2-17-06, 9:20 am
'Guantánamo Bay is just the tip of the iceberg,' says the US section of Amnesty International in response to a UN report released February 16 calling for the closure of US prison camps at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
The 54-page report was compiled by five top human rights experts at the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) who specialize in human rights violations related to torture and prisoner abuse, arbitrary detention, legal injustices, and physical and mental health.
The report specifically called on the US government 'to close immediately the detention center in Guantánamo Bay and bring all detainees before an independent and competent tribunal or release them.'
This conclusion was made after 18 months of examinations 'based on information from the United States Government, interviews conducted by the experts with former Guantánamo Bay detainees currently residing or detained in France, Spain and the United Kingdom and responses from lawyers acting on behalf of some current detainees.' In addition, the study relied on reports made and evidence gathered by non-governmental organizations and information contained in declassified US government documents.
The Bush administration refused to allow the UN investigators to visit the prison camps except under conditions that would have prevented them from independently and freely gathering information.
The investigators described the administration’s justification of imprisonment under the catch-all term 'enemy combatant' as amounting to arbitrary detention.
The report also found the Bush administration’s attempt to redefine torture as part of its new strategy to fight terrorism to be unacceptable under any international convention against prisoner abuse and torture.
The UN human rights officials further expressed alarm over the apparent confusion in the administration and the military over which interrogation techniques were considered proper and improper.
Regarding the health care of the prisoners in the Guantánamo camps, the UN investigators found that the US military convinced some health care professionals to participate in both interrogations and in force-feeding prisoners.
The report notes that when prisoners disclosed medical information, some health care professionals inappropriately turned that information over to military interrogators who used it to punish or coerce some prisoners. The report indicates that 'some health care professionals have been complicit in abusive treatment of prisoners detrimental to their health.'
In addition to calling for the closure of the camps and bringing the prisoners into fair legal proceedings, the report appealed again for full and unfettered access to the prison camps at Guantánamo Bay, a request the UNCHR has been making since allegations surfaced about prisoner mistreatment in 2002.
Susan Lee, Director of Amnesty International’s Americas Program welcomed the report and noted that it 'confirms concerns which AI has repeatedly raised with the US government.'
'We have consistently called for the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay to be closed. The US can no longer make the case, morally or legally, for keeping it open,' she added.
Amnesty also noted that the United States also operates detention facilities at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere in Iraq and has been implicated in the use of secret detention facilities in other countries, also known as 'black sites.'
In addition to the UNCHR's investigation into abuses at Guantánamo Bay, Amnesty accused the Bush administration of also failing to cooperate with other investigations, especially for one called for by the Council of Europe into the use of European prisons for improper interrogations by the CIA.
A press statement by Amnesty noted, 'When the US commits serious human rights violations it sends a signal to abusive governments that these practices are permissible.'
The UNCHR report came just one day after new photos of torture and prisoner abuse in the US-controlled Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq were released by an Australian television station, shocking much of the world into more disgust over human rights violations by the US military.
Linking the abuses at Guantánamo Bay with those at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, Anthony Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU, said, 'We continue to see undeniable evidence that abuse and torture has been widespread and systematic, yet high level government officials have not been held accountable for creating the policies that led to these atrocities.'
The ACLU is part of a coalition of human rights and civil liberties organizations, which includes the Center for Constitutional Rights, Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans for Peace, that is suing the Bush administration and high-ranking officials to release more documents related to these cases under the Freedom of Information Act.
The ACLU is also calling for an independent investigation into human rights violations in US-controlled prisons and camps.
ACLU attorney Amrit Singh argued, 'Instead of continuing to deny the widespread abuse, the government must hold relevant officials accountable for this abuse.'
While the US media has paid little attention to this story, newspapers, websites, and television stations around the world have. For its part, the Cuban media continues to describe US military presence on Cuban territory as illegal.
According to Angel Rodriguez Alvarez of Cuba’s National News Agency (AIN), US military presence is illegal and has resulted in shootings and attacks on Cuban citizens by US marines.
Rodriguez also noted that the prison camp system under US military control at Guantánamo Bay, 'conceal[s] from the eyes of the world the most elemental violations of human rights.'
Rodriguez called on the world, especially at upcoming UNCHR meetings, to intensify pressure on the US to close the prison camps.
--Reach Joel Wendland at
