INTERVIEW-Red Cross chief exits after taking on Bush, Bashar
Tue Jun 26, 2012 5:37pm GMT
* Says U.S. "war on terror" challenged ICRC
* Fears Syria conflict will become "country-wide"
* Says Washington was open to "very critical dialogue"
By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA, June 26 (Reuters) - He struck a unique deal with Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad, fought what he viewed as excesses in the U.S. "war on
terror", compiled reports that exposed U.S. mistreatment of detainees in
Iraq, and fought for inmates' rights at Guantanamo.
Jakob Kellenberger, who describes himself as "the negotiator of last
resort", steps down on Friday after 12 years as president of the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
The independent aid agency's 12,500 staff perform frontline humanitarian
operations, delivering food and medical care in war zones from Syria to
Somalia.
Kellenberger's tenure was marked by conflicts triggered by the Sept 11, 2001
attacks and U.S. efforts to capture or kill al Qaeda militants abroad,
including by drone attacks. It ends with the prospect of Syria descending
into full-blown civil war.
"When I look back, it was a very central issue, the whole issue of what the
(President George) Bush administration called the global war on terror,"
Kellenberger, 67, said in an interview in his office in the ICRC's Geneva
headquarters.
"The basic balance between military necessity and humanity and respect for
human dignity was broken in some places and in other places it was in
serious danger. I had really the feeling that you had to fight against this
from the start," he said.
Noting that many of his files relate to fighting in Afghanistan and the
Middle East, he added: "It's almost a bit symbolic that it ends with this
region, with Syria, but before it was Lebanon, Israel, the (Palestinian)
territories."
The Bush administration, which invaded Afghanistan in late 2001 and Iraq in
March 2003, openly questioned the relevance of the Geneva Conventions to al
Qaeda and Taliban fighters, a challenge to the ICRC which is the guardian of
the 1949 rules of war that aim to protect civilians and prisoners of war.
In Afghanistan, the ICRC quickly gained access to visit U.S.-held detainees
in Kandahar and Bagram, and to those sent to the U.S. naval base in
Guantanamo, Cuba, without being charged.
Its confidential reports on U.S. mistreatment of detainees in Iraq,
including at Abu Ghraib, appeared in the Wall Street Journal in 2004,
sparking an international outcry.
"It was very difficult for us, it was a typical dilemma of confidential
issues. What came out after in photos, what became public, was in fact
already part of the ICRC reports from visits to Abu Ghraib to the end of
2003 but were confidential reports, for U.S. authorities and nobody else,"
he said.
CONFIDENTIAL ACCESS
Worldwide, the ICRC visited more than 540,000 detainees last year in 75
countries.
They included Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of the late Libyan leader Muammar
Gaddafi who was captured on the run in the desert, and former Ivory Coast
President Laurent Gbagbo.
The only international agency to deliver assistance in Syria, the ICRC has
visited prisons in Damascus and Aleppo. It is still seeking access to all
detainees held by both sides.
Kellenberger has gone to Syria three times in the past nine months to
negotiate better access, and has held two meetings with Assad. The ICRC has
said that local civil wars have raged in Hama, Homs and Idlib, but that
there is not yet an overall civil war, a view some politicians feel is too
qualified.
"I'm really afraid that political efforts will be too slow ... I am afraid
that we go down the way to a country-wide internal armed conflict," he said.
On Tuesday, aid workers from the ICRC and Syrian Red Crescent were on their
way to Homs to evacuate trapped civilians and wounded from the old city, but
negotiations were still under way to secure safe access.
That task now falls to Kellenberger's successor, Peter Maurer, another
senior Swiss diplomat, who takes over on July 1.
The ICRC's internal rules stipulate that its interviews with inmates - meant
to evaluate their treatment and conditions of detention in a bid to prevent
torture - are private. In exchange, the agency only shares its findings with
the detaining authorities.
"I do continue to strongly believe that in the long-run confidentiality as a
tool remains extremely important to have access to detainees but also to
have access to certain regions," Kellenberger said.
"But I have also to admit it is clear that the publication of what happened
in Abu Ghraib had large effects, in the good sense. Because I mean in some
quarters of the American authorities they became very much aware that there
were things to be changed."
Kellenberger, who held talks with George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld on
Guantanamo and other issues, said that Washington had been open to
discussions, even to "very critical dialogue".
Despite "deep divergences of view on legal and protection matters" the
United States never threatened to pull the plug on the ICRC, to which it is
a major donor, he said.
Two months ago, Kellenberger held talks with President Barack Obama about
concerns over U.S. detainees and other issues.
"That was a very positive meeting. In fact I said to him that I felt very
grateful that they were always so supportive even if I was aware that I was
a very difficult guy.
"Then he told me, 'Please remain difficult'," he recalled with a laugh.
(Editing by Andrew Osborn)
C Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved
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Received on Tue Jun 26 2012 - 18:19:44 EDT
