Guantanamo Policy
Wow. Another bit of my ignorance that I've thankfully lost. I'd been under the impression (as I'm sure pretty much everyone else in the U.S. was) that all this U.S. law not applying in Guantanamo, blah, blah, blah stuff was thanks to W. (or at least his advisers). Turns out, it actually came from Daddy who did almost the same thing the U.S. is doing now with Haitian refugees in the early '90s.
"In the eight months following the coup, the U.S. Coast Guard intercepted thirty-four thousand Haitians on the high seas; the majority of these refugees were transported to Guantanamo. By all accounts, conditions in the camp were grim: the inmates lived in tents and other makeshift shelters on a landing strip, surrounded by barbed wire. These shelters, according to the Haitians, were infested with rats, scorpions, and snakes. The lodgings were permeable to rain, and sanitary facilities were unavailable. Yet, despite these deplorable conditions, the detainees' chief complaint was of mistreatment by their American Hosts.
Shortly after the arrival of the first refugees, rumors of mistreatment, including beatings and arbitrary detention, began to filter through the Haitian advocacy organizations based in the United States. It was difficult to verify the rumors because the U.S. military restricted access to the base. As uncritical stories based on military briefings continued to appear in the mainstream press, a group of journalists sued the U.S. government for access to the base. Ingrid Arnesen of The Nation filed one of the first stories of visiting Guantanamo. One of the detainees, who had been on the base for more than a year, spoke to Arnesen in no uncertain terms:
Since we left Haiti last December we've been treated like animals. When we protested about the camp back then, the military beat us up. I was beaten, handcuffed, and they spat in my face. I was chained, made to sleep on the ground. July, that was the worst time. We were treated like animals, like dogs, not like humans.
In short, the Haitians and their advocates failed to see the humane aspect of this "humanitarian mission." By the middle of 1992, events one the base were subject to the usual divergent readings. Stories in the mainstream U.S. media continue to portray Guantanamo as a haven for refugees. Haitians, including the Haitian American print and radio media, tended to refer to the base as a "concentration camp," a "prison," or, at best, "a detention facility."
Curiously enough, the Bush administration seems to have adopted a reading close to the one popular among Haitians. They realized that refugees were being detained on the base for long periods of time--some would remain there almost two years--without a meaningful hearing. In response, the administration gathered some of the nations' leading legal talent the justify this practice. Since Guantanamo is not technically on U.S. soil, the Bush administration lawyers developed a torturous rationale:
While conceding that the Haitians are treated differently from other national groups who seek asylum in the U.S., the Government claimed that the U.S. Constitution and other sources of U.S. and international law do not apply to Guantanamo--this despite the fact that the U.S. military base at Guantanamo is under the exclusive jurisdiction and control of the U.S. Government
Guantanamo thus became a place where non-U.S. nationals could be stowed away in a sort of lawless limbo, out of reach of U.S. or international law. Officials charged with upholding U.S. law could intercept refugees, take them to a U.S. military base, and openly declare any actions taken there above the law. Neither the hypocrisy nor the irony was lost on the Haitians. (56-57)"
Sound familiar? Scarily (and probably not coincidentally) so if you ask me.
"In the eight months following the coup, the U.S. Coast Guard intercepted thirty-four thousand Haitians on the high seas; the majority of these refugees were transported to Guantanamo. By all accounts, conditions in the camp were grim: the inmates lived in tents and other makeshift shelters on a landing strip, surrounded by barbed wire. These shelters, according to the Haitians, were infested with rats, scorpions, and snakes. The lodgings were permeable to rain, and sanitary facilities were unavailable. Yet, despite these deplorable conditions, the detainees' chief complaint was of mistreatment by their American Hosts.
Shortly after the arrival of the first refugees, rumors of mistreatment, including beatings and arbitrary detention, began to filter through the Haitian advocacy organizations based in the United States. It was difficult to verify the rumors because the U.S. military restricted access to the base. As uncritical stories based on military briefings continued to appear in the mainstream press, a group of journalists sued the U.S. government for access to the base. Ingrid Arnesen of The Nation filed one of the first stories of visiting Guantanamo. One of the detainees, who had been on the base for more than a year, spoke to Arnesen in no uncertain terms:
Since we left Haiti last December we've been treated like animals. When we protested about the camp back then, the military beat us up. I was beaten, handcuffed, and they spat in my face. I was chained, made to sleep on the ground. July, that was the worst time. We were treated like animals, like dogs, not like humans.
In short, the Haitians and their advocates failed to see the humane aspect of this "humanitarian mission." By the middle of 1992, events one the base were subject to the usual divergent readings. Stories in the mainstream U.S. media continue to portray Guantanamo as a haven for refugees. Haitians, including the Haitian American print and radio media, tended to refer to the base as a "concentration camp," a "prison," or, at best, "a detention facility."
Curiously enough, the Bush administration seems to have adopted a reading close to the one popular among Haitians. They realized that refugees were being detained on the base for long periods of time--some would remain there almost two years--without a meaningful hearing. In response, the administration gathered some of the nations' leading legal talent the justify this practice. Since Guantanamo is not technically on U.S. soil, the Bush administration lawyers developed a torturous rationale:
While conceding that the Haitians are treated differently from other national groups who seek asylum in the U.S., the Government claimed that the U.S. Constitution and other sources of U.S. and international law do not apply to Guantanamo--this despite the fact that the U.S. military base at Guantanamo is under the exclusive jurisdiction and control of the U.S. Government
Guantanamo thus became a place where non-U.S. nationals could be stowed away in a sort of lawless limbo, out of reach of U.S. or international law. Officials charged with upholding U.S. law could intercept refugees, take them to a U.S. military base, and openly declare any actions taken there above the law. Neither the hypocrisy nor the irony was lost on the Haitians. (56-57)"
Sound familiar? Scarily (and probably not coincidentally) so if you ask me.