Amnesty International Calls on African Nations to Arrest George W. Bush
Amnesty International is calling for former U.S. President George W. Bush to be arrested while on an awareness-raising trip to Africa.
The group is calling for Bush’s arrest over human rights abuses that are crimes under international law.
Bush is making a trip to Ethiopia, Tanzania and Zambia to raise awareness about HIV, AIDS, cervical caner and breast cancer. He will be in the region Dec. 1-5.
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Amnesty International has said that although it acknowledges the importance of raising awareness over critical health concerns, Bush should not be shielded from his role in committing crimes against international law.
“All countries to which George W. Bush travels have an obligation to bring him to justice for his role in torture,” Matt Poland, senior legal advisor for the human rights watchdog said.
During Bush’s presidency, the CIA was authorized to utilize “enhanced interrogation techniques” including methods that included, waterboarding, sleep deprivation and being forced to stay for hours in painful positions.
Human rights groups and activists hold that the methods used under President Bush were torturous violations of inalienable human rights, regardless of a detainee’s past.
“International law requires that there be no safe haven for those responsible for torture; Ethiopia, Tanzania and Zambia must seize this opportunity to fulfill their obligations and end the impunity George W. Bush has so far enjoyed,” Pollard said.
The Nobel Prize winning grassroots human rights group has previously called on other governments including Canada and Switzerland to arrest the former president for his role in torturous interrogation methods.
The U.S. State Department has yet to respond to the call for Bush’s arrest.
Bush is not the only individual from his former administration that is facing allegations of torture.
Former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is facing charges over torture allegations from two former security contractors.
Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel, hold they were detained and held without charge in the U.S. military prison, Camp Cropper, in Iraq in 2006.
The men allege that their requests for access to lawyers were denied and they stayed in cold solitary cells that were bug infested and had feces on the wall. The men also claim that they were deprived of sleep, blankets, food and were also threatened with beatings.
The men are filing suit against Rumsfeld because they believe that he personally authorized the interrogation techniques that were used against them while at Camp Cropper. They also argue that despite having knowledge that torture tactics were being used against them, Rumsfeld failed to stop detainee abuses.
