Guantanamo’s Prison Population Begins To Drop

Ever since Guantanamo began to operate in January 2002 – when its first prisoners arrived, finding themselves in a sort of legal limbo – that miserable prison has housed 779 inmates, the majority of whom have come from different corners of the Arab world. All of them were accused of having taken part in violent terrorist activities. Of that total number, 637 have been set free. A little over 100 of them were granted freedom during the presidential term of Barack Obama, who in the last election campaign issued the express promise to try to close down the shameful place.

Last year, a total of 28 prisoners were set free via handovers to mediating countries, which included Uruguay and Afghanistan. That number includes five detained individuals — three from Yemen and two from Tunisia — who were sent to Kazakhstan just before the end of 2014. On average, the prisoners had spent around 12 years in Guantanamo, without undergoing trial for their purported actions.

It is clear that the promise made by the American president to shut down the grim prison has yet to be fulfilled. It is also clear that efforts have been made to reduce the number of prisoners who are still in detention, a task that is recognizably mired by all kinds of complexities and undeniable risks.

Meanwhile, not only has Islamic fundamentalist terrorism not disappeared; it continues, in the multiple ways it has been adopted in recent times, to represent a far-reaching danger for all of us — from small operative cells to much more influential organizations, such as the one operating in northern Nigeria or those that report to the so-called Islamic State. The latter displays a patently savage and barbarous nature that brings shame to all humanity.

In the words of Pope Francis, issued recently at the Vatican before a group of ambassadors: “Religious fundamentalism, even before it eliminates human beings by perpetrating horrendous killings, eliminates God himself, turning him into a mere ideological pretext.” In this vein, he denounced the “abominable” kidnapping and enslavement of young girls by Boko Haram in Nigeria, as well as the “unspeakable brutality” in the Taliban’s massacre of more than 100 children in Pakistan – in addition, of course, to the massacre that took place at the French magazine Charlie Hebdo on January 7, in which 12 people were murdered.

With respect to the United States, Francis praised the proposal to close down Guantanamo’s prison, as well as the recent reconciliation between Washington and Havana, on behalf of which he himself worked.

Guantanamo is unacceptable because it represents an avoidance of responsibilities – responsibilities which, by their very nature, should be consented to and shouldered by everyone — with a minimum of transparency concerning the deprivation of freedom.