Shadow of Guantanamo Follows Freed Inmates Back to their Homes

[leftchick]

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/09/14-0



Abdul Nasir, right, and his brother in Kabul. Photograph: Jason Burke


KABUL - They call them the Bandi Guantánamo, the Guantánamo returnees, and their welcome home is far from warm. All across Afghanistan in recent months, scores of men have been coming back from a long journey halfway around the world. About 100 have been released from Guantánamo Bay by United States authorities in the last 12 months as Washington, under mounting pressure from governments around the world, attempts to moderate the damage done to America's image by the Cuba-based detention centre. A third are Afghan and more are due to return in the coming weeks.


After more than five years in detention thousands of miles away, often traumatised, often angry, or just broken and poor, the Bandi Guantánamo try to build new lives, with limited success. Most claim innocence. Others are unashamed of their acts of violence. Interviewed in Kabul last month, Mohammed Umr described how he had trained in terrorist techniques, met Osama bin Laden and fought at the battle of Tora Bora in 2001. Released 10 weeks ago, he spoke of how angry the presence of his former jailers in his homeland made him. 'If they have come here to help us, why do they kill civilians and why can't they even provide electricity to Kabul seven years after invading?', asked the 30-year-old former footballer, arrested in Pakistan during the closing days of the war of 2001.

Almost all the former detainees describe mistreatment - ranging from waterboarding - the repeated half-drowning of prisoners to get them to talk - through to beatings, sleep deprivation, being kept in 'stress positions' and exposure to extreme temperatures for long periods. Most say that the worst abuse occurred in US bases in Afghanistan, notably in the eastern and southern cities of Jalalabad and Kandahar, or at the logistics centre of Bagram airfield, where a 500-capacity makeshift prison was built. American military spokesmen in Afghanistan deny any mistreatment.

By comparison, the former prisoners say, Guantánamo was relatively bearable. 'It was better there,' said Abdul Nasir, who added that he had been deprived of sleep in the Bagram prison. 'The food was OK. There was more exercise. When I arrived we had just 20 minutes twice a week. By the end it was two hours a day.' Like others interviewed by The Observer, Nasir, 26, claimed that rows frequently broke out in Guantánamo over religious practice. 'The guards made noise when we were praying. They shouted bad things,' he alleged. 'There was nearly a riot because they were handling the Koran that we were allowed in our cells.'

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

[msedano]

2. five years, £5

one pound per year. who says the unitedstates doesn't value muslim lives?

"The detainees are being released into Afghan custody after their cases are reviewed by US authorities. They are usually held in the new wing, built with American funds, at Pul-e-Sharqi prison near Kabul, where they are tried under Afghan law by local terrorist courts. Most are released and given about £5 and some clothes."

recommended

[leftchick]

3. this is just so tragic.....

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Haji Ghalib, a tribal elder from eastern Nangahar province released late last year, claimed he was falsely denounced after closing down a drugs bazaar when he was police chief in a rough district near Jalalabad. 'It was a ridiculous accusation, but the Americans believed it. They beat me, gave me no food and interrogated me by strapping me to a wooden plank and pushing my head into water. I kept telling them they had got the wrong person,' he said.

Independent sources confirm that Ghalib, a former fighter against the Russians, had fought against the Taliban in previous years and was allied with an anti-Taliban warlord.

'I spent four years in Guantánamo without any evidence of any guilt at all because I am innocent,' he said in Kabul. 'But I am not angry at the Americans because they were the victims of bad information. But I would like the money and vehicles they took from me. I am in a very difficult situation now, and I am worried about the people who accused me, because they could do it again.'

More than 500 detainees have been released from Guantánamo and American authorities have indicated that only about 70 of the 263 still in their custody will be tried. They include at least a dozen senior al-Qaeda figures. A few hundred prisoners are still held in Bagram, where two have died of injuries sustained during interrogations.

The detainees often return to tragedy and destitution. Saeed Ameer, from the eastern Nangahar province, was arrested in 2002 after explosives were found in his home. He denies all knowledge of the cache and blames a relative. 'I told the US that I had fought against the Taliban and spent five years in their jails,' he said last week. 'But they took me to their base, beat me until I was unconscious and kept me awake for days and days. Then they took me to Guantánamo and I stayed there for four years.' Ameer now scrapes a living trading livestock, though he cannot afford meat himself. 'There are 30 people in my family and a kilo of mutton is £2. How can I afford that?', he said.