Thursday
Jun222006
The Road to Gitmo
Hossam el-Hamalawy
A movie on Guantanamo, based on the true story of the Tipton Three, is to start showing in US theatres tomorrow June 23, amid increasing calls for shutting down the island's gulag. George Bush announced Wednesday in Vienna the US 'wants to end Guantanamo,' and send most of the detainees back to their home countries. Some would be put on trial in the US, he added though.
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In the course of reporting today I called the White House and Pentagon to ask if Bush's comments suggesting that some detainees should be tried in "U.S. courts" signified a change in policy - they are currently tried in the highly-criticised 'military commissions,' based at Guantanamo, rather than U.S. federal courts.
Both the Pentagon and White House denied that the comments represented any change in policy. The process is all on hold at the moment because they're awaiting a decision from the Supreme Court (Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld) on whether the military commissions are legal or not (due next week). If it goes the government's way, it appears the commissions will continue at Guantanamo.
Not only Hamdam vs Rumsfeld but Sanchez-Llamas/Bustillo vs Oregon, etc. about the Vienna Convention and the detention of foreigners for crimes committed in US jurisdiction
(for more on this see my article on IPS.org under death penalty and Vienna Convention)
"Sending detainees back to their home countries" could be much less innocuous than it sounds - were these people who were picked up in the US or Europe, will they be simply sent back to their countries of origin/ethnicity? Will they be sent back to be tried in those countries? Will the home country governments be able to lock them up or subject them to military trials?
[...] The US supreme court directed a blow to Bush’s “war on terror,� ruling today against the administration’s plans to prosecute Gitmo detainees in military courts. Already, the US president is in terrible unease about the island’s gulag, which has been denounced by virtually all rights groups across the globe as well as well as America’s own allies. He expressed in Vienna this month his desire to close it down during a summit with EU states. [...]