Guantanamo shame - A great stain on a great democracy

THERE were demonstrations in cities across the world yesterday — including Dublin, London and Belfast — to mark the sixth anniversary of the opening of the American detention camp at Guantanamo Bay.

US President George W Bush faced demands from politicians representing virtually every party on this island to close the notorious centre where hundreds of men are detained in conditions that are simply not acceptable to a civilised society.

In the Dáil, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Labour, Greens, Sinn Féin and the Progressive Democrats signed a petition urging the camp’s immediate closure. North of the border Ulster Unionist, Sinn Féin, SDLP and Alliance MPs and MLAs, as well as the Green Party’s Brian Wilson, Progressive Unionist leader Dawn Purvis and Independent Health Coalition’s Dr Kieran Deeny, added their names.

Such unity is almost unheard of on this island and, by its very rarity, is an articulate expression of the fears of all of those who believe that civilised countries must recognise that there are things they cannot do, even when confronting their most dangerous enemies.

Though the hawks in Mr Bush’s entourage will insist that the strongest measures possible should be applied in the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaida, the fact that the camp had to be opened in Cuba indicates that even Mr Bush’s Praetorian Guard recognised that such an appalling facility, and such appalling treatment of our fellow man, would not be acceptable inside American borders.

Indeed, the facility may well be one of the best recruiting sergeants the Taliban or al-Qaida ever had.

Just as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s intransigence during the North’s hunger strikes 27 years ago bolstered the ranks of the Provos, leading to hundreds if not thousands of pointless deaths, the camp at Guantanamo will inspire thousands of young Muslims to take a path they might otherwise have ignored.

Guantanamo Bay represents a stain on America’s character that does the great traditions of a cherished and active democracy a tremendous disservice.

This has been recognised as such by the Republican presidential hopeful John McCain — himself the victim of the most brutal detention in a POW camp in Vietnam — and he has said he would close it if given the opportunity.

The camp once held 750 inmates, believed to be mostly foreigners detained in Afghanistan on suspicion of being Islamist fighters. Most came from mainly Muslim states, but French, Russian, British and other countries’ citizens have also been detained.

Around 275 people remain at the camp where the Red Cross is the only outside organisation allowed to visit the prisoners. Amnesty International has claimed that “in the six years that Guantanamo has been in operation only one of the almost 800 men who have been detained there has been convicted”.

Most Americans, the great majority of them we hope, will recognise that Guantanamo Bay represents one of the darker moments in their country’s history.

However, we can take consolation from the fact that by the time the seventh anniversary of the opening of the camp comes around Mr Bush will be gone, and the indications are that anyone with a real chance of succeeding him will close the wretched place.

That would be a good day for America and a good day for the principles of justice and humanity.