Guantanamo inmates are experiencing an “increasing level of desperation,” Simon Schorno from the International Committee of the Red Cross told RT, blaming Guantanamo's poor legal regulations for the plight of its inmates.
RT:Two of the Red Cross delegates have now reached
the Guantanamo prison. What have they seen?
Simon Schorno: We don’t really comment to the public on what we see
during our visits. But our two delegates arrived on Monday. The
idea was to get a little bit in advance of our regularly planned
visit that starts next Monday and to get a better sense of the
current tensions and the hunger-strike, to speak with the detainees
directly – of course, we are involved – and also with the
authorities to get their perspective of what is going on. And
that is what we are doing right now and will be doing for the next
two weeks.
RT:Why did you decide to send the delegates a week
earlier than planned?
SS: We’ve been following the current tensions and the
hunger-strike since our last visit which ended at the end of
February. And we’ve been in a very close communication with the
camp authorities since. Being up-to-date on what’s going on is very
important for us, to be present there and to speak with the
detainees in person – again, to get their perspective. It’s how we
work and for us it’s really essential to be in the facility and to
really get a sense of what’s going on.
RT:We’ve been reporting on how desperate the conditions
have been getting in the last two weeks. Why did not you send
delegates from the Red Cross before?
SS: We visit the facility very regularly – every six weeks
we have our two-week visit there. We were there last week of
February. We have been visiting the facility since 2002. So far as
visiting Guantanamo is something that we do very, very regularly.
We have a full program dedicated to those visits, to the
interaction on those issues with the US government. And that is
something we do daily here in Washington and down in Guantanamo.
For us, it is part of our job and again seeing detainees this week
is our response, we have done it in the past with the issues at the
facility and we continue to do that.
RT:You can’t tell us what the delegates are seeing at
the moment, but you can tell us what you saw in the past. What are
the conditions? Are you happy with the way detainees are
treated?
SS: In fact, we don’t comment publicly on conditions of
detention or treatment of detainees. Those are issues that we raise
directly with the authorities concerned – American authorities in
this case. What I can tell you is that from our observations those
tensions and this anguish that the detainees are experiencing are
clearly related to the lack of a clear legal framework in
Guantanamo. This has now been having a real impact for detainees
for some time – on their mental health, on their emotional health.
For us the issue beyond what we are seeing right now in Guantanamo
are these issues that you reported on, that lawyers are talking
about- the issue of a legal framework that regiments the detention
at Guantanamo and this is the issue that the administration must
address.
RT:So clearly you are concerned about the mental health
of these detainees. Is there something you can challenge the
authorities with? Does the Red Cross have much influence over
this?
SS: The discussions, the reporting, the observations we
share with the authorities, we believe have an impact. It is a
continuing thing. As I said, we have been visiting the facility
since 2002, so it is a very solid relationship in terms of having
our opinion and observations taken into account. There are bigger
questions that touch on the political sphere, legal sphere and
there the administration with Congress must act. This is beyond
really what ICRC can do. What we can do is to assure that certain
international standards are upheld and the humanitarian perspective
is taking into account.
RT: How significant is it now that this story
becomes more and more public and well known?
SS: The fact that the President Obama announced that
Guantanamo will be closed back in 2010 - there hasn’t been really
any action with Guantanamo - is slowly disappearing from the
landscape here, the political landscape and certainly, until a few
days ago, the media landscape. All of this is playing to what is
going on now and for us the bottom line, what we’re seeing from our
perspective, what we see is the increasing level of
desperation.
RT:Will the Red Cross want to see this detention center
closed down?
SS: No, we do not have an opinion on the closure of
Guantanamo. What we want to see is a clear legal framework that
regiments the detention in Guantanamo.
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