Guantanamo detainees tell first independent visitor about scars from torture and hopes to leave 

This photo screened by US Military officials on September 7, 2021 shows a sign for Camp Justice in Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba. (AFP/File)
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Updated 06 July 2023
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Guantanamo detainees tell first independent visitor about scars from torture and hopes to leave 

  • The aging men known by their serial numbers arrived at the meeting shackled 
  • They talked about scant contacts with families, psychological and physical scars 

UNITED NATIONS: At the US detention center at Guantanamo Bay, the aging men known by their serial numbers arrived at the meeting shackled. Every single one told the visitor — for many the first independent person they had talked to in 20 years — “You came too late.” 

But they still talked, about the scant contacts with their families, their many health problems, the psychological and physical scars of the torture and abuse they experienced, and their hopes of leaving and reuniting with loved ones. 

For the first time since the facility in Cuba opened in 2002, a US president had allowed a United Nations independent investigator, Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, to visit. 

She said in an interview with The Associated Press that it’s true she came too late, because a total of 780 Muslim men were detained there following the 9/11 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, and today there are just 30 remaining. 

The United Nations had tried for many years to send an independent investigator, but was turned down by the administrations of George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. 

Ní Aoláin praised President Joe Biden’s administration for allowing “critical voices” into the facility. And she expressed hope other governments that have barred UN special investigators will follow Biden’s example. 

The Belfast-born law professor said she believes the cross-section of “high-value” and “non-high value” detainees she met with — the Biden administration gave her free rein to talk to anyone — “recognized the importance of sitting in a room with me.” 

“But I think there was a shared understanding that at this point, with only 30 of them left, while I can make recommendations and they will hopefully substantially change the day-to-day experience of these men, the vast majority of their lives was lived in a context where people like myself and the UN had no influence,” she said. 

Ní Aoláin, concurrently a law professor at the University of Minnesota and at Queens University in Belfast, said she has visited many high-security prisons during her six years as a UN human rights investigator, including some built for those convicted of terrorism and related serious offenses. 

But “there is really no population on Earth like this population that came to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in the circumstances in which they came, rendered across borders,” she said. 

In her report issued June 26, Ní Aoláin said even though the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, were “crimes against humanity,” the treatment of the detainees at Guantanamo was unjustified. The vast majority were brought there without cause and had no relationship to the terrorist attacks, she wrote, adding that all of the men still alive suffer from psychological and physical trauma. 

The Biden administration, which has said it wants to close the Guantanamo facility, said in a statement attached to the report that Ní Aoláin’s findings “are solely her own” and “the United States disagrees in significant respects with many factual and legal assertions” but it will carefully review her recommendations. 

In last week’s interview with the AP, Ní Aoláin talked about what she saw on a personal level. 

She said all US personnel are required to address detainees by their internment serial number, not their name, which she called “dehumanizing.” 

Ní Aoláin said she is especially concerned about three detainees who have not been charged and “live in a complete legal limbo,” which is “completely inconsistent with international law.” Of the others, 16 have been cleared to leave but haven’t found a country willing to take them and 11 still have cases pending before US military commissions. 

When the detainees were brought to meet her, they were shackled, which she said is not standard procedure even for those convicted of terrorism. Under international law, she said, people cannot be shackled except for imperative security reasons, and in her view at Guantanamo it should be prohibited and used only as a last resort in exceptional circumstances. 

“You’re dealing with an elderly vulnerable population who are incarcerated,” Ní Aoláin said. 

“These men, because they are torture victim survivors, they have difficulties concentrating, they have challenges with recurrent memory, somatic pain. Many of them struggle with mobility and other issues,” including permanent disabilities, traumatic brain injuries, chronic pain and gastrointestinal and urinary problems, she said. 

Ní Aoláin said force feeding has been an ongoing practice in response to their hunger strikes, which along with suicidal ideas and self-harm “speak to the core finding of this report — which is the deep and profound despair of individuals who’ve been held without trial for 20 years, have not seen their family members, have had no access to the outside world” except their lawyers until she visited in February for four days. 

Practices like using restraints cause added psychological distress for many of the detainees, she said. 

For the report, Ni Aoláin also interviewed victims, survivors and families of those killed on 9/11, and she met with some of the 741 men who already had been released from Guantanamo, including approximately 150 resettled in 29 countries. The rest returned home, and 30 men have since died. 

What the men still at Guantanamo and those who have been released need most, she said, “is torture rehabilitation — every single one — and the US is a leader in torture rehabilitation.” 

She welcomed Biden’s “extraordinary statement” on June 26, the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, reaffirming US opposition “to all forms of inhumane treatment and our commitment to eliminating torture and assisting torture survivors as they heal and in their quests for justice.” 

“That tells me … there is a capacity to remedy here,” she said. Rehabilitation is critical for all torture victims, she said, but also “for ourselves, because that’s what democracies do. … We look at our past, we take it onboard, and we address it, because democracies are self-correcting.” 

Ní Aoláin called the communal meals and communal prayer for all detainees — which the US emphasizes — very important. 

“The men themselves are enormously important to each other in their rehabilitation,” she said. “There is an enormous bond of support and fraternity and care among these men for each other.” 

Ni Aoláin noted the detainees have some privileges — they are able to watch television and read books — and there are language classes, some opportunities to learn about computers and art lessons. 

She said she was “really gratified” the Biden administration recently decided to allow detainees to take as much of their artwork “as is practicable” when they leave. 

“This creative work is enormously important to these men,” she said, noting that a detainee who recently returned to Pakistan had an art exhibition in Karachi some weeks ago. 

Among the many recommendations Ní Aoláin’s report makes is for torture rehabilitation and additional education and training, especially for those cleared to leave. 

“These men are going to go out into the world,” she said. “Many of them were young men when they were detained and rendered to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They’re now old men, middle-aged men, who have to figure out how to go back into life, and many of them have huge anxieties” about providing for their families and about being fathers after so many years. 
 


Extremist violence and coups test West Africa ECOWAS bloc at 50

Updated 58 min 36 sec ago
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Extremist violence and coups test West Africa ECOWAS bloc at 50

  • Extremist violence has surged this year in Nigeria and the Sahel region, including Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger — nations that have recently seceded from ECOWAS
  • Established on May 28, 1975, ECOWAS aimed to promote regional economic integration, security cooperation, human rights, and democratic governance

LAGOS: The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) faces growing threats of terrorism, climate change, military coups, and poverty, its most senior official said on Wednesday as leaders marked 50 years since the bloc’s formation in Nigeria.

Extremist violence has surged this year in Nigeria and the Sahel region, including Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger — nations that have recently seceded from ECOWAS in protest over sanctions following military coups.

“We are confronting the greatest challenges we face today, terrorism, climate change and unconstitutional change of government, poverty and economic disparities,” ECOWAS Commission President Omar Alieu Touray said, expressing confidence in overcoming the challenges.

Established on May 28, 1975, ECOWAS aimed to promote regional economic integration, security cooperation, human rights, and democratic governance.

However, five decades later, military juntas in founding member states Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger have disassociated from the bloc, saying it no longer serves their interests.

The countries have formed their own Alliance of Sahel States and a confederation, cut military and diplomatic ties with Western powers and sought closer cooperation with Russia.

Touray said ECOWAS would continue trying to cooperate with the three countries.

Security and political analysts said curbing insecurity was crucial for ECOWAS to fulfill its promise of prosperity and lift millions from poverty.

Beverly Ochieng, senior analyst at Control Risk in Dakar, Senegal, said: “If you don’t have security, then of course it means that you cannot guarantee a robust economy in the region.”

Analysts also criticized ECOWAS for its silence when leaders controversially amend constitutions to extend their rule, leading to citizens applauding military coups.

They cited the recent example of Togo’s leader Faure Gnassingbe, who was granted the influential new role of President of the Council of Ministers with no fixed term limit — a move opposition parties labelled a constitutional coup potentially extending his rule indefinitely.


Power outage hits Gabonese capital

Updated 28 May 2025
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Power outage hits Gabonese capital

  • SEEG said it had managed to restore power to around half of its customers in the capital
  • For several months last year, electricity supply was disrupted due to significant infrastructure problems

LIBERVILLE: Gabon’s capital Libreville was without electricity for several hours Wednesday following a “major technical incident,” the national energy supplier said.

The early morning power outage “resulted in the loss of all production facilities in the Libreville Interconnected Network (RIC),” the Gabonese Water and Energy Company (SEEG) said without giving further details.

SEEG said it had managed to restore power to around half of its customers in the capital “by early morning,” adding its teams were working to find and analyze the fault, which AFP reporters said also cut Internet and mobile phone coverage.

On Monday, the Gabonese presidency had announced the end of an interim administration of SEEG started in August on the back of a slew of supply cuts.

As of Wednesday, “management of SEEG will be fully transferred” and it will return to its majority shareholder, the Gabonese Strategic Investment Fund (FGIS), the company stated.

For several months last year, electricity supply was disrupted due to significant infrastructure problems.

A rotating load shedding system was established leading to supply cuts in entire neighborhoods for hours at a time, to enable power supply for other parts of the city.

A protocol signed between the Gabonese government and Turkish firm Karpowership for supply of 70 megawatts via two floating power plants to cover greater Libreville saw the situation improve in recent months.

Revamping the network is a top priority for Gabon’s leader Brice Oligui Nguema, a general who overthrew the Bongo dynasty and won 94.85 percent of the vote in April’s election, 19 months on from his August 2023 coup.

Earlier this month he vowed to provide “universal access” to drinking water and electricity.


UN says strong chance average warming will top 1.5C in next 4 years

Updated 28 May 2025
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UN says strong chance average warming will top 1.5C in next 4 years

  • The planet is therefore expected to remain at historic levels of warming after the two hottest years ever recorded in 2023 and 2024
  • “We have just experienced the 10 warmest years on record,” said the WMO’s deputy secretary-general Ko Barrett

GENEVA: The United Nations warned on Wednesday that there is a 70 percent chance that average warming from 2025 to 2029 would exceed the 1.5 degrees Celsius international benchmark.

The planet is therefore expected to remain at historic levels of warming after the two hottest years ever recorded in 2023 and 2024, according to an annual climate report published by the World Meteorological Organization, the UN’s weather and climate agency.

“We have just experienced the 10 warmest years on record,” said the WMO’s deputy secretary-general Ko Barrett.

“Unfortunately, this WMO report provides no sign of respite over the coming years, and this means that there will be a growing negative impact on our economies, our daily lives, our ecosystems and our planet.”

The 2015 Paris climate accords aimed to limit global warming to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels — and to pursue efforts to peg it at 1.5C.

The targets are calculated relative to the 1850-1900 average, before humanity began industrially burning coal, oil and gas, which emit carbon dioxide (CO2) — the greenhouse gas largely responsible for climate change.

The more optimistic 1.5C target is one that growing numbers of climate scientists now consider impossible to achieve, as CO2 emissions are still increasing.


The WMO’s latest projections are compiled by Britain’s Met Office national weather service, based on forecasts from multiple global centers.

The agency forecasts that the global mean near-surface temperature for each year between 2025 and 2029 will be between 1.2C and 1.9C above the pre-industrial average.

It says there is a 70 percent chance that average warming across the 2025-2029 period will exceed 1.5C.

“This is entirely consistent with our proximity to passing 1.5C on a long-term basis in the late 2020s or early 2030s,” said Peter Thorne, director of the Irish Climate Analysis and Research Units group at the University of Maynooth.

“I would expect in two to three years this probability to be 100 percent” in the five-year outlook, he added.

The WMO says there is an 80 percent chance that at least one year between 2025 and 2029 will be warmer than the current warmest year on record: 2024.

To smooth out natural climate variations, several methods assess long-term warming, the WMO’s climate services director Christopher Hewitt told a press conference.

One approach combines observations from the past 10 years with projections for the next decade (2015-2034). With this method, the estimated current warming is 1.44C.

There is no consensus yet on how best to assess long-term warming.

The EU’s climate monitor Copernicus believes that warming currently stands at 1.39C, and projects 1.5C could be reached in mid-2029 or sooner.

Although “exceptionally unlikely” at one percent, there is now an above-zero chance of at least one year in the next five exceeding 2C of warming.

“It’s the first time we’ve ever seen such an event in our computer predictions,” said the Met Office’s Adam Scaife.

“It is shocking” and “that probability is going to rise.”

He recalled that a decade ago, forecasts first showed the very low probability of a calendar year exceeding the 1.5C benchmark. But that came to pass in 2024.

Every fraction of a degree of additional warming can intensify heatwaves, extreme precipitation, droughts, and the melting of ice caps, sea ice and glaciers.

This year’s climate is offering no respite.

Last week, China recorded temperatures exceeding 40C (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in some areas, the United Arab Emirates hit nearly 52C (126F), and Pakistan was buffeted by deadly winds following an intense heatwave.

“We’ve already hit a dangerous level of warming,” with recent “deadly floods in Australia, France, Algeria, India, China and Ghana, wildfires in Canada,” said climatologist Friederike Otto of Imperial College London.

“Relying on oil, gas and coal in 2025 is total lunacy.”

Davide Faranda, from France’s CNRS National Center for Scientific Research, added: “The science is unequivocal: to have any hope of staying within a safe climate window, we must urgently cut fossil fuel emissions and accelerate the transition to clean energy.”

Arctic warming is predicted to continue to outstrip the global average over the next five years, said the WMO.

Sea ice predictions for 2025-2029 suggest further reductions in the Barents Sea, the Bering Sea, and the Sea of Okhotsk.

Forecasts suggest South Asia will be wetter than average across the next five years.

And precipitation patterns suggest wetter than average conditions in the Sahel, northern Europe, Alaska and northern Siberia, and drier than average conditions over the Amazon.


Turkiye’s foreign minister to visit Kyiv after talks in Moscow on peace efforts

Updated 28 May 2025
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Turkiye’s foreign minister to visit Kyiv after talks in Moscow on peace efforts

  • In Kyiv, Fidan is expected to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
  • Fidan will repeat an offer to host further peace talks between Russia and Ukraine

ANKARA: Türkiye’s foreign minister will travel to Kyiv on Thursday for a two-day visit after discussing peace efforts to end Russia’s war in Ukraine in Moscow earlier this week, a Turkish Foreign Ministry source said on Wednesday.

Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan held talks in Moscow on Monday and Tuesday, meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials, including Moscow’s top negotiator at talks in Istanbul earlier this month aimed at ending the three-year war.

In Kyiv, Fidan is expected to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, his Ukrainian counterpart Andrii Sybiha, and Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, who is also Kyiv’s top negotiator with Russia, the source said.

During the talks, Fidan will repeat an offer to host further peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, the source added.

He will “point to the increasingly heavier negative effects of the Russia-Ukraine war, emphasising the need for the war to end through diplomacy, and for a fair and lasting peace to be achieved,” the source said.

Fidan will also discuss bilateral ties, in relation to trade, energy, defense and security, while conveying Turkiye’s readiness to take part in Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction.

Russia is under increasing pressure to agree a ceasefire, and Ankara has repeatedly said the sides need to continue talks after the first direct contact between the sides since March 2022 — also in Istanbul — took place earlier this month.

Delegates from Moscow and Kyiv did not agree on a ceasefire in Istanbul this month, but agreed to trade 1,000 prisoners of war and deliver, in writing, their conditions for a possible ceasefire.

Russian sources have said that NATO member Türkiye, which has maintained good ties with both sides since the start of the war, could be a venue for future talks.


EU proposes Black Sea maritime security hub

Updated 28 May 2025
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EU proposes Black Sea maritime security hub

  • The move comes as European officials warn about a continued threat from Russia
  • The hub will use contributions from Black Sea and EU countries

BRUSSELS: The European Union on Wednesday proposed creating a hub to boost security in the Black Sea by gathering information from multiple countries to monitor the strategically important region more closely.

The move comes as European officials warn about a continued threat from Russia and as concerns deepen across the EU about risks to undersea infrastructure.

The hub would be set up in the short-term and “with a sense of priority due to the Russian war of aggression,” an EU document said.

The hub will use contributions from Black Sea and EU countries and “enhance maritime situational awareness and information sharing on the Black Sea, real-time monitoring from space to seabed, and early warning,” the document said.

The proposal from the European Commission and the bloc’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas notes that the hub would include monitoring of submarine cables, offshore installations and gas and wind energy operations.

It would use underwater sensors, remotely piloted vessels and surveillance drones, it added.

Kallas told reporters that the hub could also help monitor the maritime element of a future peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine.