Editorial: Amherst's worldwide welcome mat

Published on October 23, 2009

Ruth Hooke, a longtime Amherst Town Meeting member, wants the community to roll out the welcome mat for a pair of exonerated detainees from the Guantanamo Bay military prison.

On Monday night, the Select Board agreed with Hooke by a narrow margin - and Town Meeting next month will say yea or nay to Hooke's offer; however, it should be noted that having the detainees come to the U.S. isn't yet legal, except for those facing trial in American courts.

Hooke's proposal is emblematic of the empathy and activism that many in the Valley hold toward the affairs and people of the world. Her idea, though it may seem far-fetched, would support one policy goal of President Barack Obama - to close Guantanamo and relocate the detainees.

We're interested in seeing where Town Meeting goes with this. We suspect many will embrace the principle behind it - namely, that calls to close Guantanamo ring hollow unless homes can be found for those imprisoned there.

But after years of the previous administration's war on terror, and the vilification of Guantanamo's inhabitants, others will no doubt find the idea of bringing two of its prisoners to the Valley inconceivable.

As the Bush presidency acted to capture militants after Sept. 11, Guantanamo came to house some 250 detainees, only 18 of whom have been charged with a crime, according to reports in the press.

Obama's administration intends to review the evidence against the remaining detainees to decide who to pursue in U.S. courts. The president has also reached out to other governments to aid in the relocation of detainees who cannot return to their homes for fear of persecution or death. So far, the Swiss have expressed a willingness to help.

The two men Hooke identifies have been cleared of wrong doing, according to reports. Some detainees may enter the U.S. legal system, under Obama's plan, others will be set free abroad.

On Tuesday, as part of a Homeland Security spending bill, the Senate voted to allow the government to continue to transfer detainees at the facility to the U.S. to be prosecuted. The House approved a similar measure, and it awaits signing on the president's desk.

The measure still blocks the release of detainees in the U.S., but a pending Supreme Court decision on some exonerated Chinese Muslim detainees may change that. They are seeking to come to the U.S.; an appeals court decision kept them confined after a federal judge ordered them freed.

Amherst is no stranger in seeking to play on the larger fields of foreign policy. A Town Meeting resolution in 2007 asked the Bush administration to use diplomacy, not military action, in dealing with Iran. A warm letter of thanks was sent to the town by a bureaucrat in the Iranian government.

Additional Town Meeting articles have called for an end to the genocide in the Sudan and sought the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

Hooke's impulse to come to the aid of people in a tough place is laudable. We doubt that Hooke's initiative will result in detainees moving to Amherst. But we respect her wish to be part of a new president's effort to shift the U.S. away from an ugly policy of detaining people without due process, a stance that has alienated former allies around the world.