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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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 Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2005 6:22 am Post subject: GULAG V. GITMO |
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GULAG V. GITMO
Equivalency Test
by David Bosco
Only at TNR Online
Post date: 06.03.05
n a recent report, Amnesty International referred to the U.S. detention center at Guantánamo as "the gulag of our time." The term--a Russian abbreviation for Glavnoe Upravlenie Lagerei, or Main Camp Administration--refers to the network of Soviet labor camps established during Stalin's rule that continued, in a different form, for much of the Soviet Union's history. During a press conference on Tuesday, President Bush rejected the charge as "absurd." Amnesty has defended its use of the term. Below, a comparison of the two prison systems, with the aid of Anne Applebaum's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Gulag: A History.
Individuals Detained:
Gulag: Approximately 20 million passed through the Gulag. The population at any one time was generally around two million.
Guantánamo: 750 prisoners have passed through the camp. The current population is about 520.
Number of Camps:
Gulag: 476 separate camp complexes comprising thousands of individual camps. By the end of the 1930s, camps were located in each of the Soviet Union's twelve time zones.
Guantánamo: Five small camps on the U.S. military base in Cuba.
Reasons for Imprisonment:
Gulag: Opposition to the Soviet regime's forced collectivization, including efforts to hide grain in cellars; owning too many cows; need for slave labor to complete massive industrialization and mining projects; political opposition to the Soviet system; being Jewish; being Finnish; being religious; being middle class; being in need of reeducation; having had contact with foreigners; refusing to sleep with the head of Soviet counterintelligence; telling a joke about Stalin.
Guantánamo: Fighting for the fundamentalist Taliban in Afghanistan; being suspected of links to Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
Judicial Review:
Gulag: None. "Trials" of those sent to the Gulag often lasted only a few minutes.
Guantánamo: The Bush administration has argued that detainees are unlawful combatants, not prisoners of war. The Supreme Court ruled in June 2004 that prisoners must receive hearings on their legal status. One hundred and fifty have decided to challenge their detention, and dozens of lawyers have been arriving at the base to represent them. Human rights groups and lawyers for detainees have argued that the military hearings are inadequate.
Red Cross Visits:
Gulag: None that I could find.
Guantánamo: Regular visits since January 2002. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has reportedly complained to the U.S. government about several aspects of prisoner treatment, including occasional beatings and other interrogation tactics. Per its standard practice, the ICRC does not make its complaints public.
Deaths as a Result of Poor Treatment:
Gulag: At least two to three million. Mass burials were often employed to keep death rates secret (camp commanders sometimes received permission to remove gold fillings before burial). In some particularly brutal periods, camp commanders simply executed thousands of prisoners. But deaths due to overwork were much more common. It is estimated that 25,000 gulag laborers died during the construction of the White Sea Canal in the early '30s. One convoy of "backward elements" destined for the Gulag in 1933 included about 6,000 prisoners; after three months, 4,000 were dead. "The survivors had lived because they ate the flesh of those who had died," according to an account cited by Applebaum.
Guantánamo: No reports of prisoner deaths.
Typical Treatment:
Gulag: For the most part, Gulag prisoners provided labor for the Soviet system. Treatment varied widely, but most prisoners lived in overcrowded barracks, and prisoners occasionally killed one another in an effort to find space to sleep. Deadly dysentery and typhus outbreaks were common. Prisoners often had inadequate clothing to protect themselves from the elements, and most camps lacked running water and heat.
Guantánamo: A recent Time magazine report found that "the best-behaved detainees are held in Camp 4, a medium-security, communal-living environment with as many as 10 beds in a room; prisoners can play soccer or volleyball outside up to nine hours a day, eat meals together and read Agatha Christie mysteries in Arabic. Less cooperative detainees typically live and eat in small, individual cells and get to exercise and shower only twice a week." Human Rights Watch and other watchdog groups have collected firsthand testimony from prisoners alleging abuses, including the use of dogs, extended solitary confinement, sexual humiliation, and "stress positions." An official investigation uncovered only minor abuses, and most detainee accusations have not been verified.
Religious Observance:
Gulag: Prisoners were occasionally able to smuggle bibles into the camps and hold religious observances, including Christmas and Easter, in secret. Being caught conducting services, however, could be grounds for further punishment. Applebaum records a prisoner's description of a priest creeping through a camp, trying to say mass without being detected.
Guantánamo: Prisoners are provided copies of the Koran and daily time for prayer. Arrows on the floor of each cell point to Mecca. Meals are made in accordance with Muslim religious restrictions. Several prisoners, however, reported delays in receiving their copies of the Koran and that guards mistreated the Koran on multiple occasions. For its part, the Pentagon has documented five instances of Koran mishandling though it denies that a Koran was ever flushed down the toilet, as one detainee alleged.
The detention center at Guantánamo is legally dubious and has been a public relations disaster for the United States. The treatment of certain prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan has been far worse. Amnesty's president Irene Kahn says that these practices are "undermining human rights in a dramatic way." Her outrage is valuable and essential. If only she could express it without employing obscene moral parallels.
David Bosco is a senior editor at Foreign Policy. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2005 7:02 am Post subject: |
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| "the gulag of our time" is not meant to be an exact comparison, but a figurative one. As such, it was an apt phrase. The anger it stirred in the Bush administration is evidence of that. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2005 7:12 am Post subject: |
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What do they call N Korean prisons?
Amnesty will probably call for amnesty for drug users next - but that is only cause they don't want to go to jail. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2005 7:17 am Post subject: |
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| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
What do they call N Korean prisons?
Amnesty will probably call for amnesty for drug users next - but that is only cause they don't want to go to jail. |
You're absolutely right. Amnesty is way off in terms of perspective. But the United States still has real problems with this torture scandal (Gitmo is really nothing Joo).
Amnesty, however, can do more with the United States by condemning its behavior than it can the real gulags in North Korea and other places. And that is kind of the point. Is it screwed up? Yes. However, the irony is the only reason anyone cares about Amnesty is because of Euro-American hegemony in terms of human rights. Under a Soviet world their cries would be stifled. So let them scream. They are right to raise a fuss, even if their rhetoric is sometimes overstated and self-defeating. |
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keithinkorea
Joined: 17 Mar 2004
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| Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2005 2:36 am Post subject: |
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People have higher expectations of the US because it is a civilised country. Comparing 'Gitmo' to Soviet or Nork gulags it silly. Americans have a civilised country to live in North Koreans live in a hideous excuse for a country.
Whilst I dislike the leaders of both countries to compare the American governments acts of stupidity to the grotesque regime that is NK is plain silly.
Obviously Gitmo is a hideous place. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2005 5:57 am Post subject: |
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| keithinkorea wrote: |
People have higher expectations of the US because it is a civilised country. Comparing 'Gitmo' to Soviet or Nork gulags it silly. Americans have a civilised country to live in North Koreans live in a hideous excuse for a country.
Whilst I dislike the leaders of both countries to compare the American governments acts of stupidity to the grotesque regime that is NK is plain silly.
Obviously Gitmo is a hideous place. |
Al Qadia deserves a place a lot worse than Gitmo. |
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keithinkorea
Joined: 17 Mar 2004
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| Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2005 8:47 am Post subject: |
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| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
| keithinkorea wrote: |
People have higher expectations of the US because it is a civilised country. Comparing 'Gitmo' to Soviet or Nork gulags it silly. Americans have a civilised country to live in North Koreans live in a hideous excuse for a country.
Whilst I dislike the leaders of both countries to compare the American governments acts of stupidity to the grotesque regime that is NK is plain silly.
Obviously Gitmo is a hideous place. |
Al Qadia deserves a place a lot worse than Gitmo. |
But some of those folks in there are possibly innocent. The world expects the US to behave in a more cilivilsed way. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2005 8:54 am Post subject: |
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| keithinkorea wrote: |
| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
| keithinkorea wrote: |
People have higher expectations of the US because it is a civilised country. Comparing 'Gitmo' to Soviet or Nork gulags it silly. Americans have a civilised country to live in North Koreans live in a hideous excuse for a country.
Whilst I dislike the leaders of both countries to compare the American governments acts of stupidity to the grotesque regime that is NK is plain silly.
Obviously Gitmo is a hideous place. |
Al Qadia deserves a place a lot worse than Gitmo. |
But some of those folks in there are possibly innocent. The world expects the US to behave in a more cilivilsed way. |
The US has let a lot of people there go back, and some of them were right back attacking US forces.
The US is planning to send up to 2/3rds of the guys there back to their home countries.
While we are on the subject what would a mideasterner being doing in Afghanistan fighting for the Taliban?
The ones there are probably not innocent. |
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