A Letter to the President

01/24/09 THE WHITE HOUSE 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Obama,

On behalf of the members of this organization, all of whom are survivors of torture, I wish to thank you for the steps you have taken to close the prison at Guantanamo and other sites, known and unknown to the public.

I do hope more detail will be provided in the near future, however.In addition, and with all due respect, as a former tortured prisoner myself, I must note that while one year may seem a brief time to those in power, it is a depressingly long period for those sitting inside that prison. It has been my experience that the interests of the more powerful most often take precedence over those of the less powerful while the interests of justice play only a minor role, if any at all.

Still, your actions do have a very important meaning for those who have been tortured. We who have experienced this crime from the inside out, have known not only the horror of the torture chamber, we have known the despair emanating from the Bush administration’s decision to embrace the roleof the torturers and rather than to defend the tortured.Perhaps only those of us who are survivors can appreciate the effect of the torture policy of the Bush administration. During these past years, members of our organization quite literally feared the government to the extent that they would not enter a government building, unsure what might await them there. If this seems extreme, please remember that for many of us, we escaped a country which tortured us, suddenly to be confronted by the government of our new home which was torturing as well.

President Obama, as we express our gratitude to you for the steps you have taken already, may I say that there is at least one more yet to take, one involving accountability If ordering and/or approving torture is a violation of law (including treaties by which we have agreed to abide), then we believe that members of the Bush administration should be submitted to a process of investigation and if that investigation warrants, prosecution for violating U.S. law.We believe this because there must be one law for us all, not one for the powerful and another for the rest of us.We also believe it because it is only in this way, through the requirements of accountability, which we will say to the world that the torture policy of the Bush administration was both illegal and an aberration, violating both law and our basic beliefs.

Again, President Obama, thank you for the steps you have already taken. We await, with hope, future steps you will take in support of the law and basic human rights.

Sincerely,

Demissie Abebe

Executive Director