A one and a half hour National Geographic documentary titled, Explorer: Inside Guantanamo  was shown in the US and in some countries on the 4th April. The film shows life inside the detention camp in Guantanamo where terrorist suspects are kept by the US. This military prison is a brain child of former President George Bush, who after the September 11th incident rounded up terrorist suspects in the US and detained them. Now it is to be closed within a year.

The documentary shows the tension between inmates, held without any charges since 2002, and the US troops guarding them. Some inmates who had been released and claim to have been tortured talk of their experiences behind steel doors. The Warden, Col. Bruce Vargo, calls the prison ‘a physical and psychological war zone’ while a former Defence lawyer says it is, ‘a place with no law’. This film is the first in-depth look at the US detention centre for terrorist suspects.

It depicts the daily routine in a maximum security cell-block of concrete and steel  where guards make suicide checks every three minutes and soldiers rush with face shields to quell disturbances. There are scenes of open cages from where inmates are led tightly shackled, for harsh interrogation in windowless rooms. When former President George Bush was asked about this treatment his comment was, "... these are terrorist suspects and that’s the way we are going to treat them". We should note that these are only "suspects" and this is how the US treats terrorist ‘suspects’ in  fighting terrorism.

The irony is that while these detainees are subject to such physical and mental humiliation, Human Rights Activists and Organisations had been passive on lookers. These Human Rights Activists did not report any breaches in international law or war crimes. Obviously, they agreed that that should be how terrorist suspects are dealt with.

In contrast, when Sri Lanka fights the LTTE, the world’s most ruthless terrorist organisation, these Activists and Human Rights Organisations make a hue and cry. For the allies of the LTTE, these terrorists are ‘angels’ but in the eyes of the civilized world  they are a bunch of cold-blooded killers, holding innocent civilians to ransom with callous disregard for their safety.

The civilians risking their lives escape from the clutches of the terrorists to come to the government controlled areas as they feel safe. The LTTE stance is that the government in the guise of running welfare centres is resorting to slavery. The allied Human Rights Agencies of the LTTE operating on the same wave length say that the camps are open prisons with barbed wire fences.

The accusations of the LTTE and Human Rights Activists were rejected by the Tamil Diaspora who visited the camps recently. Mrs. Rajeswari Balasubramaniam , one of the leaders of the team, commented, "...I visited these welfare camps and realised that they were better maintained than such camps in South India... Though the LTTE designated themselves representatives of the Lankan Tamils they had only destroyed the life of the Wanni based Tamils..."