In lieu of justice, impunity, international lawlessness washes away with dollars — or does it?
Avoiding public trial and release of further first-person evidence, the British government “is expected to announce” pay offs amounting to more than 1.6 million dollars to the former Guantanamo Bay detainees.
“Details of the settlement will probably never be known,” Al Jazeera’s Paul Brennan reports today from London. “It is going to be an intrinsic part of the agreement … that there will be confidentiality.
- How much in this “settlement” is the U.S. payment to Britain to pay off U.S.-tortured detainees?
- How many more are in the pipeline?
- When will those who ordered torture, acquiesced to torture, or both of these acts of lawlessness stand trial — stand before the bar of justice domestic or international?
Source and notes
“UK to pay ex-Guantanamo detainees— Compensation promised to former prisoners held in controversial detention facility in Cuba,” November 16, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/11/2010111613813702673.html
Guantanamo Bay
Since 2002, Guantanamo Bay has served as an internment facility for Muslim militants following the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan. Guantánamo Bay is served by the ports of Caimanera and Boquerón, which are linked by railroad and highway to the city of Guantánamo, 21 miles to the north.”
Close to the Windward Passage between Cuba and Haiti, linking the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean Sea and Panama, Guantanamo Bay is occupied by a large, 45-square-mile (116-square-km) U.S. naval base that includes fortifications and airfields established by treaty in 1903.
Since the 1959 Revolution, the Cuban government has protested the U.S. presence and periodically has threatened to seize the base. The United States uses Guantanamo Bay as a U.S. fleet training base in the Caribbean Sea. U.S. marines landed there originally during the Spanish-American War in 1898. Guantanamo Bay (Spanish Bahía de Guantánamo) is an inlet of the Caribbean Sea, indenting southeastern Cuba. (Britannica notes)
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