I have previously expressed my shame at the Canadian Government’s failure to follow the example of every other Western nation in demanding the repatriation of our citizen at Guantanamo Bay.
The advocacy in favour of Omar Khadr’s return to Canada has come from many circles. The calls have come from Sen. Romeo Dallaire, UNICEF, Amnesty International, and the Canadian Bar Association, among many others. Most consider Khadr to be a child soldier, and consider his detention and the military tribunal process to be a violation of the rule of law.
This choir of voices has finally reached a crescendo. I have good news to report.
President-elect Barack Obama has signalled his intention to close Guantanamo Bay forever – and he intends to do it soon.
In an interview with ABC’s “This Week,” Obama said:
I don’t want to be ambiguous about this. We are going to close Guantanamo and we are going to make sure that the procedures we set up are ones that abide by our Constitution.”
Reuters is reporting that Obama intends to close the prison perhaps within his first week after taking office:
“There is going to be an executive order on closing down Guantanamo,” the adviser told Reuters, adding the move would probably be made during Obama’s first several days in office.
What this means for Omar Khadr remains unclear. It will no doubt take time before the prison can be closed and its inmates transferred to face trial elsewhere. Most likely, this will mean an end to the military tribunals, which were denounced by the U.S. Supreme Court, in favour of domestic trials in U.S. Federal Court.
Stephen Harper, meanwhile, remains staunchly committed to leaving Khadr to be dealt with by the Americans, whether or not their process violates the rule of law. This is in spite of serious concerns raised by his own government lawyers. Harper is unsure of whether Obama’s announcement will substantively affect Khadr, but he remains defferential:
“The promise that president-elect Obama made was that he would close down the facilities at Guantanamo. That’s primarily, as I understand it, because of the objection to the fact that many of the people at that facility aren’t charged with anything,” he told reporters in Vancouver.
“I don’t think you can necessarily leap to the conclusion that it will affect people who have in fact been charged, and who are facing a legal process.”
One thing is clear: Omar Khadr’s languishing in that deplorable offshore prison will soon be at an end.
