Guantanamo Ex-Detainees and Switzerland

Guantanamo Bay Needs To Find Places for Our Detainees To Go...International politics is full of changing allegiances and diplomatic maneuvering- there are long term and short term causes, ad hoc groups that work toward a quick goal, and some long term partnerships that change the face of the Earth, if only for a short time. Then there are relationships that change based on the actual issue that is being dealt with, and every other week you sit down and see that two countries are working together or arguing about some new issue. In this case, those two countries are Switzerland and the United States. Right now, the U.S. wants Switzerland to take more Guantanamo Bay detainees.

Let’s take a look at the recent events that have brought Switzerland and the U.S. into international togetherness:

1.    Roman Polanski, acclaimed director wanted in the United States for statutory rape 30+ years ago and living abroad, goes to Switzerland to accept an award. When he crosses the border, the Swiss authorities seize him and place him under house arrest while the court process goes through and does its thing. The U.S. expects him to be sent to them for processing and sentencing. The film community is outraged. The Swiss authorities throw up their hands and say, well, we didn’t have the paperwork in order before but now, what are we supposed to do? Verdict: The Swiss doing the bidding of the U.S.

2.    Recently, Swiss Banks have had to give up their storied and reliable secrecy of bank accounts. It turns out that, surprise-surprise, thousands of companies and individuals from the U.S. have been hiding millions of dollars in the accounts, keeping it from the eyes of the IRS and cheating on their taxes. Well no kidding. But for the first time, well, ever, the banks turned over the information to the U.S. authorities, revealing the names and figures of the offending parties, essentially turning them in to the U.S. for tax evasion. Of course, this was all after formidable legal wrangling by the U.S. We need to get our money from there. Verdict: The Swiss doing the bidding of the U.S.

3.    And now, the U.S. wants Switzerland to take prisoners from the closing Guantanamo Prison. In fact, Switzerland has already taken some of the detainees, so they are already picking up some of the U.S.’s mess. But now, the parliamentary security committee has voted 15-10 to not accept any more detainees from Guantanamo. This is a recommendation to the Swiss cabinet and may or may not be picked up and acted upon, but it is an unexpected change in sentiment, largely due to the changing security thoughts and issues. To me, it sounds like Switzerland is finally standing up for itself- why should they take any of the detainees from the U.S.? I don’t know the specifics of the detainees who have been sent to Switzerland, but I know that part of their approach has been to accept a detainee from Uzbekistan who was held for several years and not tried. Verdict: Switzerland is doing what it needs to do.

In the end, the U.S. is dealing with a massive problem- we have a lot of people picked up under suspicion of terrorism and not tried, and we can’t release them into the U.S., and we can’t release them back into their own home countries, so where are they going to go? That makes for difficult international relation issues. But in this case, Switzerland is not obligated to take care of anything we need them to.

Photo Credit: USMARINE0311 (via Flickr under CCL)