Unit 6
Guantanamo Bay Detention CampIn January 2002, the United States opened its high security military prison run by the Joint Task Force Guantanamo within the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, said that the prison was opened to detain extremely dangerous prisoners, to prosecute prisoners for war crimes, and to have an optimal setting for interrogations. There are three detainment areas: Camp Delta, Camp Echo, and Camp Iguana. The fourth one, Camp X-Ray, was shut down as of April 29, 2002, and all of its prisoners were transferred to Delta.
It was first thought that the camp was outside of U.S. legal
jurisdiction, therefore not entitling any of the prisoners to the protections
of the Geneva Conventions. In 2004 the
U.S. Supreme Court ruled against that notion, and later in 2006 they ruled that
the detainees were entitled to the protection under Common Article 3. Prisoners have claimed to have been tortured
and abused at the camp, and in 2006 the United Nations called for the camp to
be closed even though the Bush administration claimed that the allegations were
not true. The attempt was unsuccessful,
and later in 2009, a Bush employee confirmed that one prisoner was in fact tortured
at the camp. In 2005, detainees
protested harsh treatment and disrespect with hunger strikes. At one point almost a third of the prisoners
were on strike, many of them being force fed through tubes and hydrated
intravenously to keep them alive. Hunger
strikes started up again in 2013 with 106 of the 166 prisoners participating,
and in December of that year, the U.S. military stopped disclosing information
about the situation. 
779 men from 20 different countries have been held in the prison, but now that number is down to around 112, with nine deaths while detainees were in custody; seven men committed suicide, one died of cancer, and one from an apparent heart attack.
Over the years, there have been many allegations of unjust
treatment, religious abuse, torture, sexual assault, and more that have
occurred at the facilities. The medical
doctors there are said to not be of much help and are only used to monitor
torture. Released prisoners have
expressed many complaints, but despite the disappointment the many attempts to
shut down Gitmo have come up short. The
Obama administration has continuously tried to get the facility shut down, but
all attempts have failed due mostly in part to the opposition in Congress. It’s also extremely expensive to run the
facility and hold all of the prisoners.
53 of the 112 remaining prisoners have already been tried, but are still
being held at the camp. There are also
28 men who have not been found guilty because of lack of evidence, but are said
to be too dangerous to release or move to U.S. soil. Many of the detainees are Al-Qaeda members
and masterminds of the September 11 attacks, like Khalid Sheik Mohammed and
Ramzi Bin Al-Shibh who are still being detained there. Most of the prisoners though are not actually
captured by the U.S. Only 5% are
actually U.S. captures, the rest are turned in by Pakistani and Afghan villagers
in reward for a bounty.
I think many people are opposed to closing Gitmo
because of the dangerous people it holds. Gitmo might not be the most
efficient way to deal with the dirty scoundrels that are held there, but what
other option does the U.S. have? Until Congress passes a better solution
on dealing with captive terrorists to keep them from planning and carrying out
attacks on U.S. soil, Gitmo is the best and only option.
Resources:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/09/world/guantanamo-bay-naval-station-fast-facts/
https://www.aclu.org/infographic/guantanamo-numbers
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