Geneva (PL) - The US is trying to silence the scandals formed by the act of torture in Iraq and in the naval base of Guantanamo.  The US has sent numerous delegations with the express purpose of  silencing the critics and thereby impeding a fair hearing before the Human Rights Commission (HRC).

With the intention of silencing the critics the US has sent the undersecretary assistant of Defense, Mathew Waxman, to join the delegation, already in Geneva, headed by senator Rudy Borschwitz and ambassador Kevin Moley.  

The US delegation has taken on the task of pressuring groups from different nations into accepting White House position that denies the current detainees a status of prisoners of war.

With the position of denying the prisoners any rights, as they push their supposed crusade against terrorism, president Bush has violated and sidestepped the Geneva Conventions;  conventions that were set up to protect the individual from acts of torture and which guaranteed legal rights to those people affected.  

Before the Group of Latin American and Caribbean states the high official from the Pentagon had to recognize, with respect to torture, that there had been irregularities committed and that the government had taken measures.  

With these comments the US is trying to stop any intent on the part of other nations to present the case of torture before the HRC.  These maneuvers on the part of the US are of the same type used last year when Cuba proposed that a UN observer be designated to investigate the accusations of mal treatment and of torture of those being held in Guantanamo.   

Mr. Waxman as well as ambassador Mosley insisted that the international community had no right in condemning the acts of torture, as it was a question of self jurisdiction.

Some of the Latin American delegates were astonished to hear the US delegation compare the abuses and the torture committed at Abu Ghraib with the actions taken by the French resistance against the fascists in World War II. 

When some delegates expressed their concern for the indefinite imprisonment of the detainees the US delegation responded that the White House maintained that policy as a means of impeding the prisoners from returning to the field of battle. 

To Washington the prisoners, imprisoned in part of Cuba illegally occupied by the US, have no rights. 

When Cuban diplomat Rodolfo Reyes pointed out the illegal nature of that prison in Cuban territory, the US delegation evaded the accusations by declaring that this was a bilateral question between Havana and Washington.

US diplomats stated that they were studying the petitions made by observers of the HRC relating to torture, arbitrary detentions, as well as the question of the impartiality of the judges and lawyers that will be chosen to investigate torture - something that up to this moment has been denied.  

In the encounter with the US delegation Mexico and Brazil expressed concerns about the indefinite detentions, adding that they had already made their position clear to Washington.

At the same time Argentina expressed concerns that such precedents could be repeated in other conflicts, Chile pointed out the undeniable rights under the Geneva Conventions that prohibits the use of torture and which affords the detainees the rights to legal proceedings.

"The US is holding these meetings because they are feeling strong pressure from the international community.  Cuba's initiative on the tortures committed in Guantanamo has forced them against the wall before the HRC", commented the Cuban diplomat.