The Coffin: Another Way Out of Guantanamo

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The Coffin: Another Way Out of Guantanamo
Submitted by davidswanson on Thu, 2007-05-31 14:38. Media

By Moazzam Begg, Cageprisoners

News of yet another death in my former place of torment, Guantلnamo Bay, comes with great sadness, but little surprise. When three young Muslim men detained in Guantanamo returned home in coffins last year - two Saudis and one Yemeni - the US commander, Rear Admiral Harry Harris and assistant secretary of state for public diplomacy Colleen Graffy, the described the alleged suicides as acts of 'asymmetric warfare' and 'a good PR move'. These tactless words proved embarrassing even for the usually hard-line President himself. Henceforth, the stated aim of Mr. Bush was that he 'would like to see Guantلnamo closed'. It's almost a year to date since these men died, yet results of the autopsy have still not been released. Since attention regarding these cases tapered off into insignificance for the Bush administration conditions in Guantanamo have deteriorated according to visiting detainee lawyers, human rights organisations and the handful of released prisoners.

I've spoken with some of my former cell mates released this year who tell me conditions have worsened and are unbearably bleak and harsh in all sections of the camp. Concentrations of large numbers of prisoners in tiny cells, with no natural light, solitary confinement, constant glaring lights, no communication with the outside world and very little recreation have brought many more people to breaking point than the US administration would have us believe.

Instead of informing families directly, the US administration has deemed it more appropriate to simply release a terse press statement which mentions only the dead man's nationality and time of death. When I called the Guantanamo public affairs office they were unable to confirm the name or the number of the deceased man. There are over 60 Saudi families with loved ones held in Guantanamo and I've been on the phone with a few of them already. They are undoubtedly distraught with anxiety, each one bracing itself for the worst. One of them is the family of my friend, Shaker Aamer, a Saudi national and South London resident, whose British family - including a son he's never seen - have waited for him in anguish for five and a half years. He has been on hungers-strike for over six months, kept alive having liquid food forced through his nasal passage into his stomach. Shaker has spent a total of over three years in solitary confinement. When I received a letter from him last year he was in a state of paranoia - feeling he could trust no one. One of the last letters received by his family states:

"I am dying here every day, mentally and physically. This is happening to all of us. We have been ignored, locked up in the middle of the ocean for years. Rather than humiliate myself, having to beg for water, I would rather hurry up the process that is going to happen anyway.

"I would like to die quietly, by myself. I was once 250 lbs (17 stone 12 lbs). I dropped to 130 lbs (9 stone 4 lbs) in the first hunger strike. I want to make it easy on everyone. I want no feeding, no forced tubes, no 'help', no 'intensive assisted feeding'. This is my legal right.

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