Slide 2:
GUANTANAMO – A BRIEF HISTORY The United States first began using Guantánamo Bay in 1898 during the Spanish-American War, and obtained a perpetual lease of the area in 1903.
The original lease payment was $2,000 in gold coins per year
In 1934, the lease was renegotiated and made permanent unless the governments of the United States and Cuba mutually agreed to break it or if the United States abandoned the base.
The naval base was assigned a new responsibility after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 – that of incarcerating non-U.S. citizens accused of terrorist acts and making them stand trial before military tribunals. On January 11, 2002, the first military plane carrying 20 prisoners from Afghanistan landed at Guantánamo Bay, and a steady stream of detainees continued to arrive after that.
A BRIEF HISTORY :
A BRIEF HISTORY The most potent symbol of excess in George Bush's "war on terror".
In 2001, President George W. Bush signed an executive order that stipulated that US military could indefinitely detain any non-citizen who he believed was involved in international terrorism. PRESENT SCENARIO As recently as January 28, 2009, Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez demanded that the United States return control of Guantánamo Bay back to Cuba. A similar demand was made by Cuban President Raul Castro a few days earlier.
Current government policy allows foreign nationals to be held in a US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as "enemy combatants," without charges and with no legal rights.
As of January 2009, approximately 245 detainees remain .
Most have been locked up for years without being charged with a crime.
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PHYSICAL & MENTAL TORTURE They are not covered by the Geneva Convention, which would entitle them to refuse interrogation.
Some are being questioned up to 16 hours a day, with basic comforts withheld if they refuse to cooperate. Nor are they entitled to fundamental American legal rights, because they are imprisoned on Cuban soil.
Until the middle of 2008, one hundred thirty-two attempted suicides were reported.
Detainees are driven insane by solitary confinement in a tiny cell, extreme isolation, sensory deprivation and other horrors.
Interrogators at Guantanamo Bay even desecrate the Qur'an to get inmates to talk, including placing the holy book on a toilet and, in one case, flushing it down the toilet.
Slide 5:
STEPS TAKEN On January 22, 2009 the White House announced that President Barack Obama had signed an order to suspend the proceedings of the Guantanamo military commission for 120 days and that the detention facility would be shut down within the year. A dramatic second day of his presidency, Barack Obama ordered the closure of Guantanamo Bay, banned the use of torture by US personnel and told the Central Intelligence Agency to shut down its secret "black site" overseas prisons.
CHALLENGES AHEAD.
CONCLUSION :
CONCLUSION