Catholic Workers & ploughshares on the March through Cuba to Guantanamo

by iosaf Sun Mar 04, 2007 16:34

The first prisoners arrived in Guantanamo bay on January 11th 2002 exactly four months after the World Trade Centre buildings collapsed on live TV.

It took 4 years for Associated Press to semi-successfully bring an action under the Freedom of Information act against the US government to list the inmates, which sourced the bulk of the names on this list for March 6th 2006 (one year ago). The total number was 589 which added over 60 names to the previous estimate of 510, I write "over 60" because during the period 2003-2005 successful actions were brought by the states of France, Germany, Yemen, Pakistan, Spain and the UK amongst others to repatriate their citizens. Of those repatriated the vast majority have later been acquitted of any terrorist offences in courts of law. As of 2005 it was estimated 59 prisoners had comitted suicide. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Guant%C3%A1namo_Ba...inees but there were obvious holes and absences in the PDF files produced by the US department of Defence http://www.answers.com/topic/guantanamo-detainees-missi...-list The list of 589 names expanded to 759 in May 2006 the inconsistencies again raised doubts - the two lists did not correlate and names were repeated in mis-spellt forms. At roughly the same time Guantanamo Bay was declared the "gulag of our time" by Amnesty International in their annual report of 2005 http://web.amnesty.org/report2005/index-eng http://web.amnesty.org/pages/guantanamobay-index-eng The condemnation of lawlessness, arbitrary detention - no charges - no habeus corpus - had already been made by the UK Law Lord Steyn in 2003 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3238624.stm
As the world woke up to rendition flights & investigated the possibility of "black prisons" (worse than Guantanamo in that they had not even been used as psychological weapon) the Washington Post in 2004 had alerted to the likelihood that a second prison was operating within Guantanamo Bay possibly accounting for the mismatch in inmate numbers http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5918-200....html Thus it is worth considering the list of "extra-judicial prisoners" of the USA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Extrajudicial_pri...tates

Only now is the first inmate facing any kind of trial, despite attempts by the CIA and Department of Defence in 2005 to be allowed keep "for life" without charge some of their inmates. Finally the US Supreme Court ruled that the detention camp was illegal - and the concept of "illegal combatants" a fiction.
an Australian citizen David Hicks ( a case reported here this morning from one of our Oz contributors http://www.indymedia.ie/article/81304 http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,213204....html ) is to become the first individual to face a "trial" resulting from the latest attempts by the US administration to bend the law. In the last weeks we have also learnt that without constitutional right the former prime minister of Spain, Jose Maria Aznar sent a team of both police and CNI (spanish secret service) agents to the camp to "interview" Spanish & Moroccan inmates as early as 2002 only two months after the prison had opened, a fact he had managed to conceal upto February 2007. He has since refused to answer questions from any Spanish journalist - about anything.
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/espana/Aznar/envio/agent...4/Tes

I am a secularist, I believe that our society in Europe is long ready for a transformation to one based on rights, equality and liberties which can only be achieved by the formal separation of religious belief & practice from the architecture of the State & education of the young - so that democracy may become a reality. I also hold that such a transformation is urgently needed in the USA where religiosity may only further corrupt the political class and erode international law.
But I can not conceal my admiration & profound respect for the ethics & faith based actions of the Catholic Workers whom I would never wish to see removed from our Society but rather brought to its very heart.
He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their prayer : This shall be written for the generation to come: and the people which shall be created shall praise the Lord :For he hath looked down from the height of his sanctuary; from heaven did the Lord behold the earth :To hear the groaning of the prisoner; to loose those that are appointed to death

each item provided by the lowest bidder - that is the American Way.