Red Cross in talks with US over
detainees
Yahoo News/Reuters
By Stephanie Nebehay
December 9, 2005
GENEVA (Reuters) - The Red Cross said on Friday it was pressing the United
States to give it access to prisoners held in secret jails as part of the U.S.
war on terror.
"We have said that undisclosed detention is a major concern for us," Jakob
Kellenberger, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC),
told a news conference.
"We are already visiting very many detainees under U.S. authorities in
Guantanamo, Iraq and Afghanistan ... We continue to be in an intense dialogue
with them with the aim of getting access to all people detained in the
framework of the so-called war on terror," he said.
Human rights groups accuse the CIA of running secret prisons in eastern
Europe and covertly transporting detainees. They say incommunicado detention
often leads to torture.
John Bellinger, the U.S. State Department's legal adviser, acknowledged to
reporters in Geneva on Thursday that the ICRC does not have access to all
detainees held by U.S. forces, but refused to discuss alleged secret detention
centres.
The ICRC has been pressing the administration of U.S. President George W.
Bush for two years for information about and access to what the Red Cross calls
"an unknown number of people captured as part of the so-called global war on
terror and held in undisclosed locations."
In Washington, State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said the United
States provided access to most of its detainees.
"The vast majority are treated consistent with the Geneva Conventions. There
is a very small, limited number that are not because of the extraordinary
threat that they pose," he said.
Ereli declined to say how many detainees posed an "extraordinary"
threat.
"Most of them, the vast majority of them, even though we're not legally
required to do so, we have treated them and considered them subject to the
Geneva Conventions to the point where the ICRC can visit them," he said.
SUDAN, PAKISTAN LARGEST OPERATIONS
Kellenberger was launching the ICRC's appeal for more than 1 billion Swiss
francs for its work in 80 countries next year, with Sudan still its largest aid
operation.
Its field budget is projected to be 9.2 percent higher than under the
previous annual appeal due to fresh needs, including helping people left
homeless by Pakistan's devastating earthquake to survive winter.
"Two operations stand out by their volume very clearly -- Sudan, which is
mainly Darfur, and Pakistan," Kellenberger said.
The ICRC is seeking 127.6 million Swiss francs for Sudan, including the
south which is merging from a 21-year civil war ended by a peace accord in
January.
In the Darfur region, where it deploys some 100 expatriates and up to 800
nationals, it is striving to help people who have not fled to refugee camps to
stay self-sufficient.
In all, the neutral humanitarian agency deploys 12,000 people to provide
food, medicine, water and sanitation to those caught up in armed conflicts and
visits more than 500,000 detainees worldwide each year.
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