HURRICANE IKE AFTERMATH

Ike victims say they feel pressure to leave trailers.

By HARVEY RICE
Copyright 2009
Houston Chronicle
Nov. 17, 2009


GALVESTON — Alida and Tom Duggan are fighting contractors, their insurance company and the bank in a struggle to rebuild their home in Bayou Vista, destroyed by Hurricane Ike.

“Our life has been a nightmare in hell the last year,” Alida Duggan said.

The trailer in Galveston furnished by the Federal Emergency Management Agency was one of the few strokes of luck for the Duggans. Now they are in danger of losing it as FEMA winds down its temporary housing program.

Residents at FEMA trailer sites in Galveston and High Island say caseworkers are pressuring them — sometimes aggressively — to move out of the trailers and into apartments even though the temporary housing program doesn't end until March 12.

A nonprofit group working with Ike victims says FEMA caseworkers are failing to advise trailer residents of all the available assistance, and another says FEMA pressured a disabled couple to move.

Residents feel they are being treated like deadbeats, said Yvonne VanZandt, who lives with her husband, Mike, in FEMA's High Island trailer park.

“We're not beach bums. We're gainfully employed,” she said. “They act like we're living the American dream up here.”

More than 3,700 Ike victims were in FEMA trailers at the height of the temporary housing program in Ike-ravaged Texas counties. That number has since dwindled to about 1,300 households.

In Galveston County, 472 FEMA trailers remain: 33 in commercial trailer parks, 388 in front of private homes and 51 in the two FEMA sites in Galveston and High Island.

Five FEMA trailer residents interviewed by the Houston Chronicle complained that FEMA caseworkers threatened to expel them from their trailers if they failed to accept the first apartment that became available. All five are hoping to rebuild their homes and are reluctant to sign a lease that they might have to break. The Duggans are making mortgage payments on their destroyed house and want to avoid the financial strain of adding rent payments.

Clark Stevens, spokesman at FEMA's Washington office, did not directly address the question of whether FEMA caseworkers were pressuring trailer residents, saying only that caseworkers were obligated to inform residents about all available assistance programs.

Dian Groh, a case manager for Boat People SOS, said she intervened to keep FEMA from forcing out a disabled couple in San Leon. FEMA wanted the couple, both unable to walk without assistance, out of their FEMA trailer before an access ramp could be installed in their repaired manufactured home, she said.

“Their goal was to get them out and get them out fast,” Groh said about FEMA.

‘This is … very frightening'
Some FEMA caseworkers — but not all of them — are polite and sympathetic, the trailer residents say.

John and Rebecca Sealy, who live in FEMA's High Island trailer community, have dubbed one case worker the “Jersey Devil” because of her aggressive attitude.

“She had to be the most rude, crude, unsociable human being I have ever talked to on the phone,” said Yvonne VanZandt, the Sealys' neighbor, about one caseworker.

VanZandt said she and her husband are being badgered by caseworkers even though they have signed a contract with a builder and could have their home rebuilt by the trailer program's March 12 deadline. She said caseworkers told her they would photograph her property to see if work was being done.

Stevens, the FEMA spokesman, said, “Any inappropriate behavior by caseworkers is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.” He said FEMA caseworkers work closely with each resident to help them develop a long-term housing plan tailored to their situation.

But FEMA caseworkers are not telling trailer residents about all the help available because they are not working closely enough with FEMA-funded nonprofit agencies that are also advising hurricane victims, said Joe Higgs, Gulf Coast Interfaith organizer.

“This is getting very frightening to people who are already traumatized,” Higgs said.

FEMA spokeswoman Patricia Brach said that five “letters of revocation” asking tenants to leave have been sent so far. Tenants have 60 days to correct the problem and can appeal their expulsion.

Extensions unlikely
After Hurricane Katrina, the 18-month temporary housing program was extended three times in Louisiana at the request of state and local governments, but that is unlikely to happen in Texas. Galveston County and Galveston city officials say they won't request an extension because they want the trailers out before the next hurricane season begins June 1.

Kemah, which has about a half dozen FEMA trailers on private property, wants them out of the city by the end of the year, City Administrator R.J. Kerber Jr. said. FEMA had to get permission from local governments to put trailers in the flood plain, and Kemah set the Dec. 31 deadline when it gave permission, Kerber said.

harvey.rice@chron.com

FEMA plans to establish emergency 'base camps' for 300 to 2,000 people

By Jacob Goodwin, Editor-in-Chief
GSN Government Security News
Published June 10th, 2009


FEMA is planning to award a contract to a logistics and management company that could establish and operate one or two "base camps" that could provide food, shelter and basic needs to approximately 300-2,000 people in each camp, in the event that the president declares a disaster or emergency anywhere in the continental U.S.

The chosen vendor must be capable of opening one or two base camps within 72 hours of receiving its task order, in case of an emergency, such as a hurricane, flood, earthquake, cyclone, tornado, blizzard, avalanche, tsunami or act of terrorism, according to a Request For Information (RFI) issued by FEMA on June 3.

"The contractor shall house all authorized camp occupants with tents or modular units, equip tents and other facilities with air conditioning and heating (HVAC) and leveled plywood floors (or equivalent) as well as provide bedding, meal services, kitchen, dining hall, limited recreation facilities, operations center, medical unit, refrigerated trucks, shower units, hand wash units, potable (drinking) water, water purification and manifold distribution systems, toilets, on-site manifold distribution of black and grey water and associated on-site sanitation systems, complete laundry service, industrial generators, and light towers," said FEMA's special notice.

The camps would operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and the vendor would be expected to provide the "multi-disciplined personnel" to operate all the required services.

"Whenever practical, displaced citizens will be given the first opportunities for employment within the camp, assuming skills and capabilities are pertinent for the open positions," says the RFI.

The federal government would furnish the land for the site of the base camp, as well as security for the camp.

The contractor will provide a check-in facility at the entrance to the base camp which should function in accordance with the formats spelled out in the National Incident Management System (NIMS), says the FEMA document. The contractor will also provide photo identification cards for all camp occupants, which will be used to access lodging, base camp facilities, meals and laundry services.

The vendor will also provide "fencing and barricades around the perimeter of the base camp," it adds.

Prospective vendors are requested to provide their capabilities information to FEMA by June 17.

Why are children kept in concentration camps, asks Prof. Peter Schalk

TamilNet
Wednesday, 28 October 2009
By Peter Schalk


Stating that a list of details of children ranging from 1 month to 18 years, within the internment camps in Vavuniyaa, was being composed by concerned western academics and rights activists, Prof. Peter Schalk, of Uppsala University, Sweden, on Tuesday said out of 1,200 names they have composed 1,082 were orphans. The information is documented by human rights’ organisations in the field in August/September 2009. "The list gives unfortunately only a part of the total number of children in all concentration camps," he said adding that the list could be ordered from him. "The list makes it possible to follow up the fate of each child over time and makes denials by the Government of killings through neglect of children impossible," he said in a note sent to TamilNet.

"More than 250,000 humans are kept in concentration camps for 'screening' by the Government of Sri Lanka, allegedly to discover 'terrorists'. The question arises why children are kept there, even babies."

Professor Peter Schalk is long connected to Sri Lankan affairs, Buddhism and Tamil Studies and has contributed a number of scholarly publications.

Full text of the note follows:

Children in Sri Lanka’s Concentration Camps

More than 250 000 humans are kept in concentration camps for “screening” by the Government of Sri Lanka, allegedly to discover “terrorists”. The question arises why children are kept there, even babies. These Concentration camps are called “welfare camps” by the Sri Lankan Government.

I refer to the latest report by Human Rights Watch from October 10, 2009:

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/10/09/sri-lanka-tensions-mount-camp-conditions-deteriorate

It is in agreement with other international human rights organisations’ reports. In addition, I refer to the EU Commission’s report with an evaluation of Sri Lanka on 19 October 2009: http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2009/october/tradoc_145141.pdf

The following information is documented by human rights’ organisations in the field in August/September 2009. Names of the children have been left out here. The list makes it possible to follow up the fate of each child over time and makes denials by the Government of killings through neglect of children impossible. The list can be ordered from me. The world has an eye on every child listed. The list gives unfortunately only a part of the total number of children in all concentration camps.

1.Total number of children on the list: 1200
2.Names of the concentration camps and the number of children: Vavuniya Anantha Kumarasami Camp: 118; Vavuniya Arunachchala Camp: 65; Vavuniya Kathirkamar Camp: 8; Vavuniya Sheriliana: 50; Vavuniya Ulukkulam Camp: 959
3.Age of the children: Youngest: 1month. Oldest: 18 years.
4.Number under 5 years: 308
5.Girls: 536 Boys: 664
6.Orphans: 1082

The following is an eye witness report with special regard to children from a prisoner in a concentration camp. The prisoners managed to get free in August 2009. The whole report was published in October 2009 (http://www.tamilnet.com/img/publish/2009/10/Living_in_Menik_Farm.pdf), but the section on children was slightly revised for this message by the former prisoner who rightly prefers to be anonymous.

"I was interned in the ---- camp of Menik Farm----. During those four months in the camp, it is the condition of the children at the camp that I found most depressing. I was too timid to go around collecting statistics though it would have been easy to collect statistics because of the proximity of the people crowded within a small area. However, I observed carefully and was overwhelmed by the wasting away of the children.

"Newborn babies are sent to the camp conditions, which are unsuitable for adults, just few days after being born. Toddlers play in the filthy area right in front of the toilets. I have never seen flies and mosquitoes in such numbers in my life. While eating, one hand is fully occupied with chasing the flies; a practice that children will not adopt thus consuming food contaminated by flies that come straight from the toilets very nearby. Children of well off families who appeared well cared for on arrival at the camp were visibly wasting away during the stay in the camp. The contributory factors were poor diet, the hostile weather, and continuous illness.

"Majority of the children including infants did not have milk (powder) except an occasional packet handed out by some charity. Once a father of a seven month old baby came begging for some sugar to put in the plain tea (black tea) to be given to his seven month old baby because the mother did not have enough breast milk and the baby was hungry. Plain tea had become the regular diet for this baby.

"The diet was most definitely inadequate for the children despite some nutritional supplement that were distributed. There was no milk, meat or vegetable in their diet. Sometimes soya bean was given but they were of rotten quality and children would hardly eat them.

"Illness among children was pandemic and it wasted them. Small injuries became infected and caused problems. Vomiting, fever or diarrhea seemed a natural condition in most children. Measures of malnutrition maybe a standard way of measuring worst affected children but it does not capture the general condition of children wasting away. When a child runs a fever most parents worry a lot fearing Hepatitis-A infection.

"The queues are very long at the OPD clinics inside the camp and the doctors work at break neck speed. I have seen a doctor writing a prescription to a 12 year old boy without finding out what is wrong with the boy. The medicines that are dispensed are arranged in a table and the total list of medicines consists of around 30 different medicines. The medicine dispensers too work with breakneck speed in dispensing them. Once an educated mother told me that she visited the doctor for treatment for her baby as well as for herself. The medicine dispensers mixed up the medicines and gave the baby what should have been given to the mother. Since the mother had some awareness of the medications she spotted it. Most mothers in the camp who do not have such awareness would have given the adult medicine to the baby. God only knows how many babies, children and even adults died due such medical negligence. Who is there in the camp to watch, monitor and investigate? Deaths are just that, deaths and no investigations are done as to the cause of it.

"Patients often queue up for doctors for hours even before the doctors arrive from outside. No one in the OPD clinic will know when the doctors are likely to arrive. One just waits around taking one’s chances. For all this the level of sickness among inmates is far higher than among the population at large and it is obvious.

"Take the eight tent group where I was staying. Five of the tents out of the eight had children under 10. One child died; one became seriously ill and taken away to Vavuniya hospital and all the other children had frequent fever, vomiting and diarrhoea. The children were wasting away and it was visibly obvious. Some of the children had persistent skin disease despite several visits to the doctors and treatment. Four of the children contracted Hepatitis A and the parents were told by the doctors to just take good care of them and give lots of fruits because the hospitals had no medicine. Fruits were very expensive in the camp. There is a native treatment for HepatitisA involving a plant named “Keelkainelli” in Tamil. Even to get this plant was a struggle because it meant someone has to bring it from outside and handover to the inmates at the meeting spot as described later.

"People young and old suddenly dying after a few days of fever is a common occurrence. All of us were left puzzled as to the cause and no one gave any explanation. All of us without exception have suffered diarrhoea at least once and most of us many times.

"I used to keep telling myself during the stay in the camp how lucky I was that I do not have any young children under my care. The unhygienic living, especially the play area and the continuous illness is an ordeal for the young mothers. Even thinking about the condition of newborns and their mothers who are sent back to the camp conditions soon after birth is an ordeal. Perhaps the most telling scenes of the camp conditions and the health service can be found by visiting the OPD clinics and observing young mothers with very sick babies waiting for long time in queues with tears trickling down their face.

"Children went to makeshift schools staffed by teachers who were also interned in the camp. Many teachers have lamented how they can teach while living under such conditions. The school is made up of sheds with uneven floor covered with tarpaulin. The children cannot even place their books on the uneven floor to write. They have to keep the soft cover books on their knees to write.

"Most of the young children have to carry very heavy buckets of water to assist their parents who are also struggling to care for the children often as a single parent. The little bodies bent like a question mark under the weight surely would have done permanent damage.

"If we can tolerate the incarceration of the entire population of young children from a community which is clearly leading to long term damage to their development, how does this measure up in any of the international humanitarian/human rights laws? Can the long term damage done to them be measured and judged?"

Concentration Camps in Sri Lanka Hold 250,000 Families

By Alan Gray
For NewsBlaze
Nov 18, 2009


The government of Sri Lanka has imprisoned over a quarter million men, women and children, since the end of the 33 year civil war.

A humanitarian crisis is unfolding due to the deteriorating living conditions for the families held in the Sri Lankan government internment camps.

The Sri Lankan government interned approximately 280,000 innocent civilian survivors, about 10-percent of the Tamils in Sri Lanka, following the defeat of the Tamil Tigers in May of this year.

To control press coverage and suppress a public outcry for the inhumane treatment of the surviving Sri Lankan Tamil civilians, the government barred media from the camps.

In addition, the government has limited access to the camps to International NGOs, including the International Red Cross and organizations associated with the UN.

UGANDA: "Mount Elgon Eviction Has Reduced Us to Beggars"

IPS News
By Wambi Michael

Mary Yeko: "Where we were, the air is fresh, we had water, we had medicinal plants."

Credit: Wambi Michael/IPS

MOUNT ELGON, Uganda, Nov 13 (IPS) - "We have been reduced to begging from relatives and to migrate to urban areas where life is not safe. We were living in the mountain for more than 200 years. Transferring us means burying us, completely. We want to stay in our area and develop."

These are the words of Mejje Christopher, a former parish chief who now lives as a squatter in Kisitu, almost 30 km from Kapchorwa district in eastern Uganda. He finds it hard to cope with life in the lowlands after his people, the Benet, were evicted from land apparently earmarked for reforestation in the Mount Elgon National Park.

Controversy has surrounded the reforestation project in the park which is jointly run by the Netherlands-based FACE Foundation and the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) and was started with a view to generating carbon credits. FACE Foundation has denied that the eviction of the Benet is connected to its project with the UWA.

There are over 1,000 evicted Benet living in a temporary settlement at Kisitu. Christopher laments that, "where we are now, even the maize takes a long time to mature. The majority of the people are illiterate, especially the women. To cope with new farming methods is not easy.

"Children are forced to weed gardens in other parts of Kapchorwa to earn a living. Sometimes, women risk going into the park at night to get firewood and bamboo," he reveals. "Even the cows that we used to graze in the mountains are not allowed there. Some have died. We did not have hospitals but we managed to survive because of the cool weather."

Christopher is adamant that the Benet can contribute to conservation. "We can do it. After all, we the indigenous people have indigenous knowledge which, when integrated with the modern knowledge, can conserve the mountain, we are sure."

Moses Kiptala, the treasurer of the Benet Lobby Group, is critical of the kinds of trees being planted. "They talk about conserving the mountain and the water catchment areas but we know that in this mountain there are trees that grow better while conserving water catchment areas. Some of the trees they are planting here have traditionally not grown here."

According to him, the eviction "is seriously affecting us because there is no food and people are not allowed to get firewood, bamboo and medicines to treat ailments. The schools were destroyed. The people have been declared landless; they cannot go back to their original land.

"When we were evicted last year, some of us decided to go and live in bushes and caves and others went to live with relatives. The situation is not good. We were not allowed to flee with our belongings. Our houses and crops were razed. We survived with help from non-governmental organisations but they have since stopped the assistance."

Parents complain that their children cannot go to school. They improvised a temporary tin-roof structure. It has no benches and can only accommodate lower primary pupils. Those children in upper primary school have to relocate or drop out.

Mary Yeko, a mother of seven, tells IPS her children can no longer go to school because they have to walk a long distance to the district headquarters. Speaking through an interpreter, Yeko indicates that she and her husband cannot afford the good schools in the area because they are not government-owned.

She and her children are getting frequent attacks of malaria and other diseases that they did not suffer from before. "When you go up where we were (in Mount Elgon), the air is fresh, we had water, we had medicinal plants which can treat many diseases that cannot be treated by the muzungu (white person).

"Now, we cannot go to get the medicine up there because the rangers will not allow us to pass over the park boundary," she complains.

According to Uganda’s state minister for tourism, Serapio Rukundo, there have been some instances of what he calls "maladministration" but, overall, communities are benefitting from the tree planting because the Uganda Wildlife Authority carries out conservation projects that involves the remuneration of some community members.

A UWA warden in the Mount Elgon Park, Richard Matanda, insists that the tree planting has benefited communities. "People got jobs, uniforms and gumboots. The idea is that most of the labour should come from the areas next to the boundaries of the park."

According to him, communities evicted from the park were due to get a percentage of money made from the tree planting.

But Timothy Byakola, an activist with Uganda’s Climate and Development Initiatives, retorts that there is a lot of hostility between the communities and Uganda Wildlife Authority park rangers. "The jobs they promise people don’t pay enough. We have talked to some of the people who said they are almost giving free labour.

"People complain that that the project has taken away the little that local communities had. For example, women can’t get firewood for cooking."

Byakola believes "no carbon credits" have been sold from the Mount Elgon project because people destroy the trees before they mature in protest to having been evicted. "Because of hostility, people sneak over park boundaries in the night and uproot the newly planted saplings," he argues.

Between Jan and Jul 2009, three national forestry staff members -- Richard Kalemera, Alfred Ezati and Emmanuel Assiimwe – were allegedly murdered by people who had been evicted from forest reserves. In another case, a man, a pregnant woman and their three–year-old son were burn to ash in Buikwe Central Uganda.

A driver working for the National Forestry Authority, Ambrose Tibarimu, was attacked by a mob with machetes who set ablaze his and other vehicles. (END/2009)

Scholars discuss Catholic Church's role in Holocaust

By David A. Schwartz
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
November 4, 2009



Pope Pius XII has been called "Hitler's Pope" for his passivity and complicity in the Holocaust. Yet he was eulogized by Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir and praised by Nobel scientist Albert Einstein and U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower.

Pope John Paul II was lauded for his efforts in healing the rift between Jews and the Vatican. But scholars have questioned whether John Paul went far enough a decade ago in recognizing the roll of the Catholic Church when he published "We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah."

And Benedict XVI, the current Pope, has been criticized for returning a Holocaust-denying, excommunicated bishop to the papal fold and for being insensitive to the feelings of Jews.

Kevin Madigan, a history professor at the Harvard Divinity School, discussed the rolls the Popes and the Catholic Church played in the Holocaust in a lecture last Sunday on "The Vatican and the Final Solution." Madigan spoke to about 30 scholars at the Council of Centers on Jewish-Christian Relations conference at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.

In a remarkably candid discussion after his lecture, Madigan and two other scholars criticized the three Popes and the Catholic Church.

Rabbi Alan Brill, a professor at Seton Hall University in South Orange, N.J., blasted the Vatican for not making a "full confession" and expressing regret directly to Jews.

"[Pope Benedict] understands the Holocaust even if he doesn't get the Jewish memory of the Holocaust," Brill said. If Benedict seeks reconciliation, he said, the painful history of the Holocaust needs to be addressed.

Kevin Spicer, a Catholic priest and associate professor at Stonehill College in Easton, Mass. said the Catholic Church doesn't understand the German effort to exterminate the Jews of Europe.

The Church must recognize its complicity in the propagation and dissemination of Christian anti-Semitism, Spicer said. Its century-old role in the Holocaust "damaged the cause of Jewish-Christian relations and dialogue."

Pope John Paul II understood through his Jewish friends what Jews went through in the Holocaust, Spicer said. And he was "moving toward recognizing the Covenant of Abraham."

Benedict, Spicer said, finds it impossible to use the words "Holocaust, Catholic Church, Jews and anti-Semitism in the same sentence."

Madigan said, "The Christian appropriation of the Holocaust is embarrassing to many of us." He said Auschwitz was "planted on the ground that was cultivated by Christians."

Hungary's Jews were the last in Europe to be sent to the gas chambers and Pope Pius XII knew in 1944 that Germany was going to lose the war, Madigan said. If Pius had protested, "more than 800,000 Hungarian Jews could have been saved."

As for Golda Meir praising Pope Pius XII, she was "historically naïve or politically motivated or both," Madigan said.

Holocaust survivor Ana Kan, 80, of Boynton Beach said the Catholic Church helped her family during World War II by hiding her and her parents and brother in the Vatican for 10 days before they were sent to Spain.

"Some of this I do not know," said Barbara Little, 58, of Boca Raton, who is Catholic. Pius "behaved reprehensively during the war," Little said.

Loretta Weinberger, who lives in Delray Beach and spends part of the year in Israel, said the Pope won't admit the role the Catholic Church played in the Holocaust. "I think the Jews should stop expecting an apology," Weinberger said. "They're not going to get one."

Copyright © 2009, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

US: Federal Court Prosecution of 9/11 Suspects a Victory for Justice

November 13, 2009

US Attorney General Eric Holder speaks at a news conference in Washington on November 13, 2009.

© 2009 Reuters


The Obama administration recognized that a trial of this historic importance belongs in a fair and time-tested justice system. The military commissions at Guantanamo are simply not up to the task.

Joanne Mariner, Terrorism and Counterterrorism Program director.(New York) - The Obama administration's decision to prosecute the September 11 suspects in federal court represents an important step forward for justice, Human Rights Watch said today. Attorney General Eric Holder announced today that five of the suspects facing pending military commission charges at Guantanamo would be transferred for federal trial in the United States.

"The Obama administration recognized that a trial of this historic importance belongs in a fair and time-tested justice system," said Joanne Mariner, Terrorism and Counterterrorism Program director at Human Rights Watch. "The military commissions at Guantanamo are simply not up to the task."

Unlike the deeply flawed military commission proceedings, the federal civilian courts can give the defendants a fair and credible trial, one that will be recognized as such internationally. Their use will also send a clear message that terrorists are criminals rather than soldiers in an armed conflict.

Human Rights Watch said that the importance of the 9/11 trial to America's reputation in the fight against terrorism cannot be overestimated. These historic proceedings must be fair - and be perceived as fair - and their verdicts must be viewed as credible. By moving them to federal court and out of the ad hoc, chaotic, and discredited military commissions at Guantanamo, the administration has taken a crucial step toward ensuring that the results of the trial will be recognized as legitimate.

Over 150 defendants have been convicted on terrorism charges in US federal courts since 2001. The military commissions have only tried three cases during the same period.

Human Rights Watch said that today's announcement to transfer five cases to federal courts was diminished by the administration's decision to keep other pending cases before military commissions, providing substandard justice. While the recently enacted Military Commissions Act of 2009 significantly improves upon the Bush administration's system of military commissions, it still departs in fundamental ways from the fair trial procedures used in US federal courts and courts martial. Human Rights Watch said that any trial before the revised system of military commissions will carry the stigma of Guantanamo.

The cases remaining before military commissions include that of Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen who was 15 years old in 2002 when he allegedly threw the grenade that killed US Army Sgt. First Class Christopher Speer and wounded two others. The US government has refused to acknowledge his status as a child or to apply universally recognized standards of juvenile justice in his case.

No international tribunal since Nuremberg has prosecuted a child for alleged war crimes. The United Nations committee that monitors the rights of children found that the United States has held alleged child soldiers at Guantanamo without giving due account of their status as children and concluded that the "conduct of criminal proceedings against children within the military justice system should be avoided."

"Why would the Obama administration attempt to revive discredited military commissions by trying a child soldier?" Mariner said. "They should not be trying anyone before military commissions."

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four alleged co-conspirators were held for years without charge or trial in the custody of the Central Intelligence Agency, and were not transferred to Guantanamo until September 2006. The five men were charged before the military commissions in February 2008.

Human Rights Watch called on the Obama administration to prosecute in federal court all the detainees at Guantanamo accused of terrorism and other crimes.

Members of al Qaeda seek to be acknowledged as soldiers rather than denigrated as criminals, Human Rights Watch said. Putting them on trial in military commissions would have reinforced that view, handing al Qaeda an enormous propaganda victory. Trial in federal court will deny them the status of warrior.

Judge William Young underscored this point in the 2003 trial of the "shoe bomber," Richard Reid. As Judge Young said at the defendant's sentencing, "You are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist. You are not a soldier in any war. . . To give you that reference, to call you a soldier, gives you far too much stature."