Most ads are interactive -- click on them to visit the folks who make The Panama News possible

opinion

Also in this section:
What they're saying about the Seguro Social crisis
US State Department, Human trafficking in Panama
Jasor & Morrow, Barbados recognizes Haiti's dictatorship
Silié, Dominicans and Haitians
Burges, The OAS at Fort Lauderdale
Rice, Time to close the Guantanamo prison
Jackson, Look up "tinnitus," Dr. Alleyne
Leis, The CSS reforms: problems with both method and content
Bernal, Closing the university for political convenience

Guantanamo and human rights

Practicing what we preach

by Jim Rice --- Sojourners

Guantanamo Bay has become not only a symbol of the US government's hypocrisy and dishonesty --- or "disassembling," as President Bush might put it --- around the war on terror. The prison camp has become one of the more egregious examples of the cost of unaccountable power.

Human rights groups have long documented the abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo, including desecration of the Quran. (The International Committee of the Red Cross issued credible reports in 2002 and 2003 on mistreatment of the Islamic holy book, which now even the Pentagon has admitted.)

The 540 prisoners at the facility have been held incommunicado, denied access to legal counsel, and, in fact, denied the most basic aspects of legal process. The Bush administration has given mutually contradictory rationalizations for its treatment of prisoners there, claiming on the one hand that those incarcerated are effectively prisoners of war and in other circumstances that they are terrorist criminals. Yet the administration has refused to honor either the Geneva Conventions for treatment of POWs or the rights granted the accused under US criminal law.

Defenders of Guantanamo and the policies it represents are quick to point out that our treatment of prisoners is far better than that meted out by the US's terrorist enemies --- or the "gulag" of the former Soviet Union, for that matter. Fair enough. But if the US is to continue to claim a place as a world leader for human rights, our standards must be infinitely higher and conform to or surpass international norms. We must not be satisfied with merely being "better" than al Qaeda or Stalin.

Former President Jimmy Carter has joined human rights groups, led by Amnesty International and others, in calling for the closing of Guantanamo Bay. "The US continues to suffer terrible embarrassment and a blow to our reputation...because of reports concerning abuses of prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo," Carter said, according to an AP report. President Bush refused to rule out the closing of the facility, saying the administration was "exploring all alternatives" for detaining the prisoners.

Guantanamo should be closed. But simply closing the facility --- and either moving the detainees to another location or returning them to their country of origin --- is not enough. If the United States is to regain any credibility as an advocate of human rights around the world, it must begin to practice what it preaches in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Guantanamo, and everywhere else. The erosion of respect for human rights by US personnel didn't begin at Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay, and the responsibility for it goes all the way to the top.

Copyright (c) 2004 Sojourners. All Rights Reserved.

For more information, e-mail us: sojourners@sojo.net