Michael Ratner: Hillary probably won't close Gitmo because Bill illegally detained people there too [View All]

[HamdenRice]

Democracy Now today marked the sixth anniversary of the creation of the illegal prison camp at Guantanamo Bay by reviewing the evolution of illegal detention and torture there. Her guest, Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, provided the overview.

During the interview, however, Ratner reminded Amy Goodman's audience of one of the most dreadful incidents of the Bill Clinton administration -- namely Bill Clinton's use of Gitmo to illegally detain HIV positive Haitian refugees there under dreadful prison like conditions. In a throw-away comment, Ratner said that he had little faith that a president Hillary would close Gitmo, considering Bill's history of using Gitmo to illegally detain aliens while arguing that they had no due process rights -- the same argument that George Bush has used to run his concentration and torture camp at the island port. (I'll link to the rush transcript when it is available later today.)

For those of you who may not remember, toward the end of the first Bush administration, Haiti's president Aristide was overthrown, and the military and paramilitary forces in Haiti launched a vicious crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in Haiti. Thousands of Haitians fled the island by boat. President Bush issued orders that the Coast Guard divert any sea borne refugees to Guantanamo Bay rather than bringing them to the US. There, they were adjudicated to be either economic refugees (who were returned) or political refugees who were entitled to political asylum in the U.S.

About 300 Haitians, however, tested positive for HIV, and at the time, a federal law barred HIV positive aliens from entry into the U.S. Candidate Bill Clinton had hinted that he would close down the detention camp at Gitmo and end the inhumane treatment of Haitian refugees at Gitmo.

Instead, as president, Clinton continued the Bush policy of imprisoning ailing HIV postive political refugees in appalling conditions at Gitmo -- even though the military's doctors said that they could not adequately care for the Haitians there. Public interest lawyers sued the Clinton administration to allow the HIV positive Haitian political refugees entry into the US, but the Clinton administration fought them up through the federal appeals courts. Clinton argued, as Bush would later argue, that detainees at Guantanamo Bay had no due process rights, and that he could detain them without due process for however long he pleased.

When the Clinton administration finally lost at the court of appeals level -- pursuant to a blistering opinion against Clinton's treatment of the refugees and his interpretation of due process -- the Clinton Justice Department agreed to settle and bring the ailing refugees to the US, but only on the condition that the judgement be vacated (disappeared down the memory hole) because Clinton wanted to be free to handle any possible future refugee crisis without being bound by due process concerns. Fearing they might lose at the Supreme Court level, the Haitians agreed to vacating the opinion so that they could enter the US.

So if you think that a president Hillary would shut down Gitmo, think again. Her husband argued right up through the federal courts that he, like George W. Bush would later argue, could detain foreigners at Gitmo forever, without a trial, hearing or due process. Now that Hillary has George Bush acts as a precedent, and given what the first Clinton administration did, do you really think she would give up that power?

To learn more, see

Slate
Clinton's Guantanamo
How the Democratic president set the stage for a land without law.
By Brandt Goldstein
http://www.slate.com/id/2132979/?nav=ais

and

Wiki
Camp Bulkeley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Bulkeley