The US Supreme Court granted detainees of Guantanamo Bay the right to challenge their incarceration in US civil courts. What exactly is this War on Terror facility that has left a trail of accusations about unlawful detentions, rights violations, protests, suicides and riots? Rupinder Kaur explains.A US detention centre in Cuba? How did this come about?The Guantanamo Bay detention camp is based at the southeastern end of a US Navy base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. The base is operated by one of the US military units called the Joint Task Force Guantanamo since 2002. The detainment areas consist of three camps in the base: Camp Delta (which includes Camp Echo), Camp Iguana and Camp X-Ray (which has been closed). After the US invaded Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, prisoners suspected of being al-Qaeda members or its supporters were transferred to “Camp X-Ray”. In 2002, President Bush decided to make it the central prison for suspects considered unlawful enemy combatants in the War on Terror. But how did the US establish a base in Cuba in the first place? The naval base at Guantanamo is the oldest American military base outside the US. It was established in 1898 when the US Marines fighting the Spanish-American War obtained control of Cuba from Spain. The US government obtained a 99-year lease from Tomás Estrada Palma, a Cuban who became the island’s first President. The lease began on February 23, 1903. The Cuban-American Treaty held, among other things, that the US, for the purposes of operating coaling and naval stations, had “complete jurisdiction and control” of the Guantánamo Bay, while the Republic of Cuba was recognised as retaining ultimate sovereignty over it.After the Cuban Revolution of 1959 which brought Fidel Castro to power, then-President Dwight Eisenhower insisted the status of the base remained unchanged, despite Cuban objections. How many prisoners have been held at Gitmo? On January 11, 2001 the first group of 20 detainees were housed in open-air cages with concrete flooring in Camp X-Ray. More than 800 detainees have been housed in the camp since, of whom around 400 have been released. In March 2008, the camp housed around 280 detainees, including those who have been charged in the 9/11 case. At least five of them were teenagers, one aged only 13. Many detainees at Guantanamo have been held without charge and without access to attorneys. Of the 550 men accused of links to Afghanistan’s ousted Taliban regime or al-Qaeda, just four have been charged. Why is the detention centre synonymous with controversy?The camp’s existence has been condemned by human-rights groups from across the world and also the UN. Red Cross inspectors and released detainees have alleged acts of torture, including sleep deprivation, beatings and incarceration in confined and cold cells. Many have alleged abuse of the religion of the detainees. The prisoners themselves have protested through hunger strikes, riots and suicides. A mass suicide bid took place on June 18, 2006 and three prisoners committed suicide on June 10, 2006. According to the New York Times, there were 350 incidents of self-harm in 2003. A UN report on conditions in the camp expressed concern at the use of excessive force during transportation and force-feeding through nasal tubes during hunger strikes, which it says amounts to torture.
