Wednesday, July 14, 2010

RIP Charly Gittings

During the night my friend and the friend of many of us, Charly Gittings, died. He was diagnosed with lung cancer just about a year ago and he fought the good fight as long as he could. He asked me, and his many other friends, to carry on certain battles: to keep his project alive "the project to enforce the Geneva Conventions" and to do our best to bring our war criminals to justice. I made the promise to him that I would do everything I could to make sure our war criminals were prosecuted....and I will. I hope others will work on finding a home for his Project.

I would like to share some of the thoughts from his friends with you, I hope they do not mind:

"Our loss is also the loss of the world; peace, justice and honor will be just a bit further away from our grasp";

"If I were to do an eulogy for Charles Gittings, I would say he was a stubborn, obstinate—even prickly—man who knew his duty and always performed it faithfully. In my personal experience, he managed to sway many people, among them military officers, to accept his point of view. He contributed a great deal to our understanding of war crimes, he documented his findings meticulously and he ended up being in the right. I can't think of a better epitaph. This man made a difference";

"I join in lamenting the loss of a sweet-tempered, hard-working, gentle giant who never tired of seeking rights for those that so many sunshine patriots despise.

I am so sorry to lose Charly";

"It fell to me, in the last year of a life that began in 1914
that Charlie gave me the rare honor of allowing me to serve as his attorney of record in SCOTUS in the KIYEMBA .
Until then I had admired his Project from afar, with a occasional grumble at the failure of the elite of the American Society of International Law to have founded a
project to enforce the Charter of the United Nations, the terms of which are under our Constitution THE SUPREME LAW OF THE LAND";

"On a rainy evening sadly comes a long expected visit. but with it bittersweetly, the balm of these remembrances.

Five years ago I wandered into a Guantanamo case, filed a motion, and about ten seconds after it hit Pacer, had the lion heart at my ear. On that shining day when we grasped victory, and on the dark ones when the Circuit snatched it back, he was there. He never tired. I can hear him still.

Well done, thou good and faithful servant -- Atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale."

TO read Charly's biography click here.

The talking dog has more here.

And to check out the Charly Gittings memorial blog click here.....

And so Charly, rest in peace and please know that your friends that will continue to do their best to prosecute those who have violated our laws.


Andy Worthington updates....

Andy has updated his four-part definitive Guantanamo prisoner list, bringing the project up-to-date with new links to the last six months of habeas results, releases (just 17), torture revelations and the ongoing failure of the Obama administration to close the prison.

Click on the title for more.........

Andy has also completed the most recent of six lists providing links to all his articles in chronological order, covering Jan-Jun 2010 (the lists start in May 2007), which is a useful resource as well:

http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2010/07/10/the-guantanamo-files-an-archive-of-articles-part-six-january-to-june-2010/