PBS高端访谈:为什么奥巴马未能关闭关塔那摩监狱?

 　　ALISON STEWART, PBS NEWHOUR WEEKEND ANCHOR: In his 2008 run for the White House, Barack Obama promised to shut down the prison for suspected foreign terrorists opened by President George W. Bush at the U.S. naval¹ base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

　　On his second full day in the White House, President Obama issued an executive order to close Guantanamo within a year.

　　Eight years later, that has not happened. Mr. Obama's ambition was largely thwarted² by congressional restrictions³, but also by the difficulty in reducing the 242 prisoners he inherited to zero. Today, 55 remain, including five accused of organizing the September 11th attacks on America.

　　No reporter has spent more time on the base than the "Miami Herald⁴'s" Carol Rosenberg, covering its detainees issues and military court proceedings⁵. She was there this week and returns again next week, and joins me today from Boston.

　　Carol, thanks so much for being with us.

　　CAROL ROSENBERG, MIAMI HERALD: Thank you for the invitation.

　　ALISON STEWART: You have been following the story and been at Guantanamo since the very beginning. When Obama took office, there was some bipartisan support for closing Guantanamo Bay. When did that change and, ultimately, why did he fail to close it?

　　CAROL ROSENBERG: I think it changed right around the time there was discussion of talking some men from China, Muslims, Uyghur descent, to Virginia. It became understood fairly soon into the administration that closing Guantanamo meant moving some of the detainees there to the United States, and that really turned the tide. As much as his opponent, John McCain, wanted it closed as well, there was an understanding, I think, that the original idea was not to bring detainees to the United States.

　　ALISON STEWART: Over the past 15 years, there have been at least 780 men detained at Guantanamo Bay. Nine died while in custody⁶. Most were transferred out overseas, only a handful were convicted of crimes and now, 55 remain.

　　Who is still there?

　　CAROL ROSENBERG: So, the 55 break down to 10 men who are actually accused and charged with war crimes, and men who are in pretrial or have had trials through the military commissions, the war court. Six of those 10 men are on trial for their lives. They're accused of the September 11th and USS Cole attacks and the prosecutor⁷ seeks to execute them if they're convicted.

　　The rest split between 19 men who are cleared for release, meaning the Obama administration boards have decided⁸ that if they can find places to rehabilitate⁹ them, reintegrate them, resettle them, they will send them there. And, you know, the weak — this is the week when we'll find out how many of those 19 can go because when Obama leaves, Donald Trump¹⁰ has made it clear that he's opposed to transfers.

　　And then the remaining 26 men are what we at the "Miami Herald" call the "forever prisoners," indefinite detainees in the war on terror, men who aren't accused of war crimes. More like what we would think of as POWs, but irregular POWs, prisoners of war, because they are thought to have fought for al Qaeda, which isn't a nation but a movement.

　　为什么奥巴马未能关闭关塔那摩监狱?

　　ALISON STEWART: Carol, as we look back at the history of Guantanamo base, the military justice — for lack of a better word — has gone at a glacial pace. I mean, there have been terrorists convicted in our courts here. Why it does military justice take so long? Why has this taken so long?

　　CAROL ROSENBERG: Military commission justice takes so long essentially¹¹ because the men who are on trial for their lives were not taken straight to the courts. They were not taken straight to either a military court or a U.S., you know, civilian¹² federal court and accused of terrorism crimes. They were carried off to the black sites of the CIA for three and four years. They were disappeared into the dark sites, and then they emerged in Guantanamo in 2006, by order of President Bush, who wanted them charged with crimes.

　　And those men have lawyers who are challenging every aspect of that disappearance¹³. It just doesn't happen in, you know, traditional American justice that someone is essentially arrested and disappeared with no access to attorney, and as we now know, incredibly aggressive, abusive mistreatment that their lawyers and they call torture.

　　ALISON STEWART: You were there last week. What is the sense of what's going to happen at Guantanamo with the incoming Trump administration? What are people saying on the ground?

　　CAROL ROSENBERG: Well, for the most part, they're saying that they will — certainly the military would say that they're follow whatever the next commander in chief tells them to do. But I do think there is a fair amount of, you know, free-floating anxiety about what will come.

　　Donald Trump said that, you know, he — during his campaign, that he intended to load the prison up with some bad dudes. He's not closing that prison. He wants to add more prisoners to it.

　　So, there's a real question about where they're coming from, who they are, what will be the authority to detain them? And, you know, bringing in new prisoners from the global battlefield, from, let's say, perhaps, Iraq, or Syria, they'll be completely different people than the men who are there now.

　　Remember, these men have been detained for at least a decade, and some of them for, you know, 15-plus years. And when they were captured, and when they got to Guantanamo for the most part, there was no ISIS. There was no al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula.

　　So, the idea that you're going to bring in, you know, perhaps the bad stepchildren of the original al Qaeda and put them in the detention¹⁴ center raises a whole bunch of questions. If Donald Trump makes good on his plan to bring more prisoners in, where will they go? And, you know, in many ways, it's like it was when it first opened — lots of questions, and very few answers.

　　ALISON STEWART: Carol Rosenberg from the "Miami Herald" — thanks so much.

　　CAROL ROSENBERG: Thank you.

1 naval   

adj.海军的，军舰的，船的

参考例句：

• He took part in a great naval battle.他参加了一次大海战。
• The harbour is an important naval base.该港是一个重要的海军基地。

2 thwarted   

阻挠( thwart的过去式和过去分词 )； 使受挫折； 挫败； 横过

参考例句：

• The guards thwarted his attempt to escape from prison. 警卫阻扰了他越狱的企图。
• Our plans for a picnic were thwarted by the rain. 我们的野餐计划因雨受挫。

3 restrictions   

约束( restriction的名词复数 )； 管制； 制约因素； 带限制性的条件（或规则）

参考例句：

• I found the restrictions irksome. 我对那些限制感到很烦。
• a snaggle of restrictions 杂乱无章的种种限制

4 herald   

vt.预示...的来临，预告，宣布，欢迎

参考例句：

• In England, the cuckoo is the herald of spring.在英国杜鹃鸟是报春的使者。
• Dawn is the herald of day.曙光是白昼的先驱。

5 proceedings   

n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报

参考例句：

• He was released on bail pending committal proceedings. 他交保获释正在候审。
• to initiate legal proceedings against sb 对某人提起诉讼

6 custody   

n.监护，照看，羁押，拘留

参考例句：

• He spent a week in custody on remand awaiting sentence.等候判决期间他被还押候审一个星期。
• He was taken into custody immediately after the robbery.抢劫案发生后，他立即被押了起来。

7 prosecutor   

n.起诉人；检察官，公诉人

参考例句：

• The defender argued down the prosecutor at the court.辩护人在法庭上驳倒了起诉人。
• The prosecutor would tear your testimony to pieces.检查官会把你的证言驳得体无完肤。

8 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

9 rehabilitate   

vt.改造(罪犯)，修复；vi.复兴，(罪犯)经受改造

参考例句：

• There was no money to rehabilitate the tower.没有资金修复那座塔。
• He used exercise programmes to rehabilitate the patients.他采用体育锻炼疗法使患者恢复健康。

10 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

11 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

12 civilian   

adj.平民的，民用的，民众的

参考例句：

• There is no reliable information about civilian casualties.关于平民的伤亡还没有确凿的信息。
• He resigned his commission to take up a civilian job.他辞去军职而从事平民工作。

13 disappearance   

n.消失，消散，失踪

参考例句：

• He was hard put to it to explain her disappearance.他难以说明她为什么不见了。
• Her disappearance gave rise to the wildest rumours.她失踪一事引起了各种流言蜚语。

14 detention   

n.滞留，停留；拘留，扣留；(教育)留下

参考例句：

• He was kept in detention by the police.他被警察扣留了。
• He was in detention in connection with the bribery affair.他因与贿赂事件有牵连而被拘留了。