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THREE DETAINEES at the U.S. prison camp
at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, took their own lives in early
June. But as far as the U.S. government is concerned, their suicides
were an act of aggression against the U.S.
"They are smart, they
are creative, they are committed," Rear Adm. Harry B. Harris
Jr., the commander at Guantánamo, said of detainees following
the suicides. "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."
The prisoners, two Saudis and
a Yemeni, reportedly were housed in "Camp One," the
highest-security section of Guantánamo, reserved for what
the U.S. deems the "worst of the worst." They were
discovered early in the morning after having apparently hanged
themselves using bed sheets and clothing.
One of the prisoners, 22-year-old
Talal Abdulah Yahya al-Zahrani, was just 17 years old when he
was sent to Guantánamo in 2001.
According to defense lawyers,
there have been dozens of suicide attempts in the camp's four-year
history, but none have been successful until now. Over one eight-day
period in August 2003, for example, 23 detainees tried to hang
or strangle themselves, including 10 on a single day.
Hunger strikes have also become
common at the camp. Earlier this month, at least 89 prisoners
were participating in the latest one--a protest, according to
lawyers, fueled by conditions at the camp that include brutal
interrogation methods and indefinite detention.
Lawyers and former detainees
say the suicide attempts are an act of desperation in the face
of the legal limbo prisoners are consigned to.
"There is no hope in Guantanamo,"
Shafiq Rasul, a British man released from Guantánamo who
went a hunger strike while behind bars to protest beatings, told
the Associated Press. "The only thing that goes through
your mind day after day is how to get justice or how to kill
yourself. It is the despair--not the thought of martyrdom--that
consumes you there."
Bill Goodman, legal director
of the Center for Constitutional Rights, told the New York
Times, "The total, intractable unwillingness of the
Bush administration to provide any meaningful justice for these
men is what is at the heart of these tragedies. We all had the
sense that these men were getting more and more hopeless. There's
been a general sense of desperation that's been growing."
But the Pentagon and the Bush
administration dismiss the suicide attempts as stunts by "terrorists"
to get public sympathy. In fact, suicide attempts are officially
classified as "manipulative, self-injurious behavior."
After the successful suicides
this month, Colleen Graffy, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of
State for Public Diplomacy, sounded decidedly less than "diplomatic"
as she told BBC News that the suicides were a "good p.r.
move to draw attention," adding that they were part of a
strategy and "a tactic to further the jihadi cause."
Since detainees had access
to lawyers, received mail and had the ability to write to families,
she added, it was hard to see why the men had not protested about
their situation using "other" methods.
But since Guantánamo
first began housing prisoners of the U.S. "war on terror"
more than four years ago, human rights activists, lawyers and
detainees themselves have continually protested the brutal treatment
inflicted by the U.S.
From interrogation methods
that include extreme physical and psychological abuse--including
sexual humiliation and mock drowning--to guards' reported desecration
of the Koran, to brutal force feedings, prisoners have suffered
well-documented abuse at the hands of their jailors.
Just last month, the United
Nations Committee Against Torture called for Guantánamo
to be closed--in part because of the detrimental effects of prolonged
detention and inhumane interrogation practices on detainees'
physical and mental well-being.
Today, an estimated 460 prisoners
remain at the camp--several of whom were under the age of 18
when first brought to Guantánamo, a clear violation of
international law. So far, just 10 have been charged with any
crimes and are slated to have their cases heard by military tribunals.
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