IS GUANTANAMO QUIETLY BEING EMPTIED? TWO ALGERIANS ARE REPATRIATED

 

The Guantanamo conundrum is one that is not easily solvable.  Initiated under a false pretext, a constructed one if you will, during the Bush era to detain indefinitely terrorists for whom culpability could not be easily ascertained in a regular court of law, or to keep secrecy at a maximum, even at the cost of running afoul of the law, the Guantanamo prison posed an unprecedented challenge to the Obama presidency.

In order to close Guantanamo there could only be the adoption of one of two lines of action: the first, to release all prisoners to their original country and lose whatever alleged benefit their possible confessions could entail, which 12 years on beggars belief, since almost any of their possible information is completely outdated, and two, somehow return the prisoner to a federal court for a proper trial.  But the issue with the second solution is that the federal trial would immediately become null if there was not enough valid proof of their culpability or two, and even more important, if the imprisonment and the information extorted from the prisoner were unlawfully obtained.

Having said that, the Obama administration has been quietly repatriating a few of the prisoners, steadily reducing the number to the almost half of the prison population in the detention center it is now.  

This move however, reiterates Obama's need to find a permanent solution to the Guantanamo problem. 

One of the things that allows Obama to repatriate Guantanamo detainees is the detainee's own country's willingness to continue detention upon his release.  Such 'repatriations' are essential in the closing process.  But are these prisoners better off in their home country?  If the detainees are to be sent back to repressive regimes, such as Syria or Egypt, for example, they face the possibility of much greater hardship and torture than they would if they were kept in Guantanamo.  The point then becomes, how long should these people be imprisoned without proper legal recourse?  Even the hardest criminal does have a set term, and can shorten it under mitigating circumstances.

But the Guantanamo prisoners cannot avail themselves of such specific imprisonment terms.  It becomes then a supercomplication, one that has gears within gears, all seemingly moving in different directions.  If the person is repatriated and asked to be detained after his release, when does that person become free again, and how does he prove his innocence, or ,at minimum, the extent of his culpability?

To remedy the mistake of others is also admitting to the mistakes of others.  More importantly, when it comes to Guantanamo, is that the mistakes of a prior administration and the construct used to take such action, can ricochet onto the current administration. We are just as culpable for keeping Guantanamo open, as we are of the continued detainment of Guantanamo detainees after their release.  

Op-Ed

Partial Source: France 24/ 8.29.13