Life at Guantánamo Bay

During the last six years, the U.S. Administration has held nearly 800 alleged terror suspects without trial at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. 500 of these men have now been released, but their stories - and the stories of those who remain - are largely unknown. Fragments have emerged in books and interviews, and in declassified accounts from the detainees' lawyers, but until now there has been no comprehensive overview of all their cases.

On March 12 the New America Foundation hosted a panel discussion featuring Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files: The stories of the 774 Detainees in America's Illegal Prison and Tom Wilner, attorney for Guantánamo Detainees. New America's Schwartz senior fellow and CNN terrorist analyst Peter Bergen moderated the session.

Andy Worthington began the discussion with a straightforward account of the life conditions for Guantánamo detainees chronicled in his deeply researched book. Deprived of the safeguards of the Geneva Conventions, and for the most part, sold to the Americans by their allies in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the detainees have struggled for five years to have their stories heard by the international community. Worthington analyzed in detail the circumstances of their capture, the coercive interrogations techniques and unsubstantiated allegations used to justify their detention. His book makes the case that while some of the arrests were warranted, the majority of the 773 captured men and boys detained were either Taliban foot soldiers, humanitarian aid workers, economic migrants or religious teachers who were caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Tom Wilner discussed in depth the legal ramifications and the impact of the Guantánamo Bay legal black hole. According to him there is no justifiable reason to deny these men legal rights. The military has clear rules about how to decide whether someone is an enemy combatant or not but there was no sifting process on the ground. Habeas corpus was never applied to the detainees because of Guantánamo no man's land status. He described deeply flawed "Kafka-esque tribunals" in which the prisoners were not allowed legal representation and were prevented from seeing the classified information against them, which often consisted of allegations based on hearsay and torture. 8 of the 12 Kuwaitis he represents were released without explanations of apologies as is always the case.

-Aminatou Sow, Staff Assistant

Participants

• Andy Worthington
  Historian, Journalist, and Researcher, Reprieve
  Author, The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America's Illegal Prison
  

• Tom Wilner
  Partner, Shearman & Sterling LLP
  Attorney for Guantánamo Detainees

• Peter Bergen (moderator)
  Schwartz Senior Fellow, New America Foundation
  Terrorism Analyst, CNN