The US military earlier this month announced the closure of the once-secret Camp 7 prison unit at Guantanamo Bay in a move which will consolidate all prisoners into one compound and cut costs. The decision to close rather than repair the failing facility follows the Biden administration’s announcement of its intention to close Guantanamo by the end of his term.

CRITICISM OF GUANTANAMO

Guantanamo Bay detention centre was set up in 2002 on a US naval base off the coast of Cuba to interrogate suspects as part of president Bush’s post-9/11 “war on terror”. Almost 20 years after its establishment, 40 of the roughly 780 suspects detained at Guantanamo still remain in custody of whom only 11 have been charged with war crimes.

Guantanamo has been subject to much domestic and international criticism due to lack of due legal process and reported human rights violations. A 2006 United Nations (UN) report called for the closure of Guantanamo and found that interrogation techniques involving the use of dogs, exposure to extreme temperatures, sleep deprivation, and prolonged isolation had amounted to extreme suffering.

President Obama referred to Guantanamo as a “stain” on the international reputation of the US and expressed a commitment to its closure. However, his proposals were later blocked by congressional legislation. President Trump then signed an executive order in 2018 permitting the facility to be kept open and suggesting that prisoners of the Islamic State (ISIS) were to be sent there.

CLOSURE OF CAMP 7

The “most dangerous” and “high value” prisoners at Guantanamo were housed at the once-secret Camp 7 which was opened in 2006 for prisoners previously held at Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) “black sites”. Journalists have never been permitted access to Camp 7 and the military had long refused to acknowledge its location, believed to be in the hills about 1 mile from the main centre.

Conditions at Camp 7 had begun to deteriorate and structural issues required urgent repair. However, the Pentagon dropped initial plans costing $49 million to replace Camp 7 with a new facility and instead opted for its closure. Earlier this month, the 14 remaining detainees at Camp 7 were transferred to Camp 5, one of the two maximum-security blocks in Guantanamo’s main prison facility.

The US Southern Command stated that the move would mean a reduction in the 1,500 troops currently stationed at Guantanamo and also cut maintenance costs, estimated to be at around $13 million per prisoner a year.

FUTURE OF GUANTANAMO

The decision to abandon rather than repair or replace Camp 7 falls in line with the Biden administration’s commitment to close Guantanamo Bay as a military prison. In February this year, a new inter-agency review into closure was announced, which the press secretary to the White House Jen Psaki stated is “certainly our goal and intention”.

In light of the Biden administration’s review announcement, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) issued a statement calling for a “transparent, comprehensive, and accountability-focussed review” of previous and ongoing human rights abuses at the prison facility. The group of independent special rapporteurs stated that the US must be held accountable for crimes committed at Guantanamo to ensure that such practises cannot be repeated.

Meg is a final year student of German and Politics at the University of Bristol. She is particularly interested in international relations and bringing light to the human rights abuses perpetrated by governments around the world. Her goal is to work in advocacy after university.

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