the US. Albanian Kosovars attracted worldwide sympathy at the time and NATO was bombing Kosovo and Serbia in their defence. Far from being a ‘traitor’ as you say, it could be said Hicks was willing to risk his life to advance the foreign policy objectives of his country and its allies.
But it’s not up to you or me to establish his guilt or innocence. If there is evidence against him — and the US took a long time to come up with charges — his guilt or innoncence should be established in a court of law. Hicks has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty (UDHR, Article 11(1)) and he has a right to a fair trial (which now seems impossible).
I must also contest your assertion that in any other war Hicks would have been summarily executed. (For trying to hail a cab?) There are doubtless many wars in which captured enemies are so executed, but that is a war crime, established as such by the US, no less, some sixty years ago. British policy in the last two years of World War Two was simply to shoot captured enemy leaders, but US Presidents Roosevelt and later Truman argued successfully for 22 Germans they had in custody to be tried by a military tribunal at Nuremberg. (Three of them were acquitted.) The Nuremberg Charter, and shortly thereafter the revised Geneva Conventions, constituted a significant advance in human rights and have applied as law to all warring parties to this day.
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[…] I heard David Hicks’ defence lawyer, Major Michael (Dan) Mori, speak in Melbourne today and, to update a previous post, he mentioned that Hicks’ British citizenship was revoked shortly after it was granted. Mori is pressing to have it restored. […]