Friday, January 12, 2007



Guantanamo: Five years of silence

For the past five years, the US government has been detaining, abusing and torturing suspected terrorists in Guantanamo Bay. So what has our government - a government which purports to be a strong supporter of human rights - said about it?

Nothing.

For five years this has been going on, and for five years our government has weaseled and remained silent. They disapprove in private - the MFAT paper trial is clear enough on that - but they have repeatedly refused to voice their opinions publicly. Even over something as fundamental as torture.

This is, as Keith Locke has said,

an acid test of whether you really stand for justice and human dignity.

Our government's sycophantic silence over Guantanamo makes it clear that they do not stand for those values at all.

2 comments:

I totally agree with you. The New Zealand Government's silence on this issue is effectively a complicity in these abuses.

Posted by Muerk : 1/12/2007 09:37:00 PM

The government's treatment of Ahmed Zaoui suggests that they are more than silent about the US treatment of terror suspects - there is a trace of complicity, albeit at a less inhumane level thanks to our supreme court.

Posted by Anonymous : 1/13/2007 11:23:00 AM