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GUANTANAMO BAY
It has now been 10 long years since the United States government first opened the prison doors in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to some of the first men captured in its ‘war on terror’. Since 11 January 2002, about 780 men have been held in the prison for various periods of time. Now, three years after U.S. President Obama vowed to close the prison, there remains 171 men imprisoned and languishing there. Of the 171, only 36 of these prisoners have been charged with war crimes while 89 prisoners have been cleared for and await release. They probably will never be released.

The following facts exist about the prison in Guantanamo Bay: 1) The vast majority of prisoners ever held at Guantanamo have been innocent of any terrorist activity against the U.S.. 2) Only 5% of all prisoners were actually captured by U.S. troops with another 2% captured by other coalition members. 3) Some 93% of all prisoners were turned in by other individuals and governments in the area for bounties paid by the U.S. government of US$5,000 or more. This means that the U.S. does not have nor never had sufficient evidence of any terrorist activity for the majority of prisoners held at Guantanamo, including ones considered to be a dangerous threat to the United States. 4) Although Donald Rumsfeld initially stated that these men were ‘the worst of the worst’, the vast majority of those 780 men imprisoned have not been charged with any crime by the U.S. government. In the last 10 years, the government has charged approximately 5% of the prisoners with a crime. 5) Information gathered from prisoners regarding other prisoners was rewarded by the U.S. government with food, medical treatment and drugs. This rewarded information may still form part of the evidence against certain prisoners. 6) The U.S. government used physical and mental torture against the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. 7) The U.S. government refused to name any of the prisoners it held until it given a court order to do so in early 2006. 8) One of the lawyers working with prisoners has calculated that some 64 children were held in Guantanamo prison. Although the U.S. is obligated under international law to rehabilitate child soldiers, it only gave the necessary special treatment to the 3 children who were 13 to 15 years old while not doing anything different for the remaining children who were between 15 and 17 years old. 9) Released and leaked government papers have shown that the U.S. government knew that most of those men held in Guantanamo Bay prison were innocent of any war crimes.

The above facts are only the tip of the iceberg regarding the happenings of the Guantanamo Bay prison in the past 10 years. Although President Obama has pledged to close Guantanamo Bay, his administration has only moved backwards on this pledge. He has not been able to hold to his views and convictions in the face of serious opposition by Congress. The U.S. Congress has skillfully managed to out-manuever the Obama administration. Congress has disallowed funding which would have allowed Guantanamo prisoners to be released to other governments. It has passed legislation prohibiting anyone ever held in Guantanamo from stepping foot on American soil. Of the 89 men ready to be released, the U.S. government has determined that it is unsafe to return them to their home countries for various reasons which include a lack of viable government control and probable torture and there has been no alternative country that will take them. Other countries are not convinced that these men, neither charged nor convicted are actually harmless since the U.S. itself refuses to accept any of them. There are no simple or easy answers especially when fear is a commodity often sold to the American public by the government. If those in charge would only consider each of those 171 men as individuals and remember what the rule of law actually means.
10 January 2012