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The Return of Gitmo Detainees

While it denotes progress on the detention closure front, it also highlights the challenges the returning detainees are likely to pose. US President Barack Obama’s efforts to meet the deadline of January end next year is likely to be extended. It may be for technical reasons, complicated Congressional requirements and placement of an alternative judicial recourse to deal with 
the detainees.

As part of the closure plans, the US has been engaged with governments that are willing to take back their nationals. Washington was hoping to send at least 116 of the detainees back before January. The ones shortlisted for repatriation are mainly suspects who, due to inconclusive evidence, could not be charged, even after being illegally detained for years and having undergone extreme interrogation. Strangely, while the majority of detainees to be repatriated are cleared by the US, many have been refused entry into their home countries. It is primarily because their governments perceive these returnees as potential security threat. The fear — not unfounded — is that such persons would be more prone to terrorism as a retaliatory measure and would pose a bigger challenge in terms of monitoring. Even detaining them in prisons at home could foment problems among other detainees at the site. In the face of resistance from some home states, the US government decided to enter into an arrangement with third states that may be willing 
to accept them.

The latest batch of detainees to return to their countries comprise six Yemenis, four Afghans and two Somalians. With Yemeni nationals comprising the largest number of detainees at Guantanamo, Washington is hoping to repatriate more, depending on how this transfer goes. Previously, the escape of 23 Al-Qaeda suspects from high security prison in Sanaa in 2006 led to serious complications. Some of the escapees were on the US most wanted list of terrorists. One Nasser al-Wahishi successfully reorganised and brought into operation a resurgent entity, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

As for the success of the rehabilitation programme of terror detainees or suspects, no other country has been as focused as Saudi Arabia. Many on the rehabilitation programme innocent in the first instance, are known to harbour deep resentment and desire to seek revenge against the US for their suffering in Guantanamo.

There are also those who were not inducted into a rehabilitation programme, but were allowed freedom and, consequently, chose to fight the US. Such was the case of Pakistani detainee, late Abdullah Mehsud, who returned from Guantanamo to help the Afghan Taleban.

The question here is, in the absence of financial resources, Yemen, Afghanistan and Somalia are simply not equipped to start effective rehabilitation programmes. There is a lack of security infrastructure, reintegration and monitoring mechanisms. Moreover, indefinite detention is not a viable option, given the absence of charges.

It will not be easy to block the consequences of Guantanamo once that dark chapter ends. US policy in the past, and continuing today at Bagram in Afghanistan, serves to negate its very purpose of fighting the war on terror.