Guantanamo, Obama and the European Union
I was recently interviewed on RTTV about European involvement with the United States in Guantanamo and its responsibility for what is taking place there. In the end they used a small piece of the interview. The news piece can be scene at http://rt.com/....
These are the questions they asked me and my answers.
1. What shocks you most about the treatment of Guantanamo prisoners?
The detention of supposed enemy combatants by the United States at Guantanamo is a violation of international law. Either these people are prisoners of war and should be treated according to the 1950 Geneva Convention or they are criminals and should have the right to a trial by a jury of their peers in civilian courts. The human rights group Amnesty International called the prison camp "the gulag of our time."
According to files released by Wikileaks in April 2011, over 150 innocent Afghans and Pakistanis, including farmers, chefs, and drivers, were held for years without charge. Detainees included an 89 year old man with dementia and a 14 year old boy of limited mental capacity.
The UK Guardian reported prisoners were held captive for years on the flimsiest grounds, or on the basis of confessions extracted by maltreatment. Despite international agreements, some of the prisoners were kept “off-limits” to the Red Cross. More than two years after President Obama said Guantanamo was closed, over 150 prisoners are still there.
The United States government does not deny that Guantanamo inmates have been subjected to harsh interrogation techniques including waterboarding.
2. Did EU states help with 'extraordinary rendition', according to your information?
It has become clear with the recent NATO bombardment of Libya that the EU is a full partner of the United States in its war on the Islamic world.
The United States CIA runs a global abduction and internment operation for people suspected of supporting terrorism. A June 2006 report from the Council of Europe estimated 100 people had been kidnapped by the CIA on EU territory with the cooperation of Council members and rendered to other countries through secret detention centers. According to a European Parliament report of February 2007, the CIA rendering program conducted over 1,200 flights out of European countries, many to destinations where suspects faced torture, in violation of article 3 of the United Nations Convention Against Torture. Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and the Czech Republic were definitely involved. A large majority of the European Union Parliament endorsed the report's conclusion that member states tolerated illegal actions by the CIA and criticized several European governments and intelligence agencies for their unwillingness to cooperate with the investigation.
3. What evidence is there that prisoners had been taken to other countries for torture? In 2005, a U.N. General Assembly report accused the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, and Sweden of violating international human rights conventions by deporting terrorist suspects to countries such as Egypt, Syria, Algeria and Uzbekistan, where they were tortured.
4.How would you describe the role of Dick Cheney in this?
Cheney is a major architect of the US Guantanamo policy. Since leaving office he has campaigned to keep the prison open. According to Cheney, protecting the U.S. is "a tough, mean, dirty, nasty business” because “These are evil people.” Personally, I think Cheney is the evil person and the real task at hand is to protect the US and the rest of the world from people like him.
5. Should anyone from the Bush administration face justice?
I would not limit prosecution to the Bush Administration. Obama has been President of the United States for more than two years and now bears responsibility for Guantanamo, as well as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In April 2011, US Attorney General Eric Holder announced that detainees held at Guantánamo Bay would be tried by a military commission rather than in an ordinary federal court. Amnesty International charged this sends a “signal to other governments that the USA is willing to ignore human rights standards when it finds them inconvenient, making this a victory” for the politics of fear.
In April 2009, the European Parliament welcomed President Obama's decision to close Guantánamo Bay but placed the main responsibility for the future of the prisoners on the United States.