Guantanamo at 23: What’s next for the ‘lawless’ detention facility?

Washington, DC –?The detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, turns 23 on Saturday.

For Mansoor Adayfi, a former inmate at the prison, the anniversary marks 23 years of “injustice, lawlessness, abuse of power, torture and indefinite detention”.

Only 15 prisoners remain at the United States military prison, known as Gitmo, which once held about 800 Muslim men — a dwindling number that gives advocates hope that the facility will eventually be shut down, turning the page on the dark chapter of history it represents.

But Adayfi, who now serves as a coordinator for the Guantanamo Project at the advocacy group CAGE International, says truly closing down Gitmo means delivering justice to its current and former detainees.

“The United States must acknowledge its wrongdoing, must issue a formal, official apology to the victims, to the survivors,” Adayfi told Al Jazeera. “There must be reparation, compensation and accountability.”

Guantanamo opened in 2002 to house prisoners from the so-called “war on terror”, a reaction to the attacks on September 11, 2001, in the US.

Detainees were arrested in countries across the world on suspicions of ties to al-Qaeda and other groups. Many endured horrific torture at secret detention facilities, known as black sites, before being transferred to Guantanamo.

At Gitmo, detainees had few legal rights. Even those cleared for release through Guantanamo’s alternative justice system, known as military commissions, remained imprisoned for years with no recourse to challenge their detention.

And so, the prison has become synonymous with the US government’s worst abuses in the post-9/11 era.

In recent weeks, the administration of outgoing President Joe Biden has accelerated the transfer of inmates out of Guantanamo, ahead of the end of his term on January 20.

On Monday, the US government freed 11 Yemeni detainees and resettled them in Oman. Last month, two inmates were transferred to Tunisia and Kenya.

‘滨苍蝉补苍别’

Daphne Eviatar, director of the Security with Human Rights (SWHR) programme at Amnesty International USA, said closing down the facility is possible.

She said the remaining detainees could be transferred to other countries or to the US, where they would go through the American justice system.

Congress imposed a ban in 2015 on transferring Gitmo prisoners to US soil. But Eviatar believes the White House can work with lawmakers to lift the prohibition, especially with so few prisoners left at the facility.

“It’s a symbol of lawlessness, of Islamophobia,” Eviatar said of Guantanamo.

“It’s a complete violation of human rights. For the United States, which has detained so many people for so long without rights, without charge or trial, it is just horrific. And the fact that it’s ongoing today, 23 years later, is insane.”

Barack Obama made closing down the prison one of his top promises when he was running for president in 2008, but after taking office, his plans faced strong Republican opposition. Towards the end of his second term, Obama expressed regret over failing to shut down the facility early in his presidency.

Of the 15 remaining Gitmo inmates, three are eligible for release, according to the Pentagon. Three others can go in front of Guantanamo’s Periodic Review Board, which assesses whether detainees are safe to transfer.

“We’re still hopeful that President Biden can transfer more detainees out before he leaves office,” Eviatar told Al Jazeera.

While President-elect Donald Trump has previously pledged to keep the prison open, Eviatar said he may view the facility as inefficient.

Plea deals

But the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), a Quaker social justice advocacy group, underscored the urgency for Biden to act before Trump takes office.

“With President-elect Trump strongly opposed to closing Guantanamo, the need to President Biden to shut the prison down is more urgent than ever,” Devra Baxter, a programme assistant for militarism and human rights at FCNL, said in a statement.

“Closing Guantanamo will only happen through the transfer of the final three men who have yet to be charged with a crime and finalizing plea deals with those who have.”

However, rather than completing plea deals for the inmates, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has sought to nix agreements for three 9/11 suspects, which had been reached with military prosecutors to spare the prisoners the death penalties, in exchange for guilty pleas.

Now courts are assessing the validity of the agreements and Austin’s veto against them.

Eviatar said Austin’s push to scuttle the plea deals amounts to political interference.

“It’s a very strange situation. I don’t understand why the Biden administration, which says it wanted to close Guantanamo, would then have the secretary of defence come in and stop the plea agreements. It makes no sense.”

CAGE’s Adayfi said the debacle over the plea agreements shows that there is no functioning justice system at Guantanamo.

“It’s a big joke,” he said. “There’s no justice in Guantanamo. There’s no law. There is absolutely nothing. It’s it is one of the biggest human rights violations in the 21st century.”

Adayfi added that the US can have its ideals about freedom, democracy and human rights or Guantanamo, but not both.

“I believe they have Guantanamo,” he said.