Five years on, no end to the horror that is Guantanamo

In two days time we mark the fifth anniversary of the opening of Guantanamo Bay in Cuba as a military prison, the place where we were told the US were keeping "the worst of the worst" in terms of terrorists.

The sight of these men, shackled and hooded, caused ripples of shock around the world. Five years later, the vast majority of them still remain uncharged with any crime.

In the five years since the US started shipping prisoners from around the world to Guantánamo, approximately 99% have never been charged with any transgression, much less a crime. Approximately 400 prisoners, characterised by the Bush administration as "the worst of the worst", have been released without charge, many directly to their families. That any prisoners have been released is due almost entirely to the outrage of the civilised world.

The US Supreme Court ruled that the Bush administration's plans to hold military tribunals of certain suspects was illegal and ruled that each of the prisoners had the right to have their case held in court. Bush went before his rubber stamp Republican Congress and had a shocking set of new powers handed to him which appeared to include the right to torture, it certainly gave him the right to hold the very military tribunals that the Supreme Court had ruled against.

It was one of the darkest days of the American Republic.

At the time President Bush hinted that he would like to close down the base, but since the publicity furore died down the base has carried on as normal with prisoners continuing to be shackled and many forced to live in isolation with the risk of a descent into madness. And all of this is being done to men who have not - in most cases - been charged with any crime.

Of course, Guantanamo is simply the visible part of the US secret detentions system. There are rumoured to be other secret prisons around the world.

"It is remarkable that Guantanamo still exists five years on," said Clive Stafford Smith, legal director of the British group Reprieve, which represents three dozen inmates. "But what is also remarkable is that Guantanamo has distracted attention from other secret prisons the US has. As of August last year we know there are 14,000 prisoners in US custody around the world."

The fact that torture may routinely take place there is highlighted by a case in Germany being brought against Donald Rumsfeld alleging that torture is official US policy and was used in both Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.

Indeed, the casual acceptance of torture as a tool of interrogation was highlighted when Vice President Dick Cheney said he thought "a dunk in the water" - a euphemism for waterboarding - did not constitute torture, and called it a "no brainer".

Five years on, Guantanamo remains. It's presence a reminder to the world of the failed policies and dreadful cruelty of the Bush administration. As much as the failed war in Iraq, Bush's administration will be remembered for it's assaults on Habeas Corpus and it's detention of suspects without charge and in circumstances that deprived them of any right to defend themselves.

And much as history will be harsh on the Bushites for their assaults on basic freedoms, it will also be harsh on everyone who sat silently by whilst these outrages were carried out in America's name.

The American public have given the Democrats the power to intervene, but the intervention must not be limited to Iraq. It must also be brought to bear on the facility that has become a symbol for all that has gone wrong in the US since Bush seized power. The Democrats must act to close this place down and return the right of Habeas Corpus to all held in American custody.

As the New York Times said on the day the Republicans pushed through their disgraceful new law giving Bush unprecedented powers:

There is not enough time to fix these bills, especially since the few Republicans who call themselves moderates have been whipped into line, and the Democratic leadership in the Senate seems to have misplaced its spine. If there was ever a moment for a filibuster, this was it.

We don’t blame the Democrats for being frightened. The Republicans have made it clear that they’ll use any opportunity to brand anyone who votes against this bill as a terrorist enabler. But Americans of the future won’t remember the pragmatic arguments for caving in to the administration.

They’ll know that in 2006, Congress passed a tyrannical law that will be ranked with the low points in American democracy, our generation’s version of the Alien and Sedition Acts.

One of the most damaging things to America's reputation is that camp in Cuba, a symbol that looks to most of the world like George Bush's two finger salute to international law. That camp, and the laws that Bush pushed through to defend it's existence - and the way he treats people imprisoned there - are a stain on America's character.

Guantanamo Bay is about to have it's fifth anniversary. It should not be allowed to have it's sixth. Democrats should now seek to make that a priority.

The numbers that shame America

1825 Number of days that Guantanamo has been open

400 prisoners are currently detained at Guantanamo

20 detainees arrived on 11 January 2002, the day the detention centre opened. They were hooded and shackled

8 per cent of detainees accused of fighting for a terrorist group

300 prisoners who have been released back to their own countries since 2002

86 per cent captured by the Northern Alliance or the Pakistani authorities for US bounties

70 prisoners who President Bush's administration plans to charge in military courts

10 prisoners who have already been charged

0 number of detainees brought to trial

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tag: Bush, war on terror, Cheney, US foreign policy, Habeas Corpus, civil liberties, 9-11, human rights, Geneva Conventions, torture, Republican Party, war crimes, international law, Guantanamo Bay,