Guantanamo's Camp Delta: Even the president of the
United States can't seem to close it.
Estadao, Brazil
Obama Incapable of
Ending 'Nightmare' of Guantanamo
"It's
unclear what Obama can do while under virulent attack from a Republican
opposition for wanting to get rid of this inherited nightmare, which continues to
damage America's image like no other."
Detainess at the Guantanamo Bay prison await processing, Jan, 11, 2002. The latest data-bomb from WikiLeaks consists of previously classified documents with details on all 'detainees' ever to inhabit the now-infamous jail, located in the legal limbo of U.S.-occupied Cuba.
The more than 700 classified military
documents newly-released by the Web site WikiLeaks and The New York Times
about the terrorism suspects imprisoned at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, is the fourth set of confidential U.S. government documents made public
since last year. The new batch makes it clear that the incapacity of the largest
global power to keep its secrets is compounded by its failure to identify who was
among the suspected agents of its number one enemy - Osama Bin Laden and his terrorist
network, al-Qaeda.
Their September 11, 2001 attacks
on the country gave rise to the transformation of Guantanamo into a sui generis prison
that's an affront to the rights enshrined in the home of the free and doesn’t even
constitute an effective instrument for combating the homicidal fundamentalist
threat. We already knew of the routine violence, humiliation and lack of legal
protection suffered by prisoners of the American enclave in Cuba. We also knew
that lots of them, after been captured, were secretly sent to other countries
to be tortured - and then to Guantanamo.
But no one knew of the surrealism
that dominates in what has become an "enduring American institution,"
as The New York Times put it, referring to the fact that the President
Barack Obama has failed to keep one of the biggest promises he made during his
election campaign: to close what Washington gently calls a "detention
center." The leaked documents are almost all "assessment
reports" written between February 2002 and January 2009, therefore, during
the Bush Administration. They are records of 759 of the 779 detainees who have
passed through the prison over the period, including a 14-year-old boy and a
senile 89-year-old man.
In regard to the at least 150
"enemy combatants," their captors were unable to establish any ties
with al-Qaeda or Taliban. They ended up in Guantanamo for more implausible
reasons, such as confusion about their names or accusations of terrorist acts by
the actual perpetrators - without even investigating these opposing versions. But
years passed before they were returned to their countries of origin. A Sudanese
cameraman who worked for Al-Jazeera spent six years answering questions about
training programs, equipment and the station's news coverage. He was released
in 2008 (and returned to his job).
At Guantanamo, there remain
172 suspects. Most are considered "high risk." However, according to the
disclosed documents, about 200 of the 600 already released were also considered
high risk. Guilty or innocent, none could be taken to a criminal court because
of the weakness of the evidence against them and the circumstances of their
confessions. Even the best known of all, Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed, a confessed mastermind of September 11, will be tried by a
military commission. The government has dropped the idea of putting him on
trial in Manhattan, where the Twin Towers stood, and where he ordered aircraft,
hijacked by a suicide team, to strike the buildings on that terrible morning.
Posted
by WORLDMEETS.US
Much of what appears in the
prisoner "assessment reports" came from a single prisoner who
implicated many of the others. In addition, members of the intelligence
services of a dozen countries, all Arab or Muslim and except for Russia and
China, were in Guantanamo to interrogate their citizens. It was found that what
they said didn't necessarily match what they had told the Americans. What is
believable is the portrait they paint of the degrading nature of everyday life
at the base, the suffocating tension in the air, and vows of revenge and
retaliation. It's difficult to imagine that this it has changed with the advent
of the Obama government.
It's unclear what Obama can
do while under virulent attack from a Republican opposition for wanting to get
rid of this inherited nightmare, which continues to damage America's image like no
other. And for what? "The more we know about Guantanamo, the worse it seems
as a way of confronting terrorism," says London's Guardian, which
also published the documents. "It is a symbol of vengeance, not a system
of justice." [translated quotes].
