Australia "implicated" in Guantanamo torture
Updated
Pressure on Australia to take Guantanamo Bay inmates continues to mount, after an unexpected admission by the woman in charge of the Guantanamo Bay military commissions that the US did carry out torture there.
Presenter: Linda Mottram
Speakers: Bob Brown, Australia's Greens Party leader; Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch Executive Director; Julia Gillard, Australia's acting Prime Minister
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MOTTRAM: The issue of Australia's support, under the previous government of John Howard, for the incarceration of suspects at Guantanamo Bay is central to the arguments of those who are maintaining pressure on the current government of Kevin Rudd to take some of those inmates. Various community groups have been putting the case. The Greens party, with considerable Australian community support, has been among those who are not letting the issue go. The Greens leader is Senator Bob Brown.
BROWN: Unfortunately we're implicated because the Howard government backed this torture camp from the first day and we're the only country in the world that recognises the military commissions which were outside American law on our statutes.
MOTTRAM: Senator Brown says the US should resettle the inmates. But in the absence of that happening, and he says it appears the Obama administration won't take that route, then Australia should step up to assist.
BROWN: The worst that could happen here would be for inmates from that prison, not least those who are totally innocent, have never been charged but have spent an appalling few years there, get sent back to execution or torture somewhere else in the world. That would be on the conscience of both democracies, Australia and the United States for a long time to come.
MOTTRAM: The issue was given new impetus internationally by the acknowledgment by retired military judge Susan Crawford who's been in charge of the Guantanamo Bay military commissions that Saudi detainee, Muhammed al Qahtani, was tortured a claim the Bush administration continues to deny.
The group Human Rights Watch, releasing its 2009 World Report, says that too many human rights abuses have been perpetrated in the name of fighting terrorism. And Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch Executive Director, agrees Australia should play a part in resettling Guantanamo detainees, to show leadership on re-establishing the primacy of human rights.
ROTH: Its in everybody's interests including Australia's to see Guantanamo closed as quickly as possible, and it can facilitate that by taking a handful of the detainees who are not dangerous who nobody accuses of any crime but who simply can't be sent back to places like China without fear of torture or execution, we'd like Australia play a part in that.
MOTTRAM: The Australian government has rejected two requests from the US so far to take Guantanamo inmates.
Australia has not entirely closed the door though. The acting Prime Minister, Julia Gillard.
GILLARD: What the government's said about Guantanamo Bay remains our position. If there was a future request by the US to consider any of these detainees that would be considered on a case by case basis against our very stringent national security and immigration assessments.
MOTTRAM: As the Obama administration proceeds with the complex process of closing Guantanamo Bay, Australia can likely expect to be making such considerations.
