The Great Debate UK

Doubts linger over Obama’s Guantanamo intentions

-Clare Algar is executive director of Reprieve. The opinions expressed are her own.-

Disappointed, but not surprised, was my first response to hearing President Barack Obama’s announcement on Wednesday that he would not make the January 22 deadline for closing the prison in Guantanamo Bay.

During attorney visits over the past few weeks, Reprieve’s clients in Guantanamo have expressed their doubts regarding whether President Obama can live up to his promise to close the prison within a year of assuming office. ‘What is he going to do,’ one man asked, “put 200 people on a plane on the 22nd?”

And it is true – the maths doesn’t work.  Around 245 prisoners were being held in Guantánamo when Obama was inaugurated in January of this year and only around 30 men have left since then. If releases continue at this snail’s pace, the prison won’t close until at least 2017.

Who are the people who are left in the prison and why is it proving so hard to close? First there are the 90 or so prisoners from Yemen who the United States will not repatriate because of the country’s instability.  Another 65 people are considered prosecutable in federal courts or military commissions, the details of which are still being hammered out (the latest development being the recent announcement of the future transfer of five men, accused of involvement in Sept. 11 to U.S. Federal Courts for prosecution).

Then there is a group of around 60 men – Guantanamo’s refugees – 18 of whom are represented by Reprieve. Many of these people have been “cleared for release” by United States authorities, meaning they have been deemed to present no threat whatsoever.  These men would be free to leave Guantanamo tomorrow but they remain stranded there because they cannot return to their countries of origin for fear of torture.

They are from places like Uzbekistan, Syria, China, Algeria and Tunisia, countries where their being branded “terrorists” – despite them having been cleared – will make them sitting ducks for authorities with Kafka-esque human rights records.

No we can’t: Obama’s Guantanamo

- Cori Crider represents 30 Guantánamo prisoners as an attorney with legal charity Reprieve. The opinions expressed are her own. -

You would be hard-pressed to find a kid more thrilled on Barack Obama’s first day in office than Mohammed el Gharani. On January 21, had you been standing at the right corner of Guantanamo Bay, you could have heard him whoop for joy when the U.S. President made history—so we thought—by closing the prison where el Gharani grew up.

It is four months since that decision. The president gave a speech, “clarifying” his plans for Guantanamo on Thursday. But I fear we will all look back on May 21, 2009, as the day real history was made—The Day President Obama Un-Closed Guantanamo.

In many ways the die seems already cast. The President revived the military commissions last week, a move that risks stretching the prison’s life out for months. Just two prisoners have left Guantanamo since January. One, Binyam Mohamed, had humiliated the U.S. and the UK over his torture; the other, Lakhdar Boumediene, had been ordered released by a federal judge.

It is unclear what the administration is waiting for in Mohammed el Gharani’s case. He was found innocent in court, just like Boumediene, and he has a country to go to. He could climb on a plane to Chad tomorrow, were the administration simply to wake up and do what it has been ordered to do.

In this, el Gharani is luckier than many—namely, Guantanamo’s sixty refugees, who require the U.S. or a goodwilled third country to save them from torture at home. For these men, the administration’s dithering spells disaster. For while the government frittered away the global goodwill that would have helped them house refugees in January, the right regrouped.