Guantanamo Will Be Temporarily Closed

Upon taking office, U.S. president Barack Obama is going to issue immediately a decree to close the military prison at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay. According to Obama`s headquarters staff published in the American press, that should happen in the first days after his inauguration on 20th of January.

There are now about 250 Guantanamo prisoners – people mostly captured in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. Most of them are accused of collaboration with the international terrorist network al-Qaida or the Taliban movement.

In American and foreign media, they are often called “war prisoners,” which is untrue. Now the United States, whose soldiers captured these war prisoners, wasn’t and isn’t currently at war with any country. And for the existence of war prisoners, first and foremost, a state of war is needed. The prisoners were not soldiers of any country. In fact, when considering them prisoners of war, the United States should be responsible held responsible for their detention conditions which are a clear mockery of the Hague and Geneva conventions. At the end of last year, a report by a U.S. Senator was published where he underlines that the physical and psychological abuse of prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo were a direct result of the Bush’s administration policy, neither a fault of the security agents or the interrogators. After September 11th, 2001 the rules of interrogation have changed – a new wording that allowed the torture of prisoners. The outgoing vice president, Dick Cheney, openly called for using the technology of lobbying statements during interrogation, which simulates drowning.

In conjunction with the Iraqi scandals such as that occurred in the sadly famous prison Abu Ghraib, the prison at Guantanamo Bay is not conducive to a positive image of the United States in the world.

Barack Obama`s motives to close the prison, where prisoners have a misunderstood status in the world, are quite logical. It is wiser to refuse such legacy from Bush than to take it. The closure of the prison is necessary to show that his policy would differ from that of the previous administration, the mad investigator Bush now replaced by the good Obama.

Notably, the official representative of the President-elect, Brooke Anderson, refused to comment on reports about the elimination of the prison at Guantanamo Bay. It is anticipated that the process of closing the prison could take several months. In doing so, a question arises: what to do with the prisoners? It is to consider the case of each prisoner separately. This is necessary in order to determine whether to set them free, or whether they should remain in custody. In the latter case, a decision should be taken where to contain prisoners.

Curiously, Americans do not want to keep them in prisons on United States territory. Apparently they fear leaking information concerning the human rights of this category of prisoners from undeclared wars. Therefore, they picked Guantanamo – on a military base located in Cuba, to curb attempts by journalists to know about the true situation of the prisoners is much easier.

Now the search is going on for alternatives to Guantanamo for prisoners who are not going to be set free. Prospective shelters have been found. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Portugal, Luish Amado said that his country could accept some of Guantanamo prisoners, who cannot return to their home countries. Other EU countries are not against that, too. The question is whether these countries would become accomplices of the clear mockery of international law is not under discussion.