REUTERS -
Former U.S.
President George W. Bush has cancelled a visit to
Switzerland, where he was to address
a Jewish charity gala, due to the risk of legal
action against him for alleged torture, rights groups said
on Saturday.
Bush was to be the keynote speaker at Keren Hayesod's annual
dinner on Feb. 12 in Geneva. But
pressure has been building on the Swiss government to arrest
him and open a criminal investigation if he enters
the Alpine country.
Criminal complaints against Bush alleging torture have been
lodged in Geneva, court officials say.
Human rights groups said they had
intended to submit a 2,500-page case against Bush in the
Swiss city on Monday for alleged mistreatment of suspected
militants at Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. naval base in
Cuba where captives from Afghanistan, Iraq and other fronts
in the so-called "War on Terror" were interned.
Leftist groups had also called for a protest on the day of
his visit next Saturday, leading Keren Hayesod's organisers
to announce that they were cancelling Bush's participation
on security grounds -- not because of the criminal
complaints.
But groups including the New York-based Human Rights Watch
and International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) said the
cancellation was linked to growing moves to hold Bush
accountable for torture, including waterboarding. He has
admitted in his memoirs and television interviews to
ordering use of the interrogation technique that simulates
drowning.
"He's avoiding the handcuffs," Reed Brody, counsel for Human
Rights Watch, told Reuters.
The action in Switzerland showed Bush had reason to fear
legal complaints against him if he travelled to countries
that have ratified an international treaty banning torture,
he said.
Brody is an American-trained lawyer specialised in pursuing
war crimes worldwide, especially those allegedly ordered by
former leaders, including Chile's late dictator Augusto
Pinochet and Chad's ousted president Hissene Habre. Habre
has been charged by Belgium with crimes against humanity and
torture, and is currently exiled in Senegal.
Prosecute or extradite
"President Bush has admitted he ordered waterboarding which
everyone considers to be a form of torture under
international law. Under the Convention against Torture,
authorities would have been obliged to open an investigation
and either prosecute or extradite George Bush," Brody said.
Swiss judicial officials have said that Bush would still
enjoy a certain diplomatic immunity as a former head of
state.
Dominique Baettig, a member of the Swiss parliament from the
right-wing People's Party, wrote to the Swiss federal
government last week calling for the arrest of Bush for
alleged war crimes if he came to the neutral country.
Bush, in his "Decision Points" memoirs on his 2001-2009
presidency, strongly defends the use of waterboarding as key
to preventing a repeat of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United
States.
Most human rights experts consider the practice a form of
torture, banned by the Convention on Torture, an
international pact prohibiting torture and other cruel,
inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment. Switzerland
and the United States are among 147 countries to have
ratified the 1987 treaty.
"Whatever Bush or his hosts say, we have no doubt he
cancelled his trip to avoid our case. The message from civil
society is clear - If you're a torturer, be careful in your
travel plans. It's a slow process for accountability, but we
keep going," the Paris-based FIDH and New York-based Center
for Constitutional Rights said in a joint statement on
Saturday.
Sami El Hadjj, a former Al Jazeera journalist and former
detainee at Guantanamo, had been due to speak at their news
conference in Geneva on Monday, where they will release the
2,500-page complaint.
"I'm surprised he (Bush) would even consider visiting a
country that has ratified the torture convention and which
takes its responsibilities seriously," said Brody.
"I think George Bush's world is a very small place at the
moment," he said. "He may enjoy some kind of impunity in the
United States, but other countries will not treat him so
indulgently."
