RightsBase

The Cuban hit song Guantánamera celebrates the women of the seaside town of Guantánamo.  The lyrics speak of seeking refuge in the mountains in preference to the seashore.  There are about 460 involuntary Guantánamero (men) who might echo that sentiment.

That such a place as the US detainment camps at Guantánamo exists at all, when the United States claims to be fighting a war to promote values such as freedom, exceeds even the degree of hypocrisy we have come to expect.  In fact, US President George W. Bush agrees:

"No question, Guantánamo sends a, you know, signal to some of our friends, provides an excuse, for example, to say the United States is not upholding the values that they’re trying to encourage other countries to adhere to."

Described by Amnesty as a "legal black hole" and "human rights scandal", the camps at Guantánamo Bay are a travesty of justice, and ought to be closed immediately, their inmates either released, charged under US criminal law and given a prompt and fair trial or else extradited home to face a prompt and fair trial.  All of them should be compensated for any mistreatment they may have suffered while in US custody.

Again, Dubya thinks closing ‘Gitmo’ isn’t a bad idea, but he has a key objection:

"I’d like to close Guantánamo. But I also recognise that we’re holding some people that are darned dangerous."

I suppose he must mean the people they have left, because they’ve already released a number of people without charge.  A number of British people, for instance.

David Hicks, the only Australian known to remain in detention at Guantánamo, is not so fortunate.  He lacks a supportive government of his own, for a start.  He is no more deserving of justice than any of his cell-mates, but I can highlight his case here because I know most about him.

He has also been singled out by his captors, probably because he is white and English-speaking. The Bush Administration might try to demonstrate that it is not discriminating against Arabs by prosecuting this very ordinary bloke from Adelaide.

The ABC-TV programme Four Corners portrayed him as an idealistic, if naïve, young man, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, namely at a turning point in global politics.  Estranged from his partner and 2 kids, he sought adventure abroad.  The much-publicised plight of Kosovar Albanians moved Hicks to join the KLA — ‘freedom fighters’ supported by the United States.  In Kosovo, the Muslims were the ‘good guys’.  Hicks later went to Pakistan and Afghanistan at a time of upheaval in world politics, when Muslims could be the ‘good guys’ no more.

By this time Hicks was an enthusiastic convert to Islam.  But a dangerous terrorist?  Hicks has cooperated with his interrogators from the start, admitting to having trained for three months with Lashkar-e-Toiba (‘Army of the Pure/Righteous’ with reputed links to al Qaeda), to having seen Osama bin Laden about eight times and spoken to him once.  Former Guantánamo detainee Moazzam Begg describes Hicks as uneducated and unsophisticated: “David Hicks does not speak Arabic of any meaningful understanding. How would he possibly be a high-ranking member of Al Qaeda?”

Hicks reacted to the 9/11 attacks with incredulity: "It’s not Islam, is it?  It’s like the opposite of what I was . . . wanted to do.  Meant to help the people, stop oppression.  And they did the opposite."

Hicks claims never to have fired a shot in active combat and, as one of his lawyers Josh Dratel points out, no-one is claiming he ever actually fought against any US or coalition forces.  And yet in July 2003 Bush would confidently assert, "The only thing that I know for certain is that these [Guantánamo detainees] are bad people."

Hicks, now 30, has been detained unlawfully at Guantánamo Bay for over four years.  He has almost certainly been tortured.  Evidence for this comes from former inmates who have been released, including Hicks’ compatriot Mamdouh Habib, as well as from independent experts such as US academic Alfred McCoy of the University of Wisconsin, who believes Hicks has suffered the ‘most extreme’ torture at the hands of the CIA, resulting in "untold psychological damage."  McCoy describes Guantánamo as "an ad hoc laboratory for the perfection of . . . torture." The European Parliament has cited specific techniques, including dunking detainees in water, shackling them to the floor to limit movement, and sexual humiliation.

Citing a 2004 Red Cross report, Prof. McCoy goes further,

"The entire system of treatment of detainees, designed to do one thing, and one thing only – extract information – constitute[s] a system of cruelty, a system of torture. No qualification, not ‘tantamount to torture’ – a phrase [the Red Cross had] used before – but torture per se. Confinement at Guantánamo constitutes torture."

The recent tragic suicides of Guantánamo inmates have renewed calls for closure of the camps.  The tragedy is heightened by the fact that these three men may have been innocent and wrongly imprisoned.  The thing about habeas corpus (the right to challenge your detention in a court of law) is that we don’t know whether they’re guilty until they receive a fair trial.

The thing about torture is that, innocent or no, it is never ever justified. 

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