The shame of Guantanamo: America's Cuban detention camp is against the democratic ideals for which it stands

   Submitted by Siriel Admin on 2003 Sep 30 - 1:48pm 

   [Themes:  | Afghanistan | Canada & Quebec | USA | •Democracy | •Personal Freedoms ]

Source: Calgary Herald (Section: Comment), Sept. 30, 2003, p.A15.
By: Bill Warden (retired Canadian diplomat)*

Summary :
In the worst tradition of the repressive dictatorships that were a blight on the Americas for so many years, the Guantanamo detainees are without access to lawyers, their families or the courts. Children as young as 13 are reported by Amnesty International to be among the prisoners.

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Fidel Castro has come in for a lot of criticism recently for his human rights abuses. The execution of three hijackers and the jailing of dozens of dissidents earlier this year attracted strong condemnation not only from the Cuban leader's traditional critics, but also from normally sympathetic European governments and his erstwhile staunch sympathizers.

While the abuses in Cuba pale in comparison to the killings and torture perpetrated in recent decades by dictators such as former Guatemalan leader Rios Montt -- now running for president in the coming November elections -- the criticism of Castro was nonetheless richly deserved. The detentions and executions reflect an attempt to deflect the winds of change that will inevitably alter the Cuban landscape.

The worst excesses in Cuba these days, however, are not occurring in Havana. Rather, they are taking place at the other end of the island in Guantanamo Bay, where the United States is holding hundreds of faceless prisoners in violation of internationally accepted norms.

In the worst tradition of the repressive dictatorships that were a blight on the Americas for so many years, the Guantanamo detainees are without access to lawyers, their families or the courts. Children as young as 13 are reported by Amnesty International to be among the prisoners.

The choice of Guantanamo was itself a not-so-subtle act of deviant minds. Deviant because the Guantanamo camp was the product of a deliberate decision to flout the standards of law basic to any democracy. Deviant also because the intent was to hide government action from the democratic right of people to know what is going on. Who is there? What are the conditions? Why have there been so many suicide attempts?

A vestige of America's colonial past, Guantanamo is a small enclave wrested from Cuba in the early part of the century and now held in perpetuity. Today, it is America's shame, a legal wilderness where the judge, jury, prosecution and defence will all, in the last analysis, be one and the same person, the president of the United States.

In other words, without any checks or balances, the process will be politically determined from start to finish.

It seems, too, that Castro will not be the only one carrying out executions in Cuba. Recent reports suggest execution chambers are being readied in Guantanamo. I recall walking through Tehran's main cemetery shortly after Ayatollah Khomeini took power and being shocked and appalled by the crude mounds covering the unidentified corpses of victims of the ayatollah's kangaroo courts. Will Guantanamo's graves at least have names? Will their families be notified, or similarly kept in the dark?

Of 19 executions of child offenders between 1994 and 2002, 12 were carried out in the U.S. -- including four in the past 24 months. The does not bode well for any minors held in Guantanamo.

Curious, in the circumstances, that more voices have not been raised against this outrage to the spirit of democracy. Where are the voices of those governments whose nationals, reportedly including a Canadian national, are interned there in violation of international convention? What of the American media who pride themselves on their investigative reporting? Why is it that the protests come only from a few human rights organizations and are little more than voices crying in the wilderness?

What of all those Canadians, including the Canadian Alliance, who continue to justify the Iraq war, citing Saddam Hussein's violation of human rights and the need to bring the rule of law? Are their concerns so patently selective that they apply the presumption of innocence only to Americans and Europeans?

Have the American people themselves become so careless of their fundamental rights and freedoms as to turn a blind eye?

The abuse of power seldom ceases of its own accord. Unbridled power develops its own dynamic. The distinction between democracy and tyranny lies precisely in the existence of effective limits on the power of the state. The erosion of these democratic norms should cause alarm bells to ring for all those in America and the West who treasure their freedoms.

It should cause alarm because a similar erosion of civil rights has been taking place in the U.S. itself since Sept. 11, 2001. Those who dared to express their concerns were labelled "unpatriotic." Only in recent months has the political opposition begun to make its voice heard.

According to the U.S. administration, open trials and access to independent counsel for the Guantanamo detainees would aid and abet the cause of terrorism. This is scarcely believable in all but the most extreme cases. On the other hand, this callous disregard for human and civil rights fits closely with the actions of an administration that has openly demonstrated its contempt for international law, conventions and institutions.

As with Afghanistan and Iraq, no exit strategy appears to be in place for Guantanamo. There remain only questions. Are only those accused of supporting al-Qaeda being held there? Is it possible for Americans to be deprived of their rights and consigned to Guantanamo? Have any trials been held? Is torture being applied?

Will the place eventually close down?

Or, will Guantanamo be maintained in perpetuity as a black hole into which anyone unfortunate enough to be sent there, innocent or guilty, can disappear without a trace?

Castro, at least, will presumably be suitably impressed by this example on his own doorstep of democracy and the rule of law in action.

* Bill Warden is a retired Canadian diplomat.

He was Canadian commissioner in Hong Kong, ambassador to Pakistan and Nepal, and high commissioner to India. He lives in Calgary.