Tue, Dec 09, 2014 page7

• Guantanamo closure faces hurdles

  HARDER CHOICES: Analysts said US President Barack Obama’s long-stalled efforts to shut the prison in Cuba would face increased opposition from US legislators

  • Bloomberg
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  The release of six prisoners from the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, this past weekend was the largest transfer out of the offshore prison in five years.

  It was also a signal that US President Barack Obama is still working to fulfill a campaign promise to close the site almost six years after he took office. Whether he can find placements for the 136 detainees left remains an open question.

  Fewer than two dozen of those remaining are deemed dangerous terrorist leaders, but those hardened few pose the toughest challenge to shuttering the prison, analysts said.

  

  The military hospital where six former Guantanamo detainees are reported to have arrived in Montevideo, Uruguay, is pictured on Sunday.

  Photo: AFP

  “We aren’t going to release those guys, but we aren’t going to prosecute them in court either,” said Tung Yin, a law professor at Lewis and Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon, who has written about the dilemma.

  “All of the low-hanging fruit has already been picked over,” he added.

  With a little more than two years left in his presidency, Obama has accelerated the release of the remaining detainees.

  The difficulty, as it has been for six years, is finding nations willing to take in fighters who might have terrorist proclivities.

  Four Syrians, a Tunisian and a Palestinian were flown by military jet over the weekend to Uruguay for resettlement at the invitation of Uruguayan President Jose Mujica, a former guerrilla fighter who said it was a humanitarian gesture.

  “We’ve offered our hospitality for human beings who have suffered a terrible kidnapping in Guantanamo,” Mujica said in an open letter to Obama last week. “The unavoidable reason is humanitarian.”

  Among those sent to Uruguay was Jihad Diyab, a 43-year-old Syrian held for 12 years without trial, who went on several hunger strikes and challenged his force-feeding in court.

  The others released were Ahmed Adnan Ahjam, Ali Hussain Shaabaan and Omar Mahmoud Faraj of Syria; Abdul Bin Mohammed Abis Ourgy of Tunisia; and Palestinian Mohammed Tahanmatan.

  It was the largest group released from Guantanamo since six Chinese Muslims were resettled in the island nation of Palau in 2009.

  INSTABILITY

  Of those remaining in Guantanamo, two-thirds are from Yemen and most of the Yemenis have been cleared for release as not posing a terrorist threat, said Wells Dixon, a lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents prisoners there.

  “They aren’t being sent to Yemen because the US thinks Yemen is too unstable,” he said in an interview. “If President Obama doesn’t deal with the Yemen problem, there is no way he can close Guantanamo.”

  The number of detainees has been reduced by more than 80 percent from its peak during the administration of former US president George W. Bush, former US Air Force colonel and prosecutor at Guantanamo Morris Davis said.

  The detentions began 13 years ago, after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.

  Obama campaigned for president in 2008 promising to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, saying it attracted international criticism of US detention policies and interrogation practices.

  On his first day in office, he issued an executive order to close the prison; he was forced to back away from it later because of congressional opposition.

  Legislators of both parties have opposed prosecuting alleged terrorists in US courts, saying that civilian courts provide too many protections for people they say should be treated as enemy combatants.

  Legislators also have said that previously released detainees have rejoined terrorist groups and taken part in attacks on US citizens.

  SMOKE AND MIRRORS

  In 2012, US Republican Party members on the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee released a report saying that about 27 percent of 600 detainees released from Guantanamo had been confirmed at — or suspected of — undertaking terrorist or insurgent activities.

  US Democratic Party members on the panel dismissed the report as “smoke and mirrors.”

  “We do know, by the way, that some past released prisoners are now re-engaged in the terrorist fight. We knew that was going to happen,” US Representative Mike Rogers, a Republican, said on Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union program. “That’s why those of us who tried to do the review of this were so concerned.”

  Davis and human rights advocate Laura Pitter said that continued detentions pose more of a national security threat to the US than the risk that someone released from the prison will join al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups.

  “We will never reduce our risks to zero,” said Morris, who supports closing the facility. “Just playing the odds, one of these guys will do something stupid.”

  The US government conducted an interagency review to determine whether the detainees met the standards for release, including whether they posed a security threat, the Pentagon said in a statement.

  The US Congress was informed in advance of the release, it added.

  The annual US defense authorization bill that passed the US House of Representatives last week extends a ban on closing the prison.

  With Republicans taking control of the Senate next year, getting cooperation from the US Congress will be more difficult for Obama, Yin said.

  “Any kind of funding he would need, the Republicans would block,” he said.

  Still, the six detainees were released under the restrictions approved by Congress, and Obama can expedite those releases under existing rules, said Pitter, who is senior national security counsel at Human Rights Watch in New York.

  “The window is still open, and the administration should take advantage of that,” she said. “This is long overdue.”
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