June 23, 2007
US to Move Guantanamo
Inmates,
But Closure Not Imminent
Washington
The US hopes to transfer several dozen Afghans held at Guantanamo
Bay to a prison in Afghanistan but has no immediate plans to close
the detention centre in Cuba, said White House officials.
President George W. Bush has said he wants to close Guantanamo,
which has become a lightning rod for international criticism of the
US "war on terror". But US administration officials Friday played
down news reports that a decision might come shortly.
Before any closure, military panels must be set up to try terrorist
suspects held at Guantanamo and home countries must take back
detainees cleared for release by the US, the administration said.
"There are ongoing discussions about that," White House spokeswoman
Dana Perino said Friday, adding that no decision on closing
Guantanamo was imminent.
A scheduled Friday meeting of administration officials to discuss
the detention facility's future was called off, Perino said,
apparently in response to the flurry of media attention Thursday.
"There was a decision that it wasn't necessary at this time," she
said.
The US administration is split over how to handle the roughly 375
remaining Guantanamo detainees, including some 220 the government
views as too dangerous to let go, the Washington Post reported.
Vice President Dick Cheney as well as the justice and homeland
security departments have opposed suggestions to bring detainees to
military detention centres in the US, the newspaper said.
Asked whether the administration was considering such a move, Perino
said: "That's a very complex legal question."
In efforts to clear some Guantanamo inmates, the US is renovating
part of the Pol-e-Charki prison outside Afghanistan's capital city
Kabul and training new guards, she said.
"We hope to be able to transfer several dozen Afghans from
Guantanamo back to Afghanistan in the near future," she said. Many
of the detainees are from the region.
US efforts to close Guantanamo were complicated this month when US
military judges in effect halted trials of terrorism suspects
because they were classified as "enemy combatants" - not "unlawful"
enemy combatants, as required by a 2006 law passed after the US
Supreme Court ruled the original trial process illegal.
Guantanamo has come under sharp criticism by European nations and
human rights groups for allegedly harsh treatment of detainees and
because they are being held outside US civilian law.
Bush has called for Guantanamo's eventual closure, saying that
"America has no interest in being the world's jailer", but he
insists the US must first be satisfied that freed inmates will not
commit terrorism against the US.
Most detainees were captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan after
the US-led invasion in response to the Sep 11, 2001 terrorist
attacks on New York and Washington, which killed nearly 3,000
people.
At its peak, Guantanamo held nearly 800 inmates.
Some Muslim governments won't accept detainee transfers out of fear
of appearing to cooperate with the Bush administration, said Anne
Marie Lizin, a representative of the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe.
Lizin declined to identify the countries. She spoke to reporters in
Washington after a visit to Guantanamo.
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