European Governments Asked to
Help US Close Guantanamo
US detention center at Guantanamo Bay has been the
target of global criticism
DW-World , November 11, 2008
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See Article III.7
Establishment of an Unconstitutional, Parallel Legal
System
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The Geneva Conventions:
Will the Obama administration adhere to them
and will Bush administration officials be held
accountable for violating them?
Source: duhaime.org |
US President-elect Obama has promised to shutter
Guantanamo, although how he’ll do so remains
unclear. Human rights groups are holding him to his
word and asking European nations for their support
once the prison closes.
“As President, I will close Guantánamo,
reject the Military Commissions Act, and adhere to
the Geneva Conventions,” then-candidate Barack
Obama told a crowd of supporters in August of 2007.
With a long campaign behind him and a few months
before he enters the White House, the US president-elect
will be pressed to make good on a number of campaign
promises, including, as he said last year, closing
the US detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Just how he’ll do that, however, remains uncertain.
Laurence Tribe, a Harvard law professor and Obama
legal adviser, told the Associated Press that discussions
about how to handle the controversial detention center
had been “theoretical” before the election.
Still, Tribe admitted, the issue would quickly come
into focus, as closing the prison is a top priority.
"In reality and symbolically, the idea that
we have people in legal black holes is an extremely
serious black mark," Tribe said. "It has
to be dealt with."
As Obama and his advisers contemplate just how best
to deal with a legal anomaly that has blighted the
country’s reputation over the last seven years,
experts say this campaign promise is not one to renege
on.
"If the president-elect is serious about building
bridges with allies and demonstrating core American
values, it's what people are going to be looking to
see," Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown
University told AFP news agency.
Many steps to be taken
Still, the question of how best to close the prison
is not an easy one to answer. Deciding what to do
with the 255 detainees still held there could prove
a logistical and political nightmare. Though the number
of inmates at the camp is down from the 390 counted
at the end of 2006, only two have been held to account
before a military tribunal -- the legal structure
outlined in the Military Commissions Act that Obama
said he rejects.
The current administration likewise says it only
intends to charge another 80 detainees with war crimes.
That leaves more than two-thirds of the prisoners
as yet uncharged. At least 60 of them have already
been cleared for transfer out of Guantanamo but remain
there in limbo, waiting for countries willing to take
them in.
Persecution of ex-detainees
Last month, ahead of the US elections, the Council
of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) said it worried
about the fate of Guantanamo detainees who have been
cleared of all suspicion of terrorist activity but
who cannot return to their home countries because
they risk persecution.
“We have to remember that the US does not admit
they’ve made a mistake,” said Cori Crider,
a staff attorney for the London-based charity Reprieve,
which offers legal counsel to 35 or so of the detainees.
“They hand over the prisoner along with his
file. These untested, unproven allegations follow
our clients back to their home countries.”
Working with the documents in these files -- which
may include coerced confessions made under duress
-- security agents in each country are allowed to
determine what happens to the detainee next. And depending
on the country, the detainee may be subjected to further
imprisonment or torture.
A detainee in a white jumpsuit sitting in the sun
behind a chain-link fenceBildunterschrift: Großansicht
des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: In 2007, the
US Supreme Court ordered a halt to the return of a
Tunisian national because of torture fears
“Closing Guantanamo shouldn’t be an excuse
to transfer human rights violations elsewhere,”
said Daniel Gorevan, a campaign manager with Amnesty
International.
Together with other human rights NGOs, Amnesty International
is calling on European governments to help prevent
further human rights violations by taking in those
nationals most vulnerable to persecution if returned
to their home countries.
“There are at least 50 detainees that the US
will not or does not want to charge but they cannot
transfer them to their home countries,” said
Gorevan. Nationals of China, Algeria, Tunisia, Russia
and Uzbekistan were pointed out as especially at risk.
Halting Guantanamo practices
As proof of this heightened risk, Crider told the
story of Abdullah bin Omar al Hadi, one of her clients
who was released from Guantanamo and returned to Tunisia,
despite his lawyer’s warning to the US that
al Hadi would be tortured upon his return. On the
day of his arrival, al Hadi was taken to the Ministry
of Interior in Tunis, arrested, hit, drugged and threatened
with the rape of his wife and daughter.
During his time at Guantanamo, Crider said, her client
said the confession he signed was coerced, a result
of beatings. It was later used by Tunisia to jail
al Hadi for seven years, following a trial in which
his lawyer was shouted down and threatened.
It’s practices like these, said Gorevan, that
need to be taken into account before detainees are
released.
“This isn’t just about closing those
detention facilities but (halting) the practices that
those facilities embody.”
Europe's role
One of the ways Europe can help speed up the closure
of Guantanamo, said Gorevan, is to take in those most
at risk of persecution if returned to their home countries.
So far, only Albania has granted asylum to three former
detainees from China.
“The US gave us the Marshall Plan, they helped
Berlin with the airlift. We have every reason to help
the Americans and to take these people in is a step
in the right direction,” said Marianne Heuwagen,
Director of Human Rights Watch Germany.
Amnesty International's Gorevan cited the repatriation
of Murat Kurnaz, a German-born Turk who spent four
years in the camp as one relatively successful example
of life-after-Guantanamo.
“European governments can offer them international
protection and reintegrate them into society,”
he said.
Though the process of integrating a non-native torture
victim into European society would be quite different
from the repatriation process, Gorevan said the large
diaspora populations across Europe could help the
released feel more at home.
And while the released detainees require quite a
bit of support in the resettlement process, Crider
said, the Denmark-based International Rehabilitation
Council for Torture Victims has pledged its support
to the initiative.
