Bush applies Geneva Convention to the Taliban

THE US: Succumbing to international pressure, President George Bush yesterday announced that the Geneva Convention will apply to Taliban prisoners held by the US at Guantanamo Bay, but not to al-Qaeda fighters. But the US will still not recognise the Taliban as prisoners of war (POWs), continuing to regard them instead as "unlawful combatants" under the convention.

The move is widely seen here as a largely cosmetic attempt by the President to reassure the US military, which has been expressing concern at perceptions that the US was implicitly repudiating the whole Geneva Convention system, seen as crucial to the protection of American servicemen captured in combat.

President Bush's spokesman, Mr Ari Fleischer, told journalists in the White House the President still believed that the convention "plays a role", even though its applicability had become more complex in the context of wars involving terrorists.

"Al-Qaeda is an international terrorist group and cannot be considered a state party to the Geneva Convention," Mr Fleischer said.

The announcement will in practice make no difference to the treatment of either group, he said, as the prisoners are already being given all their entitlements under the convention with the exception of stipends and "musical instruments". "They will continue to be afforded every courtesy," he said, "and will continue to be treated well because that's what the United States does".

"The United States has from the outset, is now and will in the future be treating detainees in a way that is humane and consistent with the Geneva Convention," the Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, said.

Mr Rumsfeld said Mr Bush decided to declare that the Geneva Convention applied to the Afghanistan conflict because it "could conceivably be considered a precedent for the future". The decision is unlikely, however, to satisfy international and human-rights critics of the administration, who have been pressing for the status issue to be determined by the courts.

The US acceptance that there is a distinction to be drawn between the two groups of fighters, based on the fact that the Taliban could be seen as soldiers of a state which is party to the conventions, will be seen as justifying calls for application of the convention's provision that where a doubt exists about a prisoner's status, the issue should be decided by a court.

The US now contends that no doubt exists about the status of either group, and that none of the prisoners are prisoners of war. This means that it will not have to try them before a court martial. And while POWs have a formal right not to answer questions beyond name, rank and serial number, US officials say that as others cannot be forced to say anything, the distinction is academic.

The Washington Post reported yesterday from Guantanamo that although some of the younger prisoners had begun to give information to interrogators, many of the prisoners were refusing to talk.

US troops yesterday completed 320 new holding cells in Camp X-Ray at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. A plane carrying more captives for the camp was expected shortly. There are currently 158 detainees there, at least 50 of them citizens of Saudi Arabia. Saudi officials have asked that they be turned over for interrogation at home. A few other countries, including Australia, Britain, Sweden and Yemen, also have citizens among the detainees.

Meanwhile the US has released to the Afghan authorities 27 prisoners taken in a raid north of Kandahar last month, admitting that none of the group were Taliban or al-Qaeda fighters. The move follows admissions by Mr Rumsfeld that US Special Forces had inadvertently killed some 15 friendly Afghans in a raid.