Guantanamo Bay. If ever a name typifies injustice in recent years, then along with the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay is it. Since 10 January 2002, when a US plane brought twenty blindfolded and hand-cuffed men from Afghanistan to the prison camp in Cuba, it has been repeatedly condemned for widespread and persistent human right abuses.

Guantanamo bay is where lies have become truths. It is where the cutting edge of American war propaganda has been brutally exposed. At first US military officials insisted that holding prisoners at Guantanamo was legal. According to the US authorities “the law of war allows the United States – and any other country engaged in combat – to hold enemy combatants without charges or access to counsel for the duration of hostilities”.

But right from the start, people argued that no one knows how long these “hostilities” or the “war on terror” will last, least of all the Americans. If fact the “war on terror” has now been renamed the “long war”, which in its very own admission is a long time, in fact probably a conflict without end.

Some inmates were not even involved in “hostilities” against the US. Although many of the original inmates were picked up in the conflict in Afghanistan, others were detained who were not.  The case of six men of Algerian origin detained in Bosnia and Herzegovina in October 2001 is now well –documented, but numerous other detainees have been arrested in similar circumstances. It is wrong for the US to claim it is legal to be able to hold them. In fact it is illegal.

The cynical reason that a bay in Cuba was chosen for the base was that the US believed it was beyond the reaches of the US constitution and international law. However a UN report earlier this year by human rights inspectors, concluded categorically that “the obligations of the United States under international human rights law extend to the persons detained at Guantánamo Bay”.

However the inhumane treatment the inmates were subject to violated the Geneva Convention. In fighting his own war on terror, President Bush has allowed his own rules of terror to be used.  Right from the start of their incarceration, inmates were routinely subject to physical and psychological torture.

Firstly, detainees were denied a basic legal right – that of legal representation, a fair hearing and a trial. Only a handful of the 700 have ever actually been charged with any offence. The rest have lived in what has been called “legal limbo,” which means no right to a lawyer, no charges brought against them, no right to a trial or even a fair, independent legal hearing. In fact no legal rights at all, with no end in sight.

The conditions soon led to serious instances of mental illness. There were over 350 acts of self-harm in 2003 alone, and many individual and mass suicide attempts and widespread, prolonged hunger strikes.

By May 2005, the human rights organization Amnesty International called Guantanamo “the gulag our times, entrenching the notion that people can be detained without any recourse to the law”. Amnesty called on the US Administration to close Guantanamo as well as disclose just how many prisoners there were. “Either release the prisoners or charge and prosecute them with due process”, said the human rights group.

But the US denied doing any wrong doing. Vice President Dick Cheney replied: “For Amnesty International to suggest that somehow the United States is a violator of human rights, I frankly just don’t take them seriously.” The US also refused to charge the prisoners. As of the end of December 2005, only nine detainees had been referred to a military commission.

Despite Cheney’s denial, the indefinite detention of prisoners is inconsistent with the provisions of the Geneva Convention. A trial by a military commission also violates international law.

Secondly the prisoners were subject to routine torture. Prisoners were routinely shackled, chained, hooded and forced to wear earphones and goggles. If they refused to do so they were stripped and forcibly shaved, which included the shaving of beards, heads and eyebrows. The UN human rights inspectors also found evidence of “excessive force being used” including beating, kicking and punching as well as stripping and the force-feeding of hunger strikes.

Interrogation techniques used at the base amounted to torture including: “The use of stress positions (like standing) for a maximum of four hours; a hood placed over the head during transportation and questioning; Deprivation of light and auditory stimuli; the use of dogs, exposure to extreme temperatures, sleep deprivation for several consecutive days and prolonged isolation. In fact many of the torture techniques that were being used at Abu Ghraib that shocked the world were first used at Guantanamo.

 The UN also found that the right to religious expression had been violated, including the now well reported cases of mishandling of the Koran. Then there is the evidence of “extraordinary rendition”, where some prisoners were repatriated against their will. For example, one Yemeni man was injected against his will, which led to loss of consciousness and hallucinations. When he woke up several days later, he found himself in prison in the Yemen where he was beaten.

When the UN report was released in February – its conclusion was the same as Amnesty’s and many other human rights organisations and lawyers: “The United States Government should close the Guantánamo Bay detention facilities without further delay”, they said. Typically, a White House spokesperson responded by saying that it was a “rehash” of old allegations based on lies.

So the suffering of the inmates continued and so has the lies from the Americans. When it was announced that three inmates had committed suicide earlier this month, Rear Admiral Harry Harris, the commander of the base at Guantanamo, said the suicides were “clearly a planned event, not a spontaneous event ... I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us”. Colleen Graffy, a senior State Department official called the suicides a “good public relations move.”

So here we go full circle with the American lies. An illegal torture camp – for that is what Guantanamo is – becomes legal. Torture, for that is what is, did not happen. A suicide becomes a public relations stunt. But there is one lie left, they cannot hide.

Last week, the US Supreme Court effectively outlawed the camp’s military tribunals, removing any legal basis for the continued detention of the prisoners of the “war on terror”. The Court ruled that the military tribunals were a violation of US law and Geneva Conventions. What little legal basis there was for the camp is no more. And here we come to the lie. This legal ruling, coupled with sustained international pressure on the US administration will force the US to close the Camp. However now the US government tells us that President Bush has wanted to close the camp all along. This is a lie.

Bush told European dignitaries at the EU-US Summit in Vienna last month, “I’d like to end Guantanamo. I’d like it to be over with”. For four years Bush could have closed the camps. But he did not. Bush is the Commander in Chief of US Forces. He is the ultimate decider of the fate of those at Guantanamo. For four years he presided over a regime that tortured those within its care. The majority of these, we now find out, were innocent. A study by the New England law school earlier this year found that 90 per cent of the inmates had nothing to do with terrorism what-so-ever.

Even if Guantanamo closes it does not mean that the US administration will respect and comply with international law and conventions. If this gruesome camp is going to have a legacy, then we must make the US comply with these laws. We must also make sure that the US Administration is not allowed to open another “gulag of our times”.