Guantnamo remains a stain on Americas reputation
Barack Obama wanted to close the offshore prison; Donald Trump says he will fill it up
Jan 14th 2017 | GUANTÁNAMO
IT IS always twilight in the circular passage where the guards keep watch around the clock through wide windows, eyeing the “forever detainees” in Camp Six at America’s naval base at Guantánamo. These are the men who are deemed too dangerous ever to be set free but whose jihadist activities were apparently too shadowy to provide enough evidence to secure convictions in court. The passage is murkily lit so that the guards—and the rare visiting journalist—can peer through one-way glass unobserved by the detainees. The official mantra is that the detainees’ treatment must be “safe, humane, legal, transparent”. But to anyone who believes in innocence until proof of guilt, visiting is a discomfiting experience. These men, however heinous their alleged crimes, have been detained without trial, most of them for more than a decade. They have had little prospect of freedom, or even of facing trial in America. Though the Caribbean laps against the shore nearby, none of them ever sees it.
In each walled-off section, ten prisoners or so mill around in a communal area with steel tables bolted down. Some lounge in chairs or on a sofa. A few read. Five times a day they line up and prostrate themselves in prayer, with arrows painted on the floor helpfully pointing towards Mecca. Air-conditioning keeps the place cool, even cold, inside; some of the detainees prefer to loaf outside, where noon-day temperatures nudge 38°C. Occasionally a prisoner gesticulates towards the window. A guard puts on a plastic visor against what the authorities call “splashing”, meaning spitting at a jailer or, in past years when prisoners were sometimes “non-compliant”, throwing excrement or vomit. The guard opens a door, exposing a narrow chain-linked limbo between the guards’ and prisoners’ sections, and asks in sign language what is wanted. Usually it is a request, readily met, for toilet paper or soap.
When your correspondent visited, one prisoner, somehow sensing the journalists peering through the one-way window, had propped up a painting of a white question-mark on a grey background, with a padlock at the bottom instead of a dot. The most plausible interpretation was that it expressed uncertainty about the inmates’ future after January 20th, when Donald Trump assumes the American presidency.
By January 11th 55 prisoners remained in Guantánamo, all but one said to be “highly compliant”. Yemen had the most citizens still detained (23), followed by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia (six each) and Afghanistan (five). Apart from 22 in Camp Six, another 15 (including the five accused of orchestrating the attack on the World Trade Centre on September 11th 2001) are held in Camp Seven, the most hidden and highly guarded block. The remaining 18 have been cleared for transfer to third countries. According to the New York Times on December 19th, the governments of Italy, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were willing immediately to accept 17 or 18 of those cleared to go; four had gone by January 11th. So 41 or 42 may be left in Guantánamo by the time Mr Trump moves into the White House.
http://www.economist.com/news/international/21714368-barack-obama-wanted-close-offshore-prison-donald-trump-says-he-will-fill-it