Should Guantanamo Bay be America's problem to solve?
Die Zeit, Germany
Germany Must Refuse
U.S. on Guantanamo Prisoners
"It isn’t
clear why others should face the music for what the Americans have brought upon
themselves. … Grateful memories of the Marshall Plan, care packages and candy
bombers during the Berlin blockade should not seduce us into a suspension of reason."
By Theo Summer
Translated By Jonathan Lobsien
May 21, 2009
Germany - Die Zeit - Original Article (German)
The names of nine Uyghurs
are on the list that Barack Obama’s special envoy, Daniel Fried, recently handed
over to the German government. They currently sit along with some 250 other
detainees in the U.S. prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Germany, according to the request of the
Obama government, may take in the Uyghurs in order to
make the closure of the camp easier. According to a U.S. court, the nine pose
no danger, but in their homeland of China, they would be threatened again with imprisonment
and torture. Should Germany grant the men asylum? A fierce debate has erupted
within the grand [ruling] coalition in Berlin concerning this matter. Foreign
Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (Social Democratic Party) is for hosting them,
while Minister of the Interior Wolfgang Schäuble (Christian
Democratic Union), as well as a few SDP insiders,
object.
America's request that the
Federal Republic should accept nine Uyghurs who for
years have been rotting away in Guantanamo, is - to put it mildly - an
unreasonable demand. As much as one might wish that they finally receive justice
- along with about a dozen other of their fellow countrymen who were tortured
and confined to cages at the U.S. camp after September 11th - and then kept outside
of all law under George W. Bush - we should not accede to this unjust demand. There
are three reasons to argue against it.
First: It isn’t clear why
others should face the music for what the Americans have brought upon
themselves. Why should people in Bavaria or Lower Saxony take in those who
Texas and Illinois refuse to accept? Barack Obama wants to redress the
injustice inflicted on the Guantanamo detainees under his predecessor, which is
honorable. But it's the duty of the perpetrator nation to remedy the situation.
The restitution cannot, by blithely referring to the solidarity of the
Alliance, be pushed onto other nations - and certainly not those countries who
have always regarded Guantanamo as the downfall of American democracy. And in any
case: if the Uyghurs are dangerous, it is impertinent
to unload them on us. If they pose no threat, however, it's difficult to see
why America itself doesn't offer them asylum. Could it be, perhaps, that they
weren't offered asylum because they would then demand compensation for wrongful
imprisonment or even pursue criminal proceedings against the willing executors
of Bush's and Cheney's torture fantasies?
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
Second: The mercy of human
rights advocates is honored, but we cannot ignore the issue of security. We
simply don’t know who will be coming to us. Innocent people who had the
misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time who for a bounty were
handed over to the Americans? Offenders or potential offenders who feigned
innocence in order to be set free? Let us recall: a freed Guantanamo detainee
from Saudi Arabia today is now one of the leaders of al-Qaeda in Yemen; meanwhile,
another freed detainee just blew himself up in a suicide bombing in Afghanistan.
Der Spiegel quoted
in its latest edition facts from German government files, which must have been quite
thought-provoking for those who advocate receiving the detainees. It seems that
several of the Uyghurs offered to us by Washington
may have attended terrorist training camps that belonged to the East
Turkestan Islamic Movement, which is classified as a terrorist organization
by the United States and advocates for the independence of China's Xinjiang Province (which they call East Turkestan). Who
knows whether at the time of their arrest it was pure coincidence that they
were staying in the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan? And what
extremist thoughts that might adhere to in the future? Either way, they will
need to be intensively monitored at all times. If they should actually come to
Munich merely because 500 Uyghurs live there - would
that not represent a radicalization of the World Uyghur Congress, which is
headquartered there, and perhaps a new Hamburg, this time anti-Chinese? [Editor's
Note: This is a reference to the Hamburg cell of al-Qaeda,
where some of the 9/11 hijackers prepared for the terrorist attacks of September
11.]
SEE ALSO ON THIS:
Die Zeit, Germany:
Germany Must Accept U.S. Request on Guantanamo Prisoners
Liberation, France:
How Brave Americans Were Turned Into Torturers
NRC Handlesblad, The Netherlands:
Torture Has No Place in 'Shining City on a Hill'
Le Temps, Switzerland:
Doing Evil in the Name of the Good
Izvestia, Russia:
U.S. and Torture: For Mr. Obama, It's 'Hard to Be Gorby'
Publico, Spain:
Torture Charges Filed Against Bush Legal Team; Judge Garzon Handles Case
Hurriyet, Turkey:
Dick Cheney's Torture Logic is 'Deeply Offensive'
Die Tageszeitung, Germany:
America and Torture: 'Just Following Orders'
Financial Times Deutschland, Germany:
Obama: Inviting the Next Torture Scandal
Jornal de Noticias, Portugal:
Poverty and Torture: Bush Has Company in Europe
Le Monde, France:
'Fussy' Rights Groups 'Wrong' to Be Impatient with Obama
Le Figaro, France:
Obama's Moral Crusade: A Few Words of Caution
The Independent, U.K.:
America Doesn't Need a Witch-Hunt
BBC News, U.K.:
U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture Calls CIA Exemption 'Illegal'
Ottawa Citizen, Canada:
Torture the 'Chicago Way'
Toronto Star, Canada:
Winking at CIA Abuse
Third: In terms of China, the
political aspect of the matter cannot be simply ignored. The Obama Administration
doesn't want to spoil its relations with Beijing, which is why Hillary Clinton,
during her first visit to China as secretary of state, pointedly put the human
rights issue on the back burner. But why should we alone risk a further deterioration
of our relations with the Middle Kingdom, while America craftily stands aside
and without absorbing a single Uyghur? Nothing good can come of this. If the full
weight of Beijing’s wrath isn't to descend on Berlin, there will likely be a
need for several other European states to take in Guantanamo inmates of the
rebellious Turkic people who defy Chinese sovereignty, (like in the case of the
Schengen
Agreement that guarantees [Europeans] freedom to travel, in this way at
least we could have a jointly-approved European solution to this question).
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
The upsurge in emotion that
the Uyghur issue has triggered is understandable. But pangs of remorse over the
handling of Murat Kurnaz's case or grateful memories of the Marshall Plan,
care packages and candy bombers during the Berlin blockade should not seduce us
into a suspension of reason. That reason, rather, should tell us that in the
case of the Uyghurs, security concerns and the
prevention of negative foreign policy consequences must take priority over well-meaning
but incorrectly-addressed human rights considerations.
CLICK HERE FOR GERMAN VERSION
[Posted by WORLDMEETS.US May 20, 10:59pm]
