Reparations are a gesture toward righting wrongs and a pathway to healing.

Reparations are a technology of justice that need practice and tending. This speculative reparation bill builds on the powerful local struggle for justice and reparations for Chicago police torture survivors and on the broader history of demands for reparations.

The connections between torture in Chicago and torture in Guantánamo, is direct, through Jon Burge and Richard Zuley. As torture practices have circulated, so can the craft of reparations. The Chicago Torture Justice Memorials and activist-lawyer Joey Mogul, of the People’s Law Office, drew up a speculative reparations ordinance. This artfully imagined legalese went from dream to fruition when the Chicago City Council passed the Reparations Fund for the Victims of Torture by Police Commander Jon Burge in 2015—the first and, thus far, only municipality in the country to pay reparations for racist police violence. Taking inspiration from this important moment of acknowledgment and accountability, below is the Speculative Reparations Bill for Guantánamo Torture Survivors.

Above Image: Khalid Qasim, Candle, 2017 [Candle five of nine, one painting for each of the nine men that died in prison at Guantánamo.]

 SPECULATIVE REPARATIONS BILL FOR Guantánamo TORTURE SURVIVORS

Working Document (last edited January 21, 2022)

WHEREAS, the United States government acknowledges that it systematically engaged in acts of torture, through physical and psychological violence and indefinite detention of people imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay Naval Base between 2002 and the present; and

WHEREAS, the United States is a signatory of the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (UNCAT); and

WHEREAS, in this Convention, torture is defined as “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity”; and

WHEREAS, the United Nations Inter-American Commission on Human Rights called on the United States to close the military prison at Guantánamo in 2006; and 

WHEREAS, the acts of torture overseen by General Geoffrey Miller, approved by President George W. Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Henry Rumsfeld, and carried out by officers under their command, have continued through four presidencies without cease; and

WHEREAS, acts of torture at Guantánamo have included indefinite detention, prolonged exposure to extreme temperatures and noise, beatings, sleep deprivation, prolonged constraint in painful positions, cultural and sexual humiliation, enemas and other forced injections, and sexual abuse; and

WHEREAS, holding persons without charge or trial, a “forever prisoner,” is torture; 

WHEREAS, holding and continuing to hold people without due process, adequate representation, or parole violates Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; and

WHEREAS, many of the survivors, including 24 of the people currently imprisoned, were held in secret black sites prior to their transfer to Guantánamo, having been subject to enforced disappearance during this time; and

WHEREAS, these acts of torture, physical abuse, coercion, and enforced disappearance violate state, federal and international law and such acts are universally condemned worldwide; and    

WHEREAS, the trauma and damage caused by these acts of torture continue to deleteriously affect the survivors, their family members, and their communities; and

WHEREAS, the United States has been complicit in the torture practices and tacitly supported those acts by expending more than $6 billion of taxpayers’ funds to operate Guantánamo, and

WHEREAS, President Joseph Biden has previously stated at the 45th Munich Conference on Security policy that "America will not torture. And we will close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay…"; and

WHEREAS, the United States must officially acknowledge the torture that occurred in Guantánamo and resolve to never allow such acts to go undeterred and unpunished ever again,

THEREFORE BE IT ORDAINED THAT THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT 

'   Hereby issues a formal apology to Guantánamo Bay survivors, their family members, and other affected individuals and communities on behalf of the United States of America for the violations and harm incurred by these torture practices.

'   Hereby agrees to close the military prison at Guantánamo. 

'   Hereby agrees to arrange safe release and relocation to home or suitable countries free from arbitrary re-imprisonment and persecution for all Guantánamo survivors.

'   Hereby acknowledges that family connection and reunion is an essential element to recovery and thus will ensure family members can visit and/or relocate to be with loved ones upon release.

'   Hereby acknowledges that resettlement should not take place by force.

'   Hereby ensures Guantánamo survivors are not resettled where they face persecution and arbitrary imprisonment.

'   Hereby establishes a comprehensive reintegration program for people imprisoned that is responsible for providing ongoing measures to ensure that these survivors are granted the means to start and maintain a meaningful life.

'   Hereby offers financial assistance to survivors in order to secure their long-term sustainable livelihood, including funds for secure housing, education, job training, and mental and physical health care. 

'   Hereby establishes an independent agency to provide psychological counseling, health care services and vocational training to the survivors, their family members and others affected by torture and abuse.

'   Hereby provides a compensation equivalent to the international standard amount for recompense for torture. 

'   Hereby provides a minimum of $380 million, the 2021 annual budget amount for running the prison at Guantánamo, to establish an ongoing fund to support the above-mentioned programs.

'   Hereby ends the military commissions, which have served to launder evidence of torture, and acknowledges that all legal standing of the aforementioned commissions is nullified, with all remaining persons held in Guantánamo Bay Military Base to be released to family members and receive support under the above-referenced programs.

This document was inspired by and pulled from the Eight Point Plan to Close Guantánamo by survivors of the military prison at Guantánamo and the Chicago Torture Justice Memorials Imagined Reparations by Joey Mogul. 

Above Image: Khalid Qasim, Candle, 2017 [Candle two of nine, one painting for each of the nine men that died in prison at Guantánamo.]

Sometimes you just cannot wait for the U.S. Government to do the right thing.

In anticipation of the US Government acknowledging and being held accountable for the use of torture and extralegal detention at Guantánamo, the Fund for Guantánamo Survivors is sending financial relief directly to Guantánamo survivors. This people-led endeavor cannot wait. There is great need among survivors.

Contributions for this fund are being accepted through the nonprofit Healing and Recovery after Trauma. Please select the reparations fund when contributing. You can also contribute through their site linked here (hrtlaw.org/donate).

GOALS

We reached out first fundraising goal! 39 teacups for the 39 people extralegally imprisoned till 2022.

Going forward, everyone who donates $500 or more will receive one porcelain teacup. Artists Aaron Hughes and Amber Ginsburg are donating an edition of 780 porcelain cast Styrofoam teacups. Each cup is based on the creative acts of resistance by people imprisoned at Guantánamo drawing on Styrofoam teacups, one for every man held since 2002.

Anyone donating $100 or more will receive a limited artist edition tea package that includes a special tea blend and preparation instructions based on one of the 48 recipes collected by the Tea Project.

Ultimate Goal: 780 cups

The ultimate goal is to secure reparations for Guantánamo survivors. As we organize for reparations we are setting out to raise $100,000 from donations for 780 cups. These funds will go directly to survivors to support their needs as they define them. In speaking with survivors some of the needs they have identified include: Health Care, Housing and Living Expenses, Training and Education, and Family Support.

[Updated January 2023]

The International and Domestic Connections

In 2002, following the start of the "Global War on Terror," the United States established an extralegal military prison at the US Naval Base in Guantánamo. The location was chosen intentionally to avoid U.S. and international law. Since then it has been the site of major human rights violations, including holding people for indefinite periods of time without trial, subjecting them to extreme interrogation methods, torture, and even death. Extralegal imprisonment and torture at Guantánamo is also directly connected to the Chicago Police Department through detective and Navy Reserves Lt. Richard Zuley. After years of subjecting poor, Black, and brown Chicagoans to torture, Zuley was involved in torture at Guantánamo from 2002 to 2004.

But this was not the first exchange of the violence of wars abroad and local policing. Under the direction of police commander and Vietnam veteran Jon Burge, police subjected hundreds of predominantly Black men and women to torture between 1972 and 1991. In 2015, after years of activism by torture survivors, mothers, artists, educators and attorneys, Chicago passed the first tangible reparations for racially motivated police violence in the United States.

Taking inspiration for the fight for Reparations for the Police Commander Jon Burge torture survivors, this fund attends to some of the direct needs of Guantánamo torture survivors while also working towards Reparations for Guantánamo survivors.

The Cups

Each cup is carved with the number of men imprisoned from a specific country. For example, the 220 cups bearing the names of Afghan citizens have 220 tulips carved into them. One flower for each of the 220 Afghan men.

When you hold your cup, you hold a part of this history and a vessel to share stories, time with friends and family, while also supporting some of the people most impacted by the Global War on Terror and related forms of state violence.

Above Images: "During a 2014 Lawrence Arts Center Project Based Artist in Residency Aaron and Amber along with many incredible volunteers opened a cup factory to produce 779 porcelain styrofoam cups." Photographs by Marlo Angle.