By Anneloes van Iwaarden
Always eager to play a part in ‘world history’, The Netherlands is looking closely at how president-elect Obama will ‘make good’ on his election promise to close the controversial detention camp at Guantanamo Bay.
In the CBS news show, ‘60 minutes’, the President-elect confirmed his election promise to close down the detention camp in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba in his first interview after his historic election as the next American President.
And amidst calls from human rights organisations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International for European countries to take action and re-settle Guantanamo detainees, debate has sparked on the issue in The Netherlands about the role it can play.
The American detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, (known to insiders as GITMO) has been a thorn in relations between Europe and the United States since 2002 when detainees from the war on Afghanistan and the September 11 attacks were first taken to the camp.
President-elect Obama’s promise to close Guantanamo Bay has now sparked fierce debate over ‘the how’, ‘the when’ and ‘the what are the effects’ in The Netherlands.
Speaking at a budget meeting last week, Dutch Foreign Minister Verhagen announced his intentions to ‘look into the role The Netherlands can play’ in helping bring this dark chapter in European and American relations to a satisfactory close.
International Criminal Court
Minister Verhagen pointed towards the potential role the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague could play in bringing the detainees to trial.
But this statement has been met by a wave of criticism by the legal profession in The Netherlands.
“They have created the problem themselves, they can solve it themselves. And this is what they should do,” says International Criminal lawyer Mr. M. Wladimiroff in the political TV program ‘Buitenhof’.
“The Criminal Court only has the power to try war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. In judicial terms, terrorism doesn’t clearly fall under any of these categories,” he went on to say.
The problem behind the closure of Guantanamo Bay is that detainees have no status either as defendants or as prisoners of war (POWs).
Having no status in legal terms essentially means that detainees have no rights or obligations.
So in order to be tried and allowing them access to a country’s judicial system, detainees first have to be given a status.
American Citizens
The reason why countries are less than willing to do this (including the US), is that potentially, detainees could then file for citizenship in that country.
The idea of having terrorist suspects run loose on American soil and become true American citizens, is probably a bridge too far for most.
