When most American citizens think of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, a US-run prison on the shore of Cuba, they picture high fences, coils of barbed wire, and lines of men in orange jumpsuits. But if President Obama has his way, all this will be gone by the time he leaves office in 2016.
In his recent State of the Union Address, the President promised to close the prison by the end of his term. “This needs to be the year,” he claimed, “we close the prison at Guantanamo Bay – because we counter terrorism not just through intelligence and military action, but by remaining true to our Constitutional ideals, and by setting an example for the rest of the world.”
The prison—also known as GTMO or “Gitmo”—is located within the American naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. It was established in 2002 for the purpose of containing and interrogating extremely dangerous criminals. And closing it isn’t a new ambition for the President. When he took office in 2009, the prison held over 240 detainees. Undaunted, he signed an order to close the prison by the end of the year. But that year stretched out into two, and then five.
Now, 122 prisoners are left—half the number of 2009. But on the other hand, these are the ones who are the hardest to place elsewhere. And their possibilities for transfer are complicated by Congress’s ban on any Guantanamo Bay inmates being sent to the US. While President Obama could override Congress’s ban with an executive order, doing so would cause a lot of controversy. There are still many in Congress and in the general public—mostly Republicans—who oppose the closing of the prison. In a 2013 poll, 66% of Americans were against closing Gitmo and sending the inmates to other American prisons.
So why does the president want to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay?
For one thing, there has long been controversy about the treatment of Gitmo’s prisoners. In a 2004 report that was leaked to The New York Times, the Red Cross accused the US military of using “humiliating acts, solitary confinement, temperature extremes, [and] use of forced positions” against inmates. According to the report, prisoners were starved, beaten, tormented psychologically, and chained in uncomfortable positions for days on end.
Concerns were heightened in 2013, when the inmates staged a prison-wide hunger strike. At the strike’s peak in July, 166 prisoners were refusing to eat, with 45 being force-fed.
“It is not sustainable,” President Obama said of the prison during the incident. “We are now over a decade [past 9/11]. We should be wiser. We should have more experience in how we prosecute terrorists. This is a lingering problem that is not going to get better. It is going to get worse. It is going to fester.”
A number of Guantanamo Bay’s inmates are being held without any charges, some for as long as 12 years. A prime example is Murat Kurnaz, a German citizen who was arrested in 2001. Less than a year later, US and German officials had determined that the accusations against him were groundless, but he was still held at the prison until 2006. Upon his release, he published a memoir called Five Years of My Life: An Innocent Man in Guantanamo.
On the other hand, most of the prison’s inhabitants are legitimately dangerous, like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is believed to have orchestrated the 9/11 attacks.
There is also a financial aspect to the issue. The annual cost for one inmate at Guantanamo Bay is $2.7 million, compared to $78,000 at a maximum-security prison in the US. And for each inmate there are about 13 staff members – prison guards and other personnel who have to be paid and given room and board.
The prison—and the atrocities purportedly committed there—also serves as a rallying point for terrorists. Gitmo’s policy of imprisonment without trial is cited as an example of the US’s miscarriage of justice. Most recently, ISIS has referenced Guantanamo’s distinctive jumpsuits in their propaganda videos by dressing their Western prisoners in the same bright orange before beheading them.
“Guantanamo has been a stain on America’s reputation,” acknowledges Ms. Raphaels, social studies teacher at Ridge. “But to me, it’s not relevant whether or not we close the prison. What matters to me is that America is able to demonstrate that it upholds principles of international law and respects the human rights of people who are detained at Guantanamo.”
However, Edward Hu, ’18, takes a slightly different viewpoint. “Even if we change the treatment of the prisoners,” he reasons, “the prison itself still has bad associations. It’s better just to close it and start fresh.”
Most Americans have an “out of sight, out of mind” mentality to situations like the proposed closing of Guantanamo. But it’s important to pay attention. From the 9/11 attacks and the Boston Marathon bombings to the recent rise of ISIS, terrorism has grown into a very real threat. And what we do about Guantanamo Bay sends an important message about the US’s stance on counterterrorism as a whole.
The President’s stance is clear. In his recent State of the Union Address, he deviated from his prepared remarks to declare, “It’s time to close Gitmo!”
But will it happen? We’ll just have to wait and see.