The Triangle

Issue date: 11/30/07 Section: Ed-Op

Media Credit: Todd Sumlin-Charlotte Observer/KRT Guards keep watch in a cell block at the Camp Delta detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. They are checking cells after three detainees were found dead when they committed suicide by hanging themselves.

Guantánamo Bay. A rather beautiful bay located in the Guantánamo Province, which is near the Southeastern end of Cuba that the United States assumed control over after 1903.

The area is also home to a U.S. naval base, called the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, in the Southern area of the bay. But these are not the facts that make Guantánamo Bay so infamous. Guantanamo is also a high-security detention camp run by the U.S. that was set up in 2002 to hold foreign terror suspects captured during the war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

What makes it different from the regular prisons in the U.S. is that the detainees at this camp, termed "enemy combatants," are not given the same rights as prisoners-of-war or U.S. citizens.

Historically, the prisoners at Guantánamo Bay have been held without charge and are subjected to brutal, inhumane methods of torture.

BBC News reported that the detentions began on Jan. 11, 2002 when about 20 men detained in Afghanistan on suspicion of belonging to Al-Qaeda became the first inmates at the newly opened prison camp at Guantánamo Bay.

Since then, approximately 700 prisoners have been transferred to the site, and according to statements released by the Pentagon, there are still about 340 detainees of more than 35 nationalities.

These prisoners have been abused and ill-treated for years and they have no opportunity or even hope of challenging the basis of their detention.

These are human beings who have been stripped of their homes, their families and their dignity. There is very little ground for holding these prisoners at Guantánamo under indefinite detention. Even now, there is no validated evidence yet that torture produces reliable intelligence. Yet, these people continue to remain there without charge, or trial. We've been told that these are people who have been captured "on the battlefield" and represent the "worst of the worst." Is that really true?

Continued...

Page 1 of 2 next >

Article Tools