Renovating old Guantanamo

l

Asia Khalil

On Wednesday, Rear Admiral John Ring, commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo accompanied several reporters on a tour inside the US terror detention camp in communist Cuba’s southeast.

During the visit regularly organized by the US military for journalists, with the aim of showing that prisoners are treated humanely at the American enclave, Ring spoke of facilities to be constructed in at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, where the  disreputable camp is located, to make “sure that the facilities are going to last for 25 years (at least).”

The new facilities include a hospital, a well-equipped gymnasium and an operating theater, prompting journalists to describe the changes as turning the detention camp into an “old-age home” for the detainees growing old in the prison.

The camp was set up in 2002, in the wake of the 9/11/2001 attacks that targeted the Twin Towers, of the World Trade Center. It was designed to reveal the US “most furious” face. The prison has hosted terrorists or terrorist-related suspects, held there for long years, with no investigations, or trial.

Leaked news that the detainees were exposed to torture, and bodily and sexual abuse, were widespread, showing Guantanamo as notorious as ever, a matter that , indirectly, lent terrorists additional support.

Choosing orange for the victims executed by the Islamic State (IS/Daesh), the same colour of detainees’ jumpsuits at the detention camp, Daesh might have meant to send a message: “We have also come to have our own Guantanamo.” This reflected what Guantanamo represented in the extremists’’ beliefs.

Even years after the opening of the detention center, still the “scandalous tales” of the incidents that took place inside, are being circulated to attract, and recruit young men, in retaliation to the US “monster machine.” It is really astonishing that terrorism itself has became more “monstrous” over the years since the camp was opened, as revealed by the Daesh videos showing “orange victims” being executed.

In 2015, former US president Barack Obama touched upon the very same concept, saying that Guantanamo was well exploited by Daesh propaganda, serving  as “a recruiting tool for terrorists”.

Earlier in 2009, Obama, on his second day in office, signed an executive order to shut down the prison at Guantanamo, pledging to have it done within a year.

However, the US congress decided to let the detention center open for 25 years more, acting upon an executive order by President Donald Trump, that reversed Obama’s fruitless 2009 directive to shutter the facility that drew global scorn.

Since the Guantanamo Bay prison was set up, it has received up to 800 inmates, but at present, only 40 prisoners are still held there.

In April 2011, a WikiLeaks document counted 220 of the prisoners in Guantanamo as having been deemed "dangerous international terrorists." Another 380 are considered low-level soldiers. At least 150 were found to be innocent, with Pakistan and Afghan nationalities.