© Photograph: John Moore/Getty ImagesThis January sees the fourth anniversary of President Obama's unfulfilled executive order closing the Guantánamo Bay detention camp.
As the fourth anniversary of Obama's pledge to close Guantánamo approaches, the pressure is on: it's been far too long, and the moment is now. But why is Guantánamo so hard to close?
Because it's been an integral part of American politics and policy for over a century. To understand what it takes to close Guantánamo, we should look to how we've failed - and succeeded - in closing it before.
Gitmo's "legal black hole" opened in 1903 with a peculiar lease that affirmed Cuba's total sovereignty over Guantánamo Bay, but gave the US "complete jurisdiction and control". This inadvertently created a space where neither nation's laws clearly applied:
a purgatory that's been used to park people whose legal rights posed political threats. Gitmo's generations of detainees have been inextricable, if often invisible, parts of America's deepest conflicts: over immigration, public health, human rights, and national security.
In 1991, thousands fled Haiti on makeshift boats, seeking political asylum in the US. Determined to rescue refugees from certain death at sea, but unwilling to accept so many, Bush I ordered the US coast guard to take over 20,000 to Gitmo. Most were returned to Haiti. But about 200 got caught in the middle: approved for asylum, but barred from the US for being HIV-positive. These refugees staged protests and harnessed international media attention. Concerned citizens lined US streets calling to close Guantánamo; Harold Koh (then at Yale Law) organized a legal battle.
In June 1993, a US district court judge ordered the camps closed. Public attention faded, overlooking that while the ruling released the individuals, it upheld the policy, allowing Gitmo to be used for indefinite detention.