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TechnoratiGitmo: America's Black Hole
I am writing from the Combined Bachelors' Quarters on the leeward side of Guantanamo Bay. Particularly in the age of "don't ask, don't tell," it is a strange name for a military barracks. Yet the irony of this place runs deep, as does the tragedy. The base motto is "Honor Bound to Defend Freedom," even though my clients, who are prisoners in the detention center, have none.
I've been here meeting with them this week, but I can't tell you what anyone has told me, as it must all go through the censors. It does not matter that the topic may be as innocuous as Speedo swimwear, for each word is considered a potential threat to national security. (Why would a lawyer talk about Speedos? Because, a few weeks ago, a commander alleged that I smuggled in Speedos and Under Armour underwear to one client, apparently so he could paddle around in the only pool available to him, his privy.)
Most of the secrecy in Guantanamo involves suppressing bad news about the base rather than anything that should really be classified. But I obey the rules or I go to jail, so until I get permission, I can only write about what I see, not what is said.
I had a morning meeting scheduled with Sami Haj, the Al Jazeera journalist, no more a terrorist than my grandmother. Sami's original arrest in Pakistan in late 2001 was perhaps understandable because the U.S. military thought he had filmed an interview with Osama bin Laden. To track down the criminal behind 9/11, many people would accept a little trampled due process. Unfortunately, as has often been the case, the intelligence turned out to be wrong. Yet Sami remained in custody. On the fifth anniversary of his detention without trial, his patience wore thin and he went on a hunger strike, the age-old peaceful protest against injustice.
After crossing the bay on the 8 a.m. ferry, an escort drove me down Recreation Road, past the golf course. I noticed a yellow sign. The soldiers were admonished that their value of the week should be "Compassion."
Sami's strike began 271 days ago. Medical ethics tell us that you cannot force-feed a mentally competent hunger striker, as he has the right to complain about his mistreatment, even unto death. But the Pentagon knows that a prisoner starving himself to death would be abysmal PR, so they force-feed Sami. As if that were not enough, when Gen. Bantz J. Craddock headed up the U.S. Southern Command, he announced that soldiers had started making hunger strikes less "convenient." Rather than leave a feeding tube in place, they insert and remove it twice a day. Have you ever pushed a 43-inch tube up your nostril and down into your throat? Tonight, Sami will suffer that for the 479th time.
It is sometimes a minor rule change, imposed from far above, that inflames me. I always carry lozenges, and some months back, a hunger-striking client agreed to take one to soothe his sore throat. By my next visit, the list of "contraband" had expanded to bar this insignificant salve.
Sami looked very thin. His memory is disintegrating, and I worry that he won't survive if he keeps this up. He already wrote a message for his 7-year-old son, Mohammed, in case he dies here.
As I left his cell at Camp Iguana, I pondered why American reporters have remained so silent about his imprisonment. Here is a fellow journalist locked up for almost six years, with no proof offered of any crime.
In the afternoon, I met with Hisham Sliti. He's Tunisian, and we get by in French, with a smattering of Italian (mainly gesticulating and swearing). It'd been a long time since I sat in a French class, but a translator can cost over $1,000 a day, and the charity I work with can't shell that out often. Hisham laughs when I tell jokes, but it could well be my accent he finds so amusing.
Tonight, I must plan tomorrow's visit with Shaker Aamer. Shaker has never met his youngest son, Faris, who was born after his imprisonment and who waits in London, hoping to meet his father. I'd love to ask Shaker about the Speedos I supposedly gave him, but he was floridly psychotic the last time I saw him. He's been on a hunger strike even longer than Sami -- almost 300 days -- and an interrogator told him I was Jewish to sow discord between us. He is fairly certain that I work with the CIA.
Meanwhile, most of the soldiers are unwaveringly polite to me -- decent people trying to do a terrible job. I sympathize with these Navy recruits who signed up to sail the high seas but live like Bill Murray in "Groundhog Day": A year passes with no change more exciting than a sudden swerve to avoid a lizard. In this legal black hole where a human being has no rights, there is a stiff fine for harming an iguana.
Would that the guards were always so pleasant to the prisoners. In more than 20 years trying death-penalty cases, I have visited all the worst prisons in the Deep South, yet none compares to Camp Six here. To the military, this tribute to Halliburton's profiteering is state-of-the-art; to the human being, it is simply inhumane. The prisoners have an average of 23 hours a day in isolation, six hours of direct sunlight a month, perhaps one fishing magazine a week to read, and never, ever the chance to see a loved one. The immoral has become so mundane.
Clive Stafford Smith is the legal director of Reprieve, a British charity that provides legal representation to prisoners around the world. He is also the author of "Eight O'Clock Ferry to the Windward Side: Seeking Justice in Guantanamo Bay."
Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times
9 Comments so far
Show AllMr. Smith, what an elegant personal testimony of your visits to Guantanamo--thank you for your article, and I will be on the lookout for your book on the subject.
There are many people in this country who still believe that everyone there must be the worst sort of criminal, or why would our government put them there. Obviously, this is untrue. What little information that could be gleaned from the few actual terrorists there is bound to be inaccurate or out of date. The others are bit players at most, or totally innocent and uninvolved. Yet they are being held, mainly to keep them from speaking out about the atrocities of the Bush administration.
Perhaps the media is afraid of losing access if they bear down on this or any other disregard for law and morality involving this administration. But reporters would certainly be more agressive in sticking up for one of their own. I think we need to press the case of Sami Haj with the major media to get them to investigate. His case is about coverup, not fighting terrorism. This could, should, and must lead to a wider investigation of Guantanamo torture, coverups, and lies.
The law of reciprocity referred to as karma or the boomerang effect as above, is not a temporal construct with a future implication, but a state of being transcendent of time. I think of the biblical admonition that 'that which you do to the least among you, you do to me'. Perhaps there is a link between this and distorted predictions/notions of 'apocalypse'. The self-fulfilling prophesy of denial resulting in diminution of spiritual capacity to integrate reality.
The etymological root of apocalypse is to "uncover" or "reveal". Perhaps this is why in the Biblical chapter of Revelations there is reference to 'the end of time'.
like Frank1569 points out, there are 14,000 plus who knows how many others being held without charges in secret prisons. What little can be known comes out of gitmo. which is a big reason it needs to stay open. So we can get stories like this and so all those prisoners are not completely forgotten. the press needs to work a lot harder on this, and so do human rights organizations.
CLIVE S. SMITH: You are truly blessed with a soul filled with compassion to continue to fight for what rights still exist for these citizens, "left behind."
LITTLEM85: Thank you for praying for Mr. Smith and those who will eventually experience Divine justice.
What a travesty this nation has become as Bush uses PR to tout works like freedom and democracy, as a right wing radio and MSM hate machine fills the air waves with LIES about the motives behind the Iraqi war, the "probable" guilt of all these "dangerous" prisoners being held. Their existence at Guantanamo and other secret prison locations does mostly one thing: it plays into all the other smoke and mirror "Hollywood" style sets that give the APPEARANCE that something is being done, that grant (false) legitimacy to this Orwellian "war on terror," that is mostly just enriching the darkest among the dark hearted, the military-industrial complex and its related corporate enablers.
There are countless tales in history, literature and religious texsts that demonstrate an inviolate law of this universe: when enough negative action is taken, eventually a boomerang of response forms to re-set the intended scales of justice. America is led by such horrific amoral persons that when this boomerang hails back our way, evil will no longer be a theoretical construct. I hope that persons of conscience are largely able to escape this collective fate, but every day the actions of the "leaders" of this land only further the probability of justice heading back our way with its own unmerciful fist.
It makes me both ashamed and angry. Ashamed at what is being done in my name, and angry that the so-called opposition party is not doing anything to put a stop to it despite being voted into power in 2006.
Lobo Gris
In the name of God, the All Merciful, the Mercy-giving
Well, as Dostoevski said,
"The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons."
I guess our society is way below any degree of civilization...maybe one day we'll get there.
Mr. Smith, may God bless you and your work, grant you success and give you the best of this life and the next.
This is an odd night of the last 10 nights of Ramadan, an extra special time for prayer, and I pray that God blesses all those who work to uphold these prisoners and bring them justice and I pray that God eases the prisoners' plight, releases them, returns them to their loved ones, and grants them all the highest station in Heaven. The greeting there will be "Peace" and "Eat and drink salubriously, for all the good that you used to do in life," (Quran, 53:19).
There is no veil between the oppressed person and God: God will deliver them and answer their prayers.
Meanwhile, we free people that have consciences need to do whatever we can to spread the truth of their conditions and try to work toward their release.
A good place to get more information about these detainees is cageprisoners.com. It has loads of good information and is updated regularly.
Also, you guys should buy Poems from Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak. It is a compilation of 22 poems written by Gitmo inmates. They are extremely moving, and really draw out their humanity and their suffering.
Halliburton knows a money maker when it sees one.
The LAT reports this week that the US is holding over 14,000 humans worldwide, not counting Iraq or secret CIA prisons, without charge or any opportunity to fight their indefinite detainment. The few hundred or so in Gitmo get the press, but the real story is just how pervasive this perverted anti-American "policy" truly is, which we still don't know, since, like everything else Cheneybush, there are mountains of secrets to mine.
"As I left his cell at Camp Iguana, I pondered why American reporters have remained so silent about his imprisonment. Here is a fellow journalist locked up for almost six years, with no proof offered of any crime."
This is the point that amazes me. There are, how many newspapers in the US? Do I hear crickets chirping? You rely on a British volunteer to tell the story of your shame. If only there was a free press to pick this story up, maybe even assign an American reporter to it, or are they all taking the daily dictation in Washington. And what's with that CNN? They have a white house reporter, a pentagon reporter and a state department reporter. Is that what you call covering all the points of view? I'm serious. I don't get how you live like that.