Chronicle on Cuba - July 2005

Terrorism

July 3: The United States must close its Guantanamo Bay prison, says a new report by a top European body. The treatment of about 500 terrorism suspects at the prison has encouraged hatred towards the West and bolstered membership of the al-Qaida network, the report by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) concluded. The OSCE commissioned the report from its human rights representative, Belgian senate president Anne-Marie Lizin. (AlJazeera, 3/7/05)

July 9: Interpol suspects three Irish men sentenced to 15 years in prison for training guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and who disappeared a year ago, might be hiding out in Cuba. “ We have intelligence reports to that effect. Consequently the Colombian Secret Service (DAS), through Interpol, has requested its Cuban counterpart” to take pertinent action, Victor Cruz, Interpol’s Director in Bogotá, told local Caracol Television. (AFP, 9/7/05)

July 13: Military investigators found evidence of degrading and abusive treatment by interrogators at the prison for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee said. Senator Carl Levin said their investigation, which looked into FBI allegations of abuse of prisoners, shows that the purpose of the abuses recorded by investigators was to gather intelligence -- and indicated that the problem was not an isolated one. "It is clear from the report that detainee mistreatment was not simply the product of a few rogue military police in a night shift," said Levin, Democrat-Michigan. (CNN, 13/7/05)

July 30: Former US President Jimmy Carter said the detention of terror suspects at the Guantánamo Bay Naval base was an embarrassment and had given extremists an excuse to attack the United States. Mr. Carter also criticized the US-led war in Iraq as "unnecessary and unjust." “I think what's going on in Guantanamo Bay and other places is a disgrace to the USA,” he told a news conference at the Baptist World Alliance's centenary conference in Birmingham, England. “I wouldn't say it's the cause of terrorism, but it has given impetus and excuses to potential terrorists to lash out at our country and justify their despicable acts.” (The New York Times, 30/7/05)