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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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June 12th, 2006 - Prisoners’ Ruse
Is Suspected at Guantánamo |
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‘Killing themselves was
unnecessary. But it certainly is a good PR move’ Bush officials’ hard line provokes condemnation - US ally admits
prison is hampering war on terror The Guardian Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington and Hugh Muir Monday June 12, 2006 The Bush administration
stared down a new wave of international condemnation of Guantánamo yesterday,
dismissing the suicides by three inmates of the prison camp as a "good
PR move" on their part and an "act of asymmetrical warfare". The deaths of two Saudis and
a Yemeni, who used knotted bedsheets to hang themselves in their solitary
cells, brought renewed calls from European governments and human rights
organisations to bring the 460 inmates to trial, or close down the camp. But
Bush administration officials rejected suggestions that the three had killed
themselves in despair over their indefinite confinement. "It does sound like
this is part of a strategy - in that they don't value their own lives, and
they certainly don't value ours; and they use suicide bombings as a
tactic," Colleen Graffy, the deputy assistant secretary of state for
public diplomacy, told BBC's Newshour yesterday. "Taking their own lives
was not necessary, but it certainly is a good PR move." On Saturday, the camp's
commander, Navy Rear Admiral Harry Harris, said the suicides were an al-Qaida
tactic. "They have no regard for life, neither ours nor their own. I
believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical
warfare waged against us," he said. The hard line from an
administration official comes at a time of increasing international criticism
at the handling of terror suspects at Guantánamo. The Danish prime minister,
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a staunch ally of the US in Iraq, said that Guantánamo
was damaging America's image in the world, and undermining the global war on
terror. "I think it would be to the benefit of our cause, and our fight
for freedom and for democracy, if the facilities at Guantánamo were closed
down," the Danish leader told CNN. In Stockholm, Sweden's
foreign minister, Jan Eliasson, voiced similar concerns about the lack of due
process. "It shows the importance of letting the prisoners free or
giving them a statutory trial." In Saudi Arabia, officials
at the semi-official human rights organisation accused the prison
administration of torturing the men to death. "Even if the suicide story
is true, I have no doubts that they were pushed to it by torture and the lack
of attention paid to the health of the detainees," said Saleh al-Khathlan
of the Saudi human rights group. Lawyers for the detainees
called the comments by administration officials deeply offensive. Gitanjali
Gutierrez, a lawyer for the Centre for Constitutional Rights, which
represents most of the detainees, said: "It's very clear that any human
being who is kept in indefinite detention over four years, not given any kind
of hearing, and whose life and fate is subject to such uncertainty,
inevitably will contemplate suicide, and the fact that three of them finally
succeeded comes as no surprise. This is not an act of warfare, it is a
consequence of inhumane and immoral treatment of human beings by the United
States." In Britain, Massoud
Shadjareh, of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, said of the US officials'
remarks: "This is the sort of statement that SS officers in Nazi Germany
would have been envious of." Inayat Bunglawala, of the Muslim Council of
Britain, deplored the "incredibly insensitive and callous"
comments. "The deaths of these three people was not an act of war, it
was an act of desperation." President George Bush at the
weekend expressed "serious concern" about the suicides. At
Guantánamo, a military official yesterday said that the bodies of the three
men would be dealt with in accordance with Muslim tradition, and that a fatwa
had been obtained to allow autopsies. A Saudi interior ministry official told
the Associated Press that procedures had begun to send home the bodies of two
detainees, identified as Mani Shaman Turki al-Habardi al-Utaybi and Yasser
Talal al-Zahrani. The Yememi was named as Ali Abdullah Ahmed. Utaybi had actually been
cleared by the Pentagon for transfer out of Guantánamo in late 2005 -
although it was uncertain whether he knew he would be leaving, Cully Stimson,
the deputy assistant secretary of detainee affairs told the Guardian. He said
that Utaybi, who belonged to a militant Islamist missionary organisation, had
been recommended for transfer to a third country. Mr Stimson described Ali
Abdullah Ahmed as a mid-to high-level al-Qaida operative with connections to
Abu Zubaydah, the former chief of military operations in US custody. The
third man, Yasser Talal al-Zahrani, had been captured on the battlefield in
late 2001 during the prison uprising at Mazar-i-Sharif. The suicides were the first
deaths since the first detainees were brought to Guantánamo from the
battlefields of Afghanistan four years ago. The authorities at the camp have
at times gone to extreme measures to keep inmates alive, resorting to brutal
force-feeding during hunger strikes. The deaths come three weeks after three
prisoners tried to kill themselves. Earlier this month, the authorities
confronted a hunger strike by more than 80 prisoners. Eight were still on
hunger strike yesterday. We treat them well and they try to kill us, says camp commander Rear Admiral Harry Harris,
commander of Guantánamo, defended the treatment of detainees in an article
published in the Chicago Tribune on May 17 "Conditions have
improved dramatically for detainees since they first arrived in 2002. More
important, we aggressively look for ways to build on the 'safe and humane
care and custody' mission ... "We hold men who
proudly admit membership at the leadership level in al-Qaida and the Taliban,
many with direct personal contact and knowledge of the September 11 2001
attackers. We are keeping terrorist recruiters, facilitators, explosives
trainers, bombers and bombmakers, Osama bin Laden bodyguards and financiers,
from continuing their jihad against America ... "We provide safe
shelter and living areas with beds, mattresses, sheets and running-water
toilets. We also provide adequate clothing, including shoes and uniforms, and
the normal range of hygiene items, such as a toothbrush, toothpaste, soap and
shampoo. Even so, many detainees have taken advantage of this - crafting
killing weapons from toothbrushes and garrottes from food wrappers, for
example ... "We provide outstanding
medical care to every detainee, the same quality as what our service members
receive ... That said, many detainees persist in mixing a
blood-urine-faeces-semen cocktail and throwing this deadly concoction into
the faces of the American men and women who guard them, feed them and care for
them ... "Despite articles
written by defence attorneys and young translators arguing the contrary,
these are, in fact, dangerous men in our custody. Make no mistake about it -
we are keeping enemies of our nation off the battlefield. This is an enormous
challenge. These terrorists are not represented by any nation or government.
They do not adhere to the rules of war." Guardian Unlimited ©
Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 External link:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,,1795445,00.html Prisoners’
Ruse Is Suspected at Guantánamo New York Times By David S. Cloud and Neil A. Lewis June 12, 2006 Washington
- Three detainees at the United States military prison at Guantánamo Bay,
Cuba, tried to conceal themselves in their cells - behind laundry and through
other means - to prevent guards from seeing them commit suicide, a senior
military official said Sunday. One
of the prisoners hanged himself behind laundry drying from the ceiling of the
cell, and had arranged his bed to make it look as if he was still sleeping,
said the official, Lt. Cmdr. Robert T. Durand of the Navy. The other two
detainees who committed suicide also took steps to prevent guards from seeing
that they had put nooses around their necks, he added. The
deception by the prisoners raises questions about how long it took military
guards to discover the bodies. Regulations at Guantánamo call for guards to
check on each inmate every two minutes. Military
officials said one focus of an investigation into the suicides would be the
need for procedural changes, like barring prisoners from doing laundry in
their cells. Gen.
Bantz J. Craddock of the Army, who oversees Guantánamo as commander of the
United States Southern Command, told reporters on Sunday that the
investigation into the deaths "kind of boils down to two things: Are the
procedures that you have in place adequate, and then were the procedures
followed to the standards?" The
Pentagon identified the three detainees as two Saudis, Mani bin Shaman bin
Turki al-Habardi, 30, and Yasser Talal Abdulah Yahya al-Zahrani, 22, and a
Yemeni, Ali Abdullah Ahmed, 33. Reaction
around the world seemed muted, though the Liberal Democratic leader in
Britain, Sir Menzies Campbell, said he was thinking about touring Guantánamo
and repeated his criticism of the policy of detaining suspects without
sending them to trial. Democrats
in the United States said little, apparently concerned about appearing to be
sympathizing with detainees who could turn out to have significant terrorist
connections. White
House officials described the three men as committed terrorists, and military
officials said that none had been among the handful of prisoners whose cases
had been brought before military commissions for prosecution. The
Pentagon released a statement describing Mr. Ahmed, the Yemeni, as a
"mid to high-level Al Qaeda operative" who was close to Abu
al-Zubaydah, a senior figure for Al Qaeda who has since been captured. The
statement also said that Mr. Habardi was a member of a terrorist group that
recruits for Al Qaeda, and had been recommended for transfer to another
country, presumably Saudi Arabia. The Pentagon said that Mr. Zahrani had been
"a frontline fighter for the Taliban" and had participated in the
prison uprising in 2001 at Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan that resulted in the
death of Johnny Micheal Spann, a C.I.A. operative. The
suicides renew the question of what the Bush administration will do with the
detention center at Guantánamo, which President Bush has told interviewers
recently that he would like to close at some point in the future. The
timing appears postponed, however. "You
can't have a final disposition about Guantánamo until the Supreme Court has
ruled on the Hamdan case," said Tony Snow, the White House spokesman,
referring to a pending decision on whether detainees at Guantánamo may be
tried as war criminals before military commissions and whether they may
challenge their detentions in federal courts. Military
officials said they had translated notes left by the prisoners, but the
officials refused to describe the contents of the messages. All three men
were in the same cellblock in 6-by-8-foot cells that were not adjoining but
had wire-mesh walls, which might have enabled them to communicate, officials
said. Speaking
by telephone from the Saudi holy city of Medina, Talal Abdallah al-Zahrani,
50, the father of Mr. Zahrani, said that when he heard from his son in a
recent letter, he sounded in good spirits and appeared to be more optimistic
than before about being released soon. "Nothing
suggested that he would commit suicide, nothing," Mr. Zahrani said. He
said that the account of his son's suicide was "100 percent
concocted." His
son was 17 in 2001 when he was apprehended in Afghanistan, where he worked
with Islamic charities, he said. He had memorized the Koran since his
imprisonment and said he had been behaving, Mr. Zahrani added. Mr.
Zahrani said hundreds of people attended a wake for his son on Sunday night
after he had received word of his death from Saudi authorities. His comments
about the turnout of mourners underscored the possibility that the return of
the bodies to Saudi Arabia and Yemen - should the government allow it - could
turn into anti-American events. Jennifer
Daskal, advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, said Sunday that the three
suicides "are an indication of the incredible despair that the prisoners
are experiencing" after many of them have been "completely cut off
from the world." Her
comments were echoed by other critics as well. General
Craddock speculated that the suicides may have been timed to affect the
Supreme Court decision on the Hamdan case. "This
may be an attempt to influence the judicial proceedings in that
perspective," he told reporters, according to a transcript of his
comments during a brief visit to Guantánamo on Sunday. The
investigation into how the three prisoners were able to hang themselves and
whether changes in procedures are necessary will be conducted by the
commander of the prison, Rear Adm. Harry B. Harris. "There
will be an after-action report that will look at whether there was failure of
S.O.P.'s or adequate S.O.P.'s that were not followed," said Lieutenant
Commander Durand, using the military acronym for standard operating
procedures. The
inquiry will probably look at whether procedures requiring guards to observe
prisoners at least every two minutes were followed the night of the suicides.
Until now, prison officials have voiced confidence that the safeguards were
adequate, pointing to the fact that despite dozens of attempted suicides in
the last four years, none had been successful. Guards
will now collect bed linens every morning to prevent prisoners from secretly
making nooses, Lieutenant Commander Durand said. In addition to possibly
revoking permission for detainees to do their own laundry, prison officials
are looking at withholding toiletries and other items that might be used in
suicide attempts, he added. "We've
got to determine and find the balance between the comfort items that we would
like to provide and the point at which comfort items in the possession of a
few determined detainees will be turned into something that could contribute
to taking their lives," General Craddock said. There
have been recent signs of growing unrest among the prisoners, including an
episode in May in which at least two prisoners attempted suicide and another
was said to have faked a suicide to lure guards into an ambush. Several
Guantánamo officers said some prisoners had spread the idea of suicide,
claiming to have had visions that the prison would not be closed until after
three prisoners had died, a possible explanation for the decision by the
three men to kill themselves at the same time. James
Yee, a former Islamic chaplain at Guantánamo, said the suicides signaled
"an important failure there." Mr.
Yee, who served at Guantánamo when the first of 41 previous suicide attempts
occurred said, "The military guards on the block are supposed to check
each detainee visually every two minutes or so." The
suicide attempt that came closest to being successful, involving a Saudi
schoolteacher who was arrested in Pakistan, where he had attended a militant
training camp, was foiled by those procedures, he said. "At
least one guard would have to walk up and down the corridor," he said.
"That saved the Saudi detainee. who was in a coma for months."
Although the Saudi detainee was not expected to survive, he recovered and has
since been sent home. Mr.
Yee, a West Point graduate, was arrested on suspicion of espionage but the
charges were dropped. He left the Army after being found guilty of minor
infractions and amid overwhelming evidence that the suspicions of espionage
were groundless. Joshua
Colangelo-Bryan, a lawyer representing Jumah Dossari, a Guantánamo inmate who
has attempted suicide numerous times, said he had been told that guards were
expected to keep close watch on prisoners, observing them every 30 seconds.
But he said the procedures were difficult to follow in practice. While
visiting his client last November, he said he found Mr. Dossari in a bathroom
trying to hang himself and slit his wrists. Even though a video camera had
been installed in the bathroom, Mr. Colangelo-Bryan said guards did not
respond until he called them. Though
the Bush administration has been under pressure - from the United Nations,
European countries and the International Committee of the Red Cross - about
the Guantánamo detention center, White House officials did not indicate that
they viewed the suicides as a major political problem. The State Department
alerted American embassies in Europe and the Middle East, and asked them to
contact government officials. But White House officials said Mr. Bush did not
make calls to world leaders. "We
haven't heard much response," one senior official said. The
United Nations was also notified of the suicides, the White House said. The
U.N.'s Human Rights Commission declined to visit the detention center last
year after the Bush administration refused to allow commission members to
interview or talk with detainees. David
E. Sanger contributed reporting from Washington for this article,Hassan M.
Fattah from France, and Alan Cowell from London. External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/12/us/12gitmo.html Guantanamo Inmate was to be Moved Al Jazeera Monday 12 June 2006 2:00 PM GMT One of the Guantanamo
detainees who committed suicide had been cleared for transfer to another
country, the US Defence Department has revealed. The department on Sunday
identified the three as Saudi Arabians Mani Shaman Turki al-Habardi Al-Utaybi
and Yassar Talal Al-Zahrani and Yemeni Ali Abdullah Ahmed. The US military
accused al-Utaybi of being a member of an alleged "militant missionary
group", the Jama'at al-Tablighi. The 30-year-old, born in al-Qarara,
Saudi Arabia, had been recommended for transfer to another country for
continued detention, though the Defence Department did not specify where. Suicide questioned Meanwhile, relatives of two
Saudi detainees who died at Guantanamo Bay said the men could not have
committed suicide as the US military reported, because they are strict
Muslims, newspapers said on Monday. Islam prohibits suicide and
sets out harsh punishments in the afterlife for those who take their own
lives. The men's families said they had probably been killed. Saudi Arabia said it was
working on the repatriation of their bodies. The kingdom did not say how the
men died but the US military said the three detainees had hanged themselves. "I am confident my son
did not commit suicide," Talal al-Zahrani, Yassar Talal Al-Zahrani's
father, told the Asharq al-Awsat newspaper. "The story of the US
administration is a lie. ‘He was killed' Yassar Al-Zahrani's brother,
Ahmed, also said it was unthinkable that Yasser would kill himself.
"It's impossible for Yassar to commit suicide," he told the
al-Watan newspaper. "He was killed," said another brother,
Abdullah. Fares al-Otaibi, Manei's
brother, also suspected foul play. "We are 100% suspicious about his
death," he told the newspaper. The three were the first
prisoners the US military has reported as dying at the base in Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba, where the United States has held "terrorism" suspects
since 2002. The deaths renewed criticism
of the base, which many human rights groups say should be closed. Nearly all
the prisoners at Guantanamo are being held without charge and some have been
held for more than four years. None of the three who recently died had been
formally charged. Katib al-Shimary, a lawyer
for Saudi detainees at Guantanamo, said he held the US authorities
responsible for the deaths. "We lost confidence in US jails ... after
Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo," he told local newspapers. Riyadh declined to say
whether it would ask for an investigation into the deaths but pledged more
efforts to bring back all Saudis detained at Guantanamo, estimated at up to
103. External link: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A9C98586-81EC-48F1-927A-A96DFA6EC68D.htm |