When Barack Obama was busy in his election campaign to become the first black American president of his country, he promised Americans and the world that as soon as he reaches to the White House, he would shut down the notorious Guantanamo prison. But even after six years in the office, he is facing so many challenges to make this happen. It has nothing to do with his political weaknesses, lack of official authority or other similar issues but there are present many other complicated issues which at times appear to be out of the control and access of the most powerful man on earth.
If Obama was able to secure some votes in the elections due to this very promise, it shows that the public awareness had much increased about the ill-practices and worst treatment of prisoners and they were also the silent supporters of this act. No doubt, the anger due to 9-11 was good enough to feed people with anger and hatred against the prisoners there but increasing number of leaked reports about the large number of absolutely irrelevant and innocent detainees at Gitmo was slowly giving way to the voices that demanded justice and a transparent analysis of the cases of prisoners. Even today, there are angry people who don’t accept these detainees as ‘humans’ and thus support any kind of ‘inhuman’ treatment but this group is shrinking with every passing day. However, events like the beheading of prisoners by ISIS spark the issue and work as fuel on this slowly extinguishing fire.
History is not free of such events when a totally insane leader ordered soldiers to build minarets of human heads or kill every living being in a city or town but thanks to modern so-called political or security think-tanks that show the same merciless ways of treating humans in the cloak of security measures or control of terror. When historians will write the history of this notorious bay, they will also regard it associated with the most stupid, unnecessary and cruel acts undertaken by human beings who lived in an enlightened and modern age.
The idea of this prison might be very logical and quite reasonable for a person who sees the things from the eyes of media but the ground realities are frighteningly different from what it is shown on the media. Being a citizen of Afghanistan, from where large numbers of innocent people were taken to this island, I witness the sad and lasting impacts of the acts taken in the name of security. Blaming solely American forces for the imprisonment of innocent prisoners would not be fair. There were warlords who wanted to get rid of their enemies. There were some officers who were willing to go to any extent to win the prize money and appreciation of foreign forces by handing over a potential terrorist. And we should not forget the conditions when the cloud of doubt and suspicions covered the days and nights of people and many innocents were covered by this cloud and ended up in the Guantanamo. More or less is the story with the prisoners of other countries like Yemen, Saudi Arabia and even the Britain. Thanks to the exclusive interest of British government that eight Britons were released who were found to be innocent after the investigations. This courage may never be exhibited by the officials of countries like Pakistan who handed over large numbers of people just to secure the lucrative prize money of millions of dollars and support their economy.
The biggest problem was the difference of mentalities between those who caught them in different countries and those who had to interrogate them at Guantanamo. The prisoners caught on being doubtful, on misguided reports, or on suspicion were sent to Gitmo but the people waiting to receive them at the prison were absolutely sure that they were receiving the most dangerous and threatening terrorists. There was no question of guilty or innocent; they were all already labeled to be dangerous. The interrogators had to show their performance to extract information from them and many of them did not have any knowledge about the questions being asked. Making efforts to find out some non-existent thing is really challenging and same is verified by the increasing level of torture on these prisoners. When the prisoners were silent and did not give the desired information, the high-ups were requested with permission to move to the next level of interrogation which meant increased torture. When all the levels finished and desired results were not achieved, helps of psychologists and medical experts were sought who suggested strange and very lethal ways of torture in order to break them down and make them speak. It is a long and sad story as which kind of brutal methods were used in this regard.
Very recently, the case of forced feeding circulated in the media according to which, non-soluble olives were used in the forced feeding which is a kind of joke in the name of forced feeding. According to medical experts, such a forced feeding would result in extreme pressure on metabolism and functions of other internal organs and would be more harmful than the starvation.
Many of the prisoners were not presented to any kind of court for judicial trial and though they existed physically, they never existed on paper. The reason was simple; the consequences could be dealt much easily if they passed away during the interrogation. The interrogators knew that chances of remaining alive were far less than ending in the arms of death.
The impacts of this small prison don’t end here and it may continue for many years or decades to follow. A recent report says that many countries are not ready to accept their citizens if they are released by the US, even if they have not been found guilty by the court. Such cases are really confusing for the US government because they cannot be given a US citizenship and allowed to walk freely in the towns and cities of the States. It was the reason why, a small island country of Palau agreed to accept such prisoners after getting millions of dollars as aid. Not tolerating the intense pressure, a prisoner waiting for repatriation committed suicide as his country was also reluctant to accept him.
Another problem waits in their countries in form of going through another round of harsh investigations. In 2007, a Tunisian Guantanamo prisoner called Abdullah bin Omar was returned and despite having cleared by the Bush administration, he was immediately arrested by state security forces and taken into custody. It was alleged his interrogators beat him and threatened to rape his wife and daughters if he did not confess to terrorist offences. He is still in jail today, based on evidence gathered by means of torture.
Those who have been released have given birth to two dangerous situations. First, they are defaming US for their mistreatment and secondly, they are providing a reason for those extremists who want to utilize any small reason to make the people agree with their thoughts. It is also feared that they or their angry relatives may join the lines of terrorists to avenge for their torture and miseries.
In our folktales, there is a saying that a fool may never beat a wise man but a stone thrown by a fool into a well may not found by thousand wise men. In the same way, the losses and pains of the decision of opening and operating Guantanamo Bay may not be forgotten but the world leaders got a good source of learning numerous lessons to make better and wise decisions in future.