Naive me read in the paper that no human rights groups have been allowed in Guantanamo yet. Yikes!
I sure don't want to stir this up again, but a recent documentary reported that Anne Frank herself was
in contact with Red Cross nurses(I believe they spoke through a wall) at one of the camps she was in.
[Update(7/07/05): The Red Cross has been to Guantanamo, says a New Yorker article, and there are other
medical personnel present, but not all of them are there to help. See this week's incredibly creepy story.
Both FBI agents and Navy interrogators were shocked!]
So, yes human rights groups should be allowed in, including Amnesty International. Rumsfeld was totally
fine with this organization when it gave him some justification to prosecute the first Iraq war.
It was brought to my attention that Guantanamo is no way as bad as the russian gulags; and Human Rights
Watch felt that Amnety International, in making that comparison, hurt the overall fight for human rights by exaggerating so much. I tend to agree with this, because neither do I want to be imprecise about language nor do I want to hurt the case of those legitimately protesting.
On the other hand, while AI, and Howard Dean, have gone too far at times, they never-the-less have also brought attention
to situations in this country that would otherwise have been ignored. Amnesty International produces a yearly catalog of the
humans rights abuses of just about every one of the world's countries. A two-line item reporting that AI decried
human rights abuses in Guantanamo might not have picked up much interest.
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