Making Stalin proud: Renewed repression of Guantanamo Bay prisoners

author : Marco Rosaire Rossi topic : Guantanamo Bay | torture

by Marco Rosaire Rossi

When the Democrats were swept into power last November, Americans were hoping they would clean up the havoc waged by the Bush Administration. One of the things on that list was the closing down of the gulag at Guantanamo Bay. An online poll from http://www.about.com showed that almost 60% of those polled wanted the detention center shut down. As of June, the Democrats still haven't done their job -- even though reports are coming in that the situation for the prisoners there is getting worse.

In early April, Australian Guantanamo Bay prisoner David Hicks signed a deal with the US Justice Department saying he would be released from detention after a nine month sentence if he plead guilty to the charge of providing "material support" to a terrorist organization. When news broke, reporters and attorneys were scratching their heads.

Not only was the deal made in extreme secrecy -- not even the prosecuting attorney for the case knew about it -- but it wasn't too long ago that the Justice Department was claiming Hicks was one of the "worse of the worse" in the war on terror.

Why did such an extreme terrorist get such a light sentence? Even more remarkable were the finer parts of the deal.

A silencing method

The plea agreement forbids Hicks from talking about his experience at Guantanamo publicly for an entire year. Robert Richter, one of Australia's most experienced criminal lawyers and supporter of Hicks said that the whole process was a sham: "First there was the indefinite detention without charge. Then there was the torture, however the Bush lawyers, including his attorney general, might choose to describe it. Then there was the extorted confession of guilt." In general, Richter said, "Guantanamo Bay would have done Stalin's show trials proud."

The eagerness that the Justice Department has had in wrapping up the Hicks trial comes at a time when the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are facing harsher repression. This past April, the human rights organization Amnesty International came out with a report that said Guantanamo Bay is "pushing people to the edge." Around 300 prisoners have been moved from their regular facilities into new ones known as Camp 5, Camp 6, and Camp Echo. These facilities are modeled after "super-max" (maximum security) prisons in the United States. Prisoners are confined to windowless cells, held for 22 hours a day, and only allowed to exercise at night. Some prisoners have gone days without seeing any daylight. When they are released for exercise, prison officials use the opportunity to rummage through their cells and examine what personal items they have.

Some have speculated that the Hicks trial was quickly diverted to prevent the worsening conditions in Guantanamo Bay from leaking out. The day before the deal was struck, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates told a congressional committee in Washington that he believed Guantanamo Bay should be shut down, not because of abuses, but because of the negative view it has formed with the international community. For Gates, the verdict of the Hicks trial won't matter, because the international community has biased itself too much against the United States: "No matter how transparent, no matter how open the trials, if they took place in Guantanamo, in the international community they would lack credibility." What Gates didn't mention was that the international community believes that Guantanamo Bay lacks credibility -- because it does lack creditability. For the past five years -- half a decade -- the Bush administration has used the Guantanamo Bay prisoners as legal guinea pigs, torturing and indefinitely detaining them without regard for the law or human decency.

The Bush administration has gotten away with this legal and political mayhem because of its insistence that those detained at Guantanamo Bay are not prisoners of war, but "unlawful enemy combatants" -- a term created by the Bush administration as a means of ignoring the prisoners' rights promised in the Third Geneva Convention. The degree to which this term has seeped into the political, legal, and military culture would have made Orwell gasp. Karen J. Greenberg, a journalist visiting Guantanamo Bay, reported that she witnessed another journalist being chastised by military officials for referring to those detained at Guantanamo Bay as "detainees." The proper term -- if you want to talk to military personal -- is "detained enemy combatants."

Of course, if the Bush administration was really serious about upholding international law then semantics won't matter. The Third Geneva Convention makes clear that if a person is captured on the battlefield then that person shall be assumed to be a prisoner of war until a neutral judicial body determines otherwise. And even if a neutral judicial body determined the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay to be "enemy combatants" that still won't legalize their torture and indefinite detention. Article 7 of The International Covenant on Civil Political Rights, which Congress ratified in 1992, states: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment"; Articles 9 and 10 guarantee "all persons" a right to fair speedy trial, access to an attorney, and due process. This means that the nations that the so-called "enemy combatants" in Guantanamo Bay are from could sue the United States in international court for violating this treaty.

How long can this continue?

The idea that the phrase "enemy combatant" can open the door to such heinous crimes is quite frightening. But advocates of torture and arbitrary detention can't hide behind their phony legalese forever -- or can they? In a recent debate with Republican presidential candidates, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney said that he wants Guantanamo Bay to double in size. At the same event, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Congressman Tom Tancredo suggested that they support the use of torture. The mainstream never even commented on the issue.

President Bush has constantly reminded Americans that the reason the United States was attacked on September 11th was because the terrorists hate our way of life -- our freedom and democracy. In the twisted logic of imperialism his message is somewhat reassuring. If the crisis at Guantanamo Bay continues, then soon we won't have any freedom and democracy left for anyone to hate. Hopefully then, all the terrorists will leave us alone; and maybe then they will finally shut down Guantanamo Bay.

Marco Rosaire Rossi is a member of the Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace.