The EU plans to formally petition the US to close the facility during a joint summit. If the US does decide to turn a deaf ear to Europe's pleas, then the union should consider its options. Cooperation in the US-led war on terror should not be a one-way street.
Finally, governments and the mainstream media are speaking out forcefully against Guantanamo. Today, the EU plans to formally petition the US to close the facility during a joint summit. What's hard to fathom is why it has taken them so long to realize that the entity, deemed illegal by Britain's attorney general among others, serves as an ugly stain on international justice.
It shouldn't have taken the suicides of two young Saudis and a Yemeni to wake them up? This seemingly coordinated incident was an accident waiting to happen - one that a slew of family members, lawyers and human rights groups have warned about virtually since the camp controversially opened its doors.
When the deaths were made public, Washington spoke with one callous voice. The State Department called the tragedy "a good PR move" to further "the jihadi cause". The camp's commander said the suicides were "an act of asymmetric warfare against us", while a Pentagon spokesman described Manei Shaman Al-Utaibi, Yasser Talal Al-Zahrani and Ali Abdullah Ahmed as "fanatics like the Nazis, Hitlerites, or the Ku Klux Klan, the people they tried at Nuremberg".
One is led to speculate that if the three, who were all under 30 at the time of their capture, had been Americans they would not have been similarly vilified.
With questions swirling around as to how the three could have met their fate given the level of security in Alpha Block, the Pentagon promised transparency before expelling three US reporters who were already at the base and denying clearance to Guardian journalist David Rose.
The international community was appalled at such disrespect for human life, which triggered a diplomatic reaction from the White House. George W. Bush issued his regrets and called for the men's bodies to be treated with respect in accordance with cultural norms - a respect one suspects was denied them in life.
The fact is those three men were at the end of their tether both literally and figuratively, for, unlike those who were tried at Nuremberg at the end of World War II, they hadn't been either charged or tried and were purposely given the impression they would rot in solitary confinement for the rest of their natural lives, even though one, at least, was kept in ignorance that his release was slated for the end of the year.
Britain's Constitutional Affairs Minister Harriet Harman recently asked this question that should have been posed four years ago: If Guantanamo "is perfectly legal and there is nothing going wrong there, why don't they have it in America?"
Here, one might be tempted to add, "If the hors justice-camp is good enough for the citizens of America's close allies, then why was the sole "American Taleban" John Walker Lindh charged and tried in a civilian US court? Why was he alone considered the misguided product of an apple pie upbringing, while all the other so-called "battlefield detainees" were classed as "dangerous terrorists"?
Even more to the point, why have "coalition of the willing" governments hitherto abandoned their own sons to America's brutal system of incarceration, interrogation and alleged torture?
Imagine that the shoe were on the other foot. What if, say, Australia had decided to open such a facility on some far-flung field in which to incarcerate foreigners, including Americans and Brits, while processing their own David Hicks through one of its own mainland courts? Would Washington have given its blessing? Would Britain's Tony Blair have labeled that institution a mere "anomaly"?
Britain has signed a deal with Washington for the return of its nationals, who all walked free after a brief interrogation at the hands of British police and are now variously writing books, collaborating on documentaries or actively doing the rounds of talk shows to highlight the plight of their fellow detainees. The award-winning movie, "The Road to Guantanamo" offers a disturbing insight and is shortly to be screened in the US.
The Australian David Hicks has a right to become a British national due to his antecedents and the British government has been ordered by its courts to allow Hicks' citizenship petition. However, UK government officials have been prevented from entering the camp so that Hicks can swear allegiance to the queen, a prerequisite to being granted a new passport.
The EU, whose member countries have been accused of collaborating with the CIA over its ghost flights and secret detention camps on European soil, is finally vocalizing its indignation but it is doubtful that George W. Bush is willing to heed its call.
Legal advisor to the State Department John B. Bellinger has indicated that although President Bush is "very aware of the concerns in Europe and elsewhere about Guantanamo" and "the damage that it does to the image of the United States", there remains a dilemma over what to do with the inmates.
This "dilemma" is hard to understand considering there are established international norms and treaties that could be used as a rule of thumb. For instance, those against whom there is proof of wrongdoing should be flown either to the US or to the International Criminal Court in The Hague and tried. All others should be sent home where they could be interviewed by their own governments and assessed. This isn't rocket science, just common decency.
If the US does decide to turn a deaf ear to Europe's pleas, then the union should consider its options. Cooperation in the US-led war on terror should not be a one-way street, and nations must put the well being of their own citizens above ties with a superpower that ignores its friends and flouts the law.
