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width="1" height="1" //divpEver since January 11 2002, when the first 20 prisoners were flown in
from Afghanistan in orange jumpsuits and shackles, the Guantaacute;namo Bay detention camp has been
a hefty burden around the Bush administration's neck. /ppThe defence secretary at the time, Donald
Rumsfeld, picked the Cuban enclave as the "least worst place" to hold captives accused of
terrorism. But the effort to run a camp outside the reach of US or international law, so that
"enemy combatants" could be held indefinitely without charge, steadily corroded America's standing
in the world. The images of the inmates languishing in small metal cages in Camp X-Ray, the
rudimentary first phase of the complex, and the steady stream of reports of human rights abuses,
have taken a daily toll. The camp's existence has angered and embarrassed Washington's closest
allies, and become a recruitment tool for its enemies. /ppNearly six years on, there is no debate
over whether "Gitmo" should be closed - only how. As it approaches the end of its term, the Bush
administration is anxiously attempting to dispose of its own toxic legacy. John Bellinger, the
state department's top lawyer, has been trying to persuade other governments to accept detainees
cleared for release. More than 500 have already been sent back to their homelands or to third
countries, but there are still 250 prisoners left who cannot go home for fear of persecution and
who no one else will accept. They are now Barack Obama's problem./ppThe president-elect has
frequently stated his intention to close Guantaacute;namo. In an interview since the election, he
repeated that pledge, saying it was "part and parcel of an effort to regain America's moral stature
in the world". But the question of what to do with the remaining inmates still divides his
ideologically diverse national security and justice teams./ppObama's inaugural speech on January 20
will be closely scrutinised around the world for signs of how bold or cautious he decides to be.
His policy on Guantaacute;namo will be widely seen as a benchmark for his intentions as president.
/ppA report by a non-partisan panel of US security and human rights experts, entitled Closing
Guantaacute;namo: From Bumper Sticker to Blueprint, estimates that the camp could be emptied within
a year if the Obama administration decided on a clean break from Bush policies and devoted enough
resources to the job. The report advocates the establishment of an independent commission to review
the cases of all the detainees, to assess the evidence against them and order the immediate release
of the innocent./ppThe first task will be to complete the Bush administration's effort to find
homes for the 150-200 prisoners who, according to lawyers familiar with their stories, have no case
to answer but who cannot be sent back to their native countries for fear they would be victimised,
tortured or killed. /ppThe clearest example of inmates stuck in this limbo are the 17 Uighurs,
separatists from a Muslim minority in China who were seized in Pakistan during the Afghan war. They
have all been cleared for release by the US authorities, most as long ago as 2003, but have so far
not been accepted by any third countries. Albania agreed to take in five other Uighur detainees in
2006, but has refused to take any more. /ppBellinger's efforts to find any other government to
receive the Uighurs have been undermined by the adamant refusal of the US authorities to allow them
to live in America because of the presumed threat they pose to the US, in part because of presumed
animosity caused by six years of detention without charge. Obama's envoys may find they have better
luck than Bellinger./pp"I don't think anyone is inclined to do this administration any favours, but
Obama will find he has a lot of goodwill to draw on," a European diplomat says. But that goodwill
will be greatly enhanced if the new administration stops fighting the resettlement of inmates in
the US./ppA second category of prisoners will be referred for prosecution outside Guantaacute;namo,
but that raises the question of whether that prosecution should be conducted by military courts
martial in the US or the civilian legal system. That will be a decision that goes to the
philosophical heart of the issue - should the US approach terrorism as a military threat or as a
criminal enterprise, or some hybrid of the two? Obama has refrained from using the phrase "war on
terror", but he is said to be under pressure from the more conservative national security experts
on his team to leave his options open and not bind himself with the procedural constraints of the
civilian judiciary./ppOn the other side of the debate is a "rule of law" camp within the embryonic
administration which argues that anything short of a complete return to constitutional normality
would rob Obama of the international goodwill he might otherwise gain by scrapping
Guantaacute;namo./ppThat debate underlies the toughest dilemma the new administration is likely to
face on closing the offshore camp: whether there should be a third category of prisoners, deemed
too dangerous to release but too difficult to prosecute. The evidence against them may be in the
form of intelligence material that cannot be disclosed in court, or that falls short of legal
proof. Confessions would also be ineligible if they were obtained under torture, as in the case of
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks who was "waterboarded"
(subjected to simulated drowning) by the CIA. And few if any of the inmates of Guantaacute;namo
were reminded of their right not to incriminate themselves, which is standard police
practice./ppThe Bush administration has been seeking international agreement for a new form of
preventative detention that would allow inmates in this third category to be held in the US and
abroad. "The problem is you've got 200-plus very dangerous people, and the question is what do you
do with them. And these are people who say regularly: 'If I'm let out of here, I will go
immediately and start killing Americans again,'" Condoleezza Rice, the outgoing secretary of state,
said during a visit to London this week. She argued that "even though you know that this person is
a future threat, we don't really have a legal framework for that, which is why it's been done
within a war framework. But if you don't hold a person who you know is a future threat, then you
risk the deaths of thousands of innocents. So I do think that this is something for the
international community to take up."/ppThere is little sign, however, that the international
community has any appetite for such a departure from established human rights law. The decision on
preventative detention will be Obama's alone. Several of his advisers and allies, liberals
included, think that terrorism is such a pernicious threat, and the security risks of releasing
suspects are so great, that new legislation allowing for preventative detention is unavoidable. The
political risk of a released inmate carrying out an attack are also enormous. Such an event could
prove crippling to a new administration. /ppOn the other hand, any new system of preventative
detention would be seen around the world as Guantaacute;namo redux, human rights lawyers say. It
would be every bit as effective as an al-Qaida recruiting tool, and would perpetuate the
extremists' self-image as warriors rather than mere criminals. Within the internal debate under way
in the transition team, liberal activists want foreign governments to lobby Obama against creating
a new legal limbo. /ppIt is one of the toughest decisions the new president has in his in-tray.
What Obama decides will say a lot about his presidency. Sarah Mendelson, a senior fellow of the
Centre for Strategic and International Studies and author of the Closing Guantaacute;namo report,
says it is uncertain which way Obama would lean. But she adds: "My sense is the president-elect has
taught courses in the constitution in one of the most reputable law schools in country. He ran on
opting back into the international system. The idea of going for a new legal regime that will
result in more years in litigation is not going to appeal. It will not be the clean break he needs
to make."/ph2A history of the prison camp/h2p· January 11 2002: First prisoners
arrive/pp· February 27 2002: First hunger strike begins/pp· April 29 2002: The first
prison, Camp X-Ray, closes, replaced by a more solid concrete construction, Camp Delta/pp·
November 10 2003: US Supreme Court agrees to hear appeals from inmates that they are being held
illegally/pp· February 13 2004: Bush administration agrees to establish review panels to
establish whether inmates still pose a threat/pp· March 19 2004: Five British detainees
freed/pp· February 16 2006: The UN calls for the closing of Camp Delta, arguing that the
treatment of some inmates amounts to torture/pp· June 10 2006: Three inmates hang
themselves/pp· June 21 2006: President Bush first expresses the wish to close the
camp/pp· September 6 2006: Fourteen "high-value" detainees are transferred from secret CIA
prisons around the world to Guantaacute;namo, including Khaled Sheikh Mohamed, Abu Zubaydah and
Ramzi Binalshibh, three alleged planners of the 9/11 attacks/pp· June 12 2008: US Supreme
Court rules that inmates have the right to challenge their incarceration in the US courts/pdiv
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So we are goign to follow this case with intrest, either it will finally free the world of
the misbelive OSX is just designed for macs or make this place a sad world for anyone who likes OSX
as a operation system. In any case inside the OSX86 community is a strong belive, that in no case
Psycrap should have ever started to sell their crap to the world as mac clones, but if they now
close to bring the whole OSX86 community to the dark side with a piggy backed DMCA case, they will
not have many friends anymore.
Recommandations
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and reject those that you are not interested in
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