The Dilemma of Torture
BY ELSON CONCEPCIÓN PÉREZ

The US Senate has approved that prisoners in the illegal Guantánamo Base can be tried on US soil.

all kinds of TORTURE ARE applied to defendants without charges against them.

This decision, which had already been adopted by the House of Representatives, makes it possible for defendants to be taken to the United States with the sole purpose of facing trials against them in Federal courts.

Now it only needs to be approved by Obama to become a law and come into force.

However¼

One contradiction is clear: even though the trial can be held in US territory, the convicted are not allowed to be imprisoned in the United States, or those found non guilty be released in that country.

What can be done then, Obama could ask himself? He was the main driving force behind the project, which has a lot to do with his decision to close, before the end of January, 2010, the prison opened by George W. Bush on the illegal Naval Base of Guantánamo,.

Recent history¼

The installation, turned into a concentration camp by the grace of the previous administration in the White House, has been a clear reflection of the most brutal torture and other forms of humiliation practiced under the auspices of top government executives, including the former Secretary of Justice, the former vice-president, and the former president of the United States.

The nightmare lived there and denounced by prisoners who were there for years without any reason, places on record the existence of some who couldn’t resist so much mistreatment and opted to commit suicide; of those who were systematically tortured; who were besieged by dogs or threatened with shots to their heads; or simply kept naked or had their holy books (the Koran) burnt, knowing the meaning those actions have for a Muslim.

Now it’s very common to hear people talking about methods applied by the CIA and the previous US administration against the inmates, like faking summary executions, threatening someone with a power drill, or the famous "water-boarding", in which water is thrown into the face of a detainee covered with a hood, thus making it difficult for him to breathe.

Bagram, another nightmare¼

The war in Afghanistan is a great nightmare for the Obama administration.  In this case, the Bagram prison was opened for prisoners who, according to US authorities, are "enemy combatants".

Throughout the eight years of occupation of Afghan soil, thousands of local and foreign prisoners have been taken to that prison, according to reports published in an investigation by the BBC.

The publication includes different interviews made with former prisoners, who stated that they were beaten, deprived of sleep and threatened with dogs.

None of the 27 Afghan interviewees taken to the Bagram base between 2002 and 2008, for supposed affiliation to Al-Qaeda or the Taliban, were formally accused or prosecuted in a trial.

Physical attacks are among the evidence of torture; they were submitted to excessive heat or cold and to unbearably loud, high volumes; they were forced to undress before women soldiers. Four of them were threatened with death at gunpoint. "In the winter, they threw cold water on you, and hot water in the summer. They used dogs against us. They put a gun against your head and threatened to kill you", a former detainee told the BBC.

The dilemma of what to do¼

The current US head of state, aware of his country’s loss of prestige due to the methods of torture applied during the Bush administration, has reiterated and assured their prohibition.

But there is a huge dilemma still without an answer and compromising the president’s words, that of what to do with the people responsible for these actions.

The presentation of a report by the Department of Justice on the "improved interrogation techniques" used in the past on suspects of terrorism and the request that people responsible for them be prosecuted, remains without finding a satisfactory explanation for US society.

The question is: When and how will the top officials within the government be tried, those who green-lighted the use of the so-called "intensive” or “improved techniques" during interrogation and the agents who used them following orders from above?

In order remove any doubt that nothing is going to happen, the current director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, assured that "he will defend the officers who did what their country asked them to do."

That is, that there will be no recriminations against any direct torturer, knowing that what they did was authorized by no less than the former president George W. Bush, former vice-president Dick Cheney, and former attorney general Alberto González.

Taken from Granma Daily