Close Gitmo.Byline: The Register-Guard A United Nations investigation accuses the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. of committing acts of torture at Guantanamo Bay Noun 1. Guantanamo Bay - an inlet of the Caribbean Sea; a United States naval station was established on the bay in 1903 bay, embayment - an indentation of a shoreline larger than a cove but smaller than a gulf and has called for it to close the detention center A detention center or a detention centre is any location used for detention. Specifically, it can mean:
Based on Guantanamo's troubled history and the findings of the U.N. inspection team that spent 18 months investigating conditions at the camp, it's hard to doubt either conclusion. It's also hard to even begin to calculate the damage that Gitmo has done to the United States' reputation on human rights - or how much it has helped the cause of the country's foes in its fight against terrorism. The report, which was released Thursday, was compiled by five U.N. envoys, They interviewed former prisoners, detainees' lawyers and families, as well as United States officials. U.S. officials revealingly refused to give the team access to prisoners at Guantanamo. The envoys said conditions at the prison routinely violate international law. Special interrogation interrogation In criminal law, process of formally and systematically questioning a suspect in order to elicit incriminating responses. The process is largely outside the governance of law, though in the U.S. techniques, authorized by the Pentagon, met the formal definition of torture under the U.N. Convention against Torture, they said. The findings expressed particular concern about the coercive feeding of hunger strikers through nasal tubes that were roughly inserted and removed, causing pain, bleeding and vomiting vomiting, ejection of food and other matter from the stomach through the mouth, often preceded by nausea. The process is initiated by stimulation of the vomiting center of the brain by nerve impulses from the gastrointestinal tract or other part of the body. . The team also found that the detainees have been deprived of any semblance of justice that meets international standards. That may well be an understatement. Most of the camp's prisoners were swept up during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. They were bound and gagged, flown to the other side of the world and imprisoned im·pris·on tr.v. im·pris·oned, im·pris·on·ing, im·pris·ons To put in or as if in prison; confine. [Middle English emprisonen, from Old French emprisoner : en- for months in solitary confinement solitary confinement n. the placement of a prisoner in a Federal or state prison in a cell away from other prisoners, usually as a form of internal penal discipline, but occasionally to protect the convict from other prisoners or to prevent the prisoner from causing broken only by interrogations in which the detainees had no legal advice. Four years have passed since the Afghanistan war Afghanistan War, 1978–92, conflict between anti-Communist Muslim Afghan guerrillas (mujahidin) and Afghan government and Soviet forces. The conflict had its origins in the 1978 coup that overthrew Afghan president Sardar Muhammad Daud Khan, who had come to began, and the government has brought criminal charges against only a few detainees. While 180 have been released, 500 detainees are still being held thousands of miles from their homelands with no prospect their cases will ever be resolved. The administration insists the prisoners are enemy combatants Captured fighter in a war who is not entitled to prisoner of war status because he or she does not meet the definition of a lawful combatant as established by the geneva convention; a saboteur. The U.S. who can be held without charges or access to counsel for the duration of the war on terror This article is about U.S. actions, and those of other states, after September 11, 2001. For other conflicts, see Terrorism. The War on Terror (also known as the War on Terrorism . But the U.N. team concludes that U.S. officials have done little to determine whether detainees actually qualify for combatant status. It also challenges the administration's argument that detention is necessary to prevent combatants from taking up arms against the United States, and it says the government's real intent is to hold prisoners for interrogation. There are surely some dangerous terrorists at Guantanamo, as well as some hard-core Taliban supporters. But others apparently were guilty only of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nearly 50 percent of the detainees were not captured on the field of battle but were turned over to U.S. forces by tribal informers in Pakistan and Afghanistan in exchange for hefty cash bounties. The U.S. military is currently building a $30 million maximum security prison at Guantanamo Bay. The Bush administration should halt this project and begin planning for the closure of Gitmo. Detainees should be tried for crimes or released, preferably to their home countries. Doing so would send a powerful signal to both America's friends and foes, and restore one of its most powerful weapons against terrorism - the rule of law and respect for individual rights that this country was founded to uphold. |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion