‘O Father, this is a prison of injustice.
Its iniquity makes the mountains weep.
I have committed no crime and am guilty of no offence.
Curved claws have I,
But I have been sold like a fattened sheep.’
— Abdulla Thani Faris al Anazi, a Guantanamo detainee since 2002, arrested in Afghanistan, and turned over to the US forces by bounty hunters.
— Abdulla Thani Faris al Anazi, a Guantanamo detainee since 2002, arrested in Afghanistan, and turned over to the US forces by bounty hunters

11 January 2008 marks 6 years since the first detainees were transferred to Guantanamo Bay. The United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay is a rights-free zone, for the detention, treatment and trial of certain people in the ‘war on terror’. Here the Pentagon is authorised to hold non-US citizens in indefinite custody without charge; here detainees are barred from seeking any remedy in any proceedings in any US, foreign or international court; here if any detainee were to be tried, the trial would be by military commission — an executive body, and not an independent or impartial court. A memorandum from the Justice Department to the Pentagon advises that because Guantanamo Bay is not a sovereign US territory, the federal courts should not be able to consider habeas corpus petitions from ‘enemy aliens’ detained at the base.

Most Guantanamo detainees are housed in conditions amounting to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Most spend 22 hours a day in total isolation, and suffer other forms of sensory deprivation. Majority of them have been held for nearly six years, with no prospect of a fair trial, no direct access to their families, and no access to a lawyer. These conditions have had a shattering impact on the psychological and physical health of many detainees. At least four men are stated to have died as a result of suicides, and dozens more suicide attempts have been reported (For details see, ‘Guantanamo Bay – A Legal Black Hole’, The Hindu, 6 January, 2007).

International campaigns in the last six years have raised many issues regarding this: closing down of Guantanamo Bay and ending the US secret detention programme, wherever it is based; releasing all detainees held in the ‘war on terror’, including those held at Guantanamo, unless they are to be charged and given a fair trail; stopping secret detention, unlawful transfer of detainees between countries (rendition) or enforced disappearance in counter-terrorism operations; repealing of the Military Commissions Act 2006; and providing prompt and adequate reparation. The fifth anniversary of the first transfers to Guantanamo was marked by activists around the world staging demonstrations and other activities. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, UN Committee against Torture, former US Presidents Carter and Clinton, heads of States from Europe and elsewhere, human rights and legal organisations, and many more have supported various calls for Guantanamo to be closed. The US Supreme Court ruled against the government in two Guantanamo cases, decided in 2004 and 2006, and is now considering whether the detainees should have access to the courts — right to habeas corpus — to contest their detention.

Yet, Guantanamo has not been closed, and it has thrown up a huge challenge for the international community. A model like Guantanamo signifies the abandoning of basic principles of human rights. It de-legitimises us. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu said on 17 February 2006, ‘It is disgraceful. I never imagined I would live to see the day when the United States and its satellites would use precisely the same arguments that the apartheid government used for detention without trial.’

It would have been virtually impossible for Guantanamo to continue without a global war paradigm, which has been constructed under the rubric of ‘war on terror’. Using this, parts of international humanitarian laws, selectively interpreted, are deemed to apply, and human rights laws are generally disregarded. The administration repeatedly claims that they do not hold ground in armed conflicts. There are thus new rights-free zones, like Guantanamo, in different parts of the world, where detainee can be subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, including prolonged solitary or cellular confinement in conditions of reduced sensory stimulation. Here we have secret, incommunicado and unacknowledged arrests and tortures, where all those who have been subjected to enforced disappearances and encounters are not provided access to effective remedy and justice, including compensation. Here we have anti-terror, so-called security laws, which suggest humane treatment as a matter of choice rather than law, and which exclude the security officials even from that choice. These occurrences have also to been seen within the context of a dominant development paradigm, where Exclusive Economic Zones, Special Economic Zones, and industrial projects in the tribal heartlands can be implemented, without free, informed and prior consent of people. Human rights activists in the rights-free zones are subjected to death threats persecuted through the use of the judicial system and silenced through the introduction of security laws. Going through unfounded investigations and prosecutions, many even disappear or are murdered.

Europe often presents itself as a beacon of human rights. However, the uncomfortable truth is that without Europe’s help, some men would not now be nursing torture wounds in prison cells in rights-free zones, including Guantanamo. The revealing report of Dick Marty, Rapporteur of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, concludes: ‘The body of information gathered makes it unlikely that European states were completely unaware of what was happening, in the context of the fight against international terrorism, in some of their airports, in their airspace or at American bases located on their territory. Insofar as they did not know, they did not want to know. It is inconceivable that certain operations conducted by American services could have taken place without the active participation, or at least the collusion, of national intelligence services.’ (Alleged secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers involving Council of Europe member States, 7 June 2006, Draft Report – Part II [Explanatory memorandum], Para 230). In Asia and Africa, a large number of people in Pakistan, Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia became victims of rendition transferred in secret from one country to another, and to Guantanamo, through their governments.

Facts and figures on Guantanamo, released recently, at the end of 2007, by Amnesty International are an eye-opener: nearly 800 detainees have been held here. Approximately 300 detainees of around 30 nationalities were still held without charge or trial in November 2007. Only one Guantanamo detainee, David Hicks, has been convicted by the military commission in March 2007. He pleaded guilty to ‘providing material support for terrorism’ under a pre-trial agreement that ensured his release from the US custody after five years, and return to his native Australia to serve a nine-month prison term. Only three detainees had been charged for trial by the military commission. Between 2002 and November 2007, around 470 detainees had been released to other countries. At least four of those still held were 18 years old when taken into custody. Detainees had been taken into custody in more than 10 countries before being transferred to Guantanamo, without any judicial process. An analysis of around 500 of the detainees concluded that only five percent had been captured by the US forces; 86 per cent had been arrested by Pakistan or Afghanistan based Northern Alliance forces and turned over to the US, often for a reward of thousands of US dollars.

All rights-free zones are in violation of international and national human rights laws. Each detainee being held here or every act of appropriation of natural resources in these zones is illegal and unjust. Treating all people deprived of their liberty with humanity, and with respect for their dignity, is a fundamental and universally applicable rule. It must be applied without distinction of any kind. Rights-free zones, like Guantanamo, should be closed not tomorrow, but this morning. In general, most countries and their people have simply not taken a stand till now. They seem to believe that this is not their problem. They think that they did not contribute to Guantanamo, and therefore they do not have to be a part of the solution. We the people, and the governments around the world can play a positive role in ending illegal US detentions in the name of ‘war on terror’. Among other things, we and our governments can protest to the US authorities about illegal detentions, provide lasting protection for detainees released from Guantanamo and elsewhere, and oppose all unlawful transfers of detainees between countries.