WHILE the Bush administration plays with words like “noncombatant status” to try and avoid its obligations under the Geneva Convention, the harsh reality is that Guantanamo Bay is a hell hole that is driving its inmates mad. The Algerian prisoner of six years who recently slashed his throat with a sharpened fingernail is proof positive of the obscenity of this institution and the Kafkaesque way it is run. And even here, the US authorities are still juggling words, insisting that the Algerian was not seeking to commit suicide but merely indulging in “self-harm”.
There can be no doubt that some at least of the 305 remaining detainees in the US Cuban base are dangerous Al-Qaeda bigots. But this is no reason to treat them with the same ruthlessness that they would treat those they consider to be their enemies. By lowering his administration’s standards to pretty well the level of the kidnap gangs in Iraq, Bush has brought shame on America. His odious policy even has kidnappings as part of its mix, since the “extraordinary rendition” — more word play — has seen suspected terrorists seized on the streets even of European countries and spirited away to Guantanamo. Is it any wonder Al-Qaeda thugs have for the cameras dressed up their own luckless prisoners in the bright orange fatigues of the Guantanamo detainees?
Yet Bush remains indifferent to the enormity of what he has done, in throwing over the very principles upon which his country is built and which in two inaugurations, he swore solemnly to uphold.
The US courts, however, are not so blind to the injustice. In 2004 judges found that despite the extrajurisdictional nature of Guantanamo, the US court system could hear cases brought by detainees protesting their incarceration. Two years later the courts struck down Bush’s order that the “enemy combatants” should face military tribunals in Guantanamo.
Undeterred, Bush used his then Congressional dominance to pass the Military Commissions Act, which sought to remove the right of habeas corpus from the detainees and make it possible for them to be tried by military commissions. It is a challenge to this act in a case originally brought by two prisoners, now expanded to cover 37, which is being considered by the US Supreme Court. Though it has been argued that the nine judges split five to four in terms of conservatism, the Bush administration cannot necessarily expect a sympathetic decision. There will be detailed, maybe abstruse legal arguments. But more important than that, the elephant in the courtroom will be the moral case against what Bush has done.
If the Guantanamo detainees are guilty of plotting or carrying terrorist crimes, they should be brought to trial. If there is insufficient evidence for a prosecution against any of them, they should be released. Those trials could be held in the US or The Hague. But trials there must be. It must be hoped that the Supreme Court will accept this and that this wicked, hole-in-the-corner crime of Guantanamo will be brought rapidly to an end.
