A trip on Monday night to our neighbouring town of Leeds turned out to be one of the highlights of 2009 so far. It was the occasion of the organisation Cageprisoners' national speaking tour. But this was no ordinary political meeting or gathering. This one featured not only two ex-detainees from the hellhole of America's detention facility Guantanamo Bay, but also someone who worked as a guard there. Despite the very late start due to events outside the speakers' control, we were treated to some remarkable accounts from both sides of the wire.
The Guantanamo Bay detention camp is well-known as a place where America has incarcerated without trial many people it has apprehended in their so-called War On Terror. It is one of a number of facilities worldwide where people are held incommunicado with no real prospect of their cases ever being brought to trial. Many of these sites are CIA-run and top secret (they are known as "black sites"). Various methods of torture are regularly used in order to gain information, the vast majority of which has been proved to be useless. This is not surprising as anyone would tell their investigators anything in order for the brutality to stop.
The conditions at Guantanamo Bay and the harsh conditions there have been well-documented. Barack Obama has already stated his intention to close the facility down amid recognition that this facility is a dark stain on the image of America. Far from being a symbol of the fight against terrorism, it is actually now seen as a place that actually fuels terrorism and hatred towards the USA.
For those of us lucky enough not to be held against our will in this concentration camp, we cannot begin to imagine what life must have been like for the prisoners there. All of the speakers stressed that Guantanamo was impossible to accurately describe.
Moazzam Begg spoke eloquently about his time in the camp, spending 3 years there (and one year prior to that at Bagram in Afghanistan). His full story has been told in his highly-acclaimed book "Enemy Combatant". He stressed how much the British government had been complicit in the disgrace of Guantanamo, and questioned whether the Brown government will follow Obama's lead and end the inhuman control orders being used in the UK.
Omar Deghayes described how ridiculous the whole situation with extraordinary rendition and incarceration actually was. He said that he believed that economic motives were behind a lot of the war on terror. Facilities costing absurdly high sums would be erected, knocked-down and then rebuilt at Guantanamo Bay with alarming regularity. Humbly, he spoke little about the extreme treatment meted out to him during the 6 years he was kidnapped. Apart from various horrific torture being inflicted on him, he has been left blind in one eye and now suffers from a number of serious mental health conditions.
In many ways the most revealing and notable talk was by Christopher Arendt, who had worked as a guard in Guantanamo Bay. He spoke very movingly and extremely articulately for such a young man of 24. Christopher described his simple upbringing and his deep love for the USA and its' culture. He stated that the guards there had no idea why the prisoners were there and the prisoners also had no idea! Everyone was accused of being a key partner of Osama Bin Laden. Chris said after a while it became clear that people were being held there without any kind of evidence, in the hope that some evidence would crop up later in order to prove the prisoners' guilt. Disgusted with Guantanamo, he ended up leaving the military and now bravely speaks out against these inhuman and barbaric practices at the facility.
This event was an extremely inspiring one, demonstrating the remarkable courage and resilience of essentially ordinary people who have become extraordinary due to the monumental events in their lives. The remaining detainees need to be released if there is no reliable evidence against them. If there is indeed evidence then they need to be brought before a fair court of law and tried, not held for years on end and treated in such a barbaric fashion. The closure of Guantanamo will be universally welcomed but we must not forget the thousands of other captives held incommunicado across the world. So Obama must indeed act to close these facilities down at the earliest opportunity.
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