In the name of international law, every German government has uncompromisingly rejected the prison camp. But no one wanted to take in former detainees. Just to stay on the safe side. ... These men committed no crimes, but who can guarantee that they won't?
Detainees await processing at Guantanamo in 2002: Closing the facility has turned out to be a lot harder than opening it, with allies hesitant to accept released detainees and the U.S. Congress unwilling to allow released detainees onto U.S. territory - even if deemed 'not dangerous.'
In the battle against that
blight on civilization, that symbol of abuse by the state, i.e.: the U.S.
detention camp at Guantanamo, Germany can be outdone by no one. For ten years
now, the struggle has surged to and fro, but one thing could always be relied
on: Every [German] administration of every stripe has rejected the camp in the
name of international law, periodically advising the U.S. government to refrain
from resorting to torture and arbitrary arrest. Among critics of the camp,
Germany stands out as one of the biggest.
It may be that German
criticism seemed muted at first. But when it became clear at the beginning of
2002 that the detention of over 1,000 alleged terrorists as "unlawful
combatants" was neither in accord with the U.S. Constitution nor
applicable international law, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (SPD)
expressed his conviction that the U.S. would strictly adhere to the U.S.
Constitution and international law.
Four years later, German
Chancellor Angela Merkel
(CDU) went on her inaugural
visit to then-U.S. President George W. Bush saying: “An institution like
Guantanamo cannot and should not exist in the long term. Different ways and
means must be found for dealing with the prisoners.” Who would have thought
then that these words, spoken in the spirit of humanitarianism, would put
Germany’s security almost unbearably at risk?
That is what occurred after U.S.
President Barack Obama
announced his intention to close the camp and provide former detainees with a
pathway to freedom, which was indeed a new way of dealing with a majority of prisoners.
Germany correctly and immediately recognized the inherent dangers of this: Who can
guarantee that people who weren’t terrorists when they were in custody don't become
terrorists by the time they're released?
The Uyghurs were Never Suspected of Terrorism
So it goes without saying
that resistance to accepting released Guantanamo detainees had already begun
before Obama sent his request to the German government. After the U.S.
president asked Germany to provide a home for Uyghur detainees, a kind of protest
movement emerged, supported by a number of media outlets. The Uyghurs - members
of the Muslim Turkic peoples living in Western China - were never suspected of
terrorist activity. In fact, Europe’s largest Uyghur minority lives in Munich,
where the city council agreed to accept 17 Uyghurs, several of whom were
innocent and had already spent seven years at Guantanamo.
Posted
by WORLDMEETS.US
Is anyone truly innocent? And didn’t China caution against accepting
the Uyghurs, who it wanted to persecute as “terrorists?” It wasn’t until the
last minute that Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) successfully averted
the impending attack on German security. Accepting the Uyghurs, their lawyers
admonished, was a humanitarian duty. But the legal basis for this was lacking, Schäuble
responded. The danger was only diverted when the island nation of Palau finally
agreed to accept the 17 Uyghurs. The president of Palau spoke of a
“humanitarian gesture” and not the $200 million the U.S. paid.
Germany lost the battle
against Guantanamo three times. But in the case of Murat Kurnaz, a Turk who
grew up in Bremen who was illegally detained at Guantanamo from 2002 to 2006,
you have to give Germany credit for yielding only after the most stubborn
resistance. There were no charges against Kurnaz, but as said before, is anyone
truly innocent? Is that stateless Palestinian innocent - who was never
suspected of a crime but who was locked up at Guantanamo since January 2001?;
or that Syrian, whose prisoner number happens to be known as (537) but not the
reason he’s worn it for almost nine years? These men committed no crimes, but
who can guarantee that they won't? Germany took them in regardless, and in
doing so, the country surrendered to Guantanamo for the second and third time.
Germany’s fight against
Guantanamo is nonetheless a success story. There is no danger of additional renditions
of innocent prisoners. And yesterday the federal government's human rights
commissioner, on the tenth anniversary of that blight on civilization, asked
the U.S. government again to remove the camp.
