Guantanamo Bay
Guantanamo Bay is never far from the headlines these days as European nations become increasingly concerned by allegations of torture of the so-called terrorists incarcerated there, as well as by the fact that there appears little willingness on the part of US authorities to allow those in custody to proceed to a fair trial.
The US facilities at Guantanamo Bay are themselves an anomaly. The base which covers 45 square miles was first established as a coaling station for American shipping in 1898 when the US seized control of Cuba from Spain following the Spanish-American War. The treaty signed at that time gave jurisdiction and control of the port to the USA while Cuba was recognised as retaining ultimate sovereignty. In 1905 following a Cuban uprising, the USA occupied Cuba for three years and the island became to all intents an American colony. An agreement in 1934 added a requirement that termination of the lease of the base requires the consent of both governments, or the abandonment of the site by the US. Under US influence the island became a haven for drug running, money laundering, prostitution, and other activities promoted by American gangsters, who because they were not on the American mainland were left relatively free by the authorities to pursue these interests. Fidel Castro’s retrospectively Marxist revolution put an end to all forms of American exploitation as it set about re-establishing Cuban identity and dignity. A series of tit-for-tat measures saw the American government establish an embargo upon all things Cuban in an unashamed and unsuccessful attempt to use economic muscle to re-establish US hegemony over the island and its people. The Cuban government continues to strongly denounce the Guantanamo treaty on the grounds that article 52 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties declares a treaty void if it was procured by either the threat or the use of force.
Given what has transpired at the Guantanamo Bay detention facilities one can only conclude that the transportation and imprisonment of US prisoners to Cuba from places as distant as Afghanistan and Pakistan was a cynical strategy because the lack of legal representation, the withholding of human rights and the torture of prisoners on such a large scale would not have been permitted on mainland America. The fact that Guantanamo is on foreign soil, and to the American mind what is even worse, communist soil, has rendered it less likely that American citizens would object to what is being perpetrated there.
This week however, the world’s condemnation of the Guantanamo Bay regime as one of the instruments of President Bush’s War on terror, became more strident. First there was the report issued by five inspectors for the United Nations’ human rights commissioner alleging that US techniques used on Guantanamo prisoners such as shackling, hooding, forcing detainees to wear earphones and goggles, unacceptable interrogation techniques and excessive violence used to force-feed prisoners who are on hunger strike were all unacceptable. True to form the White House’s press secretary dismissed the allegations as a “rehash of old allegations” and a discredit to the UN. Insisting that the prisoners were being treated humanely he added, “Remember these are terrorists”. This classification of people as “terrorists” rather than as “alleged terrorists” is a consistent ideological ploy of President Bush’s War on Terror. Everyone is regarded as guilty until proven innocent by judicial processes which are denied them. Even the UN’s General Secretary spoke out on this occasion, saying he was opposed to imprisonment “in perpetuity” and insisting that sooner or later the Guantanamo camp would have to be closed.
Meanwhile in the UK both the legal profession and the Church added to the controversy. A British Judge, Mr Justice Collins, hearing an appeal against the refusal of British ministers to request the release of three British citizens languishing in Guantanamo Bay, did not mince his words. “America’s idea of torture is not the same as ours”, he said, “and does not appear to coincide with that of most civilised nations”. In speaking thus he was echoing the law lords judgement reached last year by Lord Bingham who, when at his home in Wales, attends our Cathedral here in Brecon. He judged that US techniques such as sensory deprivation and inducing a perception of suffocation, would be defined as torture in British law. And Britain’s Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith has insisted that the military tribunals Washington has proposed to try detainees within the prison at Guantanamo do not amount to a fair trial “by standards we would regard as acceptable”.
The real problem apparently is over the definition of what constitutes torture. As we might expect the Bush regime defines torture differently from Justice Collins’ civilised nations. The American administration’s understanding is a particularly narrow one establishing criteria of intense physical injury and organ failure. But as every schoolchild is aware, there are forms of physical torture which leave no scars, and forms of psychological torture which can ultimately be more damaging than physical measures. It is presumably on the basis of this narrow US definition that Secretary Condaleeza Rice can confidently assert that the US never engages in torture.
The newly installed Anglican Archbishop of York, once a victim of Idi Amin’s reign of terror in Uganda was similarly outspoken. In an interview with The Independent Dr Sentamu urged that should the US fail to respond positively to the recent Human Rights Commission Report, then the Commission should take legal action against the US through the US courts, or the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The latter suggestion is a non-starter because isolationist America does not recognise the legitimacy of international courts. Dr Sentamu, in his earlier life a lawyer and a Judge, recommended also that the Commission should seek a writ of habeas corpus, to compel the US to bring the detainees to court to establish whether they have been imprisoned lawfully.
The Archbishop continued “The main building block of a democratic society is that everyone is equal before the law, innocent until proved otherwise, and has the right to legal representation. If the guilt of the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay is beyond doubt, why are the Americans afraid to bring them to trial? Transparency and accountability are the other side of the coin of freedom and responsibility. . . . .The events of 9/11 cannot erase the rule of law and international obligations . . . . To hold someone for up to four years without charge clearly indicates a society that is heading towards George Orwell’s Animal Farm”. Desmond Tutu, the former Archbishop of South Africa similarly claimed that he was alarmed that arguments used to sustain the apartheid regime are now being used by the US to justify anti-terrorist measures.
Meanwhile British citizens are being tortured by Americans in Guantanamo Bay. One of them is a Moroccan, Ahmad Errachidi, who has been a cook in London for eighteen years. He was arrested in Pakistan and is said to have been sold to US forces. Held in solitary confinement for two years, the Americans accuse him of participating in a terrorist training camp in July 2001. There is both documentary and witness proof that he was working in a London kitchen at that time. My guess is that the Americans are reluctant to bring Ahmad and many of his fellow prisoners to trial because their innocence will constitute a further stain on that country’s already discredited system of justice.
The US facilities at Guantanamo Bay are themselves an anomaly. The base which covers 45 square miles was first established as a coaling station for American shipping in 1898 when the US seized control of Cuba from Spain following the Spanish-American War. The treaty signed at that time gave jurisdiction and control of the port to the USA while Cuba was recognised as retaining ultimate sovereignty. In 1905 following a Cuban uprising, the USA occupied Cuba for three years and the island became to all intents an American colony. An agreement in 1934 added a requirement that termination of the lease of the base requires the consent of both governments, or the abandonment of the site by the US. Under US influence the island became a haven for drug running, money laundering, prostitution, and other activities promoted by American gangsters, who because they were not on the American mainland were left relatively free by the authorities to pursue these interests. Fidel Castro’s retrospectively Marxist revolution put an end to all forms of American exploitation as it set about re-establishing Cuban identity and dignity. A series of tit-for-tat measures saw the American government establish an embargo upon all things Cuban in an unashamed and unsuccessful attempt to use economic muscle to re-establish US hegemony over the island and its people. The Cuban government continues to strongly denounce the Guantanamo treaty on the grounds that article 52 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties declares a treaty void if it was procured by either the threat or the use of force.
Given what has transpired at the Guantanamo Bay detention facilities one can only conclude that the transportation and imprisonment of US prisoners to Cuba from places as distant as Afghanistan and Pakistan was a cynical strategy because the lack of legal representation, the withholding of human rights and the torture of prisoners on such a large scale would not have been permitted on mainland America. The fact that Guantanamo is on foreign soil, and to the American mind what is even worse, communist soil, has rendered it less likely that American citizens would object to what is being perpetrated there.
This week however, the world’s condemnation of the Guantanamo Bay regime as one of the instruments of President Bush’s War on terror, became more strident. First there was the report issued by five inspectors for the United Nations’ human rights commissioner alleging that US techniques used on Guantanamo prisoners such as shackling, hooding, forcing detainees to wear earphones and goggles, unacceptable interrogation techniques and excessive violence used to force-feed prisoners who are on hunger strike were all unacceptable. True to form the White House’s press secretary dismissed the allegations as a “rehash of old allegations” and a discredit to the UN. Insisting that the prisoners were being treated humanely he added, “Remember these are terrorists”. This classification of people as “terrorists” rather than as “alleged terrorists” is a consistent ideological ploy of President Bush’s War on Terror. Everyone is regarded as guilty until proven innocent by judicial processes which are denied them. Even the UN’s General Secretary spoke out on this occasion, saying he was opposed to imprisonment “in perpetuity” and insisting that sooner or later the Guantanamo camp would have to be closed.
Meanwhile in the UK both the legal profession and the Church added to the controversy. A British Judge, Mr Justice Collins, hearing an appeal against the refusal of British ministers to request the release of three British citizens languishing in Guantanamo Bay, did not mince his words. “America’s idea of torture is not the same as ours”, he said, “and does not appear to coincide with that of most civilised nations”. In speaking thus he was echoing the law lords judgement reached last year by Lord Bingham who, when at his home in Wales, attends our Cathedral here in Brecon. He judged that US techniques such as sensory deprivation and inducing a perception of suffocation, would be defined as torture in British law. And Britain’s Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith has insisted that the military tribunals Washington has proposed to try detainees within the prison at Guantanamo do not amount to a fair trial “by standards we would regard as acceptable”.
The real problem apparently is over the definition of what constitutes torture. As we might expect the Bush regime defines torture differently from Justice Collins’ civilised nations. The American administration’s understanding is a particularly narrow one establishing criteria of intense physical injury and organ failure. But as every schoolchild is aware, there are forms of physical torture which leave no scars, and forms of psychological torture which can ultimately be more damaging than physical measures. It is presumably on the basis of this narrow US definition that Secretary Condaleeza Rice can confidently assert that the US never engages in torture.
The newly installed Anglican Archbishop of York, once a victim of Idi Amin’s reign of terror in Uganda was similarly outspoken. In an interview with The Independent Dr Sentamu urged that should the US fail to respond positively to the recent Human Rights Commission Report, then the Commission should take legal action against the US through the US courts, or the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The latter suggestion is a non-starter because isolationist America does not recognise the legitimacy of international courts. Dr Sentamu, in his earlier life a lawyer and a Judge, recommended also that the Commission should seek a writ of habeas corpus, to compel the US to bring the detainees to court to establish whether they have been imprisoned lawfully.
The Archbishop continued “The main building block of a democratic society is that everyone is equal before the law, innocent until proved otherwise, and has the right to legal representation. If the guilt of the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay is beyond doubt, why are the Americans afraid to bring them to trial? Transparency and accountability are the other side of the coin of freedom and responsibility. . . . .The events of 9/11 cannot erase the rule of law and international obligations . . . . To hold someone for up to four years without charge clearly indicates a society that is heading towards George Orwell’s Animal Farm”. Desmond Tutu, the former Archbishop of South Africa similarly claimed that he was alarmed that arguments used to sustain the apartheid regime are now being used by the US to justify anti-terrorist measures.
Meanwhile British citizens are being tortured by Americans in Guantanamo Bay. One of them is a Moroccan, Ahmad Errachidi, who has been a cook in London for eighteen years. He was arrested in Pakistan and is said to have been sold to US forces. Held in solitary confinement for two years, the Americans accuse him of participating in a terrorist training camp in July 2001. There is both documentary and witness proof that he was working in a London kitchen at that time. My guess is that the Americans are reluctant to bring Ahmad and many of his fellow prisoners to trial because their innocence will constitute a further stain on that country’s already discredited system of justice.
posted by MichaelElliott @ 8:55 AM
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