By No More Guantanamos

This Saturday, April 24, Leverett voters at Town Meeting
overwhelmingly approved a resolution welcoming one or two cleared
Guantánamo Bay detainees to the community once Congress lifts its
current ban. It is the second US municipality to do so. The resolution
is identical to one approved on November 4, 2009, by Town Meeting
members in nearby Amherst.

The resolution, Article 27 on the warrant, was the last article
considered. Elizabeth Adams, a Leverett resident, initiated the
resolution’s placement on the warrant by petition. She is a founding
member of Pioneer Valley No More Guantánamos, which supported both the
Amherst and Leverett resolutions. Adams also belongs to Witness Against
Torture, a national organization.

Adams was pleased by town voters’ favorable vote, which she said "will
go a long way toward healing the wounds inflicted on prisoners and our
collective conscience by US torture policy and illegal indefinite
detention."

Over several weeks leading up to the vote, Adams and other Leverett
residents distributed information to residents about the resolution and
the two men whom Pioneer Valley No More Guantánamos would like to
welcome, Ahmed Belbacha, of Algeria, and Ravil Mingazov, the last
Guantánamo detainee from Russia. The resolution itself does not name
specific detainees, however. 

The committee also organized a public forum, held in the Leverett
Library on April 13, where several speakers, including two lawyers for
some of the detainees, shared stories about several Guantánamo prisoners
and knowledge about past and current government policies related to the
prison and the detainees. Town residents who had attended the forum
spoke in favor of the resolution at Town Meeting and responded to a few
other residents’ concerns and questions, including the potential danger
and costs to the town.

Portia Weiskel, a Leverett resident, said she was struck at the forum by
individual stories of some of the men still held at the prison. She
wanted her government representatives to know that “there is a community
that stands for something.”

Another town resident, Joe Levine, explained why he felt both main
clauses of the resolution were important. “If you send a letter saying
‘Lift the ban, but don’t bring them here,’ you’re being hypocritical.”
He said it was necessary to say that Leverett is willing to do its
share.

Nancy Talanian, director of No More Guantánamos and a member, with
Adams, of its Pioneer Valley chapter, applauded the measure’s passage in
Leverett. She said, “Leverett’s resolution supports the basic right of
freedom for cleared Guantánamo Bay detainees who cannot safely return to
their home countries. Without cooperation from U.S. communities and
Congress, the long-awaited plan to close Guantánamo may not succeed.”

Talanian noted that Congress’s ‘not-in-our-backyard’ ban stands in the
way of encouraging international cooperation in closing the prison.
“Guantánamo detainees who cannot safely return home are really no
different than other refugees whom western Massachusetts communities
have welcomed in the past," she said.  "And if the US governemnt, which
has held the men for more than eight years, can tell allied governments
the men would not pose a danger if sent to live in their countries, then
Americans should rest assured that we can be safe with some of them
living here."

No More Guantánamos is a coalition of concerned U.S. residents,
communities, organizations, and attorneys who are working together to
ensure justice for the prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Bagram air base in
Afghanistan, and other offshore prison sites maintained by the CIA and
the Pentagon around the world. We work to ensure basic human rights for
all prisoners, including the right to be either charged for crimes and
tried or released, in accordance with international law, and not held
indefinitely, and to find homes for prisoners who cannot return home.

The organization formed soon after President Obama’s executive order to
close Guantánamo Bay prison by January 22, 2009. Chapter locations
besides the Pioneer Valley include Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina; New
York City; Denver, Colorado; and Tallahassee, Florida.