Pleading for Guantanamo

Pleading for Guantanamo
by Abu Omar

Does it need former US President Carter to call to shut down the world’s most notorious prison? Does it need a few conscientious US congressmen and representatives to demand the end of Gitmo, a name slick in military tongue but hell for its prisoners? Amnesty International has condemned it and called it rightly so as a gulag, a gulag for Muslims, mind you. The discretely neutral and respected International Red Cross had to reveal it at its own peril risking retaliation from the US administration. In fact all the human rights advocates world wide have come out against it vehemently and categorically. Even if we seldom see it openly but it is a wound deep in the hearts of conscious Muslims wherever they maybe.And it has become the most profound symbol of the oppression of Muslims in the new millennium, the result of American militarised globalization, the product of a perpetrated and self fulfilling civilizational clash or in crass terms a religious brawl, the grim but glaring picture of Muslim humiliation and powerlessness and the sad betrayal of the human spirit.

What is Guantanamo? Geographically it is on the island of Cuba but does not belong to Castro’s government because it is a US military base. It now houses 500 – 600 adults and juveniles (who really knows the true numbers?) all of them Muslim “detainees”-“unlawful” combatants - unrecognised POW’s who are suspected to be terrorists of high intelligence value. It is a horrible prison camp with harsh conditions and surroundings. Gitmo represents the well publicised detention camp of suspected Muslim terrorists. Unfortunately and forebodingly, there are others run throughout the globe by the US military or its clients under the Secretary of Defence, Rumsfeld. Some prisons are known like the dreaded Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan, where confirmed reports of prisoners beaten to death. Then there is Abu Ghraib, brought into the limelight by veteran journalist Seymour Hersh of My Lai atrocities, Vietnam fame. Abu Ghraib showed that torture is used and tolerated with relish by the US military, its intelligence operatives and also private security contractors. Abu Ghraib is still a prison and is still operating holding thousands of suspected insurgents. Then there are those in Uzbekistan and other US satellite nations across the globe. Some say Diego Garcia, a US base in the Indian Ocean has also such prison.

Then there are the privatisation, outsourcing, and the “renditions” to vicious Muslim Governments to torture and turn over their own citizens. Egypt, Syria and Uzbekistan are some of the nations that thrive in such atrocious activities with sadistic fervour. Again their own national citizens are “rendered” and returned to the US gulags without due process of law and representation. Many are kidnapped based on flimsy and sketchy evidence to be flown out, flown in, tortured and shipped out without anyone knowing not their families, loved ones, lawyers, friends or their fellow citizens. Except for some airport controllers or local intel agents.

It has been nearly 3 years that the suspects, the prisoners are held without trial. Kept incommunicado, not charged, and not brought to trial. Afghanistan and Iraq were invaded. The war on the elusive and mysterious one and all al Qaeda is still ongoing with the collateral damages, destruction, lost of life and limb weighing heavily on the Muslim side.

Then there’s the torture. The disgusting dehumanisation. The desecration of religion by defiling the Qur’an and sexually provocating and humiliating knowingly Muslim prisoners. People are abused and mistreated apparently to make them turn into defenceless zombies suffering complete nervous breakdown. Is there any intel value left after undergoing such abuse and inhumane treatment? Unless there is some other sinister motive to somehow to use it as a Frankenstein monster lab to explore and understand a Muslim’s mind, psyche and psychological background in order to form a model of how to break up, exploit and eliminate any potential of resistance ad threat from the other 1 billion Muslims. Sounds sci-fi but did you see Fahrenheit 911?

The architects of the torture chambers defend its existence by justifying it in the name of the war on terror and to safeguard against another tragic 911. Its extremist backers go further by being vindictive and wanting revenge. But until now there has not been any indictment recognised by law internationally against its conspirators. There are infinite lists of names out there somewhere trumped up now and again but to the Muslims who are getting very skeptical of them and weary of the whole “war on terror” episode ,these racial-religious profiling hurt them and threatens their safety and security and their loved ones. Muslims do not condone terrorism although they suffer and have been treated unjustly even before and surely after any acts of terror are carried out.

What does it really need to shut it down? The human spirit and voice of conscience pleads that all the suspects be charged and be given due process. The suspects ought to be in UN administered prisons whilst waiting to be prosecuted. Since they have not been proven guilty or convicted, they should be given legal rights and access to their families and counsel. If they are regarded as war combatants, then the Geneva Conventions must be applied. The torture chambers and the concentration camps operated by the US and her allies have to be closed down. Where is the OIC and where are the Muslim leaders in this gross humanitarian crisis if they are not themselves conspiring and collaborating in this wanton cruelty? Where are the civil society leaders?

The closing down of Guantanamo and shutting down other unlawful tormenting places like it all over the globe should be our priority and be on the agenda on all global meetings and international forums.

Abu Omar