Uniting Church writes to Bush, condemning torture veto

The Uniting Church in Australia has taken the unusual step of writing to the president of the United States, George W. Bush, criticising his recent decision to veto legislation that would have outlawed torture techniques such as "water-boarding".

The church leaders said Bush’s veto of the legislation put the United States in the same company as the "Gestapo, the Japanese Kempeitai [in the Second World War era] and the Khmer Rouge [in Cambodia]", who the religious leaders noted used similar measures.

The letter sent in May expressed the church’s "extreme disappointment" about the presidential veto of the congressional bill that would have prevented the country’s Central Intelligence Agency from carrying out torture, "through techniques such as water-boarding".

Bush said in March that he vetoed the bill because it "would take away one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror". Later in April a committee of the Senate did, however, vote to restrict the CIA from using any interrogation techniques that are not explicitly authorised by the military.

The Australian letter is signed by the Uniting Church’s National General Secretary Rev Terrence Corkin. It noted, "Similar methods of torture were also used by the Gestapo, the Japanese Kempeitai and the Khmer Rouge." Such torture violates "internationally accepted human rights standards, such as Article 5 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights".

The Nazi-sponsored Gestapo and the Kempeitai of Japan’s wartime government are universally infamous for the use of torture, and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia in the 1970s are accused of killing up to 2.5 million people in one of the world’s worst cases of genocide.

The letter said the Uniting Church believed, "that the use of torture is morally wrong in all circumstances and can never be justified". Water-boarding is an interrogation technique that makes prisoners think they are drowning.

Corkin urged Bush "to reverse your support for the use of torture techniques by the CIA and support the introduction of legislation to ban their use".

He added, "We note that our own [Australian] Government has stated that it opposes torture in all circumstances and that they do not condone the use of water-boarding." The US House of Representatives supported the bill to stop the use of torture by 222 votes to 199 while the Senate backed it, 51-44.

Ecumenical News International

Photo : Uniting Church in Australia National General Secretary Rev Terrence Corkin