Although Obama has indicated that he is set to resume prisoner transfers from Guantanamo Bay, former detainee Moazzam Begg believes innocent people striking for their freedom will not stop unless they see some real action.
Begg, a British Pakistani citizen who was held at the prison at
Guantanamo Bay for almost three years following his arrest in
Pakistan in 2002. Though the Pentagon believed he was an enemy
combatant and a member of al-Qaeda, he was eventually released by
President Bush in 2005 without charge, and reached an undisclosed
financial settlement with the British government in November of
2010 along with several other former British inmates.
Obama’s Thursday speech included statements that the administration
is prepared to push forward the transfer of cleared detainees from
Guantanamo to their home countries. Though, as Begg tells RT, this
latest announcement is unlikely to dissuade the ongoing hunger
strikers at the prison, now comprising the majority of the inmate
population. Most importantly, the announcement will seem to ring
hollow considering the president’s initial campaign pledge to shut
down the detention center, which continues to operate into his
second term.
RT: So, based on Obama’s words today, does that mean that
the hunger strikers [in Guantanamo] were finally heard?
Moazzam Begg: They may have been heard, but I don’t think
he’s going to be doing anything anytime soon about it. What was
very interesting is that the heckler, Madea Benjamin from Code
Pink, I picked up some very important words that she said. The
first thing that she said was in relation to Shaker Aamer, the
British resident who is still being held there, she mentioned him
by name. And of course he’s been cleared for release, and is still
part of a hunger strike. He has British children, four of whom are
here in the UK, the youngest of whom he’s never seen.
The other thing that she said that was very noteworthy was she
mentioned Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, he’s the son of Anwar al-Awlaki
who was killed a month after in a drone strike in Yemen, and he was
at the age of 16 years old. Now Obama said that these drone strikes
are justified, it’s a just war, it’s legal, he said, all of these
things. But he never answered, never made any mention of this 16
year-old child who was ordered killed by a US drone strike, and I
don’t think he ever will. He seems to be very open to addressing
very tough issues, but this is one that I know he won’t be
answering any time soon.
But in relation to the Guantanamo prisoners, I don’t think
anybody is going to be singing the praises of Obama any time soon,
because he’s already made a promise four years ago that he would
close the place. One of the things the heckler, Madea Benjamin, was
saying was that if they had been cleared for release then why don’t
you release them now. Why not start the process that could well
take a year or more.
RT: But he did say he would be starting a process for
closure, also he said there’s no justification for Congress to
prevent us from closing a facility that should never have been
opened. And that received a round of applause, surely this is
something to be more positive about than you were, what, just a
week ago?
MB: Well, you know, in the words of Malcolm X you don’t
take a knife, stick it in his back 9 inches deep, pull it back five
inches and say “we’re making progress.” That’s precisely why they
were applauding him for something that he should have closed a long
time ago. Even Bush said that he was going to close down Guantanamo
Bay, and he wanted to close it. Obama said that he would do it, and
he broke that promise. At least Bush never made that promise.
RT: So will the hunger strikers carry on then?
MB: I’m fairly certain that they will, because they’re
not just – of course they’re primarily striking for their freedom,
for being held for so long without charge or trial – but they’re
also striking for being given these invasive cavity searches every
time their lawyer visits, and every time he leaves, for the
desecration of the Koran, for the strip searches, for the food and
all of these things that they’ve had to bear over the past eleven
years. And until they actually get to see the plane that is going
to be taking them home, and even then they’ll be skeptical, I don’t
think they’ll be stopping their protest any time soon.
RT: When you’re talking about the conditions and the
treatment they’re receiving, Obama clearly condemned the issue of
force-feeding those hunger strikers. So, do you not think that this
will influence their conditions now, and they will improve?
MB: I’d like to think so, but it’s as though was Obama
not aware of what was taking place in the world’s most notorious
prison, which he spoke about in the first two days of his
presidency? Saying that he was going to close it down? I mean he
knows, he’s stated very clearly that he doesn’t want America to be
remembered for Guantanamo, but it will be remembered for
Guantanamo, people will never forget Guantanamo the way they will
never forget Vietnam or the internment of the Japanese [in World
War II] or anything else in relation to this. But the hunger
strikes, if he really wanted to stop them he could do so clearly,
he can’t pretend that all of a sudden he just knows about it now,
and now he’s going to act. It’s something that should have happened
a long time ago.
RT: So if the prison is closed down, and the detainees
released, many are saying they’re still a threat to society. How do
you view that argument?
MB: Well it’s just a misnomer completely, that’s a
nonstarter. There are 613 former prisoners, I am one of them, who
were released. Now 613 that’s the overwhelming majority, because at
the highest point there were 779 prisoners, leaving behind 166.
Now, if he returns them, they will do what we did, which is try to
get on with their lives that they had destroyed.
RT: Just briefly then, well then why were you a
prisoner? The same question from many others, surely you must have
done something wrong?
MB: Well, no, that’s not true, we didn’t do anything
wrong and that’s now been proven true. Even the British government
has made huge payouts to former Guantanamo Bay prisoners who have
challenged them in court. We weren’t the criminals, they were
the criminals. The criminality was done against us, torture is
criminality, kidnapping is criminality, rendition is criminality.
All of these things were done to us, we didn’t do it to
anybody.
We were interrogated by the world’s most powerful intelligence
agencies, and after years of all of this they still had no charges
against us, and after years of all this the prisoners, the
overwhelming majority of them, have no charges against them. So
it’s not even worth discussing anymore.
This article originally appeared on: RT