Vol. I, Issue 3
December 2004

The International Committee of the Red Cross has conducted several inspections of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. To insure that they are not barred from conducting future inspections, the ICRC does not publicly release findings of its inspections. Instead, it issues its findings directly to the Bush administration. Some in the administration have used the ICRC visits to claim that human rights are being respected at the camp, a misrepresentation the ICRC opposes. In fact, contrary to what some in the Bush administration want Americans to believe, reports indicate that what goes on in the Guantanamo Bay prison camp is far worse than many people realize — leading some to call it America's Auschwitz.

According to several major news organizations, a source familiar with the ICRC reports issued to the Bush administration has said the ICRC has found conditions at the military prison that are “tantamount to torture.”¹ Since the start of the “war on terror”, this would mark the first time the international human rights group has formally reported violations of international law at the U.S. Navy base.

However, the Red Cross is not the only group reporting torture conditions at Guantanamo. In recently released internal memos, FBI agents seemed to corroborate this with their own accounts of the use of “torture techniques” on captives at Guantanamo Bay². The memos were obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union as part of their investigation into reported human rights violations occuring at the camp.

There has also been an eyewitness account from a Guantanano detainee who penned a letter to his attorney providing descriptions of the practices of torture going on at the U.S. Naval Base³. The attorney reported that the letter arrived uncensored and unclassifed, likely by accident.

The tactics used at Guantanamo, both physical and psychological, include using extreme temperatures, assault with loud noise and music and forced nudity; practices that violate international rules against torture adopted by the United States and other countries⁴.

In a particular egregious practice, medical personnel — sometimes including doctors — provided captives' medical records to interrogators⁵. The interrogators could use this information to learn how to inflict the maximum amount of pain on the detainees during questioning. The Red Cross repeatedly objected to this practice as it is a breach of patient confidentiality and, in their words, “a flagrant violation of medical ethics.”⁶

While the Bush administration is denying the charges of torture, a U.S. military panel has recently ruled that information obtained from torture is still legally admisable as evidence in the Guantanamo military tribunals⁷. Because it is considered highly unreliable, evidence based on torture is not admissible in U.S. courts and other courts with a respect for human rights.

In all the years preceding the Bush administration, America was opposed to torture. Until recently, the country has used tactics such as intelligence, covert and clandestine operations and simple good police-work in fighting terrorism. The Bush administration's concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay would seem to fly in the face of everything America has stood for: freedom, justice and honor. Not since the unspeakable internment of Japanese Americans during World War II⁸, has the country engaged in the shameful practice of mass imprisonment; and never before has America established torture camps.

While some detainees at Guantanamo may certainly be guilty of plotting attacks against the United States, many are also likely innocent. Some people say that like the victims of the Nazi concentration camps, the captives at Guantanamo Bay were imprisoned because of their religion.

To be sure, the mass genocide that was perpetrated at Auschwitz and the other Nazi camps was unparalleled in human history. The horrors that went on there cannot be justly equated with any other action. But the comparison is still relevant.

It is not yet known if the Bush administration's actions at Guantanamo Bay parallel those of the Nazis at Auschwitz. Indeed, it may never be known as the Administration jealously guards its secrets — and there will be no Allied Forces to seize this camp. It can probably be assumed that there are some very dangerous people being held in Guantanamo Bay. However, it can also be assumed that there are innocent people being illegally imprisoned. By torturing the detainees at the camp, members of the Bush administration will never know who is guilty and who isn't because victims of torture will often confess to anything. The excruciating pain, organ damage and daily near death experiences will likely prevent any useful information from being obtained from the Guantanamo prisoners; and it will leave the prisoners forever traumatized and resentful of their captors.

Not only does the Guantanamo Bay prison camp seem to make America less safe from international terrorism, but because the Bush administration refuses to allow the rule of law to determine innocence or guilt, Americans will never have the security of knowing their country is still a force for good in the world.