WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump signed an order on Tuesday to keepopen the military detention centre at Guantanamo Bay after his Democraticpredecessor, Barack Obama, tried unsuccessfully to close the prison thathas drawn international condemnation.
In his first State of the Union address to Congress, Trump made clear hewas fulfilling a campaign promise to keep operating the prison for foreignterrorism suspects at the US military base at Guantanamo, Cuba.
“I just signed, prior to walking in, an order directing (Defense) Secretary(Jim) Mattis … to re-examine our military detention policy and to keep openthe detention facilities in Guantanamo Bay,” Trump said.
The executive order authorised the US military to add detainees andsuggested the possibility that captured Daesh militants could be sent therefor the first time.
Obama signed an order on his first full day in office in 2009 orderingefforts to shutter Guantanamo within a year, but his plan was thwarted bymostly Republican opposition in Congress. Instead, his administrationreduced the inmate population to 41 from 242 during his eight years inoffice.
The prison, which was opened by President George W. Bush to hold suspectedmilitants captured overseas after the Sept 11, 2001, came to symboliseharsh detention practices that opened the United States to accusations oftorture.
As a presidential candidate, Trump vowed “to load it up with some baddudes.” Since he became president a year ago, there is no indication anynew prisoners have arrived.
“In the past, we have foolishly released hundreds and hundreds of dangerousterrorists, only to meet them again on the battlefield – including ISISleader, (Abu Bakr) al-Baghdadi, who we captured, who we had, who wereleased,” Trump said in the speech, referring to the Daesh.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in July that Baghdadi had beenkilled. Americans captured him in the beginning of the war in Iraq, andreleased him a year later, thinking he was a civilian agitator rather thana military threat.
Civil liberties groups immediately denounced the executive order, and theCenter for Constitutional Rights said it would file a legal challenge.
“In trying to give new life to a prison that symbolises America’s descentinto torture and unlawful indefinite detention, Trump will not make thiscountry any safer,” said Hina Shamsi, a director at the American CivilLiberties Union.