Is Latest Guantanamo Bay Prisoner Release Enough?

Government officials say conditions today are better, but watchdog groups like Amnesty International say Guantanamo Bay is a symbol of injustice and abuse and it must be closed down.

(GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba) - The Department of Defense is touting the latest release of eight detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as a sign of open minded progress and justice.

In this latest release, six of the detainees released from Guantanamo Bay were transferred to Afghanistan. One was sent to Libya, and one was sent to and Yemen.

The DoD says these detainees became eligible for transfer following what the U.S. government calls, "a comprehensive series of review processes conducted at Guantanamo."

The Bush Administration has been repeatedly blasted by the press and world leaders for the detention and imprisonments in recent years that led to the imprisonment of hundreds at "Gitmo" as it is called.

But the DoD says the transfer is a demonstration of the United States' desire not to hold detainees any longer than necessary.

They also say it underscores a process put in place to assess each individual and make a determination about their detention while hostilities are ongoing. In the eyes of the government, this is an unprecedented step in the history of warfare.

But also unprecedented, critics say, are the conditions under which the detainees were taken into custody in the first place.

Newer images from the DoD show better
conditions at "Gitmo," Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

Allegations of shock rooms, psychological torture, beatings and other abuses are well documented by watchdog groups like Amnesty International. They have kept pressure firmly on U.S. officials since the problems at Guantanamo first came to light, and they seem more frustrated over it than ever.

"Despite widespread international condemnation, hundreds of people of more than 30 nationalities are still there: without charge, and with little hope of obtaining a fair trial."

Amnesty International historically keeps an eye on nations like China, Rwanda, Vietnam, Sierra Leone and Guyana, places that most people recognize as regions noticeably and even substantially lacking in basic human rights.

Now, whether or not people here embrace or accept their findings, the United States' activities are subject to a number of condemning reports from Amnesty International. They state that, "Guantanamo Bay is a symbol of injustice and abuse and it must be closed down." The group says U.S. policy also needs to change. Allegations are not Isolated

Detainee graffiti on a British street
courtesy: artofthestate.co.uk

Three British prisoners who have become known as the "Tipton Three", were released in 2004 without charges. The three allege ongoing torture, sexual degradation, forced drugging and religious persecution. They say the acts were committed by the U.S. forces at Guantanamo Bay.

While the Bush Administration denied the charges, they hit a snag on May 9th, 2004, when The Washington Post publicized classified documents that showed Pentagon approval of using sleep deprivation, exposure to hot and cold, bright lights, and loud music during interrogations at Guantanamo.

The New York Times reported on June 21st 2005 that an FBI agent was quoted as saying, "On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they had urinated or defecated on themselves and had been left there for 18, 24 hours or more."

Then the exposure of problems at the facility advanced again when an American soldier named Spc. Sean Baker, who posed as a prisoner during training exercises at the camp, received a beating so severe that he suffered a brain injury and seizures.

By June of 2004, the New York Times reported that of the hundreds of detainees taken to Guantanamo Bay, not much more than two dozen were closely linked to Al-Qaeda. They also said that the prisoners possessed very limited information, and there was little to be gained from questionings.

The only top terrorist is reportedly Saudi Arabian, Mohamed al-Kahtani, who is believed to have planned to participate in the September 11th, 2001 attacks.

But the images now being presented by the Pentagon show a different picture, there are no hooded detainees in orange with hoods pulled tightly over their heads. Instead they show detainees living in what appear as fairly normal and clean conditions, wearing white jump suits.

They describe living conditions for highly compliant detainees as something acceptable under most standards, saying they live in a communal setting and have extensive access to recreation.

Of the 775 detainees who have been brought to Guantanamo Bay since the Afghanistan war began, and approximately 428 have now been released.

This latest round of transfers are among more than a fifth of the population that have been cleared for release, but may have to wait months or years for their freedom because U.S. officials are finding it increasingly difficult to line up places to send them, according to Bush administration officials and defense lawyers.

Approximately 445 detainees have departed Guantanamo since 2002 for other countries including Albania, Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, Bahrain, Belgium, Denmark, Egypt, France, Great Britain, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Maldives, Mauritania, Morocco, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uganda, United Kingdom and Yemen.

Amnesty International says a woman they interviewed named Rabia is the wife of Majid Khan, a detainee transferred to Guantanamo from secret CIA custody.

She made this statement, "My husband was kidnapped over three years ago, and in this period I have not known anything about his whereabouts (...) Recently I have found out that he has been transferred to Guantanamo. I am very happy that he's alive, but it's a shock because I've heard a lot about what happens there."

The United States definitely pulled a u-turn from traditional human rights policies in recent years, and it seems tragic to see the United States of America added to the watch lists of agencies that oversee human rights violations. Our nation has justified the treatment of POW's by classifying them as terrorists, it is hauntingly similar to the treatment our pilots were afforded by the north Vietnamese during that war.

Special thanks to Wikipedia for information in this article, you can visit their page on Guantanamo Bay at: Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp

For more information on the U.S. government's point of view on the Guantanamo Bay situation, visit this link: DoD Guantanamo Bay

Tim King is a former U.S. Marine with almost twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist and reporter. Today, in addition to his role as a war correspondent in Afghanistan where he spent the winter of 2006/07, this Los Angeles native serves as Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. Salem-News.com is the nation's only truly independent high traffic news Website, affiliated only with Google News. You can send Tim an email at this address: newsroom@salem-news.com