Desmond Tutu brands Guantanamo 'a disgrace'

Archbishop Desmond Tutu today branded the Guantanamo Bay prison camp a “disgrace”.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner compared the legal situation surrounding the detention centre to South Africa’s apartheid system.

He was speaking following allegations by British detainee Moazzam Begg that he had been tortured at the US naval base on Cuba.

He was about to appear on stage in New York in a play about the suffering of Britains held at Guantanamo.

“It is a total disgrace,” he said. “They’re using the very same sort of arrangements that were being used by the apartheid government in South Africa.”

Speaking about the play, he said: “I hope that this will help to put this particular issue out to the public, so the people can say: 'Is this what we want to support? Is this something that can be done in my name and our name?'."”

The archbishop insisted that in democracies the rule of law must apply to all people.

He also warned of the dangers of branding people "terrorists".

“Be very careful about your designations,” he said. “Nelson Mandela was called a terrorist.”

Archbishop Tutu, 73, played the part of a judge in Guantanamo: Honour Bound To Defend Freedom, at the 299-seat 45 Bleecker Street Theatre in Manhattan.

He is taking part in just two sell-out performances – the second being later today.

Earlier this year, Archbishop Tutu signed a petition on behalf of the families of Guantanamo prisoners.

He urged the British government to demand that the United States immediately release the Britons being held. Britain has appealed to the US for the men to be released.

Archbishop Tutu spent decades challenging South Africa’s apartheid regime - activism for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Guantanamo play was commissioned by London’s Tricycle Theatre after five other British detainees were released. It opened in the West End before opening to critical acclaim with an American cast in New York.

On Friday, British detainee Mr Begg said he had been subjected to “vindictive torture” and death threats by the US authorities.

Mr Begg, from Birmingham, said in a hand-written letter, newly declassified by the US, that he had witnessed the deaths of two fellow detainees “at the hands of US military personnel” in Afghanistan.

In the first ever communication from a serving Guantanamo detainee, 36-year-old Begg wrote that he had been tortured while listening to the “terrifying screams” of other inmates.

Mr Begg’s US counsel, Clive Stafford Smith, said he would file a legal demand tomorrow to end the “inhumane treatment” immediately and to force the US to publish detailed evidence of Mr Begg’s torture.

Five of the nine Britons originally detained at Guantanamo were returned to the UK in March. They were questioned by police and quickly released without charge.

Speaking about conditions at Guantanamo Bay, Archbishop Tutu said later: “How can it happen? How can we let this happen? Nothing can justify doing what they’re doing.”

The Archbishop said the people of America believed they were so powerful that they were invulnerable.

“You have got to the point where you believe you are invulnerable. That awful event that happened on September 11 one hopes could have made you begin to realise…

“And how come the things you want to export are not your generosity, your love, your compassion and caring? Why do you want to export bombs?” He said the end of the Cold War left people “disorientated”.

“It seems as if we cannot exist without an enemy,” he said.

The Archbishop drew laughter and tears from the audience.

He said: “Saddam Hussein is God’s child, as George Bush is God’s child.” Earlier, he said military force was not the way to combat terrorism, rather it was global justice.

“What drives people to take desperate action?” he asked.

“We won’t win the so-called war on terrorism as long as we have conditions in many parts of the world that drive people to desperation (and) if people are dehumanised by poverty, disease, ignorance.”