From Guantanamo to Uruguay

Six prisoners from the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, considered by that country as “low-risk” prisoners, arrived in Uruguay early yesterday as part of an agreement between Washington and Montevideo. It is the largest transfer of detainees from the jail located on the island since 2009, and the first that has been made to South America. In terms of Latin America, this fact only has one public precedent: The shipment of two Chinese Muslim captives to El Salvador in 2012, who subsequently left the Central American country.

The transfer of Guantanamo detainees to developing countries originates in highly illegal and reprehensible circumstances — the persistence of the concentration camp that the United States maintains in the Cuban bay, which is an outright denial of the law. Occupied by Washington for more than a century as part of a colonial and anachronistic agreement, in the last decade the enclave has acquired a reputation and international fame from the White House as an example of an armed criminal network responsible in many countries for the kidnapping, disappearances, torture and murder of suspected members of al-Qaida and other organizations of Islamic fundamentalism; people of the Arab and Muslim world who, according to Washington, pose a threat.

The captives in Guantanamo Bay have faced extremely cruel treatment, and have suffered the denial of virtually all of their human rights, including a lack of legal representation, since they have not been considered to be suspected criminals who should appear before a judicial authority, nor have they been recognized as members of an opposing military force, which would have guaranteed them the status and rights afforded to prisoners of war.

The persistence of this center is a symbol of the failure of Barack Obama’s administration, who, during his time as a presidential candidate, took advantage of the international condemnation against this center during the Bush era, and promised to close it down. However, once in the White House, Obama gave way to pressure and the real power of the military-industrial complex of his nation. The closure of the prison in the Caribbean country has been postponed indefinitely.

In this context, it is significant that Obama has resorted to several Latin American governments to ask them to take Guantanamo prisoners as a means of diffusing internal and external pressures on his administration by the ominous presence of the prison. He has received a favorable response from two of Central and South America’s smallest nations, respectively. Additionally, in the case of Uruguay, it is worth noting José Mujica’s approach in relation to Obama. As a gesture of reciprocity, Montevideo has called on Washington to release three Cuban citizens accused of alleged espionage, who have been arrested and imprisoned in the United States, a request which does not diminish, but only multiplies the humanitarian nature of the government and Uruguayans’ reception of the Guantanamo detainees.

This is a lesson in geopolitics and is representative of the changes now occurring in the hemisphere of this area. If the U.S. government could previously impose conditions on governments in the region, it now needs to negotiate with them as equals. This has been made possible not because of a change of nuance in the imperial arrogance of Washington, but as a result of the political and institutional evolution of Latin American countries, the governments of which have distanced themselves from the superpower’s precepts.

In this, as in many other things, Mexico — which at one time was characterized as a world leader in cultural assistance provided to political refugees — would do well to learn from the experiences arising south of the country.