Progress Report #3

Progress Report #3 Guantanamo Bay

Dominique Bryant:

History/Timeline

            Guantanamo Bay’s history has been short lived.  Starting January 11, 2002, when 20 Afghan prisoners marked the start of the detainee operation. Here are some important dates that show the progress of the detention camp.  It started off with 20 detainees and has reached at least 779 detainees.

·      May 9, 2003: Guantanamo hits its peak population of 680. (All told, the camp has processed 779 detainees, but 680 is the largest number of detainees there at one time.) 

·      October 9, 2003: The Red Cross issues a public statement noting "deterioration in the psychological health of a large number of detainees." 

·      January 14, 2009:  A public statement saying that detainee was tortured is released for the first time by a senior Bush administration official responsible for reviewing practices at Guantanamo Bay. The statement said that the treatment of a Saudi national (Mohammed al-Qahtani) who allegedly planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, met the legal definition of torture. 

·      December 22, 2010: Obama administration readies indefinite detention order for Guantanamo detainees.

Katie Hansen:

Why Guantanamo Bay Should Remain OPEN

In this portion of the presentation, I will delve into the opposition points that are made in favor of keeping Guantanamo Bay open. This section will allow class members to know what the pros and cons are in this discussion and to understand the perspectives on both ends of the spectrum. To supplement the reasons, a YouTube video will be shown that features a debate between the Senate Judiciary Committee as to the reasons why Guantanamo Bay should remain active. A clip from the documentary, Sicko, may also be shown to supplement this section. The ‘pro’ reasons that will be covered, but are not limited to, are the following:

·      Legal Constraints of bringing detainees within US borders

·      Risk of bringing detainees closer to American citizens

·      Risk of returning detainees back to their respective countries, differing legal standards that emerge

·      Risk of detainees being freed and ‘slipping through the cracks’

·      Backlash of US citizens, especially those personally affected by 9/11

·      False accusations of conditions at Gitmo: health care, sanitary conditions, standard of nutrition/diet, opportunities for education/exercise

·      Risk  that accusations are based on the viewpoint of the most extreme offenders and may have inaccurate accounts

Katherine Kenny:

I have been researching current/recent legislature relating to Guantanamo Bay as well as what the attempts Obama has made to close Guantanamo. A brief summary of what I have found is that there are still many prisoners remaining in Guantanamo Bay and what the president is trying to do is give some of them trials in the U.S., detain some that are still deemed to dangerous,and the remaining prisoners should be transferred to other countries. I have also been reading articles relating to the different effects this upcoming election could have on America's torture policy (which would directly effect policy at Guantanamo). Both candidates hold very different views on what is and what is not considered torture. Obama has attempted to close Guantanamo and has ordered to create a federal facility to receive prisoners in Illinois, but due to bipartisan opposition Congress has not approved funding for this facility. Some advancements have been made for the treatment of the prisoners such as more civilian trials, release of some prisoners, and a new restricted list of interrogation techniques. I plan to continue researching these topics as well as finding more information about the steps needed to close Guantanamo Bay. I am working on a brochure as well to pass out to each student with resources for how they can get involved as well as why they should care about the issue. I am also keeping a word document to keep track of any connections I make between the readings and our topic so that we can have a section for our presentation of how Guantanamo relates to the readings. 

Grace Robinson and Julia Mandehr:

Guards/Interrogators

Many of the interrogators that work at Guantanamo Bay were trained at SERE, which stands for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape.  This program was designed to help military personnel who were captured as Prisoners of war to withstand torture, and now these are the people that are interrogating the prisoners (detainees) to get the information they want to hear.

The guards that work at Guantanamo Bay wear masks when they go into the detainees’ cells.  They wear these masks because the detainees spit at them or throw their food into the guards face.  Also, the detainees act vulgarly towards the guards and yell profanity at them, especially the female guards.  Many of the detainees will not look into the guards’ eyes if she is female because it goes against their culture.

Camps

The higher up the number that the camp is classified as, the higher security there is and less freedom for the detainees.  Camp 4 detainees are able to do their own laundry and play with soccer balls because these are the most cooperative detainees. Camp 5 and Camp 6 have less freedom and the detainees are not allowed to leave their cells.  These are detainees that have misbehaved or broken the rules of Guantanamo Bay.  The interrogation room is called the reservation room to make it sound more appealing.  “Prison is about punishment and rehabilitation and we do neither one here”—that is why the people are referred to as detainees and not prisoners.

Detainees

The Detainees live in a 2.5-meter by 3.5-meter cell and some have been there for as many as seven years.  They are fed cold or unpalatable food, sleep in reverse sleep patterns and are exposed to extreme temperatures.  Bush said that Guantanamo prisoners do not deserve Prisoner of War status or privileges, however, the military had to treat them in accordance with the Geneva Convention agreement.

Torture

Torture techniques used at Guantanamo were first realized when Abu Ghraib was shut down and a list of torture techniques was written on the wall by the US Army Captain.  It had been said that these same techniques were being used a Guantanamo so people’s concerns were increased.  There is an approved list of 24 torture techniques that happen in Guantanamo Bay; however, the pentagon will not release this list to the public.  From different sources, it has become clear that a few of the approved techniques include: 

direct questioning, incentive/removal of incentive, emotional love/hate, fear up/mild, fear up/harsh, reduced fear, pride and ego up and down, futility, “We Know All”, establish your identity, repetition, file and dossier, good cop/bad cop, rapid fire and silence.

It is also known that harsher techniques were approved to be used for Mohamed Al Qahtani because he was believed to be the planned 20^th hijacker on 9/11.  It was admitted that he was water boarded.

Lilly Judge:

From my research, I’ve found that there has been much effort on the part of the US government to close Guantanamo Bay since it’s inception. However it has been hampered by difficulties in assessing the threat posed by individual detainees as well as the diplomacy it requires in the necessity for human rights agreements and security measure enforcement by other countries. Below is an outline of “Leaving Guantanamo”, a report by the House Armed Services Committee in 2012.

1. Mechanisms to reduce the Guantanamo population were first contemplated when the facility was established in 2002. However, procedures to accomplish this took about eight months to finalize, and were spurred by persistent concerns that some detainees should not be held.

·      Difficult to classify detainees’ threat levels

·      Within US govt (state dept and dept of defense) there was disagreement on which were threats and how much of a threat they were

2. After the first review process began, political and diplomatic pressures to reduce the Guantanamo population arose, resulting in releases and transfers.

·      Transfer to be prosecuted in own countries or plain released

·      Treated worse in other countries than at Guantanamo

·      External pressure especially from foreign nations to transfer and release

·      Thought criticisms against Guantanamo could be addressed by reducing population

·      Had to do with diplomacy – nations threatening to not cooperate with American goals abroad

3. Pressure to reduce the Guantanamo population accelerated in the second bush term, before reengagement dangers became fully apparent.

·      Released/transferred detainees are unlawful enemy combatants being moved to other countries and subjected to security measures appropriate for their threat level

·      Administrative Review Boards

·      Britain pushing for closing

·      Needed to assess humane treatment possibilities and make security agreements

4. While the GTMO transfer and release important instituted by the Obama administration differed in some important respects from what preceded it, there are sufficient continuities so that the threat of reengagement may not be lessened in the long term.

·      In sum, the administration stipulated to the committee that improved interagency cooperation, more collaborative decision-making, and the availability of a wider body of intelligence information is what distinguished the EOTF from the ARB mechanism.