WarCriminalsWatch Events

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Opening: Why “Remember” Guantánamo? Why Now?
9:30-10:30

• Elazar Barkan, Director, Columbia University Institute for Human Rights
• Elizabeth Silkes, Executive Director, International Coalition of Sites of Conscience
• Liz Ševčenko, Senior Consultant, Guantánamo Public Memory Project
• Samuel Moyn, Professor of History, Columbia University: “Inhumanity and Dissent after 9/11”

What Do We Need to Remember About Guantánamo? Histories of the US Naval Base and Why They Matter
10:45-12:15

Chair: Gitanjali Gutierrez, Staff Attorney, Center for Constitutional Rights

• Jonathan Hansen, Lecturer, Social Studies, Harvard University: “The Ghost of Guantánamo Past”
  Examines the US naval base in a historical context reaching back centuries, addressing, among other things, the question, “Is Guantánamo an anomaly?”
• Michael Strauss, Professor in International Relations, Centre d’Etudes Diplomatiques et Stratégiques: “The Creation and History of the ‘Legal Black Hole’ at Guantánamo Bay”
  An explanation of the 1903 Guantánamo Bay territorial lease, how it inadvertently created a zone where U.S. jurisdiction is incomplete and Cuban jurisdiction is absent, and prospects for the phenomenon to be replicated elsewhere.
• Jana Lipman, Professor of History, Tulane University: “Between Cuba and the Base: Living in Guantánamo Before and After the Revolution”
  An analysis of Cuban base workers and their ability to navigate between the US naval base and the Cuban community of Guantánamo before and after the 1959 Cuban revolution.

Lunch
12:15

Public Memories of Guantánamo: Visual Media
1:15-3:15

Chair: Bix Gabriel, Deputy Director, International Coalition of Sites of Conscience

• Mark Dow, Freelance Writer and Teacher
  A look back at “Ghosts of Guantánamo,” a documentary and multimedia exhibit shown at Tap Tap Haitian Restaurant in Miami Beach, Florida in support of Haitian children detained at Guantánamo from May-June 1995.
• Holly Ackerman, Librarian for Latin America and Iberia, Duke University
  Competing narratives of refugee experiences at Guantánamo from Duke University’s collections relating to Cuban balseros, and from the “Sea is History,” an exhibit of art, images, and stories of Haitians, Dominicans and Cuban refugees.
• Sean Kelley, Senior Vice President, Director of Public Programming and P.R., Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site
  “GTMO”: an installation by artist William Cromar at the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, once the most famous and expensive prison in the world, now a Site of Conscience seeking to raise questions about the penal system and criminal justice today.
• Edmund Clark, Photographer
  “Guantánamo: If the Light Goes Out”, a study of three ideas of home: the naval base at Guantánamo which is home to the American community and of which the prison camps are just a part; the complex of camps where the detainees have been held; and the homes, new and old, where the former detainees now find themselves trying to rebuild their lives.

Brainstorm

What do we need to remember about Guantánamo?

Break
3:15-3:30

Public Memories of Guantánamo: Narratives and Performance
3:30-5:30

Chair: Mary Marshall Clark, Director, Columbia University Oral History Research Office

• Mary Marshall Clark, Director, Columbia Oral History Research Office, and Shayana Kadidal, Senior Managing Attorney of the Guantánamo Global Justice Initiative, Center for Constitutional Rights: “Breaking the Rule of Law: Oral Histories of Those Who Resisted”
  The approach and initial findings of the Columbia University Oral History Research Office’s projects on Guantánamo and the Rule of Law. In this public interview, Shayana Kadidal will speak about the work of the Center for Constitutional Rights from 2002 to the present moment, in defending detainees and challenging torture.
• Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director, American Civil Liberties Union
  “Reckoning with Torture”: a one-of-a-kind performance/installation event with readings from declassified government documents that expose the scope and human cost of the post-9/11 torture program.
• Elena Razlogova, Co-Coordinator, The Guantánamobile Project, Associate Professor of History, Concordia University
  “The Guantánamobile Project,” a mobile media van designed to inform and collect public opinion about the US detention of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Brainstorm

How can we “remember” Guantánamo – connecting its past to its ongoing reality?

Closing and Next Steps
5:30

Friday, April 29, 2011

Opening Remarks: Justice Albie Sachs, Justice (retired), Constitutional Court, South Africa
9:30-10:15

“Memory and Justice: Converting a Prison Campus into Constitution Hill”

South African Constitutional Court Justice Albie Sachs was a driving force behind the decision to build South Africa’s new Constitutional Court on the site of the Old Fort prison, and show how the negative energy of the past can be transformed into positivity. “Constitution Hill” now includes a restored prison and museum, an open plaza, human rights NGOs, and the Constitutional Court. Sachs will frame opportunities and challenges of building a public memory of Guantánamo, reflecting on his own experience confronting difficult histories.

Connecting Memory to Action: Comparative Perspectives for Remembering Guantánamo
10:15-11:45

Chair: Liz Sevcenko, Senior Consultant, Guantánamo Public Memory Project

• Ruti Teitel, Ernst C. Stiefel Professor of Comparative Law, New York Law School, Visiting Professor, London School of Economics, Global Governance: “Keeping Guantanamo: The Thwarting of Post 9/11 Transitional Justice”
  Reflections on what the experience of transitional justice processes around the world suggests for how to confront Guantánamo’s past.
• Louis Bickford, Director, New York Office, Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights
  “Memory as Prevention: Remembering, Mass Atrocity, and Human Rights in Comparative Perspective”
• James Gardner, Senior Scholar, National Museum of American History: “Out of Sight, Out of Mind? Collecting and Interpreting Difficult History”
  Looking at projects at American museums and historic sites that have focused on detainment and secret and even illegal activity, this talk will focus on the challenges of addressing history that’s “out of sight,” not so much hidden as off our cognitive maps, ignored or overlooked.

(Lunch Session) Imagining a Virtual Guantánamo Site of Conscience: Gitmo 2.0
11:45-1:15

Bix Gabriel, Deputy Director, International Coalition of Sites of Conscience

What can a virtual Gitmo Site of Conscience look like? Sneak preview Gitmo 2.0, a website prototype featuring virtual exhibits, audio portraits, and public dialogues. Discuss:

• What stories need to be told?
• What questions need to be raised?
• How can we draw responsible connections between past and present?
• How can we simultaneously inspire truth telling, dialogue, and action? What does “multiple perspectives” mean in the context of Guantánamo?

Closing: Aryeh Neier, President, Open Society Foundations
1:15

For RSVP and Columbia University location, click here.