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It's Time for Yemen to Step Up
By Marc Falkoff This week, we learned that the U.S. military decided years ago that some of your countrymen were eligible to be released from the Guantánamo Bay prison camp. But they remain in prison today on the rocky shores of Cuba, with no immediate prospect of returning home. A total of 107 Yemenis have been detained at Guantánamo since the prison camp opened in January 2002. More than five years later, only six Yemenis have been returned to their home country. During the same period, fully one-third of the Saudis are back in Saudi Arabia, more than half of the Afghanis are home with their families, and every single European national has been released from Guantánamo. Yet more than 100 Yemenis remain in the prison sitting in solitary confinement on steel beds, deprived of books and newspapers, slowly going insane. Let me be frank. The Americans do not hear the voices of the Yemeni people. You are not speaking loudly enough to your representatives, pressuring them to reach an agreement with the Americans for the repatriation of your citizens. With respect, some of us are concerned that your politicians do not feel obliged to negotiate for the return of your sons and brothers. Unless your representatives demand the return of your countrymen, the Americans will be content to keep men like Abdulsalam al Hela in their steel-mesh cages. We all agree that primary blame for the unconscionable detention of the Yemenis at Guantánamo lies with the American government. I have represented seventeen of your countrymen, including Abdulsalam al Hela, for nearly three years, and I can assure you that week in and week out we have argued in the press and in the courts that America is acting illegally at Guantánamo. But the reality of the situation is this: Other countries nationals have been released in large numbers because of a combination of massive popular protests and government actors who have insisted that America return their citizens home. You know about the religious persecution that the Yemenis have suffered at Guantánamo. You know that they have been physically abused. You know that after more than five years in detention, they have never received their day in court. But until now, you could not have known that some of your countrymen were cleared for release by the U.S. military years ago. Just days ago, after we threatened legal action, the Pentagon revealed to us information that was previously classified the names of Yemen prisoners at Guantánamo who are eligible for transfer back to Yemen immediately, including three of my clients. Some of the men on the militarys list were eligible to return to their home countries at least as early as June 2004. Why, then, are they still in Guantánamo? The answer is simple. The Yemen government has so far failed to reach an agreement with the Americans for the return of your sons and brothers. We lawyers have been frozen out of the process, so we cannot tell you exactly what the hold-up has been. But the Yemen government appears to be anxious that a handful of these more than 100 detainees do not have adequate proof that they are Yemen citizens.
If these are really the Yemen governments concerns and I am only speculating that they are then surely they are not significant enough to hold up the repatriation of your countrymen. All of the other countries that have agreed to the repatriation of their countrymen have provided similar assurances about torture, and quibbles about a handful of men without citizenship papers are surely of trifling importance. Is the Yemen government instead concerned that accepting the Guantánamo prisoners back into Yemen might be dangerous and that these are men really are terrorists? The Americans have done a good job of convincing the world that Guantánamo contains the worst of the worst, but the Yemeni people should not be fooled. The Europeans were skeptical, and you should be too. In fact, nearly all of the Europeans who were repatriated are now at liberty in their home countries. They are living at home with their wives and children, working in bookshops and bakeries, composing music, tending to their lives. It turns out that there was no real evidence of guilt in their secret Guantánamo files, just as there is surely no evidence of guilt in the secret files of most of your countrymen.
The Americans are ready to send many of your countrymen back home, but for some reason the Yemen government has been unwilling to okay the transfer. It is up to you, the Yemeni people, to make your leaders understand that you want the men to come back home, now. We now know of at least five men who the U.S. military says could be released tomorrow, if the Yemen government would agree to accept them. Perhaps putting a name and face to the men who remain in limbo in Guantánamo will convince your countrys leaders that they must do more to reach an agreement on repatriation. Here are the names of the men that we know could be home with their families in a matter of days: Sadiq Mohammad Saeed IsmailEvery day that your government fails to reach an agreement with the Americans is another day that these men will remain behind bars, separated from their families by an ocean and a continent. Here in America, we have heard the voices of the Europeans, the Saudis and the Afghanis, but we cannot hear yours. And until we do, I fear that your countrymen will not be returned home. The author is a professor of criminal law at Northern Illinois University College of Law. Along with the law firm Covington & Burling, for the past three years he has represented seventeen Yemenis being detained by the United States military at Guantánamo Bay. Posted by: Fred 2007-03-07 |
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