In 2010, 86 prisoners at Guantanamo — including several currently being force-fed — were cleared for transfer by an interagency task force convened by the Obama administration. But transfers have been mostly halted in recent years, with Congress and the White House blaming each other. The transfers must restart as soon as possible.
As the president said in a speech on May 23, force-feeding detainees who have been held without charge for more than a decade is unacceptable: “Is that who we are? Is that something our founders foresaw? Is that the America we want to leave our children?”
Unfortunately, the detainees at Guantanamo no longer place much hope in Obama’s promise to close the prison. Since the president’s speech, the number of detainees being force-fed has increased by at least 13. The administration must move as swiftly as possible to exercise its authority to restart transfers out of Guantanamo, beginning with those detainees previously cleared for transfer. Exercising that authority is the best chance to end the hunger strike.
Alka Pradhan and Kent Eiler were counsels, and Katherine Hawkins was an investigator, for the Constitution Project’s Task Force on Detainee Treatment.
Article Appeared @http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-eiler-gitmo-hunger-strike-20130707,0,3857402.story