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Should the Guantanamo Prison Be Closed?
NPR: Talk of the Nation
May 23, 2006
NEAL CONAN, host:
This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan, in Washington.
Last week, the United Nations Committee Against Torture released a report that called for the United States to close the prison at GuantanamoBay, in Cuba. The 11-page report condemned the detention site, as well as secret CIA prisons, as a violation of international law.
And it's not just the U.N. British Attorney General Peter Goldsmith and German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, it's time for Guantanamo to go.
The United States opened CampX-Ray at Guantanamo in January 2002 to hold prisoners that the Department of Defense described as, the worst of the worst. Soon afterwards, reports of mistreatment and torture emerged, and while physical conditions at Guantanamo have improved considerably, the U.N. committee report concludes that holding men indefinitely amounts to a form of torture.
The U.S. denies any abuse or torture and maintains the right - indeed the obligation - to hold men who've vowed to return to the battle against the U.S. if they're released. If Guantanamo is closed, the Bush administration asks, what happens to these dangerous enemy combatants?
Later in the program, we'll talk with economist Robert Shiller about the cooling market for residential real estate, and a new index that will establish a market for housing futures.
But first, is it time to close the prison at GuantanamoBay? If you have questions on the status of the prisoners or about possible solutions to the quandary, our number here is 800-989-8255; that's 80-989-TALK. The e-mail address is talk@npr.org.
And we begin with NPR's Jackie Northam, who's been covering the situation at Guantanamo. She's with us here in studio 3A. Nice to have you back on the program, Jackie.
JACKIE NORTHAM reporting:
Thank you, Neal.
CONAN: It's one thing for human rights organizations to denounce GuantanamoBay, as they have for a number of years now, it's another when it's the U.N., and two important American allies. Is this having any effect in Washington?
NORTHAM: Well, not a lot, let's put it that way. I think there is some lip service being paid to all these calls to close the prison camp, certainly. And in fact, just, earlier this month, President Bush, on German television, said that, you know, he would like to close it, but he's just waiting for the Supreme Court decision regarding the legality of these military tribunals.
There's also been some, you know, comments by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and also her spokesman. You get a little bit of this coming out.
Last time I was down there, though, Neal, I was astonished at how there was no sense of tearing down this operation; in fact just the opposite. They've completed Camp Five, which is hard-walled prison where they keep detainees what they have is a high-intelligence value. They're building another hard-walled prison. There's a brand new, huge intelligence building that is up and finished now. There's a psychiatric - new psychiatric ward for the detainees down there. There's wind turbines that are producing about 30 percent of the island's electricity - not the island's, excuse me - the camp. The, you know, the base's electricity.
So again, there was no sense that this place is going to collapse at any time soon.
CONAN: And President Bush said, as you mentioned, he's waiting for this Supreme Court ruling, which I guess comes next month, we think.
NORTHAM: Yes, it sounds like it.
CONAN: .but that would only, the United States only plans to put - hold military tribunals, if they're allowed, on some of the prisoners.
NORTHAM: Yeah, there's a - it's amazing how many qualifiers there are to anything that you say about Guantanamo, isn't it? Yes, that's right. In fact, only ten people have been charged there, and you get conflicting reports about how many others they plan to charge: anywhere from two dozen more, up to 75 more.
Now, this is interesting, because you have almost 500 people being detained there. Again, you get layer upon layer. But essentially, out of those, they have these review tribunals as to whether a detainee represents a threat or still has intelligence value. And it seems that 140 detainees are looking good to get out. In other words, ought to be transferred to their home country, or released somehow. So they're trying to get rid of some of them. They're trying to put some of them on trial, but there's a whole lot more that we just don't know what's going to happen to them yet. It's a very complicated situation right now.
CONAN: And their status is enemy combatant, is that the equivalent to prisoner of war?
NORTHAM: Oh, boy. That's where you get into trouble, isn't it? I mean, prisoner of war denotes that the Geneva Conventions would apply down at Guantanamo, and as we all know, they do not apply. The president has made that very clear. At the same time, he makes it very clear that the spirit of the Geneva Conventions is actually applied down there.
So, enemy combatant is a term that was formulated since 9/11, since the so- called war on terrorism began. And it's - there's always been some sort of, you know, conflicting controversy as to what it exactly means. But down there at Guantanamo Bay, what it means is people that the government still feels represent either a threat to America - would either hurt Americans or the allies again - or have some sort of intelligence value.
CONAN: Now, we're going to be speaking with a member of the United Nations Committee Against Torture in just a minute. As you know, they released a report last week, calling for Guantanamo to be closed.
Can you remind us what this argument was about?
NORTHAM: This argument came - it's really looking at whether or not torture was there. The State Department's legal counsel, John Bellinger, has said that the committee had gone far beyond its mandate by calling for the closure of Guantanamo, because they also - the Americans also argued that just holding people indefinitely does not constitute torture. Therefore, they had gone out of their mandate in saying that, as well.
But essentially saying, with open-ended detentions, with essentially saying that, you know, forms of cruelty and torture had been used at Guantanamo, and various other things.
I want to say right here, though, and they actually talked about using secret prisons. It went beyond Guantanamo. But as far as Guantanamo itself goes, you know, you talk to the International Committee of the Red Cross, you talk to Human Rights Watch, and they say that in Guantanamo, they've cleaned up their act, essentially, as far as torture goes. Now it depends on how you define torture. Some people, and in fact the ICRC says torture, open-ended detentions is a form of torture. And so, there is torture going on; but it's not this water boarding that we used to see. Or, you know, allegations of that, that used to go on there - any of this other stuff.
Apparently it's much, much better there, but they still are having open-ended detentions and there's a problem with force feeding any of the detainees that are on hunger strike, there's a problem there. But other than that, they seem to think that they've cleaned up their act a lot.
CONAN: Jackie Northam, thanks very much.
NORTHAM: Thank you, Neal.
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