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Mr Blair Must Join the Calls for Guantanamo to Close
Editorial
Observer
June 18, 2006
Consider this hypothetical situation. Three unconvicted terrorist suspects in a maximum security jail, one still a juvenile at the time of his arrest, and all assessed at high risk of suicide after several months on hunger strike, somehow manage to hang themselves on a prison landing at the same time. It isn't a swift process; they all die slowly and in agony through hypoxia, a process that takes several minutes. If it happened in this country, there would be an outcry: questions in the House; statements from ministers; perhaps a public inquiry. The focus, justifiably, would be on the negligence that had allowed such things to happen and, eventually, heads might roll.
Late on 9 June, that scenario became real in the US detention camp at GuantanamoBay. The response, from various Pentagon and State Department officials, would have made even Orwell blench. The deaths, they suggested, were a 'stunt' and an 'act of asymmetric warfare'. America had nothing to hide, they insisted. It would be 'transparent'.
Taking them at their word, our reporter, David Rose, obtained clearance to enter the base. But as he was about to board a plane, the clearance was revoked; three US reporters already there were expelled. Perhaps the assertions about the three dead prisoners were true, although no evidence had been produced. What was certain was that there was now no way of finding out.
Last week, Lord Falconer, the Lord Chancellor, went further than any minister to date in condemning the prison camp. 'GuantanamoBay is a recruiting agent for those who would attack all our values,' he said on BBC1's Question Time. 'We live by the rule of law. What GuantanamoBay is doing is placing people beyond the rule of law, which is intolerable and wrong.' Three months ago, Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney-General, also called for its closure, saying that this would 'remove what has become a symbol to many of injustice. The historic tradition of the United States as a beacon of freedom, liberty and of justice deserves the removal of this symbol'.
We endorse these sentiments wholeheartedly but their impact in America remains limited. In Washington, there is only one British politician whose opinions matter: Tony Blair. While he, too, has said Guantanamo should shut, he has done so in muted fashion, saying only that it represents an 'anomaly'.
Guantanamo is not merely a 'legal black hole'; it is one that is starting to fill with corpses, immune from all normal scrutiny. We have urged Mr Blair to become more forthright on this subject before. If ever the time was right, it is now.
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