On Obama’s second day as president, he made clear his decision to break from his predecessor’s policies by signing an executive order that would aim to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp within his first year in office. Despite the best of intentions, the time-frame that was set out by the administration has lapsed, and the difficulty of closing the prison has become ever more obvious.
For closing the prison at Guantanamo is much more complicated than one could imagine. Two important challenges have complicated the process. The first is trying the remaining detainees, which implies choosing to try them in military courts or federal courts—a question that has sparked a frustrating debate in the US. The second challenge is finding countries that will accept former detainees, given that the US Congress has ruled out resettling any of them in the US.
Considering the challenges that come with finding countries where former detainees can be resettled, the Obama administration appointed Daniel Fried, an established diplomat with important European connections, as the US Special Envoy to Guantanamo. The hope is that Ambassador Fried will be able to overcome the many challenges that stand in the way of closing the prison.
The importance of Fried’s position, and the challenges that finding resettlement countries for the remaining 200 detainees, should not be underestimated. In fact, his appointment by the Department of State speaks to the administration’s acknowledgement that closing Guantanamo is a gargantuan task. Prior to his appointment, the task of negotiating the transfer of detainees from Guantanamo was considered a responsibility of the Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues. However, given that this position focuses on war crimes matters, little time or resources were left over to deal with the pressing cases of Guantanamo detainees. The appointment of Ambassador Fried, and the creation of the position, exemplifies the commitment of the administration to deal with the future of the detainees as quickly as possible.
Fried’s ties with European leaders, undoubtedly made him the ideal man for the job, as the Obama administration is hoping to rely on its European allies to resettle as many as 60 detainees remaining in Guantanamo, detainees like Saber Lahmar.
The case of Saber Lahmar gained international attention when The New York Times ran a story covering his plight as a Guantanamo detainee. Lahmar had been imprisoned since early 2002 for allegedly participating in an attempt to attack the US Embassy in Sarajevo. The detainee, a Bosnian citizen of Algerian extract, appeared to be a victim of the Bush administration’s paranoid policies following 9/11, having been held in Guantanamo with no charges presented against him. The injustice surrounding his case continued to grow, as his lawyer Robert Kirsch explained, when the US government declared that no attempt against the American Embassy in Sarajevo had been planned.
Saber Lahmar did successfully prove his unlawful detention through a habeas corpus claim in November of 2008. Yet despite the judge’s decision to release him, Lahmar found himself in Guantanamo until November of the following year simply because there was no where else for him to go.
Lahmar was eventually released from Guantanamo on 30 November 2009 when Daniel Fried managed to orchestrate for his transfer to France. In this sense, Lahmar embodies the very urgency around Fried’s responsibilities, but he also speaks to the challenges that Fried has been able to overcome since his appointment.
It is without question that Fried’s long career in diplomacy has done much to prepare him for what has been called “the most thankless job in Washington.” Prior to his appointment, Fried served as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian affairs, where he was able to develop important relationships with the European countries he is now asking to accept detainees. His career has also included an advisory position for former President George W. Bush, as well as the Ambassador of the US to Poland.
Fried has been working for the State Department since graduating with his master’s degree in International Relations at Columbia University in 1977. His career has taken him from Belgrade to Warsaw, during the height of the Cold War, and this has made Fried no stranger to tense moments between the US and its European counterparts. An expert and indeed a buttress to trans-Atlantic relations, Fried has continued his record of accomplishments in his current position.
Apart from finding Saber Lahmar a country for resettlement, since September 2009 Fried has been involved in securing agreements from Hungary, France, Ireland, Portugal, Palau and Bermuda to receive former Guantanamo detainees.
However, despite this progress, there is much more that still needs to be done to close Guantanamo. Many detainees remain in the prison, and determining which country is best for resettlement is not always obvious. One important example is the case of the Yemeni detainees. One of the main challenges confronting the resettlement of detainees is not only finding countries that will accept them, but ensuring that countries where detainees are transferred will not subject the prisoners to inhumane conditions. Yemen—hardly the most stable country in the Middle East—has also been linked to terror attacks, a fact that further raises American suspicion regarding the return of detainees to Yemen. The administration’s skepticism of resettling detainees there was made explicit in its halting of transfers to Yemen following the Christmas day attack by Nigerian Umar Abdulmutallab, who had strong links to Yemen’s terrorist cells.
Unfortunately, closing Guantanamo is not only a complex process because of American politics, but because the US will have to continue to rely on the cooperation of its allies. While Fried’s efforts so far have been promising in garnering their support, the fact remains that the future of many detainees is still uncertain, and it may well be that another year passes before the US can fulfill its promise to close the prison.
