coming up on our team today is the six month mark for the guantanamo bay hunger strike even with growing calls for the detention camps closure its future remains unclear we have extensive coverage of the hunger strike in the calls to close the facility up ahead. it's tuesday august sixth five pm in washington d.c. i'm sam sachs and you're watching r.t. special coverage of the hunger strike at guantanamo bay. so what exactly are we talking about when it comes to guantanamo well let's take a look at the numbers the prison is now in its twelfth year of operation in that

time seven hundred seventy nine men have been detained there including more than twenty children according to u.s. government data ninety two percent of these inmates were never affiliated with al qaeda and eighty six percent of them were captured not by u.s. soldiers but instead thanks to bounty offers now of those seven hundred seventy nine prisoners five hundred thirty two were even true eventually released by the bush administration another seventy two by the obama administration nine individuals have died get mo including seven from apparent suicides and that's more than the number of detainees who've actually been convicted of any crime. so that leaves one hundred sixty six prisoners still there of those eighty six have been cleared for release but are still waited and forty six have been deemed too dangerous to be released but the government doesn't have enough evidence to prosecute them in a trial and each year it's costing two point seven million dollars per prisoner to operate get no making at the most expensive prison. in the world six months ago to

raise attention to their condition the prisoners at gitmo mounted a hunger strike at its peak in july one hundred six prisoners were on a hunger strike that's more than two thirds of the entire prison population in forty five are being force fed a procedure that's been described as inhumane or even torture is by organizations like the u.n. in the american medical association today the latest numbers from the u.s. army show that fifty seven prisoners remain on hunger strike forty one are still being force fed and one hunger striking detainee is being observed in the hospital and this is now five years after president obama promised to close down the prison a promise he soon realized he wasn't fit to keep. walks out of all bets easy to close down guantanamo our legitimacy is were those when we've got them all that is open when we suspend habeas corpus those kinds of things erode our moral claims that we are acting they have broader universal principles i have said repeatedly

that i intend to close guantanamo and i will follow through on that person executive order that we are signing. by the door investors may as president a. president by the constitution and laws of united states of america promptly close the detention facility at guantanamo i knew when i ordered guantanamo closed that it would be difficult and complex it was always our intent to transfer detainees to other countries only under conditions that provide assurances that our security is being protected it is not a surprise to me that we've got problems in guantanamo which is why. when i was campaigning in two thousand and seven and two thousand and eight. and when i was elected in two thousand and eight i said we need to close guantanamo now congress. determined that they would not let us closer to baghdad right. let me receive five. the voice of that woman. is worth paying attention to.

obviously obviously. obviously i do not agree. with much of what she said and despite all that everything you heard there good mo is still open but really the story of guantanamo goes back much farther than the latest hunger strike numbers and presidential promises artie's aaron a report on guantanamo has a long history in particular this latest chapter at the facility over the last decade. ever wonder why guantanamo bay is in cuba of all places well we did and we decided to look into a little bit of the history of get know now it starts way the way way back in one thousand nine hundred eighty guantanamo was used as a camp for u.s. troops to arrive in cuba during the spanish-american war or to february one thousand three president roosevelt signs an agreement with cuba we see in these forty five square miles of land and water that comprise cuba give them

a rather for rate of two thousand gold coins a year now that's valued today at about four thousand dollars not a bad deal to this day washington continues to pay the lease every year and castro's government continues not to cash the checks nine hundred thirty four under a renegotiated lease the u.s. and cuba agree the land would revert to cuban control only if abandon or by mutual consent now fast forward many many many decades to january eleventh two thousand and two right here this is the day that marks the start of the detention operation at guantanamo a u.s. air force plane from afghanistan touches down and get no carrying twenty prisoners february twenty seventh two thousand and two is the first organized act of defiance to give takes place almost two thirds of detainees go on a hunger strike to protest the rule against turbans it's the first small victory for detainees after u.s. officials allowed the turbans guantanamo bay prison population hits a peak in may two thousand and three we're going right over here with six hundred eighty prisoners to two thousand and four marks the second small victory for

detainees after the u.s. supreme court rules that the prisons prisoners held at guantanamo are quote enemy combatants and have the right to contest their status before a judge now the longest hunger strike about happened in two thousand and five this protest led the military to adopt the policy of strapping prisoners down and force feeding them with a liquid nutrient mixture to prevent starvation two thousand and six over here now this was a big year i get now in february the u.n. report strongly recommends the closure of guantanamo and. you know that same year three prisoners are found dead two saudis and one yemeni detainee are found in their cells hanging from sheets officials said all three left suicide notes the contents of which were never ever made public and that very same month the supreme court rules a five to three that the trial system devised by the bush administration violates u.s. and international law in october there are signs legislation authorizing tough interrogation

tactics of terror suspects there's a tongue twister and paving the way for trials by military commission now the law protects abuse during questioning such as rape torture cool and inhumane treatment but does not require that any detainee be granted legal counsel march of two thousand and seven we're going over here again now the u.s. military tribunal sentences australian david hicks to nine months in prison after he pleaded guilty to supporting terrorism it's the first conviction at a u.s. war crimes trial since world war two now the confessed taliban gunmen have been held a good move for more than five years june two thousand and seven all over back over here again military judges dismissed charges against a good move detainee accused of chauffeur an osama bin laden and another who allegedly killed a u.s. soldier stationed in afghanistan january of two thousand and nine next year barack obama orders the detention center now holding two hundred forty prisoners down from its high of six hundred eighty to close within one year's time february two thousand. to the u.k.

after more than four years at the camp he claims he was tortured by the cia january seventh two thousand and eleven obama signed the two thousand and eleven defense authorization bill with provisions to prevent the closure of guantanamo and the transfer of prisoners away from the camp two thousand and twelve the two thousand national defense bill is not vetoed by president obama effectively paving the way for prisoners to be held indefinitely and without charges it also extends the ban on transferring prisoners from the facility february sixth of this year two thousand and thirteen a new. two hunger strike begins our kuantan a mile and july tenth two thousand and thirteen the strike peaked at one hundred six detainees tracked as hunger strikers with forty five being force fed and three being hospitalized today obvious six two thousand and thirteen the strike its six month mark more than sixty inmates continue to starve themselves and many of them are being force fed a practice the u.n. considers torture president obama is no closer to shutting down the facility that

was our correspondent aaron it though the latest news coming out of guantanamo concerns invasive or what some are calling abusive searches of prisoners before they leave camp to make a phone call or to meet or to meet with their lawyers for these searches began around the time of the hunger strike and lawyers argue that their intended purpose is to control the flow of information out of the prison as well as the detainees access to legal counsel now it's important remember that with the force feedings and now these searches the conditions for prisoners akhil in total are not getting any better in fact they're getting worse earlier we spoke with parties senior staff attorney at the center for constitutional rights who represents several detainees we asked her how all of this is affecting her clients. i was at guantanamo the first week of june and i met with three men that we represent all yemeni two of them have been cleared they're among the group of eighty six who have been cleared by the obama administration to leave and they were cleared in two thousand and nine

. none of them have been charged and they were all participating in the hunger strike one of them was actually a long time a long term hunger striker and he's being force fed so he's going through the process that we've heard much about and that has been widely condemned by the united nations by the red cross by the american medical association by the world medical association by everyone which entails being strapped into a chair have a tube forceps your nose down into your stomach and have liquid formula pumped in for an hour he goes through that at least once a day. their condition was they were struggling when i saw them they were almost five months into their strike they had lost a significant amount of weight i had seen them in april and i was i was shocked at how much how much more weight they had lost and the physical changes that i had

seen between april and june so they were struggling but when i saw them they were still very much resolved to continue their strike to continue as they told me until they saw actual transfers happen i have not been able to speak with them or meet with them since then because of searches that have been happening at guantanamo because of conditions at the base the searches and tail and. incredibly invasive physical searches that happen four times every time the men are moved from their cells to a meeting room with an attorney or to a phone call with an attorney or even to a phone call with a family member or they go through what has been described as. as a physical assault a sexual assault and that is absolutely i think consistent with what i've heard one of the men i met with told me what it was like being moved to our meeting room and he was it took him half an hour just to calm down he was so agitated and so

so upset and he went through that again four times on the way back as a result of those searches we had scheduled a phone call with him two days after i met with him and he turned that phone call down because he couldn't go through with it we then got a letter from him a month later this month in july actually telling us to cancel a trip that we had planned in august to see him because he couldn't bear to go through those searches it was parties key realized senior attorney for the center for constitutional rights the goodwill horror stories are not isolated to just the detainees james e was a muslim chaplain at good will you serve there for less than a year in two thousand and two and his experience again will have a profound effect on him and he since read a book about his ordeal titled for god and country james he joined me earlier to tell his story. well i served in guantanamo as the muslim chaplain assigned to the detention camp. and basically after objecting to the the horrible conditions

the enormous amount of abuse that was going on there then i was real roaded and accused of being a terrorist myself and that landed me in prison by the u.s. military what sort of stuff did you see at guantanamo. well i was very much aware of the qur'an being desecrated that was a big story that was exposed i think initially by newsweek magazine in two thousand and five that was happening when i was there there were reports and. stories from prisoners how they were maybe subjected to being put in you know what you might call this a tannic circle where interrogators attempted to force them to you know make prostration like in the form of the muslim prayer in the center of that say tank circle and then of course there was sexual humiliation being carried out on the part of female interrogators down in guantanamo were you outspoken while you were

there about what you were seeing you do you think that played a role in what eventually happened to you which was the military would after you would basically accuse you of it of the enemy is that correct. though i have no doubt that my raising concerns about the mistreatment of prisoners was a catalyst for the military coming after me in addition to my own faith being muslim as well and that made it very easy for them to say that perhaps he's a terrorist too but you know my role going into the prison was to get information from the prisoners to allow the commander to know why there were so many riots disturbances and chaos going on in the prison cell blocks and what would eventually happen to you when these charges that you were facing. basically when i was investigated from top to bottom it came came out that. i had basically raised concerns about mistreatment of prisoners i had complained about the abuse and torture of prisoners at guantanamo and all with charges all the accusations that

were levied against me were dropped and i left the u.s. military in two thousand and five with an honorable discharge you interacted with. these prisoners on a daily basis what were they like and. could you think this was at the very beginning this was in two thousand and one when the when the facility i believe the first prisoner was transferred there in two thousand and two at the new two thousand and two do you think that they could have possibly imagined that more than ten years later some of them would still be out of so it. when i went down there and was sent to this prison camp in late two thousand and two i didn't know what to expect but very very quickly i recognized that many of these people were or like normal people who i had met you know in other communities even right here in the united states. it really wasn't a reality that at that time in two thousand and two that there were any hardcore terrorists now there might be you know fifteen or so high value.

terrorists that might being want on a mole now but at that time the you know those who were deemed a real terrorist were not held in guantanamo but were held in secret cia black sites not are you personally surprised that this prison remains open more than a decade later. i'm very surprised especially because i was. a big supporter of president obama when he was running for the presidency back in two thousand and eight i even was a a national delegate and went to the democratic national convention in support of obama because he had a strong promise to close down guantanamo and i was very enthused when he signed that executive order his second day of office that he would close guantanamo within one year but that was back in two thousand and nine and now here we are two thousand and thirteen this prison camp is still up and running full steam ahead and doesn't seem like it's going to be closed anytime soon. i don't want to draw

a comparison between the struggle that guantanamo detainees experience compared to the staff at guantanamo clearly one side struggles a lot more but as someone who worked at the prison how did that experience affect you personally and how might it affect others like prison guards who work there as well. there's a lot of stress no doubt on the prison staff the guards and those who work in one town i'm obey it's long hours and there is really sometimes no way for the troops down there to to let off that steam to let off that stress and and what was happening down in guantanamo what i was there in the early stages a lot of those guards would take their frustrations out on the prisoners and even incite them at times and that would cause a lot of conflict and tension throughout the entire operation when you think these are done to close down the prison. well i think there's some good steps being taken

right now we see some new wording in legislation that's being proposed which will allow for the transfer of prisoners out of guantanamo but i'm still of the opinion that president obama as the commander in chief has the authority and the of power as an executive right now to close down this prison that was james e. former chaplain with u.s. army author of the book for god and country thank you so much for joining us no problem thank you now also walking away from gitmo a changed man was former terry holbrooke's he served in the prison from two thousand and three to two thousand and four and he's also the author of the book traitor in which he documents many of his experiences there i spoke with terry earlier today and i asked him what sort of instructions he was given as a guard when it comes to dealing with give the detainees in short we were told not to interact with them not to look at them as humans not to talk with them not to speak but had nothing to do with them unless it was absolutely necessary important

to work how do you think that the dynamic. you know led to the relation between detainees and guards i mean you're being told to not even treat these people as though they're humans or not even look at them with that so some sort of hostility there. but i can't imagine it would obviously foster a good working environment or at least a semi a lighter or digital environment many of the individuals that i served with kerry that i had to throughout the entire time i don't know and many of them came home from work with urine or feces on them as a result of having that terror you've since converted to islam was not at all motivated by your time in kuantan i'm oh absolutely the experience of being one of the things that i saw the detainees ability to hold result and conduct themselves as. civil adults and an environment like that was quite an all inspiring situation

as a result of just being curious in the vigil i decided to pick up a koran and read it like many of the other cards i served with and most of us had no issue with it we saw that it was quite similar to what we already believe and then second a step further and adopted this on this my faith based on what you know about the prison and what one has to be done to help close it. i think quite simply the only way that we can find a clue sure for kuantan a mo is to explain to the average american that these men have not been charged tried or convicted. out of seven hundred seventy five men we have sent seventy eight point five percent of them oh we have one hundred sixty six remaining and of a hundred sixty six remaining we've had to live in your rivers to find any shred of evidence to charge try and convict them and we've not been able to do that nor

we've been able to falsify the evidence i would think of america being the great nation that it is having the wonderful legal system that it does can extend the courtesy of sending people home after ten years eleven years twelve years of captivity. maybe we need to have a good look in the mirror and take a look at ourselves that was terry holbrooke's former garda quinton oban author of traitor now moving on one of the chief architects of the guantanamo bay detention facility is now saying the prison should have never been built in the first place william always the deputy assistant defense secretary for detainee affairs and an exclusive interview with the daily mail over the weekend lead south said it was wrong from the get go to create this nether region of law at guantanamo bay and that prisoners should have been legally designated as prisoners of war held in afghanistan until the war was over and then either released or charged with a crime and taken back to the united states but that didn't happen and here we are nearly twelve years later i was joined earlier by retired or if he's the retired

colonel morris davis former chief prosecutor i go into mobile bay and now a law professor at howard university and lieutenant colonel barry when guard defense attorney at guantanamo bay i started by asking colonel davis about william lead sales of use on the prison. this is really interesting to read the article over the weekend bill lead so i don't know very well but i've known him for quite a while and as you mentioned he was one of the original architects he was a judge advocate a military officer back working for the defense department when nine eleven happened so he really was there from day one planning this process that now in two thousand and thirteen he says never should have happened to begin with and he seems to be like a number of other officials that shortly before leaving office do a one eighty and try to get on the right side of history before they step out of the i think it's dick cheney i saw an interview with him and he said that they purposely chose going to bed because they could do it outside legal protections

that are afforded in the united states what are some of those rights and legal protections that they've managed to evade by by creating guantanamo bay if you go back i mean the whole rationale for choosing guantanamo was it was believed at the time which is proven wrong over history was it was outside the reach of the law is the perfect place to exploit people for intelligence and not to apply the geneva conventions which all of the military services argued we should as. we should apply the geneva conventions treat these people as p.o.w.'s and we had the john hughes in the dick cheney's and david addington who came up with this new category of the unlawful enemy combatant which is the term you will find in the geneva conventions that we came up with to avoid the law and not call them. lieutenant colonel barry when guard you are a defense attorney at guantanamo bay what exactly does that mean when when do you get called in to defend detainees how do you fit in sort of the legal system that's been built at guantanamo bay well back in two thousand and eight the end of the

bush administration they attempted to put many cases into the process the military commissions and when in so doing what they did is they entitled these men to defense attorneys military defense attorneys now to date there's only been about thirty cases where. the men actually have a military defense attorney so my role is to be as well as an advocate for my clients i have a kuwaiti and an afghan and the afghanis cleared for release and that kuwaiti will be indefinitely detained forever. my job is to go down to guantanamo bay and to try to formulate a strategy to gain their release through the judicial system unfortunately it doesn't appear as though any justice is forthcoming in guantanamo bay in any way shape or form there's been thirty cases at roughly thirty cases brought here no not thirty cases brought to d.m. to the bush administration they attempted to try to put a bunch of cases into the system now the majority of those cases the charges have since been dismissed as we've seen in both of my cases that i represent the

prisoners then we're thinking of seven hundred seventy nine prisoners have gotten out of this facility some are still in the facility of those believe only try to charge thirty or so with a crime well i mean an eleven and a half years we've done seven completed proceeding seven the majority of those seven have not sustained the burden and have been reversed so to date it's my understanding there's about three cases where it has the stain and the convictions have been upheld about three that's out of seven hundred seventy nine men best case scenario according to the government's own statistics if all goes right and they get the substandard system of justice known as the military commission that's probe prosecutorial they can do up to twenty cases total colonel davis you're a former prosecutor at guantanamo what does it say of all these people have come in and out they've had only seven convention convictions and some were overturned and of those seven five of the seven are no longer at guantanamo so one of the jokes

we're used to make was that get no you got to lose to win because if you actually get charged as a war criminal and convicted you right now have a five and seven chance that you're not that good for another one hundred sixty some guys they've never been charged never convicted in the prospect of. going home but it was clearly again it was picked as a site that was outside the reach of the law we created this second rate system of justice has been amended again and again and again and again and each time we've told the world trust us this time we've got it right and we've managed to you know slug through seven cases in eleven years for federal courts have prosecuted hundreds over the same period of time so we need to give up this charade and either prosecute these guys in federal court or start making plans to send them home. as a as a former prosecutor who now says that this facility should have never been opened and operated in the way it did what caused you to come to that understanding but again the military the uniformed military services were never in favor of

guantanamo to begin with but the political appointees told us you know we had to do it and so we tried to make the best of it and i believe when i took the job there were people appointed above me that were committed to trying to do this in a credible way may have made the comment before that you know my generation looks back at nuremberg with kind of a romanticized view of how we did just as they are and my hope was that my grandkids may look back one day. with that same notion but over time it's become clear that even now if they have the most perfect trial ever conducted for k s m for instance no one's going to believe it's really justice. the ministration has this list of forty six individuals who've been deemed too dangerous to believe but they to really be tried in court because they don't have the evidence to convict them or the evidence they do have isn't permissible in court. what respect what do we do with those those guys well let me tell you one of those forty six happens to

be one of my kuwaitis his name is fi as he's from kuwait to wait happens to be one of the strongest allies of the united states at the end of the bush administration they said if you build a rehabilitation center where send your sons back to kuwait well kuwait went ahead and built a forty million dollar rehabilitation center today there's thirteen thousand american troops in kuwait so i mean i've looked at the evidence in my client's case i've been studying this case for five years i know virtually every fact in this case and i'm here to tell you that this man will never get a trial it's double triple quadruple hearsay it's incredible statements i mean that they said that he surrendered his passport when he went to afghanistan i went to afghanistan and found his passport that's when they said oh well no they change their strategy completely and said oh that just means he's super al qaeda and not a not a trainee anymore given that like your client this is the reason why this was so one of the reasons why the facility stays open colonel davis what's more dangerous the forty six individuals who might pose a threat if they're released or they were

a bigger threat to the united states i should say there's forty six individuals who might be released to commit crimes against the united states the future or just the prison itself remaining open indefinitely and i think it's the latter i think the charade gone on long enough that you know our justification for the end of the detainees the ones that aren't going to be transferred home or prosecuted in the military commission our theory has been that under the law of war we have the right to detain the enemy for the duration of the conflict or the president said we're pulling out of afghanistan by the end of two thousand and fourteen so when we pull out that whatever whether you agree with the justification or not the justification evaporates and twenty four tane would be they've got to find a way to send these guys home prosecute them i believe in federal court or we're going to create a new lied to justify their detention we'll see what happens that was colonel morris davis law professor at howard university and lieutenant colonel barry wain guard at guantanamo bay defense attorney. and that does it for now i'm sam sachs more give more coverage coming up at eight pm we'll see if that.

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