DAVID DOUGHERTY: Wednesday, January 11 marked the ten-year anniversary of the opening of
the Guantanamo Bay detention camp at the United States military base on the island of Cuba.
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered at the White House to participate in a rally organized
by several human rights organizations, denouncing the United States' use of torture and the
continuing operation of the Guantanamo detention facility. Nayeem Baig of the ICNA Council
for Social Justice says that the United States' policies of indefinite detention and torture
associated with the Guantanamo prison contradict United States laws and values while dangerously
tarnishing the country's image abroad.
NAYEEM BAIG: It's been ten years, and Guantanamo Bay is throughout the world seen as a symbol
of torture and a violation of human rights. And that's where we would like Guantanamo
to be closed, so that the world should know that in America there is a rule of law and
there is justice. And that's what we are asking our government, to try these people in justóin
courts, bring them to court, try them for their crimes, and those who are innocent,
let them go home.
DOUGHERTY: Tom Parker of Amnesty International, one of the groups that helped organize the
demonstration, says that things have not improved at Guantanamo under the Obama administration.
TOM PARKER: Things are much worse. I mean, if we were only to turn the clock back three
years, there was unanimity on the election trail on right and left that Guantanamo needed
to be closed. Today we're further away from that than ever.
BARACK OBAMA: But make no mistake, we will close Guantanamo prison, which has damaged
our national security interests and become a tremendous recruiting tool for al-Qaeda.
DOUGHERTY: President Obama had pledged to close the base while campaigning for presidency,
and in 2009 he signed an executive order calling for the closure of the base within a year.
Three years later, the base remains open. Retired FBI agent Coleen Rowley says that
with Obama's recent approval of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2012, it is
likely that the base will remain open and that the prisoners, in many cases even those
cleared of wrongdoing, could face indefinite detention.
COLEEN ROWLEY: Very few Americans, number one, even know that Guantanamo is still open.
And now it's open indefinitely. The National Defense Authorization Act is likely to keep
it open indefinitely. There are 89ósomewhere like 59 to 89 people who have been cleared
on Guantanamo and cannot be sent back to their home countries, even though they're innocent.
DOUGHERTY: Coleen and several other demonstrators traveled to Washington from Minnesota, where
on Monday they staged a separate action targeting Robert Delahunty, one of the co-authors of
several memoranda advising the Bush administration in what became known as the Torture Memos.
ROWLEY: Well, ten years ago today, Guantanamo opened. But ten years and two days ago today,
a memo was written, co-authored by John Yoo and Robert Delahunty of the Office of Legal
Counsel, which were the Bush administration lawyers, that laid the groundwork for not
only all of the laws being violated, including that we can detain people indefinitely; this
memo told Bush that he no longer had to abide by the Geneva Conventions. And they used the
loophole that nonstate actorsóTaliban, al-Qaeda, anyone that they could accuse of being a nonstate
actorówas not entitled to the protection of the Geneva Conventions. In Minnesota, Robert
Delahunty went on to become a law professor at the University of St. Thomas. So ten years
ago and two days ago, we did a march in Minnesota, then we got into a van and came to Washington,
D.C.
DOUGHERTY: The White House released a statement insisting that President Obama was still determined
to close the Guantanamo detention center, now a decade old. But with Obama's recent
approval of the NDAA and its provisions for indefinite detentions, few demonstrators were
convinced that the White House is finally willing to act on its word to shut down the
Guantanamo detention camp and ensure fair legal process and treatment for detainees.
This is David Dougherty with The Real News Network.