The day before, the Russian Defense Ministry said that it provided the Convention on Biological and Toxin Weapons (BTWC) based in Geneva, Switzerland, material evidence proving that the United States developed biomilitary programs in Ukraine.

“Between September 5 and 9, a summit was held in your country, convened after the US and Ukraine violated two articles of the CABT, and only representatives of 89 nations attended, of the 184 signatories, who received copies of the documents that demonstrate the execution of such acts”, explained the head of the Russian Radiological, Chemical and Biological Protection Forces, Igor Kirillov.

He also stated that none of those present doubted the authenticity of the documents provided, with data on the accumulation of pathogens in Ukrainian laboratories, including the Mechnikov Epidemic Research Institute, where dangerous biomaterials were housed in the cracks of the stairs and no control system had detected them.

“The Ukrainian side completely ignored questions about the unjustified storage of dangerous biological agents at the facility and the revealed serious violations of the conditions of their accumulation,” Kirilov said in this regard.

Likewise, the Russian side determined that despite the fact that the United States declared that its program in Ukraine sought to monitor infectious diseases by employing citizens belonging to the lower strata of society and patients with psychiatric pathologies, it was actually seeking to accumulate biological potential with military purposes.

“The explanations of the US and Ukraine were not at all convincing when it comes to the extraction of strains and biomaterials from Ukrainian citizens, as well as compliance with ethical standards when conducting studies on military, poor civilians, as well as one of the strata of most vulnerable population: patients in psychiatric clinics,” Kirillov stressed.

The Russian high command also reported that both the US and Ukraine refused to give explanations related to the urgent destruction of documents on biomilitary activities in Ukraine, and were also unable to prove that their collaboration in this area in the last 15 years improved the situation. healthcare of Ukraine.

The Russian side also referred to the pressure exerted by the US on the member countries of the BTWC, who were required to sign a joint declaration on the alleged peaceful nature of the program, aimed at reducing challenges of biological origin.

Russian proposals to strengthen the BTWC
The Russian soldier also said that his country has proposed three actions to strengthen the CABT, first of all a verification mechanism, the establishment of a scientific committee and the presentation of reports on foreign biological activities.

Likewise, Russia proposes to establish a collective scientific committee with geographical representation and equal rights for the participants, obeying the “principle of 10″, according to which agreements must respect alternative points of view, even if they are expressed by a single State.

Kirilov assured that Russia will take measures to closely monitor the situation, noting that the US builds laboratories on the borders of its opponents, collects strains of dangerous microorganisms in some regions and tests harmful substances on humans.

(With information from TeleSur)

An article by columnist Carlos Fazio recalls the previous coup attempts against the legitimate and constitutional government of Venezuela, which, he says, Washington with the support of its regional acolytes wants now to overthrown ‘under the banner of multilateral humanitarian intervention under the umbrella of the OAS.’

He emphasizes that the new scenario of aggression is the Summit of the Americas, scheduled for April 13 and 14 in Lima, Peru.

There, they pretend to set off a new political-diplomatic escalation combined with clandestine psychological actions related to the Fourth-generation warfare (4GW), which will once again try to use the mass media under private monopoly control as armies of conquest.

Fazio also refers to the planned use by Washington’s covert war propaganda against Bolivarian Venezuela.

(Prensa Latina)

By

The unbelievable story of US diplomats that would have suffered hearing loss and other health problems during their tour of duty in Cuba, was published by the media in August last year. The first of such alleged incidents dates back to November 2016 and the last one to only a few weeks ago.

However, to date there is no credible explanation for the variety of symptoms described, and experts deny that the laws of physics could even apply in some of the hypothesis stated.

The story, which seems a science fiction story, has been taken very seriously in Havana.

On instructions from the senior Government, the Cuban authorities opened their own investigation as soon as they were first notified of the alleged incidents by the US Embassy in Havana and by the US State Department on February 17, this year.

“According to the preliminary results and the information we’ve shared with the US authorities, there is no evidence so far that would confirm the causes or origin of the alleged health problems experienced by the US diplomats and their family members”, stated a familiar source with the Cuban investigation.

The US investigations do not shed any light into the story either. Members of the US specialized agencies were invited to Cuba to conduct an on-site investigation, but the results have not been conclusive. “The truth is that we don’t know what or who have caused this”, acknowledged a spokesperson with the US Department of State, Heather Nauert. “This is why the investigation is still ongoing”.

The complexity of the investigation and the perplexity of the experts have not prevented some from trying to point at Cuba as the nation responsible, as they also try to reverse the progress achieved in the US-Cuba bilateral relations that has been taking place as from December 17, 2014.

Marco Rubio, a senator of Cuban-origin and a hardliner against any rapprochement with Havana, sent a letter recently to the US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, requesting the expulsion of all Cuban diplomats from Washington D.C. and the eventual closing of the US Embassy in Havana as retaliation for the alleged “sonic attacks” that would have caused the health problems to the US officials in Cuba.

However, the letter signed also by the Republican senators Tom Cotton, Richard Burr, John Cornyn and James Lankford, mentions no proof of the “Cuban guilt” and leaves out the willingness that the Cuban authorities expressed from day one, to cooperate and conduct the investigation.

Rubio was one of the minds behind the review of the Cuba policy adopted by the Trump Administration in June this year to intensify the application of the blockade. The legislator, who holds a seat in the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has used every means available to him to restrain the ties between both countries.

Unbelievable facts

The hypothesis of a “Sonic attack” and the use of sophisticated “Sonic devices” against US diplomats have been constant since the story hit the headlines despite the lack of evidence and the criteria of experts indicating that no device is able to cause the symptoms described in the conditions stated.

The US Department of State has remained tight-lipped on the particular damages to the health of its personnel in Havana, but the media has reported a wide variety of symptoms. In some cases, these symptoms include severe headaches, dizziness and hearing loss, while others have experienced cognitive disruption, memory loss and mild brain damage.

The diagnosis provoke confusion among experts, the FBI, the State Department and the US agencies involved in the investigation, according to reports of the Associated Press (AP).

“Brain damage and concussions, that’s not possible”, said Joseph Pompei to AP, a former MIT researcher and psychoacoustics expert. “Somebody would have to submerge their head into a pool lined with very powerful ultrasound transducers”.

Dr. Toby Heys, Leader of the Future Technologies research center at Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK, told New Scientist last month that directing ultrasound into the ear cavity could theoretically cause permanent hearing damage but it would require the use of huge devices in great volumes, which would be difficult to hide.

Sonic weapons used to disperse crowds and for the protection of some vessels in the face of pirate ships, work with the same type of equipment. The devices cover a considerable area and every person within its reach is affected.

However, most of the alleged incidents in Havana, according to US public sources, took place in enclosed spaces, sometimes even inside one single room, and with precision laser, affecting one person in particular, without affecting the rest.

Some of the alleged attacks would have taken place in the residence of diplomats and even in public buildings such as the Hotel Capri recently refurbished, a 19-story tower of concrete and 250 rooms, where there are no reports of other hotel guests affected.

According to AP reports, the FBI itself travelled to Havana and investigated some of the rooms where the attacks would have taken place, but found no trace of sonic devices.

The Cuban specialized services have not detected “possible perpetrators or individuals with motivation, intention or means to carry out this sort of actions”, according to sources linked to the investigations. “The presence of suspicious individuals or means have not been established at the places or surrounding areas where the incidents were reported”.

In Cuba, there is no precedent of this sort of actions. “The Cuban authorities don’t have nor are they familiar with the equipment or the technology that could be used for purposes similar to those described as sonic attacks”, added the same source.
Cuba has always been willing to cooperate

After they were notified for the first time by the US Embassy in Havana, the Cuban authorities set up an inter-institutional expert commission to analyze the facts. They expanded and intensified the measures that guarantee the protection, security and safety of the Embassy premises, its staff and the diplomatic residences. They also opened new direct communication channels between the US Embassy and the Cuban Department for the Security and Safety of Diplomats, as stated in the official statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs dated August 9, 2017, when the news were made public.

The Cuban side insisted that the US specialized agencies should travel to the country and conduct the investigations on-site, which occurred in June 2017. Other visits by these agencies took place in August and September.

“The three meetings held between representatives of the Cuban authorities and the US specialized agencies took place against a constructive and professional backdrop”, said a source with knowledge of the exchanges. The US side, he stated, expressed the intention to cooperate “more substantially with the investigation of the incidents”. Likewise, the members of the US specialized agencies who have visited Cuba, have acknowledged that the Cuban local authorities have acted promptly and with professionalism.

“We value positively the continuity of these visits. The Cuban authorities have great interest in expediting and completing the investigation, for which purpose, cooperation from the US authorities is essential”, said the source.

In the face of countless of variables to the case, influenced by the long history of conflicts between the two countries, cooperation is essential. Some of the fundamental aspects for the success of this cooperation and to achieve the results in any case scenario should include actions such as: timely notification of the incidents; submitting evidence; sharing information that would help establish the facts and identify possible perpetrators, should there be any; having access to those affected and to the medical doctors who diagnosed, and exchange with those experts who are familiar with the incidents and the alleged technology used.
Not even in the worst moments

Another fact that does not add up to the story of the sonic attack is timing. In November 2016, the governments of Cuba and the United States advanced quickly towards the completion of an important number of agreements for the benefit of both peoples.

After a long history of aggressions and attempts to subdue the Cuban people out of hunger and necessity, to transform the Cuban political system, the Obama Administration acknowledged on December 17, 2014, that the blockade had failed and accomplished the isolation of the United States.

The political backdrop between the two countries changed completely. Diplomatic ties were reestablished and 22 agreements on different areas were signed, including but not limited to environmental protection, the reopening of non-scheduled flights and the cooperation in the area of security and safety. Who would even think of sabotaging the relationship with Washington?

In addition, if the Cuban government never resorted to the use of aggressive methods against US diplomats out of its revolutionary principles, even when tension was at its height, what would be the logic to start doing so now, after the sovereign decision to reestablish ties with Washington?

On May, the State Department expelled two Cuban officials from the United States as a consequence of the alleged attacks that damaged the health of members of its staff in Havana, a measure considered by Cuba as “groundless and unsubstantiated”.

Now we know that, at the same time the Cuban officials were being expelled, the Cuban authorities were conducting the investigation and expressing their complete willingness to collaborate with their US counterparts.

The official statement by the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs reads that Cuba “strictly and seriously” observes and has always observed its obligations deriving from the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which refer to the protection of the integrity of diplomatic agents and local staff of the mission. “Our country’s impeccable track record in this area is recognized internationally and Cuba is universally considered as a safe destination for both visitors and foreign diplomats, including the Americans”, he said.

In line with the statement, a Cuban high-ranking diplomat reaffirmed that “that Cuba has never perpetrated nor will it ever perpetrate actions of this nature, and has never permitted nor will it ever permit any third-party use of its territory for this purpose”.

Facing the lack of evidence and the complexity of this case, the Cuban authorities keep the investigation open and are willing to collaborate with their US counterparts to establish the facts.

The article starts out by noting that “A series by The Times that began this month details the psychological and emotional scars that haunt the men, potentially hundreds, who suffered at the hands of interrogators at secret C.I.A. “black sites” around the world and at the military detention camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

It continues, asserting: “A disturbingly high number of these men were innocent, or were low-level fighters who posed so little threat that they were eventually released without charge. Yet despite assurances from lawyers in the Department of Justice that “enhanced interrogation techniques” should have no negative long-term effects, The Times found that many of the men still suffer from paranoia, psychosis, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder related to their abuse. They have flashbacks, nightmares and debilitating panic attacks. Some cannot work, go outside, or speak to their families about what they went through.

“One doctor compared the psychiatric disorders he saw among the former detainees to what military doctors observed in former American prisoners of war after they came home from Vietnam, Korea and the Second World War.

“Suleiman Abdullah Salim, one of the men profiled by The Times, was an itinerant Tanzanian laborer whose only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He spent five years in American custody, during which he was hung from chains for days, slammed against a wall, waterboarded with ice water, placed in a coffin-size box — all to extract information that he never possessed.
“They always asked the same questions,” he said. “I say, ‘I don’t know.’ They say, ‘You know.’ Same question, same answer, and two guys would beat you, and same question, and they beat you.”
“It’s no surprise that this sort of treatment — whatever euphemisms are used to hide its true nature — would result in such long-term harm.
“The question now is whether anyone will be held to account for the damage wrought by one of the most depraved periods in American history. For years, the government successfully thwarted lawsuits by claiming the state-secrets privilege. But after the Senate issued its 2014 report on the C.I.A.’s use of torture, confirming that many of the worst brutalities had in fact occurred, Mr. Salim, together with another former detainee and the family of a third, filed a lawsuit against the two psychologists, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, who were contracted by the C.I.A. to develop and run the interrogation programs.”

The editorial concludes by noting that “In April, a federal judge in Washington State refused to throw out the lawsuit, and allowed the plaintiffs to depose top C.I.A. officials who held high-ranking positions when the “enhanced interrogation” program was carried out. This case could provide the first-ever opportunity for the justice system to reckon directly with the brutal legacy of the government’s torture policies.”

‘We have had for a long time the maxim Ubi Jus Ibi Remedium. Thus, if there is a violation of the law, there should be a compensation,’ the lawyer, appointed by the UN Human Rights Council as Special Rapporteur in 2012, told the news agency Prensa Latina.

According to the expert, the blockade, in force for more than 50 years, is a violation if the international law and the United Nations Chart, and brings serious consequences to Cuba.

De Zayas said the damage caused by the blockade reached billions of dollars and the compensation should be decided some time by a court.

He also said he expected that the support from the world solidarity groups brought some progress in that direction.

The UN General Assembly will vote an initiative about the issue on October 26 this year, a process that began in 1992 at the main UN deliberative authority.

De Zayas also tackled the issues of the extraterritoriality of the sanctions imposed on Cuba.

‘I am surprised that foreign companies continue to be fined for millions of US dollars by the Treasury Department when they do business with Cuba, under the argument of violating the blockade,’ he said.

(Prensa Latina)

Airbnb said it will expand its Cuba listings to international travelers starting on April 2. The lodging company has been linking Cuban home rentals to U.S. travelers for a year now.

Cuba has long had a policy of letting its residents rent out their homes as a way to make an extra buck through a process known as casas particulares. This system, which was instituted in the 1990s, allows travelers to the capital city of Havana to forgo the cost of a hotel and rent a room or two with a local family for as little as $30 to $35 a night.

Since joining the casas particulares process last year, Airbnb has paired 13,000 guests from all 50 U.S. states with rentals in Cuba, Airbnb co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk said.

Approximately 4,000 casas particulares owners have added their homes to Airbnb’s network, making Cuba the fastest-growing market in Airbnb history, the company said.

(Kaja Whitehouse, USA TODAY)

The Director of the Center of Molecular Immunology in Cuba, Dr, Agustín Lage, noted the potential for scientific exchange between Cuba and the United States, while announcing further steps to strengthen links in this sector.

Dr. Lage announced during a press conference this Sunday morning in Havana, that Cuban biotechnology products could begin to be used by U.S. patients, as more than 30 Cuban patents have been approved by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

This is a pre-commercial step and therefore is not subject to the sanctions of the blockade, Dr. Lage told accredited press providing coverage of President Barack Obama’s visit to the island.

He explained that this is an exception, since due to the blockade, Cuba can not export its biotech products to the U.S. and patients in the U.S. can not use them, as they have Cuban patents.

During the press conference, Dr. Lage stated that the two countries should move forward from academic collaboration to business collaboration in this sector.

He added that the approval of clinical trials of Cuban products in U.S. patients is another possibility going forward.

The medical needs which today are not covered by the U.S. health system offer a favorable context for collaboration, Lage said.

He explained the importance of the biotechnology industry in Cuba. Business organizations in the biotechnology sector are becoming the engine of the Cuban economy, Lage said.

Today the island produces the so-called basic set of medicines for the Cuban public health system, 857 products, with universal coverage, he added.
He also noted that biotechnology products are one of the main export items of the country and highlighted the possibilities for collaboration in this key sector between Cuba and the United States.

This is the current situation in Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador, El Salvador, as it has been in Argentina, and could be in other nations in the future, where autonomous anti-imperialist and anti-neoliberal processes are being implemented, in defense regional integration.

Washington is making full use of the old annexationist right wing to fulfill its objective, the heirs of European colonialism later trained in U.S. neocolonialism, and who only know of using force to maintain or impose their control.

It is clear that these traditional conservative parties, weakened due to their repressive measures against the people, their paramilitaries, cases of corruption, their links to drug trafficking and their endless servility to the White House, are aware that they have scarce possibilities of winning at the polls, unless they commit outright fraud.

They have as a weapon the media under their control, while at the same time they make full use of “press freedom” to lie, slander, call for civil disobedience and even unscrupulously encourage and provoke street riots such as those seen in Brazil and Ecuador.

They violate all the rules of the “democracy” they claim to defend, and their demand is the same: that the presidents of progressive governments resign.

They unleash genuine economic wars, as seen in Venezuela, creating scarcities of basic goods, and previously in Argentina through the so-called “Vulture Funds,” they corrupt politicians, militaries and weak figures of the “left” and even go as far as to use criminal gangs to generate situations of chaos, as occurred in El Salvador.

The United States meanwhile stokes historic territorial disputes to weaken “adversary” governments of the region, while at the same time it rekindles divisions contrary to regional unity.

Third countries considered “friends” by the White House, act as operational bases for the special services of the Pentagon to monitor and support destabilization plans, in which their military presence has increased.

Of course, the funding for all this comes from Washington, drug lords in different disguises, and organizations which with their “overcoats of cooperation and development aid” hide their true objectives: to subvert order in the grassroots, and exacerbate differences between ethnic minorities, religious faiths and different social groups of the poorest, campesinos, miners and workers in general.

The newest major operation against Latin America and the Caribbean is in full swing, as various leaders have already warned, but the United States has not yet understood, due to its imperialist arrogance, that new times with significant geopolitical changes are apace in the world, which will surely derail its delirious quest to dominate the Great Motherland.

(Rebelión)

“We need to end this prohibition (the blockade)” and find a “pragmatic way” to interact which would benefit both peoples, said Congressman Raúl Grijalva, from Arizona, a member of the delegation which arrived in Cuba May 21.

New Mexico Senator Tom Udall, who is leading the group, recently introduced a bill to open the way for U.S. telecommunications companies to operate in Cuba.

“I’m optimistic”, he said, but did not believe that measures to eliminate the blockade would be approved “tomorrow.”

Minnesota Senator Al Franken said that the majority of the population supports a change in U.S. policy toward Cuba, even in Florida, as recent polls have indicated.

The stated objective of the visit was to promote interaction between the two countries during this first stage of the normalization process, via trade, tourism, telecommunications and cultural exchanges.

The legislators highlighted their productive meetings with officials at the ministries of Foreign Trade and Investment, Foreign Relations and Agriculture, as well as encounters with self-employed workers, members of cooperatives, and international investors.

(Granma)

Thomas B. Wilner.

By Rosa Miriam Elizalde/ Cubadebate

WASHINGTON DC. He is one of the most famous attorneys in Washington and perhaps the only one to have won several cases before the United States Supreme Court, and the system has changed the laws to return to the starting point. Thomas B. Wilner represented the detainees of Guantanamo in the trial that established their right to receive legal counsel, and in the two decisions where the Supreme Court confirmed the right of these detainees to habeas corups, but justice still remains to be done.

As he himself recognizes, that prison continues to be a symbol of a country, the United States, which disdains the rule of law. “Guantanamo must be shut down because it is expensive, inefficient, and hurts our international position”, Wilner stated, as an attorney for the legal firm of Shearman & Sterling, in Washington, and representative of the US establishment. Before becoming a jurist of the first order, he studied at Yale and then went to law school at the University of Pennsylvania, two fo the best and most expensive colleges in the United States. He shares his alma mater with Republican President George W. Bush and Democrat congressman John Kerry.

Wilner was the spokesman for a group of American attorneys that has represented prisoners of diverse nationalities, illegally detained in the Military Base of Guantanamo. Among the detainees were 12 Kuwaitis, Wilner’s clients, who were tortured by American soldies in Afghanistan and Pakistan before being sent to the base in Cuba.

We have discussed the prison in Guantanamo on other occasions, but this is the first time that our conversation takes place in Washington and focuses on the territory beyond just the prison: the occupied strip of Cuba occupied by the government of the United States. This is one of the topics that the Island has placed as an obstacle to be surpassed on the way to normalize relations with the Giant of the North.

-Does President Obama have presidential authority to return the Guantánamo naval base territory to Cuba without seeking Congressional approval?

- I believe that the president does. I would need to do more research to be certain, but I believe he has the unilateral authority to do this. What has been raised before as an impediment to him doing so — the Helms Burton Act — does not require congressional approval. Actually the Guantanamo treaty itself is unclear about how it could be ended. I think that certainly some in congress would say that it cannot be ended without at least US Senate approval. Senate approval is needed to create treaties, and many would likely argue that Senate approval would be needed to end the treaty.

As a practical matter, even if the president has the unilateral authority, it is extremely unlikely that any president, democrat or republican, would end the treaty without at least tacit approval from congress.

-Please comment on Cuba´s position that full normalization of relations with the United States is a long and involved process composed of several key elements, including the return of the Guantánamo territory to Cuba.

-Honestly, that is a position of Cuba. It is not my proper role to comment on Cuba’s position. I could certainly understand Cuba taking the position that the return of Guantanamo would be a precondition to full normalized relations. If it is their position, I respect it.

-From a legal point of view, what are the essential differences between a return of the territory to Cuba and simply closing it as a prison?  Why did the United States choose to build a prison in Guantánamo, rather than on another of its many bases around the world?

-a) Well, they are totally different questions. The US could close the prison and not return the territory to Cuba. Indeed, if the United States stopped using G. as a prison and used it only as a naval base, it would probably be in compliance with the original treaty. If it were in compliance with the original treaty, nothing would compel it to return the base to Cuba aside from improving relations with Cuba.

b) This is a very interesting question. The US treaty with Cuba leasing Guantanamo to the US, says that Cuba has sovereignty over the base but the US has full jurisdiction and control. In other words, although technically it is sovereign Cuban territory, the US exercises full power and authority over it. Guantanamo is unique in that regard. The U.S. has no other base where it has such full and unfettered authority and lacks sovereignty. This distinction gave the US the argument that the US courts had no jurisdictions over the executive’s actions in Guantanamo. It gave the Bush administration a legal argument that it could operate in Guantanamo any way it wanted and do whatever it wanted to the prisoners there without any legal review.

In other words, the Bush aministration claimed that it could operate in Guantánamo outside the law.That is in fact the concept that we challenged in US courts. And the Supreme Court eventually agreed with us and held that the US government could not detain people there without them having access to some sort of court review.

Let me explain a bit more. The U.S. could not exercise the same complete control and jurisdiction over a place in France, England or Mexico, for example. In those places the US could not operate any way it wanted because government of the country has control.. Guantanmo was different; it is a unique place where the US could do whatever it wanted because no otter country could step in and stop it. The Bush administration could detain people there without the courts or the government of another country having the authority to review the propriety of its actions or to stop it. At the same time, because Guantánamo is in another country and not in US territory, and because that other country has still has “sovereignty” over the territory, the Bush administration had a legal argument that the US courts also could not review its actions undertaken there. That is the argument we had to defeat.

-Is the prison on the Guantánamo naval base a violation of the “lease” that the US has with Cuba?  If so, what if any recourse does Cuba have to argue that the US is violating its lease?  What legal forum would be available to Cuba?

-I believe that the use by the United States of the G. base as a prison clearly violates the terms of the treaty. The treaty or lease that the US entered into with Cuba for the G. territory said it would be used as a coaling, really a fueling station, for the navy. The use of it not for that purpose but as a prison violates the lease.
What to do about it? Well, if Cuba was a military power it could potentially throw the US out — but that is an unlikely proposition.

The real question is where can Cuba go to get this answered. I see a few possibilities, though more research is needed. I think that going to a forum, an international legal forum, to get an opinion saying the US was violating the lease, might not force the US out of Guantánamo, bot it would provide moral force to Cuba’s arguments. Cuba might try to go to the ICJ. Under article 36 of the ICJ’s charter, the organization can interpret treaties among UN member states. Sometimes the ICJ needs both party to agree for the ICJ to hear the case. Someone needs to research whether Cuba could present its case without US consent. . Cuba could also ask the UN general assembly to ask the ICJ for an advisory opinion on the issue. So they could do it through the UN general assembly.

No international body can force the US to do something it doesn’t want to do. But by ruling that the US is not acting in accordance with the treaty, it would help convince the US to remedy this.

-What is the legal situation now for the remaining prisoners on the base? Why hasn´t the Obama Administration closed the prison, since it was one of President Obama´s electoral promises?

-a) This is very hard to answer in brief. The current legal situation is that the president is prohibited from taking any of the prisoners in Guantanamo and transferring them to the US mainland. He is allowed to transfer them to other countries if the secretary of Defense certifies that the country to which they are being transferred is taking steps to substantially mitigate the risk that the prisoner will undertake terrorist acts in the future. The law is, at this moment, being debated in Congress, to decide if this will change. Because of a Republican majority in Congress, there is a chance that congress will make it even harder to transfer detainees to other countries.

On the other hand John McCain is the Chairman of the Senate Armed Committee, and he wants to close Guantanamo and wants to make it easier for Obama to transfer prisoners at least to a prison in the United States.

b) In my view, Obama is most responsible for Guantanamo still being open. He said he was going to close Guantanamo when he took office and he had full authority to do so without any restrictions from congress. He could have transferred detainees to the US or other countries without restrictions. He did not do so because he did not want to stir up opposition among republicans. He put Guantánamo on the back burner and gave priority to other things.

He also reversed a plan to take some clearly innocent people into the US from G. when a congressman criticized him for trying to do so. Congress sensed weakness and found that it was politically useful for them to play on the fears of the American public, emphasizing the danger hope releasing detainees. They falsely emphasized the danger of releasing anyone from Guantanamo, saying they were all terrorists. The Obama administration did not rebut those accusations. Congress imposed restrictions on moving prisoners and the administration let it happen.

I can also say that in my view it was a demonstration of stunning incompetence by the Obama administration.