Our National Shame: Guantánamo

Guantánamo is our national shame. Five years after Camp X-Ray opened to house prisoners from the US war in Afghanistan, about 500 prisoners remain there. Not one has been charged, tried, or convicted for any crime.

On January 19, St. Joseph’s House of Hospitality and Indymedia showed the film The Road to Guantánamo, which tells the story of three British citizens who were held for two years at Guantánamo. The three men describe their treatment there, parts of which are re-enacted. They recount being awakened every hour for roll call, being forbidden to make eye contact with guards, and guards screaming at prisoners for no other purpose than to humiliate. Prisoners confined to small cages were forbidden to stand, forbidden to hang a towel to shade themselves, and allowed outside five minutes a week for exercise. Earlier in the week I had seen a film that showed a speech given by historian Howard Zinn at the eve of the US invasion of Iraq, in which he stated ‘the question is not whether Iraq will be a democracy; the question is whether the United States will be a democracy.’ As I watched the treatment of the prisoners, I thought, it’s happened. We’ve become a fascist country. We’ve come to the point where we are willing to see other human beings as not human, because of their religion, their skin color, because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Only 8% of Guantanamo detainees were even considered to be Al Qaeda fighters by the US government. 95% of detainees were handed over to the United States by third parties in exchange for bounties offered. Interrogators of the three detainees featured in the film repeatedly tried to extract confessions that they had been present at a meeting led by Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan, even though the detainees were able to present ample evidence they had been in Britain at the time the meeting took place.

The UN Commission on Human Rights has said treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo ‘seriously undermines the rule of law and a number of fundamental universally recognized human rights, which are the essence of democratic societies.’ Our country is losing its soul at Guantánamo. To regain one’s soul, one must repent. A growing national and international movement is calling for Guantánamo to close. In January of 2006, 25 Americans traveled to Cuba and walked to the gates of Guantánamo, asking to visit the prisoners. They were not allowed to enter, but on returning they formed the organization Witness Against Torture. On January 11th, 2007, the 5th anniversary of the first prisoners arriving at Guantánamo, hundreds of protesters marched through Washington, DC wearing the orange jumpsuits and black hoods prisoners are made to wear. 90 protesters entered the courtroom, and were arrested as they knelt, prayed, and sang “Peace, Salam, Shalom.” In Rochester, about 200 protesters turned out for a protest against Guantánamo and the troop increase in Iraq proposed by President Bush the day before. A dozen Rochester prisoners donned the prisoners’ black hoods.

There are other creative protest efforts. Some of the prisoners began saving seeds from their food and used plastic spoons and a mop handle to create a small garden. The British organization Reprieve began a Seeds of Hope project to send seeds to the prisoners. You can send Reprieve unopened seed packets and messages for the prisoners at PO Box 52742, London, EC4P 4WS. It is a small act of solidarity, but it recognizes the prisoners as human beings, and that is what we have lost.