Washington - As most major Western allies stridently demand the closing of the U.S. Caribbean gulag at Guantanamo Bay, Canada's conspicuous silence remains a rare exception. British, French, German and Italian leaders have all pushed for Guantanamo's closing in recent weeks after a damning UN report that found it falling far short of meeting international standards of justice. Calls for shutting down Guantanamo have since echoed around the globe. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan says close it. So does Louise Arbour, a former Canadian Supreme Court judge who heads the UN Human Rights Commission. The Bush administration's policy of holding detainees in secret and offshore prisons and shipping them to third countries has "an acutely corrosive effect on the global ban on torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment," she said.

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