WASHINGTON — The release of six prisoners from the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, this past weekend was the largest transfer out of the offshore jail in five years.
It was also a signal that President Barack Obama is still working to fulfill a campaign promise to close the prison almost six years after he took office. Whether he can find placements for the 136 detainees left remains an open question.
Fewer than two dozen of those remaining are deemed dangerous terrorist leaders, analysts say, but those hardened few pose the toughest challenge to shuttering the prison.
“We aren’t going to release those guys, but we aren’t going to prosecute them in court either,” said Tung Yin, a law professor at Lewis &Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon, who has written about the dilemma. “All of the low-hanging fruit has already been picked over.”
With a little more than two years left in his presidency, Obama has accelerated the release of the remaining detainees. The difficulty, as it has been for six years, is finding countries willing to take in fighters who may still have terrorist proclivities.
Four Syrians, a Tunisian and a Palestinian were flown by military jet over the weekend to Uruguay for resettlement at the invitation of President Jose Mujica, a former guerrilla fighter who said it was a humanitarian gesture.
“We’ve offered our hospitality for human beings who have suffered a terrible kidnapping in Guantanamo,” Mujica said in an open letter to Obama last week. “The unavoidable reason is humanitarian.”
Mujica told TNU state TV on Dec. 5 that the refugees could leave any time they wanted and that Uruguay didn’t accept requests to keep them at least two years.
Among those sent to Uruguay was Jihad Diyab, a 43-year-old Syrian held for 12 years without trial, who went on several hunger strikes and challenged his force-feeding in court. The others released were Ahmed Adnan Ahjam, Ali Hussain Shaabaan and Omar Mahmoud Faraj of Syria; Abdul Bin Mohammed Abis Ourgy of Tunisia; and Palestinian Mohammed Tahanmatan.
It was the largest group released from Guantanamo since six Chinese Muslims were resettled in the island nation of Palau in 2009.
In a letter to the Uruguayan people published in El Pais Monday, Faraj wrote how he was detained in Pakistan and held for 12 years without trial in Guantanamo. He thanked Mujica for treating the released prisoners as “human beings” and said he was a fan of the Uruguayan soccer team Celeste.
Of those remaining in Guantanamo, two-thirds are from Yemen, and most of the Yemenis have been cleared for release as not posing a terrorist threat, said Wells Dixon, an attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents prisoners there.
“They aren’t being sent to Yemen because the U.S. thinks Yemen is too unstable,” he said in an interview. “If President Obama doesn’t deal with the Yemen problem, there is no way he can close Guantanamo.”
The number of detainees has been reduced more than 80 percent from the peak during the administration of President George W. Bush, said Morris Davis, a former Air Force colonel and prosecutor at Guantanamo. The detentions began 13 years ago after the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York.
Obama campaigned for president in 2008 promising to close Guantanamo, saying it attracted international criticism of U.S. detention policies and interrogation practices. On his first day in office, he issued an executive order to close the prison; he was forced to back away from it later because of congressional opposition.
Lawmakers of both parties have opposed prosecuting alleged terrorists in U.S. courts, saying civilian courts provide too many protections and they should instead be treated as enemy combatants. They also have warned that previously released detainees have rejoined terrorist groups and taken part in attacks on Americans.
In 2012, Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee released a report saying about 27 percent of 600 detainees released from Guantanamo have been confirmed or suspected of returning to terrorist or insurgent activities. Democrats on the panel dismissed the report as “smoke and mirrors.”
“We do know, by the way, that some past released prisoners are now reengaged in the terrorist fight. We knew that was going to happen,” Rep. Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” program. “That’s why those of us who tried to do the review of this were so concerned.”
Davis and human rights advocate Laura Pitter say that continuing detentions on the island pose more of a national security threat to the U.S. than the risk that someone released from the prison will rejoin al-Qaida or other terrorist groups.
“We will never reduce our risks to zero,” Morris, who supports closing the facility, said in an interview. “Just playing the odds, one of these guys will do something stupid.”
The U.S. government conducted an interagency review to determine whether the detainees met the standards for release, including whether they posed a security threat, the Pentagon said in a statement. Congress was informed in advance of the release, the statement said.
The annual defense authorization bill that passed the House last week extends a ban on closing the prison. With Republicans taking control of the Senate next year, getting cooperation from Congress will be more difficult for Obama, Yin said.
“Any kind of funding he would need, the Republicans would block,” he said.
Still, the six detainees were released under the restrictions approved by Congress, and Obama can expedite those releases under existing rules, said Pitter, who is senior national security counsel at Human Rights Watch in New York.
“The window is still open, and the administration should take advantage of that,” she said. “This is long overdue.”
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