Vol. 31, No. 4, #7. U.S. Troops Honor Bound to Defend Rights of Guantanamo Bay Detainees.

• Author: Author: Mary L. Angell

Wyoming Bar Journal

2008.

Vol. 31, No. 4, #7.

U.S. Troops Honor Bound to Defend Rights of Guantanamo Bay Detainees

Wyoming Bar Journal Issue: August, 2008 Author: Mary L. Angell U.S. Troops Honor Bound to Defend Rights of Guantanamo Bay Detainees

A Wyoming lawyer and JAG officer in the U.S. Army Individual Ready Reserve has written a book defending the United States' treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Major Kyndra Rotunda, a 1999 University of Wyoming College of Law graduate, served three tours of war in Guantanamo Bay between 2002 and 2004. Her book, Honor Bound: Inside the Guantanamo Trials, was released June 10, 2008, and is available on Amazon.com.

Rotunda said one of the reasons she wrote the book was to respond to allegations that United States troops have abused and tortured Gitmo detainees.

"I did not see any violations of the law," Rotunda told the Wyoming Lawyer in a July interview. "I knew it as it happened. The government is not disputing allegations, not correcting the record - and I'm baffled, even to this day."

Rotunda served as legal advisor to the detention camp commander and liaison between him and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the international human rights group that oversees the treatment of prisoners of war.

"After the fact, we started hearing about the torture that was supposedly happening while I was there," she said. "It was news to me."

"There have been independent investigations and what they have concluded is there were definitely instances of abuse in Iraq and at Bagram Air Field," she continued. "They found 70 instances of abuses. But in Guantanamo Bay, they discovered three instances in the tens of thousands of interviews."

Two of those consisted of a female guard sitting on the lap of a prisoner and behaving in a "sexually suggestive" manner.

Rotunda attended weekly meetings between ICRC representatives and the commander.

"What the ICRC raised with us were trivial things, and the commander did everything he could to meet the detainees' requests," she said.

Their requests - including more Skittles candy, a particular type of soccer ball and spongy Nerf balls - were usually granted by the commander.

Most people are not aware the United States also accommodates Guantanamo detainees' religious needs beyond the requirements of the Geneva Conventions, Rotunda said...