Sometimes a film can stand in for the public conscience. The Road to Guantánamo should be the impetus for an inquiry into the prison camp, writes Clive Stafford Smith
Only a fool wants never to learn from his mistakes. Government should always have a process for this. When a train crashes, or a ferry capsizes, Britain traditionally holds a public inquiry to learn what went wrong. In America, a congressional committee sometimes plays this role, although most cases fall into the cauldron of civil litigation. While I often feel that the courtroom is pointlessly adversarial, it has been said that cross-examination "is the greatest engine for exposing truth known to human kind". Often, though, there will be no inquiry, and no lawsuit; there are some mistakes that our leaders would rather not expose to public criticism or debate. The iconic catastrophe of Guantánamo Bay falls into this category.
Consider the undisputed facts: 38 Guantánamo prisoners were found innocent, even by biased military tribunals, after being held for three years. At least eight of these conceded innocents are still there. More than 250 prisoners have been released, apparently because they were not a danger to the US after all. For the most part, each has vanished back into the faraway country whence he came. Nobody has asked why President Bush branded them the "worst of the worst" among the world's terrorists, although we now know that no senior al-Qaida officer in US custody was in Guantánamo - they have been held in secret prisons around the world (some in Europe).
Five hundred prisoners remain in chains in Guantánamo, many with compelling claims of innocence, yet on December 20th 2005, the US Congress passed a law barring their access to any US court.
When we ignore the fact that the Titanic is steaming toward the iceberg, the ship is destined to sink. Thankfully, the media - and in this case the medium of film - occasionally stand in for the public conscience. Michael Winterbottom's latest work, The Road to Guantánamo (co-directed by Mat Whitecross) tells the story of three young men from the town of Tipton in the UK - Rhuhel Ahmed, Asif Iqbal and Shafiq Rasul - who were among the victims of Guantánamo.
I have been privy to the best evidence the Americans can throw at them, and their story goes essentially uncontradicted, as it is presented in the film. They went to Pakistan for Iqbal's marriage, just prior to the attack on Afghanistan. When the friends gathered before the wedding, they got caught up in the moment and embarked on a well-intentioned but unwise escapade into Afghanistan to help the victims of the war. They felt this would fulfil their Muslim duty of zakah, or charity.
A couple of days in, they recognised the folly of the venture, but getting back out proved more difficult. Recklessness then dissolved into tragedy, as what had originally been the Tipton Four lost a member. Munir Ali disappeared in the crowds. Nobody knows what happened to him, and his family may never know.
The remaining trio were probably betrayed by locals looking to collect on the $5,000 bounty being offered by the Americans. They were swept up by Coalition allies, and shuffled into a container that was then machine-gunned by General Dostrum's forces, killing many inside. In American custody they were beaten and abused, before being dispatched to Guantánamo Bay for two years. In 2004 they were released without charge. [Their lawsuit against US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is still pending.]
The Road to Guantánamo, winner of a silver bear for best director at the Berlin Film Festival last month, weaves commentary from the Tipton lads between credible re-enactments of their nightmare. This may be the only inquiry that Guantánamo ever gets. If so, what are the lessons we might learn? First, that the Tipton lads were the lucky ones: Munir is presumed dead, and nobody seems to care. Second, the Tipton Three are now free; 500 prisoners in Guantánamo are not. They are free because they are British nationals. But eight British residents remain in Guantánamo, four years into their ordeal, without legal rights.
The British government refuses to do anything for these people, although Jamil el Banna has five English children and Shaker Aamer has four; some of these residents had lived in Britain for more than 20 years. Human rights are for human beings, not simply people from Britain, yet Tony Blair negotiated one set of legal rules for British citizens - most favoured nation status - and left the British residents at the mercy of the original Bush plan.
Third, the Tipton Three were lucky that the Americans tried to exaggerate the evidence against them. Virtually everyone in Guantánamo has been accused of visiting the al-Farouq training camp in Afghanistan. Disproving this is difficult. Fortunately, the Americans insisted that Ahmed, Iqbal and Rasul not only visited the camp, but appeared on a videotape with Osama bin Laden there. The tape was made in 2000. British counter intelligence (MI5), setting out to help corroborate the prosecution for a US military tribunal, learned that Rasul was working in a shop in Birmingham, England, at the time.
Finally, Winterbottom's film puts paid to the myth that everyone in Guantánamo is a terrorist, itching to blow up Americans. Given the appalling treatment that many prisoners receive, it is a tribute to their Islamic faith that they do not feel this way. Instead of assaulting the US embassy, Ahmed, Iqbal and Rasul have spent months helping Winterbottom tell the truth.
The film should not be a substitute for a full inquiry, but merely the impetus to get one off the ground. Setting aside what the Americans have done, the British government has been complicit in the seizure and mistreatment of many of the victims of Guantánamo, and the still more secret prisons beyond. Abusing the Tipton Three did not make the world safer for democracy, but it did hold hostage the values our society should hold dear. Until we expose these crimes, and learn what led people to commit them, our world will continue to repeat them.
- Guardian Service
• Clive Stafford Smith is legal director of Reprieve (reprieve.org.uk), and has represented many prisoners in court. The Road to Guantánamo is on Channel 4, next Thurs, 9pm
