By David Walter, Special Writer
Col. Manuel Supervielle, who served as chief legal counsel to U.S. military forces in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Afghanistan, said in a speech Friday at Princeton University that American forces need not follow all of the Geneva Conventions in their fight against terrorism.
”Al Qaeda never will be afforded the protections of the Geneva Conventions because they’re not a signatory. By their very essence they’re illegal,” said Col. Supervielle, now retired from active duty, to an audience at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School.
As the general counsel for all U.S. military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean from 2000 until 2003, Col. Supervielle helped oversee the treatment of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison compound. After officials concluded that al Qaeda suspects did not possess full Geneva protections for prisoners of war, Col. Supervielle said he was told to, “apply the principles of the Geneva Convention as much as you can.”
”I chose to interpret that as, unless there was an operational or security reason not to apply a protection of the Geneva Convention, then we would provide it,” said Col. Supervielle.
Col. Supervielle brought this view of detainee treatment with him to Afghanistan, where he served as general counsel to U.S. and coalition troops in the country from 2005 to 2006. But he said that while Taliban fighters possessed the same legal status as al Qaeda suspects, operating prisons in the country proved a unique experience.
”The difference is in Afghanistan, 98 percent (of detainees) are Afghans. And they are in Afghanistan,” he said.
As a result, the U.S. sought to coordinate detention policy with Afghanistan’s government — a task, Col. Supervielle said, that was extremely difficult in the war-torn country.
”It was not so easy because they didn’t have the infrastructure or the guards or, really, too much of the desire,” he said.
Afghanistan has more people and more land than Iraq — and, according to Col. Supervielle, just as many problems. A succession of armed offensives, from anti-royalist to anti-communist to anti-warlord to anti-Taliban, have ruined Afghanistan’s cities and made its people the world’s fourth poorest.
”How many waves of change have occurred from 1975 to the present? And what has that done to the human resource capital?” Col. Supervielle said. “It’s very, very difficult when you’ve had that many changes.”
Afghanistan is a tribal society comprised of many ethnic groups. Village elders, not the government, have the greatest influence in daily affairs.
”It’s very, very difficult for the central government to have any visibility, let alone influence, in the provincial capitals beyond Kabul,” Afghanistan’s national capital, Col. Supervielle said.
To complicate matters further, Afghanistan produces a major portion of the world’s heroin. While this would normally be seen as plainly harmful for a country, Col. Supervielle said that the situation in Afghanistan is not so simple.
In some parts of the country, “the economy and construction are booming. Why? Drugs,” he said. “To the extent that that money is being channeled into legitimate enterprises, that’s great.”
Traditional cultural practices in Afghanistan have also limited U.S. options.
”The term “human rights” is perceived to be very ‘Western’. How do you apply that in a country that doesn’t see it that way?” Col. Supervielle said.
This cultural difference, he said, helps explain why the U.S. prison in Bagram, Afghanistan, remains full more than six years after coalition forces arrived in the country.
”Because what we don’t want is to hand (prisoners) over for them to be abused or tortured or just to be let go,” he said.
The Bagram prison itself, however, has been criticized in the past by human rights groups for what they describe as harsh treatment and interrogation of detainees. During his time in Afghanistan, Col. Supervielle said, he vigorously investigated any alleged violations of human rights.
”And if we found something, we would prosecute it,” he said.
Col. Supervielle said that while in Afghanistan he also worked to improve detainees’ contact with the outside world, though prisoners at Bagram currently do not have access to counsel.
”One of the things I pushed for is to get their families to visit them. That appears like it’s imminent,” he said.
Afghanistan’s prospects, Col. Supervielle said, were uncertain. There have been successes: the country’s professional U.S.-backed army, a freely elected parliament, a relatively moderate Supreme Court. But the country’s problems are just as conspicuous.
As time passes, Col. Supervielle said, Afghanistan’s future will increasingly be out of American hands.
”It’s up to them — Afghans.” he said.
