Guantanamo
Bay: A Global
Experiment In Inhumanity
By Louise Christian
The
Guardian
11 January , 2004
Two
years ago today, Feroz Abbasi, a British citizen arrested in Afghanistan,
was one of the first detainees to be transferred hooded, shackled and
manacled by the US military to Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay. His mother,
Zumrati, who lives in Croydon, was informed about five days later -
by the media. It took a further six days for a British government official
to contact her. Significantly, she was assured that her son did not
need a lawyer.
Two years on, it is clear that the British government has betrayed the
most fundamental responsibility that any government assumes - the duty
to protect the rule of law. This abnegation of the essence of democratic
government goes much further than a failure to protect the nine British
citizens who are incarcerated in this legal black hole. It is nothing
less than a collusion in an international experiment in inhumanity,
which is being repeated and expanded around the world.
The UK government
has been intimately involved in the nightmare world that is Guantanamo
Bay from its inception. Britain sent its own security agents to interrogate
its citizens and residents in the presence of the US military without
a lawyer present, and in the knowledge that techniques of sensory deprivation
and coercion were being practised. For a full year and a half the British
government refused to express any view on the legality of the detentions;
not even of its own citizens and not even when challenged in the UK
courts to do so.
In July 2003, military
commission trials were announced for Feroz Abbasi and Moazzam Begg from
Birmingham. Leaks from the Pentagon made it clear that a deal had already
been secured. A show trial would take place, based on confessions extracted
under duress, in which both men would plead guilty. Only under pressure
from parliament and the media were junior ministers then authorised
to make polite noises of feigned dissent. In July, an instruction was
issued to the attorney general to enter into bogus negotiations to secure
what it was already clear was not possible - a fair trial in Guantanamo
Bay.
The extent to which
our own government had become implicated in the Guantanamo Bay experiment
should also have become apparent when they created their own replica
model here. It was claimed by them to be superior, but mainly because
they passed an undemocratic law, the Anti-terrorism Crime and Security
Act, requiring a derogation from the newly enacted Human Rights Act.
Consequently, 13 British residents are locked up indefinitely, without
trial, in this country.
As with all prisoners
detained for an indeterminate period, their mental health is severely
affected. One has already been confined to psychiatric detention. Recently,
the Privy Council committee set up to scrutinise the act concluded what
should have been apparent from the outset: that such detention is unjustifiable.
But, because of the lack of public outcry, the government looks set
to ignore the committee.
Worldwide, the experiment
is becoming the norm. It has been estimated that at least 15,000 people
are being held without trial under the justification of the "war
on terrorism". They include more than 3,000 detained in Iraq after
the war, of whom at least 1,000 are still in detention; an estimated
further 1,000 to 3,000 detained at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan; and
an unknown number being held on the British territory of Diego Garcia.
Bagram is a CIA
interrogation centre, practising "stress and duress" or "torture
lite". An investigation has reportedly begun there after the deaths
of two prisoners in suspicious circumstances. US personnel stationed
at Bagram have described the regular practice of sensory deprivation
and sleep starvation, as well as incidents of throwing prisoners against
walls while hooded.
Ironically, such
revelations have surfaced not through any desire to expose human rights
abuses, but in order to justify describing such treatment as "torture
lite". Meanwhile, three US soldiers were discharged this week for
beating and harassing Iraqi prisoners of war, and there are reports
that British troops beat eight young Iraqis, one of whom died in custody
as a result.
In the US itself,
the experiment continues. Over 1,000 people were arbitrarily detained
in the immediate aftermath of September 11. The US government refused
to give names or details to civil rights groups. Many became subject
to immigration procedures and were eventually deported. Inevitably,
non-US citizens in this situation receive no attention from the national
media. But there are also three US Muslims detained indefinitely as
"enemy combatants", two of whom were detained on US soil.
One of these, José
Padilla, was seized out of the custody of the justice department by
the Pentagon and placed on a military prison ship, accused of being
in possession of a "dirty bomb". In court proceedings, Vice-Admiral
Lowell Jacoby of the US military argued that detaining Padilla indefinitely
without a lawyer was justified in order to gain information. Providing
him access to counsel, so the logic went, "would create an expectation
that his ultimate release might be obtained through an adversarial civil
litigation process. This would break - probably irreparably - the sense
of dependency and trust that the interrogators are attempting to create."
It is of grave concern
that the example being set by the US and the UK is being used to legitimise
repression internationally on an ever-increasing scale. From China,
which has imprisoned up to 100 Chinese Muslims without trial, to Uzbekistan
(up to 1,000), Yemen (200), Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, India
and Indonesia, this alarming lead is being eagerly followed. In Israel
and Chechnya, there would be far more people in prison without trial
had not the authorities there taken matters one step further and authorised
extra-judicial killings. They were safe in the knowledge that the US
government boasted last year of killing alleged al-Qaida members in
Yemen.
Yesterday, the comments
of Pierre Richard Prosper, the US ambassador on war crimes, disclosed
what has been suspected for some time; that it is now the British and
not the US government that stands in the way of the British citizens
detained in Guantanamo being returned home. When Tony Blair was asked
about Guantanamo in the House of Commons this week, he spoke not about
human rights abuses there but about what he described as the "immense
importance" of the information gained from detainees.
What can an ordinary
person do about a world turned on its head, where governments that claim
to be democratic engage in repression, coercion and even torture on
an international scale? Everyone needs to protest - peacefully, but
as loudly and as persistently as they are able. Every act counts. And
let everyone be certain of this: those who experiment in inhumanity
will have no appetite to stop unless there is such protest.
· Louise
Christian is the lawyer acting for the families of three of
the British citizens and one British resident detained in Guantanamo
Bay