I have always believed that the secret detention sites - where prisoners were water-boarded - and military prisons, like Bagram, were far worse than Guantanamo, not least because I saw two people killed by US soldiers in there. Now I’m not so sure.
They once called it ‘asymmetrical warfare’ and a ‘good PR move’ but the US administration may soon have to call the alleged suicides of prisoners in Guantanamo something they were trying to hide all along: murder.
The latest revelations in the US publication, Harper’s Magazine, suggests a major cover-up occurred after the 2006 deaths of three Guantanamo prisoners: Manei al-Otaibi and Yasser al-Zahrani from Saudi Arabia and Ali Al Salami fromYemen. Four Camp Delta Military Intelligence guards, including a decorated sergeant have furnished an account dramatically at odds with the official US version of what happened on the night of the deaths. I remember at the time how none of the former prisoners believed the official US version of events and, after I spoke to the families of the deceased, they too remained convinced that their loved ones had either been killed accidently or, more likely, murdered.
Last week I went with Johina Aamer to Downing Street to see her deliver a letter to our Prime Minister, asking for him to press the US government for the release of her father, Shaker Aamer, who has been held in Guantanamo for more than eight years without charge.
Shaker is regarded as one of the most influential prisoners in Guantanamo because of his vociferous and passionate advocacy for prisoners’ rights. As a result of this he has spent many years in isolation, on hunger-strike and forcibly fed liquid food through tubes in his nostrils. At the time of the deaths Shaker told his US attorney, Zacahry Katznelson, that he was ‘strapped to a chair and fully restrained at the head, arms and legs’, and that they ‘cut off his airway, then put a mask on him so he could not cry out. This is similar to what the Harper’s Magazine article claims happened to the three men before they died. Shaker has also alleged that his head was repeatedly slammed against a wall in Bagram in the presence of at least one British intelligence officer.
Obama’s 22nd January 2010 deadline to close the prison camp at Guantanamo will not be met. Few of the scores of former prisoners I’ve spoken to over the last year ever believed it would. The recent problems in Yemen and claims of ‘recidivism’ by some of the former prisoners has become the latest excuse in not releasing the men – not even the hundred or so who have been ‘cleared’ for release. Shaker Aamer was cleared for release over two years ago.
The irony of some of the resettlement cases couldn’t be starker. For example, the Uyghurs – Muslims from western China – have been resettled in places like Albania, Bermuda and the Pacific island of Palau: men who have suffered detention without trial, torture and abuse cannot be returned to their homes due to the fear of being detained without trial, tortured and abused.
There are around fifty men, all cleared for release by the US administration, who are unable to return to their countries for fear of torture and execution in countries like China, Libya, Tunisia and Algeria. The US administration has recognised this fact for many years but, releasing them is a major problem. Where will they send them to be freed, certainly not on US soil? After eight consecutive and torturous years of demonization, labelling them ‘enemy combatants’, ‘terrorists’, ‘murderers’ and ‘the worst of the worst’ how could the country so collectively traumatised by the events of 9/11 be expected to simply apologise and say it was mistaken in treating the men like animals?
Instead, the US calls upon the rest of the word to fix the problem it created. At least that’s how a lot of people in Europe see it.
Last week I also began a European tour, with lawyers for Guantanamo prisoners from Reprieve and the Center for Constitutional Rights, entitled, ‘Obama Needs EU’, to help secure homes in Europe for some of the fifty. The first leg was in Luxembourg where we met with Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn. Over the past months I have met with minsters in Malaysia and Sudan – where the receptions were warm and the desire to assist in the resettlement programme positive. However, I was unsure how such meetings might be perceived in a place like Luxembourg. I was pleasantly surprised. Not only did the media cover our visit to the country with references on several of the front pages but, the meeting with Mr. Asselborn proved an unforgettably warm one. We had a long discussion about the possibility of Luxembourg accepting a couple of the Guantanamo prisoners. He also seemed to have taken some personal interest and was clearly disturbed that the Guantanamo issue had not been yet. He was not unreceptive to the idea of taking a couple and said that he would consider the request properly. At the end of the meeting I gave him a copy of my autobiography, Enemy Combatant and he gave me a book about Abbaye De Neumunster(Neumunster Abbey). He went to some trouble to explain to me the significance of this book and why it was being gifted to me: Neumunster Abbey is a public meeting place and cultural centre located in the southern Luxembourg. It is a 17th century monastery that was used by the Nazis in WWII to imprison and torture political resisters. Asselborn wanted me to understand that.
Our own Foreign Minister, David Miliband, has told the Aamer family that Britain is still calling officially for the return of Shaker Aamer. At the same time, it is believed that the government has documents that contain evidence that confessions he made were obtained through torture, the disclosure of which they are trying to block in court on grounds of ‘public interest’.In light of the torture meted out to Shaker and the deaths that occurred the same night he was receiving some of that torture the public interest seems best served in openness.
I told Mr. Asselborn that the world will never forget Guantanamo – its black mark will be engraved indelibly in our memory for future generations to recall. But, just as history will not forget those responsible for Guantanamo it might also remember those who helped to put an end to it and exposed it. I hope Mr. Miliband understands that too.
