Guantánamo Bay And CIA Black Sites: Two Sides of the Same Coin

Written by Nathan Matsko

A UN human rights panel has called for the immediate release of a prisoner being held in the US’s controversial Guantanamo Bay.

Abu Zubaydah was taken into custody in 2002 by the US. After spending several years in CIA ‘black sites’, he was transferred to Guantanamo Bay in 2006 where he has been ever since. Zubaydah has yet to be formally charged with any crimes.

The panel also condemned several of the countries that were home to the black sites, including Thailand, Morocco, and Lithuania, calling them “jointly responsible” for the torture which took place at these locations. In Abu Zubaydah’s case alone, it is estimated he has been waterboarded at least 80 times since his detention.

Guantanamo Bay and the controversy surrounding it have seen a resurgence in recent weeks. Potential Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis was recently criticized after denying he had witnessed the torture of prisoners, angrily refuting the question asked by a reporter. DeSantis served at the facility between March 2006 and January 2007. Mansoor Adayfi, who was imprisoned there for fourteen years, claims that DeSantis witnessed guards force-feeding him during a hunger strike in 2006.

The Legacy of CIA Black Sites

The black sites referenced by the panel have faced accusations of having facilitated torture outside of the boundaries of international law. Last year, the government of Lithuania put a building formerly used as a black site for the CIA-and one of the sites where Zubaydah was detained for a time-up for sale, giving the wider public insight into facilities such as these. Windowless, soundproof, and maintaining its own power and water supply, the building was entirely off the grid during its use.

Host countries played a pivotal role in not only keeping the sites extremely classified but also moving prisoners to and from the facilities. Some, including Lithuania and Poland, were ordered to pay restitution to several inmates held and tortured at these locations once their existence was revealed.

The establishment of these sites themselves and the subsequent political fallout from their discovery has even harmed relations between the United States and the host countries in some cases. However, few have issued any substantial apologies for their participation in the detention and torture of the inmates.

Domestically, black sites and Guantanamo continue to stain America’s reputation and foreign policy. Gina Haspel, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency under the Trump administration, was discovered to have witnessed waterboarding at a black site in Thailand, despite previously denying the claims. Donald Trump himself had previously expressed interest in “restarting” the black site programs, a statement which was met with much outcry from political opponents and human rights advocates.