Sunday, August 07, 2005



Outsourcing indefinite detention

The US is negotiating the release of more detainees from Guantanamo. But when you look closely, they're not actually setting them free. Instead, they're outsourcing their continued indefinite detention to client states:

administration officials denied the move was a precursor to closing the facility. "This is not an effort to shut down Guantánamo," said Matthew Waxman, deputy assistant secretary of defence for detainee affairs.

"We, the US, don't want to be the world's jailer. We think a more prudent course is to shift that burden on to our coalition partners."

(Emphasis added)

Note that they're not saying that they don't want these people locked up; they simply don't want the hassle and the ongoing bad publicity of doing it themselves. And so as with torture, they will get other governments to do their dirty work for them. We have already heard of two Yemenis who were "released" from US custody on the condition that the Yemeni government continue to imprison them (despite neither having been charged or found guilty of any crime); now this program will be massively expanded. An example is the deal recently negotiated for the transfer of Afghan detainees from Guantanamo and Bagram:

The detainees will be transferred to the "exclusive custody and control of the Afghan Government."

"The government of Afghanistan will accept responsibility for the returning Afghan citizens and will work to ensure that they do not pose a continuing threat to Afghanistan, the coalition, or the international community as a whole," a joint US-Afghan statement said.

But the transfers will not begin immediately - instead, they will be delayed until the Afghan government has sufficient detention capacity - capacity the US will help them build. So the US government isn't just demanding that people be indefinitely detained without trial; they are building the prisons to keep them in as well.

2 comments:

You don't understand at all, do you. The detainees at Gitmo are being held legally under the Geneva convention. They are illegal combatants under that treaty, and so can be held for the duration of the conflict and they do not have the standard POW rights. They don't have to be charged, but they are entitled to a tribunal to assess their status as illegal combatants, something that wasn't done initially but is being done now.

What I would have to ask, is knowing that many if not all are terrorists dedicated to killing innocents, why on earth would you want to support their being freed unless you are sure they are harmless ? Unless you actually want them to kill more civilians & children ?

Posted by Anonymous : 8/09/2005 11:28:00 AM

Anon: the US isn't talking about these people being detained until the cessation of hostilities. They're talking about them being detained forever. That's not allowed by the Geneva Conventions, and its not allowed by the UNHDR or ICCPR, both of which the US has ratified. It's also not allowed by US courts - which is why they are doing this. Now that the Supreme Court has ruled that US law applies to Guantanamo, they need to find a new legal black hole - and they're securing the agreement of foreign governments to do what they are forbidden to do - exactly as they do with torture.

As for the wider question, I'm not sure whether you are harmless. Better lock you up - better safe than sorry, after all.

if you think the above suggestion is outrageous, then consider that it is exactly what you are supporting.

Posted by Idiot/Savant : 8/09/2005 01:53:00 PM