Guantanamo Bay is an American detainment facility located in Cuba. It is highly controversial, it has been the target of numerous protests and media attacks due to its allegedly unorthodox treatment of captives. The facility is operated by Joint Task Force Guantánamo of the United States government since 2002 in Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, which is on the shore of Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
The detainment areas consist of three camps: Camp Delta (which includes Camp Echo), Camp Iguana, and Camp X-Ray, the last of which has been closed. The facility is often referred to as Guantánamo , or Gitmo . In 2001, President George W. Bush signed an executive order that stipulated that the US military could indefinitely detain any non-citizen who was believed to be involved in international terrorism. After the Justice Department advised that the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp could be considered outside US legal jurisdiction, prisoners captured in Afghanistan were moved there beginning in early 2002. After the Bush administration asserted that detainees were not entitled to any of the protections of the Geneva Conventions, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld on June 29, 2006 that they were entitled to the minimal protections listed under Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. Following this, on July 7, 2006, the Department of Defense issued an internal memo stating that prisoners would in the future be entitled to protection under Common Article 3. The detainees currently held as of June 2008 have been classified by the United States as "enemy combatants".
On January 22, 2009 the White House announced that President Barack Obama had signed an order to suspend the proceedings of the Guantanamo military commission for 120 days and that the detention facility would be shut down within the year. On January 29, 2009 a military judge at Guantanamo rejected the White House request in the case of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, creating an unexpected challenge for the administration as it reviews how America puts Guantanamo detainees on trial.
On May 20, 2009, the United States Senate passed an amendment to the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2009 (H.R. 2346) by a 90-6 vote to block funds needed for the transfer or release of prisoners held at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.
As of November 2009, 215 prisoners remain at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.
Detainees
Main article: List of Guantánamo Bay detaineesFrom the 1970s onwards, the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base was used to house Cuban and Haitian refugees intercepted on the high seas. In the 1990s, it held refugees who fled Haiti in Camp Bulkeley until United States District Court Judge Sterling Johnson Jr. declared the camp unconstitutional on June 8, 1993, and the last Haitian migrants departed in late 1995. In June 2005, the United States Department of Defense announced that a unit of defense contractor Halliburton would build a new $1 billion USD detention facility and security perimeter around the base.
Since October 7, 2001, when the current war in Afghanistan began, 775 detainees have been brought to Guantánamo. Of these, approximately 420 have been released without charge. In January 2009, approximately 245 detainees remained. This number has further decreased to 215 by November 2009.
Three have been convicted of various charges:
- David Hicks was found guilty under retrospective legislation introduced in 2006 of providing material support to terrorists in 2001.
- Salim Hamdan accepted a position on bin Laden's personal staff only as a chauffeur.
- Ali al-Bahlul made a video celebrating the attack on the USS Cole (DDG-67).
Of those still incarcerated, U.S. officials said they intend to eventually put 60 to 80 on trial and free the rest.
On September 22, 2004, ten prisoners were brought from Afghanistan.
In July 2005, 242 detainees were moved out of Guantánamo, including 173 that were released without charge, and 69 transferred to the governments of other countries, according to the U.S. Department of Defense.
By November 2005, 358 of the then-505 detainees held at Guantánamo Bay had Administrative Review Board hearings. Of these, 3% were granted and were awaiting release, 20% were to be transferred, 37% were to be further detained at Guantánamo, and no decision had been made in 40% of the cases.
The Center for Constitutional Rights has prepared a biography of some of the prisoners currently being held in Guantánamo Prison.
On February 11, 2008, the US Department of Defense charged Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ramzi Binalshibh, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali and Walid Bin Attash for the September 11 attacks under the military commission system, as established under the Military Commissions Act of 2006.
On February 5, 2009, charges against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri were dropped without prejudice following an order signed by US President Barack Obama to suspend trials for 120 days. Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri was accused of renting a small boat connected with the USS Cole bombing. He is one of the detainees held at Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp known to have been interrogated with water boarding.
Facilities
Camp Delta is a 612-unit detention center finished in April 2002. It includes detention camps 1 through 6 as well as Camp Echo, where pre-commissions are held. Security is provided by the United States Department of Homeland Security.
Camp Iguana is a much smaller, low-security compound, located about a kilometer from the main compound. In 2002 and 2003, it housed three detainees who were under 16 and was closed when they were flown home in January 2004. It was reopened in mid-2005 to house some of the 38 detainees who were determined by the Combatant Status Review Tribunals as no longer being "enemy combatants".
Camp X-Ray was a temporary detention facility that was closed in April 2002. Its prisoners were transferred to Camp Delta.
An Associated Press report indicates that a seventh camp, named Camp 7, is also a separate facility on the naval base. It is considered the highest-security jail on the base, and its location is classified.
Operating procedures
A manual called "Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedure" (SOP), dated February 28, 2003 and designated "Unclassified//For Official Use Only", was published on Wikileaks. This is the main document for the operation of Guantánamo Bay, including the securing and treatment of detainees. The 238-page document includes procedures for identity cards and Muslim burial. It is signed by Major General Geoffrey D. Miller. The document is the subject of an ongoing legal action by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has been trying to obtain it from the Department of Defense.
On July 2, 2008, the International Herald Tribune revealed in an article that the U.S. military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 had based an entire interrogation class on a chart copied directly from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist torture techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false. The chart showed the effects of "coercive management techniques" for possible use on prisoners, including "sleep deprivation," "prolonged constraint,"also know as "stress positions" and "exposure", all of which are imposed on U.S. as well almost all military personnel as part of standard initial training (but in isolation, except for the minority who go to advanced courses). The 1957 article from which the chart was copied, written by Alfred D. Biderman, a sociologist then working for the Air Force, was entitled "Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From Air Force Prisoners of War". Other techniques used by the Chinese Communists that were listed on the chart include "Semi-Starvation," "Exploitation of Wounds," and "Filthy, Infested Surroundings," along with their effects: "Makes Victim Dependent on Interrogator," "Weakens Mental and Physical Ability to Resist," and "Reduces Prisoner to 'Animal Level' Concerns." The only change made to the chart used at Guantánamo was an altered title.
Conditions
Supporters of controversial techniques have declared that certain protections of the Third Geneva Convention do not apply to al-Qaeda or Taliban fighters, claiming that Article IV of the Geneva convention only applies to uniformed soldiers and guerrillas who wear distinctive insignia, bear arms openly, and abide by the rules of war. Jim Phillips of the Heritage Foundation has said that "some of these terrorists who are not recognized as soldiers don't deserve to be treated as soldiers." Critics of U.S. policy say the government has violated the Conventions in attempting to create a distinction between "prisoners of war" and "illegal combatants." Amnesty International has called the situation "a human rights scandal" in a series of reports.
One of the allegations of abuse at the camp is the abuse of the religion of the detainees. The US government has claimed that they respect all religious and cultural sensitivities. However, prisoners rel
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