Death, whether as a protest or an act of desperation, was the only way out of Guantánamo for the three ”war on terror” inmates found hanged in their cells.
On one side there is a mini-desert in a parched corner of south-east Cuba. On the other are sharks and a huge expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. The United States military is not kidding when it warns its ”enemy combatant” guests that there is no escape.
The Saturday suicides come as the US government fights a desperate battle to defend the camp and the judicial black hole the detainees are kept in against international criticism.
Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, President George Bush’s closest ally, has called Guantánamo an ”anomaly”. United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan says the camp should be closed.
The detention camp on the US naval base at Guantánamo Bay was opened in January 2002 to keep followers of Osama bin Laden, the Taliban and other groups detained in Afghanistan, Iraq and other hotspots since the September 11 2001 attacks.
At first the inmates were kept in Camp X-Ray, a near shanty of metal cages. Later they were moved to Camp Delta, a harsh purpose-built complex, enclosed by three layers of barbed wire fences.
The US military insists conditions are ”humane” and that many inmates are too ”dangerous” to be considered for release, transfer or even put on trial in a civil court.
There are currently about 460 detainees in Camp Delta, who are divided into three different security risks.
About 10% are said to suffer from a serious mental illness and a large number are prescribed anti-depressants, the military admits. There have been scores of suicide attempts before the three deaths reported on Saturday.
Nearly all inmates have been at Guantánamo since it opened. The US refuses to give them prisoner-of-war status under the Geneva Conventions, so they are called ”enemy combatants”.
Special war-crimes military tribunals have been set up, but only 10 inmates have been charged and the hearings are virtually frozen while challenges to their legality are decided by the US Supreme Court.
Guantánamo became notorious when images of prisoners wearing orange jump suits who were bound, shackled and bundled into back of improvised golf carts to be taken for interrogation, were published.
The US media has published classified documents that showed the US Defence Department approved the use sleep deprivation, exposure to hot and cold, bright lights, and loud music during interrogations.
Detainee lawyers say many of their clients claim they were beaten. Some who have been released say they were tortured.
Now, in one interrogation room in Camp Five, the newest part of the complex, there are hard chairs for questioners, a small table, a Middle Eastern carpet and a reclining chair with velvet-like cushions for the inmate.
Other interrogation rooms have a couch or a DVD player and a television, according to Guantánamo officers, who say the aim is to befriend inmates.
Washington lawyer Thomas Wilner, who represents several inmates, said he believes most forms of abuse ended in 2004 as the camp’s reputation deteriorated, which coincided with the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq.
”At the beginning, a number of them said that they were subjected to very harsh physical abuse. Several of them were beaten up when they first arrived at Guantánamo. Others were punched a lot during interrogation. That, I think, has ended long ago,” Wilner said.
The US president has indicated that official thinking about Guantanamo is changing.
He was questioned about the camp by another ally when Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen visited Washington on Friday.
”I assured him that we would like to end the Guantánamo; we’d like it to be empty,” Bush said.
”We’re now in the process of working with countries to repatriate people, but there are some that — if put out on the streets — could create grave harm to American citizens and other citizens of the world,” said Bush.
The US Supreme Court is expected to imminently announce whether the military tribunals at Guantánamo are constitutional, and Bush said if the verdict goes against the administration, cases could be heard in US courts. — AFP
