Who is flouting Geneva conventions? [Archives:2003/629/Community]

Hassan Al-Zaidi
Who is treating prisoners of war fairly and who is not? That is the question in light of the US-led war against Iraq, which, according to some observers, violates Geneva Conventions.
Civilians in Iraq have been greatly affected by that war.
Meanwhile, U.S. president George Bush and U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair say that Iraq has violated Geneva Conventions for its treatment of war prisoners after Iraq aired TV pictures of U.S. prisoners.
A number of Yemeni lawyers and those interested in human rights have criticized those statements, especially since the war has been started by the U.S. and U.K. unilaterally.
They say war prisoners from the Taliban and others at Camp X-ray at Guantanamo base in Cuba are being treated in a way that is a flagrant violation to the Geneva Convention on the treatment of the war prisoners, and that the UN and the international community have to be held accountable for such violations.
Meanwhile, The Iraqi defense minister says that his nation will keep the moral principles of the Geneva Conventions as the US president is demanding.
“We are obliged to treat the war prisoners properly,” he said. The Geneva Conventions constitute a significant progress of the human international laws and that international community should show adherence to those agreements.
Those agreements were issued in 1994, putting stress on protecting victims of war, taking care of the injured, and giving treatment of war prisoners, and protecting civilians during wartime.
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