Jimmy Carter: Guantanamo Detentions Disgraceful

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FOCUS | Jimmy Carter: Guantanamo Detentions Disgraceful

Sun, 31 Jul 2005 06:32:30 -0700

 

 

 

FOCUS | Jimmy Carter: Guantanamo Detentions Disgraceful

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/073105Z.shtml

 

 

 

 

Carter: Guantanamo Detentions Disgraceful

The Associated Press

 

Saturday 30 July 2005

 

Washington - Former President Carter said Saturday the detention

of terror suspects at the Guantanamo Bay Naval base was an

embarrassment and had given extremists an excuse to attack the United

States.

 

Carter also criticized the U.S.-led war in Iraq as " unnecessary

and unjust. "

 

" I think what's going on in Guantanamo Bay and other places is a

disgrace to the U.S.A., " he told a news conference at the Baptist

World Alliance's centenary conference in Birmingham, England. " I

wouldn't say it's the cause of terrorism, but it has given impetus and

excuses to potential terrorists to lash out at our country and justify

their despicable acts. "

 

Carter said, however, that terrorist acts could not be justified,

and that while Guantanamo " may be an aggravating factor ... it's not

the basis of terrorism. "

 

Critics of President Bush's administration have long accused the

U.S. government of unjustly detaining terror suspects at the

Guantanamo Bay Naval Base on the southeastern tip of Cuba. Hundreds of

men have been held indefinitely at the prison, without charge or

access to lawyers.

 

" What has happened at Guantanamo Bay ... does not represent the

will of the American people, " Carter said Saturday. " I'm embarrassed

about it, I think its wrong. I think it does give terrorists an

unwarranted excuse to use the despicable means to hurt innocent people. "

 

Earlier this month, Carter called for the Guantanamo prison to be

shut down, saying reports of abuses there were an embarassment to the

United States. He also said that the United States needs to make sure

no detainees are held incommunicado and that all are told the charges

against them.

 

Carter, who won the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, has been an outspoken

critic of the Iraq war.

 

" I thought then, and I think now, that the invasion of Iraq was

unnecessary and unjust. And I think the premises on which it was

launched were false, " he said Saturday.

 

The Baptist World Alliance, comprising more than 200 Baptist

unions around the world, was formed in London in 1905. The

headquarters of the alliance, which meets in a different location

every five years, moved to the United States in 1947.

 

An estimated 12,700 delegates gathered in the city of Birmingham

in central England for the conference. Carter, a Sunday school teacher

in his hometown of Plains, Ga., was due to lead a Bible study lesson

during the conference.

 

He praised British police and intelligence services for the swift

arrests in connection with the July 21 failed bombing attempts on

London's transit system.

 

" I'm very proud to be in a nation that stands so stalwart against

terrorism with us, " he said. " The people of my country have united our

hearts and sympathy for the tragedy that you have suffered from

terrorism. "

 

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